Note 17 — II.

As the document on creation, mentioned in the Talmud, was lost in the course of time, the author of the Treatise which we have analysed tried to supply the loss, and hence not only called his production by the ancient name ‏ספר יצירה‎ the Book of Creation, but ascribed it to the patriarch Abraham. The perusal, however, of a single page of this book will convince any impartial reader that it has as little in common with the magic work mentioned in the Talmud or with the ancient Babylonian works which treat of human creations, as with the speculations about the being and nature of the Deity, the En Soph and the Sephiroth, which are the essence of the Kabbalah.17