CABALA

A Hebrew word signifying the oral tradition which the Rabbins conceive to complete the system of scriptural interpretation. They maintain that it was delivered in the first instance to Adam, and again to Abraham and Moses, by direct revelation; but that since the time of Esdras the memories of the priests and elders have sufficed to preserve it in all its purity. As the Masora details the literal explanation of the language of scripture, so the Cabala reveals the hidden truths of which it is the symbol. Every sentence, word, and letter of the inspired volume contain, according to these interpreters, a figurative as well as a direct sense. The former is also not uncommonly manifold; and a word may be interpreted according to the arithmetical power of the letters which compose it. which species of cabala is called gematria; or according to the meaning of each individual letter, the entire word thus constituting a sentence, which is called iwtaricon; or finally according to certain transpositions of the letters, which is denoted by the term themurah. What the mysterious doctrines of the cabala which were thus discovered actually were, is not very clearly ascertained; but the system seems to have been an invention of the philosophising Jews of the latter centuries preceding our era, with the view of accommodating the speculations of the Gnostics to the religion of the Old Testament. The Christian cabalists in later times practised a kind 3f magic under this name, pretending to the power of divination by certain combinations of scriptural characters. [s. 192]