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This chapter examines Modena's outrage at the appropriation of Kabbalah by Christians, particularly Pico della Mirandola. It looks at Modena's effort to separate Christian Kabbalah from Jewish theology and to redefine Kabbalah as a uniquely Jewish realm of thought. Modena objected to Christian Kabbalah for a variety of reasons similar to his opposition to Jewish Kabbalah: it was a recent innovation, and the attempt to argue for its antiquity defied both reason and textual evidence. In the very same passages, however, Modena objected to Christian Kabbalah for the simple fact that it was Christian. Ultimately, in criticizing Christian Kabbalah as a perversion of a specifically Jewish set of esoteric secrets, Modena adopted a protectionist and proprietary attitude toward a form of knowledge and set of practices he had spent considerable energy criticizing and had otherwise rejected.

This chapter argues that the humanist culture at the Roman Curia under Leo X offered strong support for Johannes Reuchlin's promotion of biblical scholarship and Jewish studies. On the other hand, Inquisitor General Hoogstraeten, who appealed the Speyer ruling to Rome, mustered heavy support from universities, the church hierarchy, the French crown, and even from (future) Emperor Charles V and (future) Pope Adrian VI. Initially, Hoogstraeten's partisans focused on the Jewish issues of the Reuchlin case and, only secondarily, on defending scholastic theology against humanist attacks. As the controversy persisted, several prominent Reuchlinists published defenses of his case that were notable for their hostility to Jewish interests, in essence creating a humanist anti-Semitic discourse; some even endorsed Christian study of Hebrew literature primarily to advance anti-Jewish missions. Moreover, after the 1514 Speyer decision and a highly favorable ruling from a Roman commission (1516), Reuchlinists focused their increasingly confident propaganda on humanism and opposition to scholastic theology (as in works by Desiderius Erasmus, Neuenahr, and Pirckheimer, and in the famous Letters of Obscure Men). Despite significant victories for the Reuchlinists, the anti-Reuchlinists continued to attract powerful support and generate a significant corpus of defenses of their anti-Jewish positions (including rejection of Christian Kabbalah) and scholastic theology.

This chapter begins with a dominant scholarly definition of Kabbalah that regards its crucial component as a concern with the ten divine powers, the ten sefirot. In line with this view, Jewish Kabbalah emerged in Languedoc in the last decades of the twelfth century, and Christian Kabbalah in the final decades of the thirteenth. However, if we turn to another way of defining Kabbalah, found already in the eleventh century, as an esoteric tradition concerning the divine names, the situation becomes much more complex. Some passages dealing with divine names recur in Christian texts early in the thirteenth century, in the discussions of Joachim de Fiore. At the end of the same century and early in the next, Arnauld of Villanova wrote a whole treatise dealing with the divine name. Whether this treatise reflects the impact of Abraham Abulafia's Kabbalah remains to be investigated.

This chapter focuses on the emergence of Christian Kabbalah, with its missionary goals, and how it prompted a more negative attitude toward Jewish Kabbalah among several Jewish authors. One topic central to the understanding of Kabbalah in this period, which preoccupied many Renaissance scholars, was the concept of prisca theologia, the belief in the existence of an “ancient theology” whose basic tenets manifested themselves in various religious and philosophical doctrines under different nomenclatures. This chapter analyzes several statements that reveal a concordance between Jewish and other forms of traditions, and discusses the significance of that concordance. This discussion establishes the likelihood that Jews were acquainted with Christian discussions stemming from Renaissance sources, integrated them, and adapted them to their own purposes.