take it out with great solemnity, whenever they
use it, and return it with the like when they have done with it. What
became of the old ark, on the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar,
is a dispute among the Rabbins. The Jews--and herein they are supported by
the traditions of the most ancient secret society on earth--contend that it
was hid and preserved, by Jeremiah, say some, out of the second book of
Maccabees.[61] But most of them will have it, that King Josiah, being
foretold by Huldah, the prophetess, that the temple would speedily, after
his death, be destroyed, caused the ark to be put in a vault under ground,
which Solomon, foreseeing this destruction, had caused of purpose to be
built for the preserving of it. And, for the proof hereof, they produce the
text where Josiah commands the Levites[62] to put the holy ark in the
house, "which Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, did build."[63]
Whether within or without the ark, or within a secret vault or not, EZRA,
the scribe, brought forth the lost book or rolls of the law, and
established the rules for its future perpetuity, whether by writing, or in
oral explanation. And here, again, we note the use of secrecy in matters of
power. From him is derived the present method of reading Hebrew, by what is
usually known as the {56} vowel points in the Masoretic text. The Masorites
were a set of men whose profession it was to write out copies of the Hebrew
Scriptures. And the present vowel points were used by them, as derived from
the secret writings of the Cabbalists. The Jews believe that, when God gave
to Moses the law in Mount Sinai, he taught him first the true readings of
it; and, secondly, the true interpretation of it; and that both these were
handed down, from generation to generation, by oral tradition only, till at
length the readings were written by the accents and vowels, in like manner
as the interpretations were, by the Mishna and Gemara. The former they call
Masorah, which signifieth "tradition." The other is called Cabbala, which
signifieth "reception;" but both of them denote the same thing, that is, a
knowledge down from generation to generation, in the doing of which, there
being tradition on the one hand, and reception on the other, that which
relates to the readings of the Hebrew Scriptures hath its name from the
former, and that which relates to the interpretations of them from the
latter. As those who studied and taught the Cabbala were