“The ten Sephiroth are after a higher conception, to be traced to a higher triad, which correspond to the letters Aleph, Beth, Gimmel, and the three principles combined in man, the vital in the heart, the vegetable in the liver, and the pleasurable in the brain, and also form themselves in a higher unity. It is in this way that the Kabbalist who is initiated into the prophetic Kabbalah may gradually concentrate all his powers direct to one point to God, and unite himself with the Deity, for which purpose the ideas developed in unbroken sequence, from the permutations of numbers and letters, will serve him as steps upon which to ascend to God.” [90] Abulafia wrote no less than twenty-six grammatical, exegetical, mystical and Kabbalistic works, and twenty-two prophetic treatises. And though these productions are of great importance to the history of the literature and development of the Kabbalah, yet only two of them, viz., the above-named Epistle to R. Solomon and the Epistle to R. Abraham, entitled the Seven Paths of the Law (‏סוע נתיבות התורה‎), have as yet been published. 2. Joseph Gikatilla b. Abraham (flour. 1260), disciple of Abulafia. He wrote in the interests and defence of this school the following works:—i. A Kabbalistic work entitled the Garden of Nuts (‏גנת אגוז‎), consisting of three parts, and treating respectively on the import of the divine names, on the mysteries of the Hebrew letters, and on the vowel points. It was published at Hanau, 1615. ii. The import of the vowel points entitled the Book on Vowels (‏ספר הניקוד‎), or the Gate to the Points (‏שער הניקוד‎), published in the collection of seven treatises, called the Cedars of Lebanon (‏ארזי לבנון‎), Venice, 1601, and Cracow, 1648, of which it is the third treatise. iii. The Mystery of the Shining Metal (‏סוד החשמל‎), being a Kabbalistic exposition of the first chapter of Ezekiel, also published in the preceding seven treatises, of which it is the fourth. iv. The Gate of Light (‏שער אורה‎), being a treatise on the names of the Deity and the ten Sephiroth, first published in Mantua, 1561; then Riva de Trento, 1561; Cracow, 1600. A Latin version of it by Knorr von Rosenroth is given in the first part of the Kabbala Denudata, Sulzbach, 1677–78. v. The Gates of Righteousness (‏שערי צדק‎), on the ten divine names answering to the ten Sephiroth, published at Riva de Trento, 1561. vi. Mysteries (‏סודות‎) connected with sundry Pentateuchal ordinances, published by Jechiel Ashkenazi in his Temple of the Lord (‏היכל יהוה‎), Venice and Dantzic, 1596–1606. [91]