This brings the critic to the following reflection: While in India we find the _Vedas_ and the Brâhmanical literature written down and edited ages before the Christian era—the Orientalists themselves being obliged to concede a couple of millenniums of antiquity to the older manuscripts; while the most important allegories in _Genesis_ are found recorded on Babylonian tiles centuries B.C.; while the Egyptian sarcophagi yearly yield proofs of the origin of the doctrines borrowed and copied by the Jews; yet the Monotheism of the Jews is exalted and thrown into the teeth of all the Pagan nations, and the so‐called Christian Revelation is placed above all others, like the sun above a row of street gas‐lamps. Yet it is perfectly well known, having been ascertained beyond doubt or cavil, that no manuscript, whether Kabalistic, Talmudistic, or Christian, which has reached our present generation, is of earlier date than the first centuries of our era, whereas this can certainly never be said of the Egyptian papyri or the Chaldæan tiles, or even of some Eastern writings. But let us limit our present research to the _Kabalah_, and chiefly to the _Zohar_—called also the _Midrash_. This book, whose teachings were edited for the first time between 70 and 110 A.D., is known to have been lost, and its contents to have been scattered throughout a number of minor manuscripts, until the thirteenth century. The idea that it was the composition of Moses de Leon of Valladolid, in Spain who passed it off as a pseudograph of Simeon Ben Iochai, is ridiculous and was well disposed of by Munk—though he does point to more than one modern interpolation in the _Zohar_. At the same time it is more than certain that the present _Book of Zohar_ was written by Moses de Leon, and, owing to joint editorship, is more Christian in its colouring than is many a genuine Christian volume. Munk gives the reason why, saying that it appears evident that the author made use of ancient documents, and among these of certain _Midraschim_, or collections of traditions and Biblical expositions, which we do not now possess. As a proof, also, that the knowledge of the Esoteric system taught in the _Zohar_ came to the Jews very late indeed—at any rate, that they had so far forgotten it that the innovations and additions made by de Leon provoked no criticism, but were thankfully received—Munk quotes from Tholuck, a Jewish authority, the following information: Haya Gaon, who died in 1038, is to our knowledge the first author who developed (and perfected) the theory of the Sephiroth, and he gave them names which we find again among the Kabalistic names used by Dr. Jellinek. Moses Ben Schem‐Tob de Leon, who held intimate intercourse with the Syrian and Chaldæan Christian learned scribes, was enabled through the latter to acquire a knowledge of some of the Gnostic writings.(316)