Note 4 — III.

5. The Treatise on the Emanations (‏מסכת אצילות‎), supposed to have been written by R. Isaac Nasir in the first half of the twelfth century. The following is an analysis of this production. Based upon the passage—“Jaresiah and Eliah and Zichri, the sons of Jeroham” ( 1 Chron. viii, 27 ), which names the Midrash assigns to the prophet Eliah (Shemoth Rabba, cap. xl), this prophet is introduced as speaking and teaching under the four names of Eliah b. Josep, Jaresiah b. Joseph, Zechariah b. Joseph and Jeroham b. Joseph. Having stated that the secret and profounder views of the Deity are only to be communicated to the God-fearing, and that none but the pre-eminently pious can enter into the temple of this higher gnosis, the prophet Elias propounds the system of this secret doctrine, which consists in the following maxims—“I. God at first created light and darkness, the one for the pious and the other for the wicked, darkness having come to pass by the divine limitation of light. II. God produced and destroyed sundry worlds, which, like ten trees planted upon a narrow space, contend about the sap of the soil, and finally perish altogether. III. God manifested himself in four worlds, viz.—Atzilah, Beriah, Jetzira and Asiah, corresponding to the Tetragrammaton ‏יהוה‎. In the Atzilatic luminous world is the divine majesty, the Shechinah. In the Briatic world are the souls of the saints, all the blessings, the throne of the Deity, he who sits on it in the form of Achtenal (the crown of God, the first Sephira), and the seven different luminous and splendid regions. In the Jetziratic world are the sacred animals from the vision of Ezekiel, the ten classes of angels with their princes, who are presided over by the fiery Metatron, the spirits of men, and the accessory work of the divine chariot. In the Assiatic world are the Ophanim, the angels who receive the prayers, who are appointed over the will of man, who control the action of mortals, who carry on the struggle against evil, and who are presided over by the angelic prince Synandelphon. IV. The world was founded in wisdom and understanding ( Prov. iii, 19 ), and God in his knowledge originated fifty gates of understanding. V. God created the world by means of the ten Sephiroth, which are both the agencies and qualities of the Deity. The ten Sephiroth are called Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Fear, Beauty, Victory, Majesty and Kingdom: they are ideal and stand above the concrete world.”4