13 Gnosticism and Kabbalah

Gnostic literature testifies to the antiquity of the Kabbalah. Gnosticism - systems of secret spiritual knowledge, or some sources say - — that is, the cabalistic Chochmah (חכמה "wisdom") - seems to have been the first attempt on the part of Jewish sages to give the empirical mystic lore, with the help of Platonic and Pythagorean or Stoic ideas, a speculative turn. This led to the danger of heresy from which the Jewish rabbinic figures Rabbi Akiva and Ben Zoma strove to extricate themselves.

Original teachings of gnosticism have much in common with Kabbalah:

1. Core terminology of classical gnostics was Jewish names of God.

2. Mainstream Gnostics accepted a "Jewish Messiah" as a key figure of gnosticism

3. A Key text of Gnosticism - Apocryphon of John - mentions 365 powers who created the World. The same is a number of dark powers among 613 powers of the soul in Judaism and Kabbalah.

However there are also aspects of Gnosticism at odds with Kabbalah. Most glaring is the fact that within most of the Christian Gnostic groups the Jewish creator God was looked down on. This ranged from somewhat sympathetic pity for what the Gnostics felt was a deranged abortion, to outright identification of the Jewish God to evil incarnate.

Essene, Manichaean and Nasorean doctrines (of gnostic character) claim that before Kabbalah there existed a so-called Aramaic Quabalta.