The Jews of eastern Palestine and Asia Minor have a queer tradition which has survived from ancient times and tells of a remote period in their history when every fully developed Israelite was equipped with three perfect eyes. The two main optics, according to this curious old-time legend, were situated in the front part of the head, just as Jewish and other eyes are to-day, but the third–the one that made the early patriarch a monstrosity–was located in the back of the head, just above the nape of the neck in the edge of the hair. This wonderful third eye was not “evoluted” out of existence, as useless organs generally are (according to the ideas of the progressive scientists), but was closed by the divine injunction on the day when Moses was given the tables of stone on Sinai. You remember that God’s command on the day that the tables were renewed was to the effect that no should be seen in the vicinity of the holy mount. (See Exodus xxxiv., 3).
The believers in the three-eye tradition says that Moses supplemented God’s command by ordering the faithful who were encamped in the valley to turn their heads from the mountain. This they did, but took good care to uncover the eye that was situated in the back of their head. Moses, noticing this show of duplicity on the part of his followers, asked God to close the third or rear eye, and since that day the Israelites, in common with the remainder of humanity, have been forced to depend on two eyes only.
I thought that the “third eye” was supposed to be in the forehead. Though perhaps I’m confounding traditions.