The Two Tables of the Law.

M.  The two Tables of the Law, handed to Moses on Mount Sinai, were created, along with nine other things, at the time when the world was made, and at sunset, before the first Sabbath began.

V.—­SACRED THINGS, SACRIFICES, MEASUREMENTS OF THE TEMPLE, ETC.

1.  TREATISE ON THE MEASUREMENTS OF THE TEMPLE (Middot). 10th in order.

Extent of the Temple Area.

M.  The Temple Mount was 500 cubits square.  The space was largest on the south, next largest on the east, the third largest being on the north, and the least, westward.  All who entered this area did so on the south side, going round and passing on to the left.

VI.—­LEGAL PURIFICATIONS, LAWS OF CLEAN AND UNCLEAN, ETC. (TEHAROT)

1.  TREATISE ON PRESERVING THE HANDS FROM CEREMONIAL UNCLEANNESS. (Jadaim).

The Aramaic passages in Ezra and Daniel make the hands unclean (25).  But Aramaic written in Hebrew characters and Hebrew written in Aramaic (Syriac) characters, or in the primitive Hebrew characters (much like the Phoenician) do not make the hands unclean.  Scriptures, though the matter is the same, never make the hands unclean unless the characters or letters, in which they are written, are the square Assyrian letters introduced by Ezra, the second Moses.

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ZOROASTRIANISM

ZEND AVESTA

Zoroastrianism, or, more correctly, Zarathustraism, is derived from Zoroaster, or, more strictly, Zarathustra, the founder of the religion.  Modern scholarship inclines to the belief that this great religious leader was born in West Media about B.C. 600, and carried on his great work in Bactria.  The religion with which his name is connected is really a reformed and spiritualised kind of that Magism which prevailed in Media and contiguous countries.  The priests, who are called “Atharvans,” fire-priests, in the Avesta (compare the same name in Hinduism, the Atharvan Veda, etc.) are identical with the Magi, priests of the religion which Zarathustra (Zoroaster) found in his original and adopted home.  According to some, the founder of Zarathustrianism lived at a very much earlier time, and there are great scholars (Tiele, Darmesteter, Edouard Meyer) who wholly deny the historicity of such a character.  No doubt, in later years, there gathered around Zarathustra an immense number of fictitious and silly legends, as was the case with Buddha, Jesus, and even Muhammad; but that each one of these religious teachers lived and wrought is beyond the reach of reasonable doubt.

INTRODUCTORY