As will easily be seen, the undestroyed fragment of the document showed but little that was tangible. Of interest, it was true, but the interest was, alas! a well-concealed one. The dead man was a scholar. Of that there was no doubt whatsoever. The doctor had recognised from the first that he was no ordinary person.
The document seemed to be a portion of some statement made by a person as to the curious and unexpected result of certain studies.
He who made the declaration had apparently been a student of the Talmud, and especially the school of the Amoraim, or debaters, who about A.D. 250 expounded the “Mishna.”
Raymond Diamond had long ago read Wunsche, Bacher and Strack, and from them had learned how the Amoraim had expounded the “Mishna,” and how their labours had formed the Gemara, while the united Mishna and Gemara formed the books of the Talmud. By that time, and even earlier, the teachers of Judaism were also working in the schools of Babylonis. Hence the Talmud now exists in two forms—the Palestinian Talmud, or Talmud of Jerusalem, and the Babylonian Talmud. Rabbi Jehuda compiled the “Mishna” which, in general, sums up the outcome of the activity of the Sopherim, Zugoth and Tannaim, and thus became the canonical book of the oral law.
He was recalling these facts as he sat staring at the half-charred fragments on the table before him.
“The person making the declaration,” he said aloud to himself, “appears to have discovered certain hidden meanings in the ‘Mishna.’ Well—one can read hidden meanings in most writings, I believe, if one wishes. Yet he seems to have come across something which amazed him—some cabalistic message very complicated and ingenious. It caused him great astonishment when he found himself able to—able to what? Ah! that’s the point,” he sighed.
Then, after another long pause, he decided that “nine ch—” meant “nine chapters,” and that the final lines of the page dealt with some declaration opening with the arrival of the Messiah.
“Yes,” he said in a hard decisive tone, straightening his crooked back as well as he was able. “There is a mystery explained here—a great and most astounding mystery.”