fied
wherewith they can not lapse from true to false religion. The other secret
alphabet consisted in this, that in inversed order they change the last
letter [Hebrew: T] with the first [Hebrew: '], and this and another in
turn, and so on through the rest, which inversion it is the custom to call
[Hebrew: 'TBSH]. From this they produce, by such letters, in their more
elaborate amulets, the noted symbol [Hebrew: MTSPTS], which is nothing else
than the name of God, [Hebrew: YHWH]. St. Jerome,[52] a celebrated father
of the early church, contends that the prophet Jeremiah used this kind of
writing, and not to irritate the king of Babylon against the Hebrews, for
king, [Hebrew: BBL], said [Hebrew: SHSHK]. But some, also, among the Jews,
declare that these words in Daniel,

[Hebrew: MN' MN' TQL WPRSYN,]

which, at the supper of the King Belzhazzar miraculously appeared upon the
wall, to the astonishment of all, were written in this mode; and hence
think this artificial transposition of letters originated with God. But
these things are to be passed by as {52} uncertain. If this last be true,
the handwriting on the wall would have appeared thus:

[Hebrew: YT`T YT`T 'RB PWGCHMT`][53]

But according to the first system referred to, the following would have
been the appearance.[54]

[Illustration]

(See Conf. Jan. Hercvles de Svnde in Steganologia, lib. v., num. 4., p.
148. seqq.)

If the society of Kabbalistae originated among the Israelites as early as
the time of Moses, their secret writings must having been only known to him
and few besides, with their successors. Solomon, to whom Almighty God
declared "wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee,"[55] must have learned
them; or, if it originated with him, Daniel and Ezra, who lived in a
succeeding age; after the great temple had been destroyed, during the
captivity, and at the rebuilding of the second temple, both inspired
servants of God, equally knew them; and when the inscriptions on the wall,
or on the ark, or in the sacred rolls, were lost and unknown to the people,
they were easily deciphered by means of the knowledge of the Kabbalistic
character, no matter what its form. Thus when Daniel saw the handwriting on
{53} the wall he read it at once, possessed as he may have been of the
knowledge how to read that cipher, while it can readily be seen why the
Magi of Chaldea, and of Media and Persia, were at fault. It was a secret
writing of the Hebrews, known only