The age to be assigned to the Massorites is a matter of doubt. Some have affirmed that Moses himself communicated to the elders this method of elucidating and preserving inviolate the Sacred Writings. Others ascribe the invention of the Massoretic vowels to Ezra, and the Great Synagogue of his time. But neither of these opinions has much to support it; and the most trustworthy authorities place them in the fifth or sixth century of Christianity. The fact that there were many variations in the sacred text long subsequently to the time of Ezra, is clearly enough proved by the versions of the Septuagint writers, Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, none of which are in entire accordance with one another. This could not have been the case if, previously to the date of these translators, the Massorites had completed their labours. Jerome states that the text was not determined even in his time. The most approved view seems to be that of Walton. He thinks that the work was begun early in the fifth century, and came gradually more into notice, until it was completed, _circa_ 1030 A.D. Maimonides appears to say that the final revision was made by the famous scholar Rabbi Ben Asher. The Massorites, it should be noted, have been charged with endeavouring to pass off erroneous readings favourable to their own views, and, in order to secure this object, preventing any recurrence to the original and genuine text. CABBALA. This word also denotes tradition, and originally included all the interpretations of Scripture, which the Jews professed to have received, in the first instance, from Moses, and in the second, from Ezra. But subsequently it came to be used for an abstruse species of science, by which certain passages of Holy Writ are mystically explained. The Cabbala, in this sense, has many processes, of which the three best known are Gematria, Notaricon, and Themurah.[256] The first mentioned of these consists in assuming the letters of a Hebrew word to denote ciphers, or arithmetical numbers, and then explaining every word by the arithmetical value of the letters composing it. Thus, for example, the letters of the word Jabo-Shiloh (Gen. xlix. 10), that is, ‘Shiloh shall come,’ when reckoned according to their arithmetical valuation, make up the same number as does the Hebrew word ‘Messiah.’ Hence the Cabbalists infer that Shiloh signifies the same as Messiah. Notaricon consists in taking every letter of a word as being in itself a complete word, and the letters, when put together, as a complete sentence. Thus, the first word of the Book of Genesis, Bereshith, resolved into its component letters, is understood to mean Bara, Rakia, Arez, Shamaion, Iam, Tehomoth, _i.e._, ‘He created the firmament, the earth, the heavens, the sea, and the deep.’ Or again, the initial letters of every word in a sentence may be formed into a word, possessing, of course, a mystical meaning.