Now we know from the monuments which have been exca­vated in Babylonia that in the last centuries of the third millennium B.C. the Babylonians became great experts in the art of sculpture, and that they made images of both men and gods. The excavations have proved that gold masks were laid on the faces of the dead, and we may assume that gold masks were placed on the faces of statues, when they were “ dressed “ for festival occasions, as in Egypt. Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac, according to the custom of his people, but when God stayed his hand, and provided a ram for the blood­sacrifice, he realized that a human blood­sacrifice was not acceptable to Him, and that he must break with the traditions of his people, and leave the country. The custom of sacrificing children to devils seems to have been general in the days of Nâhôr, and it may have been intro­duced into the country by the hordes who came down from the north as a result of the conquests of Khammurabi.

Be this as it may, in the 100th year of the life of Nâhor, God determined to put an end to the custom, and He made the Wind Flood. He opened the storehouses of the winds, and set free the whirlwinds and hurricanes,. and sent a blast of wind over all the earth. This WIND swept through Babylonia, and dashed the idols against each other, and smashed them, and then it threw down upon them the buildings in which they had stood, and piled up their ruins in high mounds above the images and the devils that dwelt in them. The cities of Ur and Erech were laid waste, and their sites were only known from the huge mounds of rubbish which were piled up by the Wind Flood.

Now there is no record of this Wind Flood in the Bible, and it is only men­tioned in the “Cave of Treasures,” and in works based upon it. Some light is thrown upon this Wind Flood by the cuneiform inscriptions, and the author of the “Cave of Treasures” must have derived his knowledge of it from documents based upon them. Nabonidus, king of Babylon, displeased the gods, and they made manifest their anger by making the storm wind to blow. And in one text it is distinctly said that the cities of Erech and Nippur were destroyed by a wind storm.

Terah, the father of Abraham, fol­lowed in his father’s footsteps, and, according to the legend, made figures of the gods, or idols, in clay and stone, and sent his son Abraham into the bazâr to sell them. Fact underlies this legend, for a large number of terra-cotta figures of gods and demons have been found by many excavators during the course of their work on the sites of ancient cities in Babylonia; the commonest of these are the so-called “Pap­sukkal figures,” which were believed to protect houses.

The materials by which to check the state­ments made in the “Cave of Treasures” are not available at the present time, but it is very possible that in future years inscribed tablets will be found in Babylonia and Assyria which will contain the original forms of the legends and historical facts that have come down to us. The story of Nimrod and his cult of fire and the white horse, and his visit to the wise man Yontân, of his skill as a magician, and the cities which he built, may be somewhat garbled, but it is based’ on genuine historical documents.

The narrative of the descents made by Seth and his companions from the mountain of Paradise into the plain is certainly based on historical fact; and though Melchisedek has not yet been identified in the cuneiform inscriptions, there is every reason to believe that he existed, and that he was a founder of a pure form of religion, and a great ruler as well as priest.

The principal object of the writer of the “Cave of Treasures” was to trace the descent of Christ. back to Adam, and to show that the Christian Dispensation was foreshadowed in the history of the Patriarchs and their successors the kings of Israel and Judah by means of types and symbols. The Christian Trinity existed before the world and man were made, for “ the Spirit of God which hovered over the waters was the Holy Spirit, and when God said “Let Us make man” by “ Us” the Trinity were referred to.

The Sabbath was instituted by God Who Him­self rested on the seventh day. When Adam stood up upright after his creation he set his feet on the center of the earth, on the exact spot on which the Cross of our Lord was set up, in Jerusalem. Adam, like Elijah, ascended into heaven in a chariot of fire. The angels carried crosses of light on which the names of the Persons of the Trinity were inscribed, and with them vanquished Satan and his hosts of devils when he rebelled, as the Cross of Christ destroyed the powers of darkness. The Garden of Eden is symbolic of the Holy Church, and as Adam was priest as well as prophet and king, he ministered in it. The Tree of Life prefigured the Cross of Christ, the veritable Tree of Life. On his expulsion from Paradise God told Adam that He would send His Son to redeem him, and ordered him to make arrangements for the embalming of his body and its preservation in the Cave of Treasures.

Adam and Eve lived on bread and wine in Paradise, and Melchisedek administered bread and wine to Abraham, according to the command of Methuselah, and so foreshadowed the institu­tion of the Sacrament. The Cave of Treasures, with the gold, frankincense and myrrh which Adam collected in it, symbolized not only the Temple, or house of prayer, but the cave in which the Magi presented their gifts to Christ. Adam was the first priest, and was present when Cain and Abel made their offerings, and the lamp which he placed by the side of Abel’s body in the Cave of Treasures was the prototype of the sanctuary lamp. Adam’s body was buried in the Cave of Treasures, which became a family mausoleum, for several of his sons and descen­dants were also buried there. Noah took Adam’s body from the Cave and carried it into Noah’s Ark, and it was in due course brought to Jerusalem by him, and deposited in the opening in the earth which the earth itself made to receive it. There it remained until the Cross of Christ was set up above it on Golgotha, and then, when Longinus pierced our Lord’s side, the blood and water flowed down into the place where Adam was. The blood gave him life, and he was baptized by the water.

One of the most important sections of the “Cave of Treasures” is that which contains a description of the Magi and their visit to Jeru­salem, for it appears to be based upon the work of some writer who had exact knowledge of their methods. They are here grouped with the Chaldeans, who were presumably Babylonians, but they themselves are called the “ wise men of Persia.” Both these bodies of sages had studied the motions of the “Malwâshê,” or Signs of the Zodiac, for centuries, and through them they felt that they were able to forecast with accuracy the course of events on this earth.

The Magi were terrified at the appearance of the star, which led them subsequently to Bethlehem, and thought that the king of the Greeks was about to attack the land of Nimrod. At length they consulted their great astrological work which is here called “ Gelyãnà dhe Nemrôdh,” :.e. the” Revelation of Nimrod,” and there they learned that a king was born in Judah. What this “Revelation of Nimrod” was cannot be said, but it was evidently one of the large series of Omen-texts of which so many examples exist in the British Museum. The “Cave of Treasures” says that the Magi were three kings, and gives their names, and thus repeats the tradition which was general in the early centuries of the Christian Era. On the other hand, the “Book of the Bee,” following a very ancient Oriental tradition, says they were twelve in number, and gives their names ; but it must be noted that some of the names are only found at a com­paratively late period of Persian History.

The sources of the genealogy of Christ which is found in the “Cave of Treasures” are unknown, but the author states that he is certain about its correctness, and by inserting it in their copies of the work the scribes have shown that it is worthy of credence. it is probably quite true that when the captain of Nebuchadnezzar’s host burnt the books of the Jews after the capture of Jerusalem their tables of genealogy perished with them.