the school of Luria in the sixteenth century obscure this most important fact which Jewish savants have always clearly, recognized. The Jewish Encyclopædia, whilst denying the certainty of connexion between Gnosticism and the Cabala, nevertheless admits that the investigations of the anti-Cabalist Graetz "must be resumed on a new basis," and it goes on to show that "it was Alexandria of the first century, or earlier, with her strange commingling of Egyptian, Chaldean, Judean, and Greek culture which furnished soil and seeds for that mystic philosophy." But since Alexandria was at the same period the home of Gnosticism, which was formed from the same elements enumerated here, the connexion between the two systems is clearly evident. M. Matter is therefore right in saying that Gnosticism was not a defection from Christianity, but a combination of systems into which a few Christian elements were introduced. The result of Gnosticism was thus not to christianize the Cabala, but to cabalize Christianity by mingling its pure and simple teaching with theosophy and even magic. The Jewish Encyclopædia quotes the opinion that "the central doctrine of Gnosticism--a movement closely connected with Jewish mysticism--was nothing else than the attempt to liberate the soul and unite it with God"; but as this was apparently to be effected "through the employment of mysteries, incantations, names of angels," etc., it will be seen how widely even this phase of Gnosticism differs from Christianity and identifies itself with the magical Cabala of the Jews.
Indeed, the man generally recognized as the founder of Gnosticism, a Jew