Did the Babylonian Jews bring with them into Phrygia any theory of the universe other than the direct and unfettered rule of Jehovah and the creation of the world from nothing, which they gathered from their sacred books? There is little evidence on the point, save some expressions of doubtful import in the Magic Papyri[122] and the statement of Origen that “the name Sabaoth, and Adonai and the other names treated with so much reverence among the Hebrews ... belong to a secret theology which refers to the Framer of all things[123].” It might be possible to deduce from this that the elaborate system known as the Cabala or secret tradition of the Jews was already in existence[124]. This system, on its theoretical or speculative side, attempts to explain the existence of the physical universe by postulating a whole series of intermediate powers emanating from the Supreme Being of whom they are the attributes or names; while, on the other or “practical,” it professes to perform wonders and to reveal mysteries by a childish juggling with letters in the shape of anagrams and acrostics or with their numerical values[125]. As has been said above, follies of this last-named kind were unknown neither to the later Orphics nor to the primitive Church, and might well be thought to have been acquired by the Jews during their stay in Babylon, where the Semitic inhabitants seem from a very early date and for magical reasons to have used numbers instead of letters in writing the names of their gods[126]. It would not have been difficult for them to have acquired at the same time from the Persian masters of Babylon the doctrine of emanation instead of creation which is to be found in the Zend Avesta as well as in all the post-Christian Gnostic systems. But there are other channels besides the Anatolian religion through which these ideas might have come into the West[127], and it will be better not to lay any stress upon this. That the Cabala in the complete form in which it appears in the books known as the _Sepher Jetzirah_ and the _Sepher Zohar_ does not go further back than the VIth or VIIth century of our era, seems to be the opinion of all those best qualified to judge in the matter. M. Isidore Loeb, who has given the most coherent and compact summary of Cabalistic teaching that has appeared of late years, finds its germs in Babylonian Judaism at about the same period which saw the blossoming of the Christian Gnostic sects, without going so far as to derive either of the later doctrines from the other[128].