The Cabala Of The Jews.

name from which all other divine names in the world spring as the branches from a tree , the name that binds together the sephiroth—whoever has that in his mouth has the world in his mouth . When it is spoken angels are stirred by the wave of sound . It rules all creatures , works all miracles , it commands all the inferior names of deit y which are borne by the several angels that in

heaven govern the respective nations of the earth . The Jews had a tradition that when David was upon the point of fighting with Goliath , Jaschbi , the giant ' s brother , tossed him up into the air , ancl held a spear below , that he might fall upon it . But Abishai , when he saw that , pronounced the holy name , and David remained in the air till Jaschbi's spear no longer threatened him . They said , also , that the Mirific name was among the secrets contained

in the Holy of Holies , and that when any person having entered that shrine of the temple learnt the word of power , he was i-oared at as he came out by two brazen lions , or bayed by brazen dogs , until through terror he lost recollection of it . Some Jews accounted also b y a fable of this nature for our Saviour ' s miracles . They said that , having been admitted within the Holy of Holies , and having learnt the sacred mystery , he wrote it down upon a tablet , cut open his thi gh , ancl having put the tablet in the wound , closed , the flesh over it by uttering the name of wonder . As he passed out the roaring lions

caused the secret to pass from his mind , but afterwards he had only to cut out the tablet from his thigh , and , as the beginning of miracles , heal instantly the wound in his own flesh by pronouncing the Mirific Word . Such Jewish'details were , of course , rejected by the Christians , who accepted the essential principles of the Cabala . " As the name of all power was the hidden name of God , so there were also names of power greatthough limitedbelonging to the angels and the evil

, , spirits . To discover the names of the spirits , by applying to the Hebrew . text of Scripture the symbolical Cabala , was to acquire some of the power they possessed . Thus , it being said of the Sodomites that they were struck with blindness , the Hebrew word for blindness was translated into Chaldee , and the Chaldee word , by one of the symbolical processes , was made to yield the name of a bad angel , Schabriri , which , being written down , was employed

as a charm to cure ophthalmia . A common mode of conjunction with these names of power was by the use of the amulets , pieces of paper or parchment on which , for certain purposes , certain names were written . At his first entrance into the world such an amulet , with the names " Senoi , Sansenoi , vSemongeloph , " upon it , was slipped round the neok of the new-born child , so that the infant scarcely saw the light before it was collared by the genius of superstition .

" Another mode of conjuration consisted in the use , not of names , but of the Psalms of David . Whole volumes were written upon this use of the Psalms . The first of them , written on doeskin , was supposed to help the birth of children ; others could , it was thought , be so written as to make those who carried them invisible ; others secured , favour from princes ; others extinguished fires . The transcription of a psalm for any such purpose was no trifling workbecauseapart from the necessary care in the formation of letterssome

, , , having a mystical reason for being larger than others , it was necessary for the copyist , as soon as he had written down one line , to plunge into a bath . Moreover , that the charm might be the work of a pure man , before beginning every new line of his manuscript it was thought necessary that he should repeat the plunge . " " Such" says Professor Morley"were the mysteries of the Hebrew Cabala

, , , strongly blending a not unrefined philosophy with basest superstition . " They had a strange , " charm , " nevertheless , "for many scholars in the 16 th century , " adds the able writer . They have much influenced foreign writers , ancl we think they still may have some interest for the Masonic Student . ED . if . If .