Note 43 — III.

1843. Even the erudite Professor Franck, in his excellent work La Kabbale (Paris, 1843), makes no distinction between the Book Jetzira and the Sohar, but regards the esoteric doctrines of the latter as a development and continuation of the tenets propounded in the former. He moreover maintains that the Sohar consists of ancient and modern fragments, that the ancient portions are the Book of Mysteries (‏ספרא דצניעותא‎), the Great Assembly or Idra Rabba (‏אדרא רבא‎), and the Small Assembly or Idra Suta (‏אדרא זוטא‎), and actually proceeds from the school of R. Simon b. Jochai, while several of the other parts belong to a subsequent period, but not later than the seventh century; that the fatherland of the Sohar is Palestine; that the fundamental principles of the Kabbalah, which were communicated by R. Simon b. Jochai to a small number of his disciples, were at first propagated orally; that they were then from the first to the seventh century gradually edited and enlarged through additions and commentaries, and that the whole of this compilation, completed in the seventh century, owing to its many attacks on the Asiatic religions, was kept secret till the thirteenth century, when it was brought to Europe. To fortify his opinions about the antiquity of the Kabbalah, Franck is obliged to palm the doctrine of the Sephiroth upon passages in the Talmud in a most unnatural manner. As this point, however has been discussed in the second part of this Essay, (vide supra, p. 183, etc.) there is no necessity for repeating the arguments here.43 Still Franck’s valuable contribution to the elucidation of the Sohar will always be a welcome aid to the student of this difficult book.