(Cabbala, "to receive"). This society of Cabbalistæ, had various methods of secret writing. Their first was the scriptura cœlestis; the second, that of angels, or kingly or dominant power; the third, that of the passage of the flood (Scriptura transitus fluvii). Breithaupt[[49]] says: "It is to be recollected, that the more ancient of the Kabbalistæ, studied out even a secret method of writing, consisting of four lines intersecting each other at right angles, forming a square in the middle,
after the following method. The figure of the four lines is thus:—
In each section three letters they place from right to left. When, therefore, they intend the first of the three, they write the figure of that section in which it is found, with one point (
). If another (or the next), the same figure with two points (
). if the third, the same again with three points (
). and so on. But the Cabbalistæ had also a simpler writing: "The sublime philosophy of those who are called the Kabbala, embraces within itself different kinds to which the following appertain. In their most famous magic pamphlet Rasiel, which the Kabbalistæ hold in great respect, in the first place three secret alphabets are read, which, in many things, are wanting in the common form and syntax of usual Hebrew. The first is called Scriptura cœlestis (the writing of heaven); the next,