In this the masonic tradition again agrees with the Jewish, for we find in the third chapter of the “Treatise on the Temple” written by the celebrated Maimonides, the following narrative—­

“There was a stone in the Holy of Holies, on its west side, on which was placed the ark of the covenant, and before it the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod.  But when Solomon had built the temple, and foresaw that it was, at some future time, to be destroyed, he constructed a deep and winding vault under ground, for the purpose of concealing the ark, wherein Josiah afterwards, as we learn in the Second Book of Chronicles, xxxv. 3, deposited it, with the pot of manna, the rod of Aaron, and the oil of anointing.”

The Talmudical book “Yoma” gives the same tradition, and says that “the ark of the covenant was placed in the centre of the Holy of Holies, upon a stone rising three fingers’ breadth above the floor, to be, as it were, a pedestal for it.”  “This stone,” says Prideaux,[225] “the Rabbins call the Stone of Foundation, and give us a great deal of trash about it.”

There is much controversy as to the question of the existence of any ark in the second temple.  Some of the Jewish writers assert that a new one was made; others, that the old one was found where it had been concealed by Solomon; and others again contend that there was no ark at all in the temple of Zerubbabel, but that its place was supplied by the Stone of Foundation on which it had originally rested.

Royal Arch Masons well know how all these traditions are sought to be reconciled by the masonic legend, in which the substitute ark and the Stone of Foundation play so important a part.

In the thirteenth degree of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, the Stone of Foundation is conspicuous as the resting-place of the sacred delta.

In the Royal Arch and Select Master’s degrees of the Americanized York Rite, the Stone of Foundation constitutes the most important part of the ritual.  In both of these it is the receptacle of the ark, on which the ineffable name is inscribed.

Lee, in his “Temple of Solomon”, has devoted a chapter to this Stone of Foundation, and thus recapitulates the Talmudic and Rabbinical traditions on the subject:—­

“Vain and futilous are the feverish dreams of the ancient Rabbins concerning the Foundation Stone of the temple.  Some assert that God placed this stone in the centre of the world, for a future basis and settled consistency for the earth to rest upon.  Others held this stone to be the first matter, out of which all the beautiful visible beings of the world have been hewn forth and produced to light.  Others relate that this was the very same stone laid by Jacob for a pillow under his head, in that night when he dreamed of an angelic vision at Bethel, and afterwards anointed and consecrated it to God.  Which when Solomon had found (no doubt by forged revelation, or some tedious search, like another Rabbi Selemoh), he durst not but lay it sure, as the principal foundation stone of the temple.  Nay, they say further, he caused to be engraved upon it the tetragrammaton, or the ineffable name of Jehovah.” [226]