Christian Kabbalah

The Renaissance saw the birth of Christian Kabbalah/Cabala (from the Hebrew קַבָּלָה "reception", often transliterated with a 'C' to distinguish it from Jewish Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah), also spelled Cabbala. Interest grew among some Christian scholars in what they saw to be the mystical aspects of Judaic Kabbalah, which were compatible with Christian theology. Although somewhat obscure, the tradition of Christian Cabala or Catholic Cabala still persists today.

The movement was influenced by a desire to interpret aspects of Christianity even more mystically than current Christian Mystics. Greek Neoplatonic documents came into Europe from Constantinople in the reign of Mehmet II. Neoplatonism had been prevalent in Christian Europe and had entered into Scholasticism since the translation of Greek and Hebrew texts in Spain in the 13th century. The Renaissance trend was a relatively short-lived phenomenon, ending by 1750.

Christian Cabala "reinterpreted Kabbalistic doctrine to a distinctly Christian perspective, linking Jesus Christ, His atonement, and His resurrection to the Ten Sefirot", linking the upper three Sephirot to the hypostases of the Trinity and the last seven "to the lower or earthly world", or "would make Kether the Creator (or the Spirit), Hokhmah the Father, and Binah—the supernal mother—Mary", which "places Mary on a divine level with God, something the orthodox churches have always refused to do". Christian Cabalists sought to transform Kabbalah into "a dogmatic weapon to turn back against the Jews to compel their conversion—starting with Ramon Llull", whom Harvey J. Hames called "the first Christian to acknowledge and appreciate kabbalah as a tool of conversion", though Llull was not a Kabbalist himself nor versed in Kabbalah. Later Christian Cabala is mostly based on Pico della Mirandola, Johann Reuchlin and Paolo Riccio.

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