Sephiroth

Sephiroth (ספַירוֹת), a Cabalistic term of frequent occurrence in late Jewish writers. The ten Sephiroth have been represented in three different forms, all of which may be seen in H. More's Opera Philos. 1, 423; and one of which, although not the most usual, has already been given in the art. CABALA. The Sephiroth have been the theme of endless discussion; and it has even been disputed whether they are designed to express theological, philosophical, or physical mysteries. The Jews themselves generally regard them as the sum and substance of Cabalistical theology, indicating the emanating grades and order of efflux according to which the nature and manifested operation of the Supreme Being may be comprehended. Several Christian scholars have discerned in them the mysteries of their own faith, the Trinity, and the incarnation of the Messiah. In this they have received some sanction by the fact noticed by Wolf, that most learned Jewish converts endeavor to demonstrate the truth of Christianity out of the doctrines of the Cabala (Biblioth. Hebr. 1, 360). The majority of all parties appear to concur in considering the first three Sephiroth to belong to the essence of God, and the last seven to denote his attributes, or modes of existence. The following treatises on this subject are among the most remarkable: a dissertation by Rhenferd, De Stylo Apocalypseos Cabbalistico, in Danz's Nov. Test. ex Talmude Illust. p. 1090, in which he endeavors to point out many extraordinary coincidences between the theosophy of the Cabala and the book of Revelation (which may be compared with an essay of similar tendency in Eichhorn's Bibl. Biblioth. 3, 191); some remarks by Lowe, in the last-named journal (5, 377 sq.); and a dissertation by Vitringa, De Sephiroth Kabbalistarum, in his Observat. Saucr. 1, 126, in which he first showed how the Sephiroth accorded with the human form.