While Magister Joel so spake, his Highness Duke Francis fell into a deep fit of musing. At last he exclaimed, "Good Joel, you are a fanatic, an enthusiast--surely we know the name of God; or what hinders us from knowing it?"
_Ille_.--"You err, my gracious Prince, for this name is the holy and mystic _Tetragrammaton_, 'Jehovah,' which is the chief and highest name of God, and which truly is found written in the Scriptures; but of the true pronunciation of the name no man knoweth at this day, for the letters J H V H are wanting in all the old manuscripts." [Footnote: For those who are unacquainted with Hebrew, I shall just observe here, that, in fact, the proper pronunciation of the name "Jehovah" is a vexed question with the learned up to this hour. Ewald, one of the latest authorities, and who has taken much trouble in investigating the subject, says, that there is the highest probability that the word should be pronounced "Jahve," signifying, He who should come (hoxrcho'menos), for which reason the Baptist's disciples asked Christ (Matt. xi. 13), "Art Thou He who should come?"--namely, the Messias, Jahve, or, as we call it, Jehovah. Compare Heb. x. 37; Hagg. ii. 6, 7; Rev. i. 8. I must observe, next, that all the Theophanisms (God manifestations) recorded in the Old Testament, to which the theosophistic, cabalistic Dr. Joel refers, were considered by the earty Christian fathers as manifestations to the senses, not of _God_--whom no man hath seen or can see--but of the asarchos Christ. Even the elder rabbins understand, in these Theophanisms, not _God_, but the Mediator between God and the world--the angel Metatron. For the rest, I need scarcely remark that the exegesis of Dr. Joel is false throughout. The Bible has been so tortured to support each man's individual, strange, crude dogma, that it is no wonder even Protestants are falling back upon _tradition_ as the best and surest interpreter of Scripture, and the clearest light to read it by.]
Magister Joel continues--"But be comforted; there were some faithful souls on the earth, who did not entirely lose the remembrance of the Schem Hamphorasch; and your Highness will wonder to hear, that even in this very town the secret exists, in the possession of an old man, who has it, really and truly, locked up in his trunk, though, I confess, he is as great a rogue himself as ever breathed."