MASONIC LEXICON-Part 1

Page 235

JEH JchotJal~, iliil' with' or numbers, which signified that God was the beginning and end of all things. * There are Dlany other Talmudical exercitations on the ineffable name which it is 4lunecessary to dwell upon. To the Hebrew student nlost of them are fanliliar; fo any other they would be uninteresting or inexplicable. The pronunciation of the name was preserved and transmi tted by the Essenes, who always communicated it to each other in a whisper, and in a such a form, that while its component parts were known, its connected whole still remained a mystery.

Nor 1, the beginlt.ing of numbers, and 10, the end

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It is said, too, to have been the pass-word in the Egyptian Mysteries, by which the candidate was admitted to the chambers of initiation. The modern Jews say it was engraved on the rod of Moses, and enabled him to perform his miracles, and they attribute all the wonderful works of Jesus Christ to the potency of this incommunicable name, which they say he stole out of the temple and wore about him. The Jews had four symbols by which they expressed this ineffable name of God; the first a.nd nlOSt. common was two Jods with 8, Sheva, and the point Kametz underneath, thus ~ ;; the sec.ond was three point~ in a radiated form like a diadem, thus l i .~ to represent, in all probability, the sovereignty of God; the third was a J od within an equilateral triangle thus, &. which the Cab¡ balists explained as a ray of light whose lustre was too transcendent to be conteolplated by hUIllan eyes; and the fourth was the letter~, which is the initial letter of SlLadat, "the .-\lnlighty," and was the symbol usually placed upon their phylacteries. Dux..

torf mentions a fifth method, which was by three Jods with a Kametz underneath inclosed in a circle. Of the varieties of this sacred name in use among the different nations of the earth, three particularly merit the attention of Royal Arch l\Iasons. • For these Ta.lmudicaJ rema.rks, I t\m indebted to Dl11earDed friend, 1f. '\ootweU, Esq., of Milledgeville, Ga.

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