the name of the Ancient of Ancients, from whose head 400,000 worlds receive the light. "The length of this face from the top of the head is three hundred and seventy times ten thousand worlds. It is called the 'Long Face,' for such is the name of the Ancient of Ancients." The description of the hair and beard alone belonging to this gigantic countenance occupies a large place in the Zoharic treatise, Idra Raba.
According to the Cabala, every letter in the Scriptures contains a mystery only to be solved by the initiated. By means of this system of interpretation passages of the Old Testament are shown to bear meanings totally unapparent to the ordinary reader. Thus the Zohar explains that Noah was lamed for life by the bite of a lion whilst he was in the ark, the adventures of Jonah inside the whale are related with an extraordinary wealth of imagination, whilst the beautiful story of Elisha and the Shunnamite woman is travestied in the most grotesque manner.
In the practical Cabala this method of "decoding" is reduced to a theurgic or magical system in which the healing of diseases plays an important part and is effected by means of the mystical arrangement of numbers and letters, by the pronunciation of the Ineffable Name, by the use of amulets and talismans, or by compounds supposed to contain certain occult properties.
All these ideas derived from very ancient cults; even the art of working miracles by the use of the Divine Name, which after the appropriation of