Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/228

 MISCELLANEA.

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following is a translation of an extract from the Sepher Raziel Hamalakh, or The Book of the Angel Raziel. Nothing definite can be said as to the date of this book, which Karpeles assigns to the Alexandrine period of the Jewish literature. Though some parts of the book are evidently very modern, some other parts must belong to a very ancient time, perhaps to a time when Jewish Aramaic was yet in use as a colloquial language. A tendency started by Graetz exists to think that the Jewish Kabbala is very modern. No doubt there are some modern insertions in the standard cabbalistic works, but parts of them belong to a very old date. As far back as the end of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century A.D., Kabbala is mentioned as a science not only fully developed, but as a mark of a learned and pious man. (Sepher Tokhassin, a Toledo manuscript, edited by Dr. Ad. Neubauer, Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic series, vol. i., part vi., p. 112, line 9.) The following translation is made from the Warsaw edition of 1881, which is a reprint from the Wilna edition of 1877, and is identical with the last Lemberg edition. The full title of the book is: That is the Book of the First Man, given to him by the angel Raziel. The title is in the Chaldee language; the book itself is mixed. Some parts are in pure Chaldee, others in rabbinical Hebrew; two or three places are pure Hebrew. The place translated is on leaf 3A. The book begins by a prayer of Adam, in which he asks forgiveness for his sin. After he had prayed for three days the angel Raziel (the name Raziel means "mystery of God") brought him this book and told him of all the advantages to be derived from a knowledge of its contents (a story to the same effect is mentioned in the second surea of the Koran).