In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• 2 • THE TREE THAT IS ALL: JEWISH-CHRISTIAN ROOTS OF A KABBALISTIC SYMBOL IN SEFER HA-BAHIR TU ... fJ,qaAo. 1raVTo. Emo.Ai]. -Plato, Republic, 497d, 9 Despite the generally accepted claim that SeIer ha-Bahir is the "first" theosophic kabbalistic work to appear in medieval Europe, the precise vorgeschichte of this text-in a literary and historical sense-is still unclear. Previous scholarship has attempted to illuminate the generally Gnostic or mythic orientation of different textual units and traditioncomplexes that were redacted into the literary form of a distinct text in twelfth-century Provence, reflecting the philosophical and theosophical concerns current in that time and place.1 Some specific Gnostic texts from Late Antiquity that have interesting parallels to the Bahir, both conceptually and linguistically, have been singled out by scholars , but for the most part we are still left to conjecture regarding the religiocultural contexts out of which the symbolic and mythic images incorporated in the Bahir may have evolved as well as the possible links and channels of transmission of these images to central Europe of the High Middle Ages. Even if one readily acknowledges the parallels between ancient Gnostic sources and SeIer ha-Bahir, the larger problem of influence or provenance is not necessarily answered; that is, it is possible, as Moshe Idel has argued, that the Gnostic sources 63 • 2 • THE TREE THAT IS ALL: JEWISH-CHRISTIAN ROOTS OF A KABBALISTIC SYMBOL IN SEFER HA-BAHIR TU ... 1J-£)'aAa 7TaVTa £7TLuaAi]. -Plato, Republic, 497d, 9 Despite the generally accepted claim that Sefer ha-Bahir is the "first" theosophic kabbalistic work to appear in medieval Europe, the precise vorgeschichte of this text-in a literary and historical sense-is still unclear. Previous scholarship has atten1pted to illuminate the generally Gnostic or mythic orientation of different textual units and traditioncOll1plexes that were redacted into the literary form of a distinct text in t\velfth-century Provence, reflecting the philosophical and theosophical concerns current in that time and place.1 Some specific Gnostic texts froll1 Late Antiquity that have interesting parallels to the Bahir, both conceptually and linguistically, have been singled out by scholars , but for the most part we are still left to conjecture regarding the religiocultural contexts out of which the symbolic and mythic images incorporated in the Bahir n1ay have evolved as well as the possible links and channels of transmission of these images to central Europe of the High Middle Ages. Even if one readily acknowledges the parallels between ancient Gnostic sources and Sefer ha-Bahir, the larger problell1 of influence or provenance is not necessarily answered; that is, it is possible, as Moshe Idel has argued, that the Gnostic sources 63 64 ALONG THE PATH preserve Jewish esoteric doctrines that may have found their way into kabbalistic texts like the Bahir through other channels.2 One would do well here to recall that Gershom Scholem himself, who generally assumed that Gnostic ideas originating in an "Oriental" setting were Judaized in the Bahir,3 also maintained the possibility of an ancient Jewish gnosis antedating the Middle Ages that preserved mythical elements going back to "an internal written and perhaps also oral Jewish tradition," although he is somewhat skeptical about the likelihood of the latter.4 Indeed, on a number of occasions Scholem characterizes the Bahir as a collection of ancient fragments originating in an Oriental gnosis or reflecting a theosophic aggadah, the latter presumably indicating indigenous Jewish sources.s However, several attempts to relate bahiric doctrines to Gnostic ideas (traceable to the Bulgarian Bogomils6) that inspired the medieval heresy of Catharism, which flourished in Provence in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, have not been convincing.7 While there may be certain elements in Cathar sources that bear a resemblance to views expressed in the Bahir, especially with respect to teachings concerning Satan and the force of evil in the world,~ no scholar has yet demonstrated direct influence in a definitive manner. What is most essential to note in this context is that, from the vantage point of the themes that I will discuss here, there simply is no reason to presume any such influence, since the central ideas of the Bahir to be analyzed in detail below have no substantive parallel in Cathar doctrine.9 On the contrary , my working assumption is that a sustained and nuanced reading of the relevant passages, informed especially by a sensitivity to the redactional process, will verify the claim that the bahiric text preserves older traditions even though...

Share