ien; it was alien indeed to the Sadducee
realist and the Karaite literalist; it was alien to the systematic
Aristotelianism of Maimonides, and it is alien alike to Western
orthodox and Reform Judaism. But though often obscured and crushed by
formal systems, mysticism is deeply seated in the religious feelings,
and the race which has developed the Cabbalah and Hasidism cannot be
accused of lack of it. Every great religion fosters man's aspiration
to have direct communion with God in some super-rational way.
Particularly should this be the case with a religion which recognizes
no intermediary. The Talmudic conceptions of [Hebrew: nb'a], prophecy,
[Hebrew: shkyna], the Divine Presence, and [Hebrew: rua hkdsh], the
holy spirit, which was vouchsafed to the saint, certainly are mystic, and
at Alexandria similar ideas inspired a striking development. Once again we
can trace the fertilizing influence of Greek ideas. Even when the old
naturalistic cults had flourished in Greece, and political life had
provided a worthy goal for man, mystical beliefs and ceremonies had a
powerful attraction for the Hellene; and, when the belief in the old
gods had been shattered, and with the national greatness the liberal
life of the State had passed away, he turned more and more to those
rites which professed to provide healing and rest for the sickening
soul. Many of the Alexandrian Jews must have been initiated into these
Greek mysteries, for Philo introduces into his exegesis of the law of
Moses an ordinance forbidding the practice.[66] He himself advocates a
more spiritual mysticism, and it is a cardinal principle of his
philosophy to treat the human soul as a god within and its absorption
in the universal Godhead as supreme bliss, the end of all endeavor. He
claimed to have attained, himself, to this union, and to have received
direct inspiration. Giving a Greek coloring to the Hebrew notion of
prophecy, "My soul," he says, "is wont to be affected with a Divine
trance and to prophesy about things of which it has no knowledge"[67]....
"Many a time have I come with the intention of writing, and knowing
exactly what I ought to set down, but I have found my mind barren and
fruitless, and I have gone away with nothing done, but at times I have
come empty, and suddenly been full, for ideas were invisibly rained
down upon me from above, so that I was seized by a Divine frenzy, and
was lost to everything, place, people, self, speech, and thought. I