Johannes Reuchlin

Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522) was a German humanist and the preeminent Christian scholar of Hebrew in the Renaissance. He is universally recognized as the founder of Christian Kabbalah.

Synthesizing Kabbalah and Christianity

In his major works, De Verbo Mirifico (On the Wonder-Working Word) and De Arte Cabalistica (On the Art of Kabbalah), Reuchlin expanded upon the groundwork laid by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. He argued that the Jewish Kabbalah contained the original, uncorrupted revelation of God. Reuchlin claimed that the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) was historically unpronounceable until the incarnation of Christ inserted the letter Shin (S), creating the ultimate, wonder-working name of God: YHSVH (Jesus). This synthesis deeply intertwined Jewish mystical mechanics with Hermeticism and Neoplatonism in the minds of subsequent occult philosophers like Cornelius Agrippa.