Christian Kabbalah

Christian Kabbalah is an Analyst Term (though actors sometimes used variants) describing the Renaissance appropriation of Jewish mystical texts to prove Christian theological dogma.

The Renaissance Synthesis

Initiated by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and formalized by Johannes Reuchlin, Christian Kabbalah argued that the secret, unwritten tradition given to Moses on Mount Sinai (the Kabbalah) contained the ultimate proof of the Christian Trinity and the Incarnation of Christ. Practitioners utilized complex Jewish exegetical techniques—like Gematria (numerology) and Notarikon (acronyms)—to decode the Old Testament. By the time of Cornelius Agrippa, Christian Kabbalah had been thoroughly fused with Hermeticism and Neoplatonism, forming the backbone of the "Occult Philosophy" that dominated early modern esoteric thought.