Medieval alchemy, Kabbalah and Islamic esotericism
Moses de León
The Spanish Kabbalist principally responsible for the central body of the Zohar, which he circulated as an ancient Aramaic text.
- Dates
- c. 1240/50 – 1305
- Dating
- approximate dates
- Born
- probably León, Castile
- Died
- Arévalo
The life
He began circulating sections of a supposedly ancient mystical work in the late thirteenth century.
Place in the tradition
The Zohar eventually became second only to the Hebrew Bible and Talmud in importance to many Kabbalistic communities.
a note on the record
History and later legend
Modern scholarship regards him as principally responsible for the Zohar, or at minimum intimately involved in producing it — rather than as merely copying an ancient work by the second-century Shimon bar Yochai, as the text itself claims.
the written record
Principal works
-
principally late thirteenth century; circulated from the 1280s
Zohar
ספר הזוהר
A vast mystical commentary on the Torah concerned with the sefirot, divine masculine and feminine dimensions, cosmic symbolism, evil, souls and mystical interpretation.
held in the source catalogue Read at wikisource.org ↗