The Kabbalah - Vladimir Solovyov

In actual fact, the Kabbalah is a product neither of medieval nor of Alexandrian thought.  The indelible stamp of its ancient Hebrew origin and existential distinction from Neoplatonic thought we see in the special original realism and integral monism of this unique worldview.  Characteristic for all Greek philosophy, wholly preserved in Neoplatonism in the antithesis between the world of intellectually comprehensible essences, the realm of the true, original being, and the world of material phenomenon, this dualistic antithesis is completely absent in the Kabbalah: for it the material world is only the last radical stage in the realization and incarnation of the truly existent.  And all four worlds recognized by Kabbalah (the world of radiance, the world of creation, the world of formation, and the world of action) are only four main stages of the realization of the one and same absolute content.  While in Neoplatonism the gradual transition from the transcendent One or Good through the world of minds and ideas to thew world of souls and bodies is understood only from a negative point of view, as a descent, a darkening, a fall, the Kabbalah sees here also a positive side: completion, the incarnation of truth to the end, the realization of the fullness of being.


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