Semitic magic, its origins and development / by R. Campbell Thompson.

  • Reginald Campbell Thompson
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Semitic magic, its origins and development / by R. Campbell Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    76/362 (page 4)
    RABBINIC BELIEFS. be known by tbeir dress—tbe old man by his robe,1 the soldier by his sword.2 But Sheol is independent of Yahweh in early times, and there is little change down to the fourth century b.c. In the primitive belief, when a man dies he is removed from the jurisdiction of Yahweh,3 and there are no more relations between them.4 The Rabbis believed that there was “ a place called mb which derives its name from the fact that it is assigned to the departed spirits of men. It represents a building with a courtyard, encircled by a fence. Before the courtyard flows a river, adjoining which is a field. Every day Dumah leads out the spirits to pasture in the field and to drink of the river.” 5 The Kabbalists believed in metempsychosis from the body of one species into the body of another species. Some of the later sages of the Kabbala say that the soul of an unclean person will transmigrate into an unclean animal, or into creeping things or reptiles. For one form of uncleanness, the soul will be invested with the body of a Gentile, who will become a proselyte ; for another, the soul will pass into the body of a mule ; for others, it transmigrates into an ass, a woman of Ashdod, a bat, a rabbit or a hare, a she-mule or a camel. Ishmael transmigrated first into the she-ass of Balaam, and subsequently into the ass of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair.6 1 1 Sam. xxviii, 14. 2 Ezek. xxxii, 27 ; cf. also Isa. xiv. 3 Ps. lxxxviii, 5. 4 Isa. xxxviii, 18. These passages have been taken from the articles in the Encyclopedia Biblica, sub Dead, Eschatology, and SheOl. 5 Bender, J.Q., vi, 338, quoting Mid. Khillim (ed. Buber, 51, b). 6 Nishmath Charin, xiii, No. 14, quoted Hershon, Talm. Misc., 326. For further reference to this subject, see Hershon, loc. cit., and Franck, La Kabbale, chap. v.