Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/213

 Rh the holy vessels in a rock sealed with the ineffable name of God, is attributed to the Prophet Jeremiah—as is also the case in a certain apocryphal legend of Jeremiah, wherein also an incident occurs, which is absolutely identical with the legend of the Holy Grail. Both the keys of the temple and the Holy Grail are taken up to heaven by a mysterious hand reaching down from on high. But this I mention only incidentally. Let us proceed further with the Eben Shatya.

As the oldest tradition will have it, it was in the temple from the time of the first prophets, that is, it is recorded as having been from that time. It was therefore placed in the portion where the ark used to be before, in the Holy of Holies of the Temple; the High-priest entered there once a year to burn "sweet incense". This act was considered to be of symbolic importance, and the popular belief endows the rock with food-giving properties. "It is thence that Israel got abundance of food"; so runs the passage in the original. To complete the characteristics of this stone I have only to add another legend, which brings us directly in connection with Christianity. An old anti-Christian writing—perhaps that mentioned in the seventh century, but modified in later times — has a peculiar tale about this stone.

It runs as follows: —

"Now, at this time (i.e., in the time of Jesus) the unutterable name of God was engraved in the temple on the Eben Shatya. For when King David laid the foundations, he found there a stone in the ground on which the name of God was engraved, and he took it and placed it in the Holy of Holies. But as the wise men feared lest some inquisitive youth should learn this Name, and be able thereby to destroy the world, they made by magic two brazen lions, which they sat before the entrance of the Holy of Holies, one on the right, the other on the left.