All True Religions see the same Light, but from different perspectives. Many attempts to reconcile the mystical philosophies of Greek, Judaism / Hebrew, Egyptian Zoroastrian and Christian thought have traced out a subset of mysticism that avoids the dualism of Zoroaster and it’s condemnation of the Material World to exalt it as both the finest WORK of the Creator and made up of the Creator’s essence. It finds in the Zohar the theory of the Tsimtsum, God withdrawing Himself into Himself to make a Space without the Godhead, then exhaling a word (YHVH) to Create the material world out of HIS own Being.
The underlying esoteric theme of the initial Unity of everything as part of God’s substance, brought to potential and material existence, and returned to it’s source is in direct contrast to the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam exoteric message of Creation. Aristotle postulates a world that has always existed, and in the Middle Ages of Europe, in the Golden Age of Islam, and in the chaos of proto – Spain Andalusia and Cordoba, the wisdom of the Ancients was being saved. In Persia and Cairo, and later Spain, Christians read Greek to Jews who read Hebrew and Aramaic / Syriac with Muslims who wrote Syriac and Arabic, to create a House of Wisdom. A similar process after the fall of Constantinople drove Greek speaking Christians to Italy, where Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and John Argyropoulos resurrected the Florence Platonic Academy and kick-started the Renaissance.
Tracking the concept from Rabbi Philo of Alexandria through the Gnostics, Neoplatonism, Hermes Trismegistus, Avicenna, Avicebron (aka Solomon ibn Gabirol ), & Averroes to St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomists, Peter Abelard in France and Duns Scotus.