The term theosophy was used as a synonym for theology as early as the 3rd century CE[2] Hellenistic Alexandrian culture expressed religion through a syncretism that included influences from Egypt, Chaldea, Greece etc. It became a philosophizing and systematizing culture containing mythology, theosophy and gnosis of the East.[4] The 12th-century philosopher Al-Shahrastānī (died 548 AH / 1153 CE) explored theosophy in the context of Islamic thought. In the 13th century, a clear distinction was made between classical philosophers, modern (to the people then) philosophers, theosophers, and theologians in the work Summa philosophiae attributed to Robert Grosseteste. In Summa, theosophists were described as authors inspired by holy books, while theologians were described as persons whose task was to teach theosophy. During that time, the term theosopher was applied retroactively to include earlier people including Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Origen.[5] In Jewish mysticism, the theosophical[6] doctrinal system of Kabbalah (Hebrew: received tradition) emerged in late 12th-century southern France (the book Bahir), spreading to 13th-century Spain (culminating in the late 13th-century book Zohar). Kabbalah became the basis of later Jewish mystical development. The theosophical Kabbalah in Judaism was recast into its second version, Lurianic Kabbalah, in 16th-century Ottoman Palestine. From the Renaissance onwards, syncretic non-Jewish traditions of theological Christian Cabala and magical Hermetic Qabalah studied the Judaic texts, incorporating its system into their different philosophies, where it remains a central component of Western esotericism. Gershom Scholem, the founder of Jewish mysticism academia, saw Medieval and Lurianic Kabbalah as the incorporation into Judaism of Gnostic motifs,[7] though interpreted strictly monotheistically. At the centre of Kabbalah are the 10 Sephirot powers in the divine realm, their unification being the task of man. In Lurianism, man redeems the sparks of holiness in materiality, rectifying the divine persona from its primordial exile.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 13:21:23 +0000
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