Page:Manual of the Lodge.pdf/73

28 and hence the secret knowledge taught in their initiations was preserved in symbols, the true meaning of which was closely concealed from the profane.

The Druids had a similar regulation; and Cæsar informs us that it was not considered lawful to intrust their sacred verses to writing; but these were always committed to memory by their disciples.

The same custom prevailed among the Jews with respect to the Oral Law, which was never intrusted to books; but, being preserved in the memories of the priests and wise men, was handed down, from one to the other, through a long succession of ages.

Maimonides has described, according to the Rabbinical traditions, the mode adopted by to impress the principles of this Oral Law.

The secret doctrine of the Cabala, or the mystical philosophy of the Hebrews, was, also, communicated in an oral form, and, says, "transmitted, verbally, down to all the great characters celebrated in Jewish antiquity—among whom both and  were deeply conversant in its most hidden mysteries. Nobody, however, had ventured to commit anything of this kind to paper."

The Christian Church, in the age immediately succeeding the Apostolic, observed the same custom of oral instruction. The early Fathers were eminently cautious not to commit certain of the mysterious dogmas of their religion to writing, lest the surrounding pagans should be made acquainted with what they could neither understand nor appreciate. Basil_of_Caesarea, treating of this subject, in the fourth century, says: "We receive the dogmas transmitted to us by writing and those which have descended to us from the Apostles, beneath the mystery of oral tradition; for several things have been handed to us without writing, lest the vulgar, too familiar with our dogmas, should lose a due respect for them."

A custom so ancient as this, of keeping the landmarks unwritten, and one so invariably observed by the Masonic fraternity, we may very naturally presume, must have been originally