against them (1) fierceness of his anger, wrath, (2) indignation, (3) trouble, (4) and evil angels," that every plague consisted of four different plagues, and therefore in Egypt they were afflicted with forty plagues, and at the sea with two hundred plagues.

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Here is a little Talmudic demonology. Abba Benjamin says, "If our eye were permitted to see the malignant spirits that beset us, we could not rest on account of them." Abaii has said, "They outnumber us, they surround us as the earthed-up soil on our garden-beds." Rav Hunna says, Every one has a thousand at his left side and ten thousand at his right." (Ps. 91: 7.) Rava adds, "The crowding at the schools is caused by their pushing in; they cause the weariness which the Rabbis experience in their knees, and even wear out their clothes by rubbing against them. If one would discover the traces of their presence let him sift some ashes upon the floor at his bedside, and next morning he will see as it were, the footmarks of fowls on the surface. But if one would see the demons themselves, he must burn to ashes the afterbirth of a first-born black kitten, and then put a little of the ashes into his eyes, and he will not fail to see them, etc."

These brief disjointed extracts taken out of their proper settings can only give, as has already been said, a very meagre and inadequate conception of the twelve folio volumes of the Talmud, but they will at least indicate the wide cyclopedic range of subjects treated, and will enable the reader to see the fairness of Mr. Barclay's estimate when he says, "Some of its sayings are of touching beauty. and some are blasphemous. But mixed up as they are together, they form an extraordinary monument of human industry, human wisdom, and human folly.'" But what interests us most of all is that the Rabbis claimed, and the orthodox Jews of to-day believe, that the Talmud is as sacred as the Pentateuch itself, and that it was taught to Moses during his forty days stay on Mount Sinai, which is proven by Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish from the passage, "And I will give thee tablets of stone, and the law, and the commandment, which I have written to teach them (Exod. 24: 12). Tables,"" says the Rabbi," are the Decalogue, law' is the Scripture, and the commandments' is the Mishna; which I have written' is the Prophets and the Hagiographa; to teach them;' that is the Gemara; and this teaches us that all these were given

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to Moses on Sinai, and are the words of the living God."" In other words the Talmud is the unfolding of the Scripture, the full grown flower of which the latter was the bud. The Talmud, therefore, is even of greater value than the Scripture. If the latter be compared to water say the Rabbis, the Mishna is wine, and the Gemara mulled wine, or if it be compared to salt, the Mishna is pepper, and the Gemara is spice, and so on. Rav goes so far as to say that "He who leaves a matter of Halachah for a matter of Scripture shall nevermore have peace;" to which the Shemuel adds, "Aye, and he who also leaves the Talmud for the Mishna." Rabbi Yochanan says, "The words of the scribes are more highly valued than the words of the law;" and Rabbi Chanina adds, "The words of the elders are more important than the words of the prophets."

We thus see how the sturdy oak which grew up in the wilderness and was transplanted into Palestine and cared for by the great Prophets and inspired teachers became in time. completely covered and hidden from view by the clinging vines, which gradually sapped its life-giving forces and appropriated to themselves the honor and reverence due their "It "the supporter. It is," as Richard Baxter well said, devil's last method to undo by overdoing.

In vain did the early Prophets thunder against the substitution of legalism, letter-worship, sacrifices, and burnt offerings for true religiosity.2 In vain did that great religious genius and reformer reprove the scribes and Pharisees whom he compared to "whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.'' 3 In vain did he warn his disciples and adherents against following after them, against having Rabbis, or fathers, or masters; against making a fetich of the letter of the law rather than observing as sacred its spirit." The letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive." We say in vain, because all these perversions are still among us as they were twenty centuries ago. One half the Christian world still adores an infallible Pope, and a large part of the other half still believes in the infallibility and literal Divine Authorship of the Bible, the writers of Scripture being regarded,

1 See Farrar: Hist. of Interpretation, pp. 48-49.

2 See I Sam. 15: 22; Ps. 51: 16; Is. 1: 11; Amos 5: 21, 22; Jer. 7,22, 23; Mic. 6: 6-9. Ezek. 20: 25.

* Matt. 23: 27. See also Tolstoy: Essays and Letters. pp. 300 ff.

as they were in the 17th century "Amanuenses of God, hands of Christ, Scribes and notaries of the Holy Spirit, living and writing pens. "1 It is interesting to note that the Mohammedans make similar claims for the Koran.

THE QABALA.

The Mishna and the Gemara, however, were not the only vines which strangled the Bible and robbed it of its birthright. There were others as strong and more vicious than the former, namely, the Midrashim, "of which the most celebrated are nothing but catenae of Talmudic passages, and the Qabala or Kabbalah, which was the esoteric Jewish doctrine. The word Qabala signifies "a thing received," in other words tradition. The claims of the Qabala as regarding its origin and development are even more extravagant than that of the Talmud. According to its followers, Dr. Ginsburg tells us in his Essay on the Kabbalah, “The Kabbalah was first taught by God himself to a select company of angels, who formed a theosophic school in Paradise. After the Fall the angels most graciously communicated this heavenly doctrine to the disobedient child of earth, to furnish the protoplasts with the means of returning to their pristine nobility and felicity. From Adam it passed over to Noah, and then to Abraham, the friend of God, who emigrated with it to Egypt, where the patriarch allowed a portion of this mysterious doctrine to ooze out. It was in this way that the Egyptians obtained some knowledge of it, and the other Eastern nations could introduce it into their philosophical systems. Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom of Egypt, was first initiated into the Kabbalah in the land of his birth, but became most proficient in it during his wanderings in the wilderness, where he not only devoted to it the leisure hours of the whole forty years, but received lessons in it from one of the angels. By the aid of this mysterious science the lawgiver was enabled to solve the difficulties which arose during his management of the Israelites, in spite of the pilgrimages, wars, and frequent miseries of the nation. He covertly laid down the principles of this secret doctrine in the first four books of Pentateuch, but withheld them from Deuteronomy. Moses also initiated the

1 See Farrar: loc. cit., p. 373.

seventy elders into the secrets of this doctrine, and they again transmitted them from hand to hand. Of all who formed the unbroken line of tradition, David and Solomon were the most deeply initiated into the Kabbalah. No one, however, dared to write it down, till Schimeon ben Jochai, who lived at the time of the destruction of the second temple. After his death, his son, Rabbi Eleazar, and his secretary, Rabbi Abba, as well as his disciples, collated Rabbi Schimeon ben Jochai's treatises, and out of these composed the celebrated work called Z H R, Zohar, splendor,' which is the grand storehouse of Kabbalism."'1

The Qabala, though usually classified under the headings, practical, literal, unwritten, and dogmatic, may for convenience sake be divided into the symbolical and real Qabala. The symbolical Qabala, divided into the three parts, "Gematria," ""Notricon," "Temurah" teaches how the secrets and mysteries of the Bible may be discovered and understood. Before proceeding to explain each of these parts, it is necessary to remind the reader that in Hebrew, as in Greek, there are no separate numerical characters, hence each letter has its own numerical value, and therefore every word is a number and every number can be converted into a letter or word. The Gematria is based on this correspondence between words and numbers.

The briefest and clearest exposition of the rules and principles of these three parts which we have seen is given by Mr. Hershon. We can do no better, therefore, than quote him in full.

"Let us assume for the nonce," he says in explaining Gematria," that a standard numerical value is attached to each letter in the English alphabet. A has the value of 1, B 2, C3, D 4, E 5, F 6, G 7, H 8, I 9, J 10, K 20, L 30, M 40, N 50, O 60, P 70, Q 80, R 90, S 100, T 200, U 300, V 400, W 500, X 1,000, Y 10,000, Z 100,000. And let us now assume a point in dispute in order to illustrate how it is solved by Gematria. Suppose that the subject of discussion is the comparative superiority of the Hebrew and English languages, and Hugo and Baruch are the disputants. The former being a Hebrew, holds that the Hebrew is superior to the English, because,' says he, the numerical value of the letters that form the word Hebrew is 610;

1 1 Quoted by S. L. McGregor Mathers: "The Kabbalah Unveiled."

whereas the numerical value of English is only 209.' The latter being an Englishman, holds, of course, exactly the contrary opinion, and argues as follows: All the learned world must admit that the English is a living language, but not so the Hebrew; and it is written (Eccles. 9:4) that 'A living dog is better than a dead lion,' I therefore maintain that the English is superior to the Hebrew. The dispute was referred to an Oxford authority for decision, and a certain learned doctor decided it by "Notricon."' This consists in forming a decisive sentence composed of words whose initial letters are in a given word; for instance, Hebrew: Hugo's excels Baruch's reasoning e very way.' English: English no good language, iss carcely harmonious; but Hebrew: 'Holy, e legant, b rilliant, r esonant, e liciting wonder!' This is a fair specimen of how to get at the secret sense of a word by the rule of Notricon," and now we will proceed to explain "Temurah."'

But before he proceeds it is necessary to add that there is another form of Notricon which is the exact reverse of that which he has given. In this form, the initials or finals, or both, or the medials, of a sentence are taken to form a word or words. "Thus the Qabala is called Chokhmah Nesethrah," the secret wisdom," and if we take the initials of these two words, Ch and N, we form by the second kind of Notricon the word ChN, Chen, " grace." Similarly

from the initials and finals of the words MI IOHL LNV HSH MIMH, Mi Iaulah Leno Ha-Shama-yimah, "Who shall go up for us to heaven?" (Deut. 30:12), are formed MILH, Milah, “circumcision," and IHVH, the Tetragrammaton, implying that God hath ordained circumcision as the way to heaven. "'1

"According to certain

Temurah means permutation. rules, one letter is substituted for another letter preceding or following it in the alphabet, and thus from one word another word of totally different orthography may be formed. Thus the alphabet is bent exactly in half in the middle, and one half is put over the other; and then by changing alternately the first letter or the first two letters at the beginning of the second line, twenty-two commutations are produced. These are called the "Table of the Combinations of TZIRVP." Tziruph.

1S. L. MacGregor Mathers: The Kabbalah Unveiled, p. 9.