One early scholar of Kabbalah was a 13th century mystic called Abraham Abulafia¹. He had visions, tried to convince the Pope of his reasoning and lived in Malta.

But who was this strange troglodyte?

His early life

Abulafia was born in Zaragoza in Spain in 1240^{2 3}. When he turned 20 he began a life of mystical wandering². He wanted to go to Israel and to find the location of the mythical ten lost tribes of Israel^{2 4}. The Crusades got in his way so he gave up^{2 4}.

He returned to Europe, stopping in Capua to study philosophy^{2 4}. He ended up back in Spain^{2 4} where he started having messianic visions^{2 4}. He became convinced that he could answer the great questions of the meaning of life by looking for symbols inside letters and numbers in Hebrew⁴.

Think of it as a mystical form of Sudoku.

He thought his methods of free association, letter permutation and meditation could help people re-live prophecies from God^{1 4}. This was dangerous for organised religion. What if your re-lived prophecy contradicts the revealed word of God?

Furthermore, prophecies from God in all Abrahamic faiths stopped around 2000 years ago. Now we’re left with the texts we have (the Bible, Quran, and Torah) and it’s up to our religious leaders to debate, discuss and teach. If prophecy is available to everyone, then why would you need religious leaders?

These teachings challenged the authority of organised religion. They also led him to preach to the public.

His preaching

Armed with this mystical messianic¹ knowledge he travelled to Greece where he taught his new ideas to people in Patras in 1275², and made his way back to Capua by 1279².

In the summer of 1280 he decided to go to Rome². He felt the need for a new single unifying religion to join the Abrahamic faiths together³. He concluded the best way to start all this would be to go to Rome to convert the Pope^{1 3}.

He announced he was going to do so⁴ which made people think he was, at best, insane. Pope Nicholas III was furious at these claims, and ordered his guards to ‘burn the fanatic as soon as he arrives’^{1 3}.

He arrived on August 22 only to hear the Pope had died of a heart attack^{1 2}. They still imprisoned Abulafia² in the College of the Franciscans for 28 days⁴.

This did not quench his desire to evangelise.

His troglodyte phase

After his release, he spent a decade lecturing in Messina^{2 3}. Local Jews protested against his teachings and he soon had to leave.

Messina is the site of the catastrophic earthquake in the early 20th century.

He travelled to Malta and decided to live on Comino³ – the third largest island in the archipelago.

It wasn’t inhabited but he seemed happy enough in a cave on the island. Here he wrote two books – his autobiography, Book of the Sign in 1288³ and Words of beauty in 1291³. He died later that year¹.

You can find some strange people in Malta.

’Twas always so.

References

1. Abraham Abulafia; Learn Kabbalah; (Retrieved 2019-11-12) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
2. Abraham Abulafia: A Starter Kit; Archive.org; (Retrieved 2019-11-12) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
3. Did You Know An Epic Jewish Mystic Lived On Comino In The 13th Century?; Johnathan Cilia; Lovin’ Malta; 2018-02-17[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
4. The doctrine of prophetic Kabbalism; (Retrieved 2019-11-12) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]

Remember: links were correct at time of publication.