ow that, beneath these
coarse symbols, Plato concealed truths which it was then necessary to
keep profoundly secret; which, even nowadays, it is not permitted to
reveal to all.

OLD TESTAMENT.

H. P. Blavatsky tells us that the _Old Testament_ is not a homogeneous
composition; that _Genesis_ alone is of immense antiquity; that it is
prior to the time when the Libra of the Zodiac was invented by the
Greeks, for it has been noticed that the chapters containing the
genealogies have been touched up so as to adapt them to the new
zodiac, and this is the reason that the rabbis who compiled them twice
repeated the names of Enoch and Lamech in the Cain list. The other
parts seem to be of a comparatively recent date and to have been
completed about 150 B.C.

The first part of the _Book of God_--as the Scriptures were then
called--was written by Hilkiah, jointly with the prophetess Huldah; this
disappeared at a later date, and Ezra had to begin a new one which was
finished by Judas Maccabaeus. This was recopied some time after, with the
object of changing the pointed letters into square ones, and in this way
was quite disfigured. The Masoretes ended by mutilating it completely.
The result is that the text we now possess is one not more than nine
hundred years old, bristling with premeditated omissions,
interpolations, and perverted interpretations.[145]

By the side of this initial difficulty we find another, quite as
important. Almost every page of the _Old Testament_ contains veiled
meanings and allegories, as is frankly confessed by the rabbis
themselves.

"We ought not to take literally that which is written in the story of
the Creation, nor entertain the same ideas of it as are held by the
vulgar. If it were otherwise, our ancient sages would not have taken
so much pains to conceal the sense, and to keep before the eyes of the
uninstructed the veil of allegory which conceals the truth it
contains...."[146]

Does not Saint Paul, speaking of the hidden meaning of the Bible, say
that Agar is Mount Sinai?[147] Origen and Saint Augustine are of the
opinion that the _Old Testament_ must be regarded as symbolical, as
otherwise it would be immoral; the Jewish law forbade anyone to read
it who had not attained the age of thirty years; Fenelon would have
liked it to be thrust away in the recesses of the most secret
libraries; the Cardinal de Noailles says that Origen, so full of zeal
on behalf of the Holy Scriptures, would