island supposed to have been submerged by the Atlantic Ocean in the remote past--would suggest that Bacon had some knowledge of a secret tradition descending from the earliest patriarchs of the human race, whom, like the modern writer Le Plongeon, he imagined to have inhabited the Western hemisphere and to have been the predecessors of the Egyptian initiates. Le Plongeon, however, places this early seat of the mysteries still further West than the Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Mayax and Yucatan.
Bacon further relates that this tradition was preserved in its pure form by certain of the Jews, who, whilst accepting the Cabala, rejected its anti-Christian tendencies. Thus in this island of Bensalem there are Jews "of a far differing disposition from the Jews in other parts. For whereas they hate the name of Christ, and have a secret inbred rancour against the people amongst whom they live; these contrariwise give unto our Saviour many high attributes," but at the same time they believe "that Moses by a secret Cabala ordained the laws of Bensalem which they now use, and that when the Messiah should come and sit on His throne at Jerusalem, the King of Bensalem should sit at His feet, whereas other kings should keep at a great distance." This passage is of particular interest as showing that Bacon recognized the divergence between the ancient secret tradition descending from Moses and the perverted Jewish Cabala of the Rabbis, and that he was perfectly aware of the tendency even among the best of Jews