“To the authenticity of the Zohar, as a work of the early Kabbalistic school, objections have indeed been made, but they are not of sufficient gravity to merit an extended investigation. The opinion that ascribes it as a pseudo fabrication to Moses de Leon in the thirteenth century, has, I imagine, but few believers among the learned in this subject in our own day. The references to Shemun ben Yochai and the Kabala in the Talmud, and abundant internal evidence found in the book itself, exhibit the strongest probability, not that Shemun himself was the author of it, but that it is the fruit and result of his personal instructions, and of the studies of his immediate disciples.” [130] Now the bold assertion that there are few believers among the learned of our own time in the pseudo fabrication of the Sohar by Moses de Leon in the thirteenth century, when such learned men as Zunz, [131] Geiger, [132] Sachs, [133] Jellinek [134] and a host of other most distinguished Jewish scholars, regard it almost as an established fact; as well as the statement that there are references to the Kabbalah in the Talmud, can only be accounted for from the fact that Dr. Etheridge has not rightly comprehended the import of the Kabbalah, and that he is entirely unacquainted with the modern researches in this department of literature. 1857. The elaborate essay on Jewish literature by the learned Steinschneider, which appeared in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopædia, and which has been translated into English, contains a most thorough review of this esoteric doctrine. It is, however, to be remarked that the pages devoted to this subject give not so much an analysis of the subject, as a detailed account of its literature; and, like all the writings of this excellent scholar, are replete with most useful information. [135] 1858–1861. A most instructive and thorough analysis of the Sohar appeared in a Jewish periodical, entitled Ben Chananja, volumes i, ii, iii, and iv. [136] This analysis was made by Ignatz Stern, who has also translated into German those portions of the Sohar which are called the Book of Mysteries, the Great Assembly, and the Small Assembly, and has written a vocabulary to the Sohar. The recent death of this great student in the Kabbalah is greatly to be lamented. With the exception of the analysis of the Sohar, all his works are in MS.; and it is to be hoped that the accomplished Leopold Löw, chief Rabbi of Szegedin, and editor of the Ben Chananja, who was the means of bringing the retiring Ignatz Stern into public, will publish his literary remains.