Cave of Treasures

Historical source scan page 87

And because Cyrus brought about the return of the children of Israel [to Jerusalem], God said, "I have taken my servant Cyrus by his right hand" (Isa. xliv. 28; xlv. 1). And the name of Cyrus was called "My shepherd, the anointed of the Lord," because his seed was received into the seed of David through Meshayyanath, the sister of Zerubbabel, whom he had taken to wife. And the children of Israel went up from Babel, and Zerubbabel became king over them; and Joshua, the son of Yôzâdâk, the son of Aaron, was high priest, even as the angel showed Zechariah the prophet, and said unto him, "These are the sons of the oil of consecration." And the people of the captivity went up in the second year of Cyrus, and the Fifth Thousand Years Came To An End. The Five Hundred Years From The Second Year Of Cyrus To The Birth Of Christ. Now when the people had gone up [to Jerusalem] they had no Books of the Prophets. And Ezra the scribe went down into that pit [wherein Simeon had cast the Books], and he found a censer full of fire, and the perfume of the incense which rose up from it. And thrice he took some of the dust of those Books, and cast it into his mouth, and straightway God made to abide in him the spirit of prophecy, and he renewed all the Books of the Prophets. [Note: According to the Book of Adam (iv. 10) the manuscripts and the library of the Temple were burnt. Simeon begged the commander to give him the ruins of the library, and he went in and collected the ashes of the books and put them into a pot, which he placed in a vault. He filled a censer with coals and incense, and, having lighted the fire, he set the censer over the place where the ashes of the books lay. The fire continued to burn until Ezra came to the vault, and the smoke of the incense was rising from the censer. He spread his hands thrice over the ashes of the books, and God gave him the spirt of prophecy, and he rewrote the Books of the Law and the Prophets.] And that same fire which was found in the pit became the holy fire in the house of the Lord. And Zerubbabel reigned in Jerusalem, and Joshua, the son of Y6zadak, was high- priest, and Ezra was the scribe of the Law and the Prophets. And the children of Israel [Fol. 37a, col. 1] celebrated a Passover when they went up from Babel. These are the three Passovers which the children of Israel kept; the first was [kept] in Egypt in the days of Moses; the the second was [kept] in the reign of Josiah; the third was [kept] when they went up from the land of Babel. And now an end hath been made to the Passover for them for ever. From the first captivity of Jerusalem, that in which Daniel went down into captivity, to the reign of Cyrus the Persian, was seventy years according to the prophecy of Jeremiah. And the children of Israel began the [re]building of the Temple in the days of Zerubbabel, and Joshua, the son of Y6zad6k, and Ezra the scribe, 87 of 130