Libro / primero de la Puerta del Cielo
Kabbalistic work by Abraham Cohen Herrera, copied by Semuel Abaz George. Amsterdam, 1740.
Libro / primero de la Puerta del Cielo / compuesto por el Eminentissimo / Señor Hacham Ryby Abraham / Cohen de Herrera, de gloriosa / memoria. / Escrito por Semuel Abaz George. / em / Amstcrdam / No anno 5500.
On the author and the work which reposes in manuscripts in several libraries cf. Kayserling, Bibliotheca, p. 52.
Puerta del Cielo and Libro de la Casa de la Divindad, both by Herrera, are the only two kaballistic works originally written in Spanish. In Puerta del Cielo, Herrera tried to conciliate the teachings of the Sefer Yezirah, the Zohar and the Lurianic school with the Neoplatonic metaphysics, following the syncretic model of Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Puerta del Cielo was translated to Hebrew and published by Isaac Aboab da Fonseca in Amsterdam in 1655, with the title Sefer Sha’or Hashamayim. In 1677, Knorr von Rosenroth published a Latin version of the work, which gained wide recognition. In the following centuries, it influenced the thought and the work of philosophers as Spinoza, Leibniz or Hegel.
This copy is incomplete, lacking the last two books. A complete copy, by Samuel de David Curiel, reposes in this collection (EH 48 A 16).
See K. Krabbenholft, “Structure and Meaning in Herrera’s Puerta del Cielo”, Studia Rosenthaliana, 16, 1982, pp. 1-20; Alexander Altmann, “Lurianic Kabbala in a Platonic Key: Abraham Cohen Herrera’s Puerta del Cielo”, Hebrew Union College Annual, 53, 1982, pp. 317-355; F. Niewöhner, “Abraham Cohen de Herrera in Hamburg”, Zeitschrift für Religions und Geistesgeschichte, 35, 1983, pp. 163-167; N. Yossa, Myth and Metaphor. The Philosophical Interpretation of Abraham Cohen de Herrera of the Lurianic Kabbalah, Jerusalem, 2004; Miquel Beltrán, “Consideraciones sobre la Naturaleza de Ensof y la Teologia Negativa en Puerta del Cielo de Abraham Cohen de Herrera”, Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos. Sección Hebreo, 61, 2012, pp. 47-67.
Belonged to the collection of David Montezinos.
Spanish and some Hebrew quotations / Paper / 28,2 x 22,8 cm. / [1] + 127 ff. / 24 lines to a page / Current writing with some Sephardic cursive title written in ruled frame / Text written in pencilled frame with running title on top and catchwords at the bottom of each page / Contemporary gold-tooled leather binding.
Fuks 126. Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.