Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Part 58

_Qu_ What is the meaning of the square?

_Ans_ It is the symbol of the four elements contained in the triangle, or the emblem of the three chemical principles: these things united form absolute unity in the primal matter.

_Qu_ What is the meaning of the centre of the circ.u.mference?

_Ans_ It signifies the universal spirit, vivifying centre of nature.

_Qu_ What do you mean by the quadrature of the circle?

_Ans_ The investigation of the quadrature of the circle indicates the knowledge of the four vulgar elements, which are themselves composed of elementary spirits or chief principles; as the circle, though round, is composed of lines, which escape the sight, and are seen only by the mind.

_Qu_ What is the profoundest meaning of the figure 3?

_Ans_ The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. From the action of these three results the triangle within the square; and from the seven angles, the decade or perfect number.

_Qu_ Which is the most confused figure?

_Ans_ Zero,--the emblem of chaos, formless mixture of the elements.

_Qu_ What do the four devices of the Degree signify?

_Ans_ That we are to hear, see, be silent, and enjoy our happiness.

The _unit_ is the symbol of ident.i.ty, equality, existence, conservation, and general harmony; the Central Fire, the Point within the Circle.

_Two_, or the _duad_, is the symbol of diversity, inequality, division, separation, and vicissitudes.

The figure 1 signifies the living man [a body standing upright]; man being the only living being possessed of this faculty. Adding to it a head, we have the letter P, the sign of Paternity, Creative Power; and with a further addition, R, signifying man in motion, going, _Iens_, _Iturus_.

The Duad is the origin of contrasts. It is the imperfect condition into which, according to the Pythagoreans, a being falls, when he detaches himself from the Monad, or G.o.d. Spiritual beings, emanating from G.o.d, are enveloped in the duad, and therefore receive only illusory impressions.

As formerly the number ONE designated harmony, order, or the Good Principle (the ONE and ONLY G.o.d, expressed in Latin by _Solus_, whence the words _Sol_, _Soleil_, symbol of this G.o.d), the number Two expressed the contrary idea. There commenced the fatal knowledge of good and evil.

Everything double, false, opposed to the single and sole reality, was expressed by the Binary number. It expressed also that state of contrariety in which nature exists, where everything is double; night and day, light and darkness, cold and heat, wet and dry, health and sickness, error and truth, one and the other s.e.x, etc. Hence the Romans dedicated the second month in the year to Pluto, the G.o.d of h.e.l.l, and the second day of that month to the _manes_ of the dead.

The number _One_, with the Chinese, signified unity, harmony, order, the Good Principle, or G.o.d; _Two_, disorder, duplicity, falsehood. That people, in the earliest ages, based their whole philosophical system on the two primary figures or lines, one straight and unbroken, and the other broken or divided into two; doubling which, by placing one under the other, and trebling by placing three under each other, they made the four symbols and eight _Koua_; which referred to the natural elements, and the primary principles of all things, and served symbolically or scientifically to express them. Plato terms unity and duality the original elements of nature, and first principles of all existence: and the oldest sacred book of the Chinese says: "The Great First Principle has produced two equations and differences, or primary rules of existence; but the two primary rules or two oppositions, namely YN and YANG, or repose and motion, have produced four signs or symbols, and the four symbols have produced the eight KOUA or further combinations."

The interpretation of the Hermetic fables shows, among every ancient people, in their princ.i.p.al G.o.ds, first, 1, the Creating Monad, then 3, then 3 times 3, 3 times 9, and 3 times 27. This triple progression has for its foundation the three ages of Nature, the Past, the Present, and the Future; or the three degrees of universal generation ... Birth, Life, Death ... Beginning, middle, end.

The Monad was male, because its action produces no change _in_ itself, but only _out_ of itself. It represented the creative principle.

The Duad, for a contrary reason, was female, ever changing by addition, subtraction, or multiplication. It represents matter capable of form.

The union of the Monad and Duad produces the Triad, signifying the world formed by the creative principle out of matter. Pythagoras represented the world by the right-angled triangle, in which the squares of the two shortest sides are equal, added together, to the square of the longest one; as the world, as formed, is equal to the creative cause, and matter clothed with form.

The ternary is the first of the unequal numbers. The Triad, mysterious number, which plays so great a part in the traditions of Asia and the philosophy of Plato, image of the Supreme Being, includes in itself the properties of the first two numbers. It was, to the Philosophers, the most excellent and favorite number: a mysterious type, revered by all antiquity, and consecrated in the Mysteries; wherefore there are but three essential Degrees among Masons; who venerate, in the triangle, the most august mystery, that of the Sacred Triad, object of their homage and study.

In geometry, a line cannot represent a body absolutely perfect. As little do two lines const.i.tute a figure demonstratively perfect. But three lines form, by their junction, the TRIANGLE, or the first figure regularly perfect; and this is why it has served and still serves to characterize The Eternal; Who, infinitely perfect in His nature, is, as Universal Creator, the first Being, and consequently the first Perfection.

The Quadrangle or Square, perfect as it appears, being but the second perfection, can in no wise represent G.o.d; Who is the first. It is to be noted that the name of G.o.d in Latin and French (Deus, Dieu), has for its initial the Delta or Greek Triangle. Such is the reason, among ancients and moderns, for the consecration of the Triangle, whose three sides are emblems of the three Kingdoms, or Nature, or G.o.d. In the centre is the Hebrew JOD (initial of ????), the Animating Spirit of Fire, the generative principle, represented by the letter G., initial of the name of Deity in the languages of the North, and the meaning whereof is Generation.

The first side of the Triangle, offered to the study of the Apprentice, is the mineral kingdom, symbolized by Tub .

The second side, the subject of the meditations of the Fellow Craft, is the vegetable kingdom, symbolized by Schib (an ear of corn). In this reign begins the Generation of bodies; and this is why the letter G., in its radiance, is presented to the eyes of the adept.

The third side, the study whereof is devoted to the animal kingdom, and completes the instruction of the Master, is symbolized by Mach (Son of putrefaction).

The figure 3 symbolizes the Earth. It is a figure of the terrestrial bodies. The 2, upper half of 3, symbolizes the vegetable world, the lower half being hidden from our sight.

Three also referred to harmony, friendship, peace, concord, and temperance; and was so highly esteemed among the Pythagoreans that they called it perfect harmony.

Three, four, ten, and twelve were sacred numbers among the Etrurians, as they were among the Jews, Egyptians, and Hindus.

The name of Deity, in many Nations, consisted of three letters: among the Greeks, ?.?.O.; among the Persians, H.O.M.; among the Hindus, AUM; among the Scandinavians, I.O.W. On the upright Tablet of the King, discovered at Nimroud, no less than five of the thirteen names of the Great G.o.ds consist of three letters each,--ANU, SAN, YAV, BAR, and BEL.

The quaternary is the most perfect number, and the root of other numbers, and of all things. The tetrad expresses the first mathematical power. Four represents also the generative power, from which all combinations are derived. The Initiates considered it the emblem of Movement and the Infinite, representing everything that is neither corporeal nor sensible. Pythagoras communicated it to his disciples as a symbol of the Eternal and Creative Principle, under the name of Quaternary, the Ineffable Name of G.o.d, which signifies Source of everything that has received existence: and which, in Hebrew, is composed of four letters.

In the Quaternary we find the first solid figure, the universal symbol of immortality, the pyramid. The Gnostics claimed that the whole edifice of their science rested on a square whose angles were ... S???, _Silence_: ?????, _Profundity_: ????, _Intelligence_: and ????e?a, _Truth_. For if the Triangle, figured by the number 3, forms the triangular base of the pyramid, it is unity which forms its point or summit.

Lysias and Timaeus of Locria said that not a single thing could be named, which did not depend on the quaternary as its root.

There is, according to the Pythagoreans, a connection between the G.o.ds and numbers, which const.i.tutes the kind of Divination called Arithmomancy. The soul is a number: it is moved of itself: it contains in itself the quaternary number.

Matter being represented by the number 9, or 3 times 3, and the Immortal Spirit having for its essential hieroglyphic the quaternary or the number 4, the Sages said that Man, having gone astray and become entangled in an inextricable labyrinth, in going from _four_ to _nine_, the only way which he could take to emerge from these deceitful paths, these disastrous detours, and the abyss of evil into which he had plunged, was to retrace his steps, and go from _nine_ to _four_.

The ingenious and mystical idea which caused the Triangle to be venerated, was applied to the figure 4 (4). It was said that it expressed a living being, I, bearer of the Triangle ?, the emblem of G.o.d; _i.e._, man bearing with himself a Divine principle.

Four was a divine number; it referred to the Deity, and many Ancient Nations gave G.o.d a name of four letters; as the Hebrews ????, the Egyptians AMUN, the Persians SURA, the Greeks T??S, and the Latins DEUS.

This was the Tetragrammaton of the Hebrews, and the Pythagoreans called it Tetractys, and swore their most solemn oath by it. So too ODIN among the Scandinavians, ???S among the Greeks, PHTA among the Egyptians, THOTH among the Phoenicians, and AS-UR and NEBO among the a.s.syrians. The list might be indefinitely extended.

The number 5 was considered as mysterious, because it was compounded of the Binary, Symbol of the False and Double, and the Ternary, so interesting in its results. It thus energetically expresses the state of imperfection, of order and disorder, of happiness and misfortune, of life and death, which we see upon the earth. To the Mysterious Societies it offered the fearful image of the Bad Principle, bringing trouble into the inferior order,--in a word, the Binary acting in the Ternary.

Under another aspect it was the emblem of marriage; because it is composed of 2, the first equal number, and of 3, the first unequal number. Wherefore Juno, the G.o.ddess of Marriage, had for her hieroglyphic the number 5.

Moreover, it has one of the properties of the number 9, that of reproducing itself, when multiplied by itself: there being always a 5 on the right hand of the product; a result which led to its use as a symbol of material changes.

The ancients represented the world by the number 5. A reason for it, given by Diodorus, is, that it represents earth, water, air, fire, and ether or spirit. Thence the origin of pe?te (5) and ?a? the Universe, as the whole.

The number 5 designated the universal quintessence, and symbolized, by its form ?, the vital essence, the animating spirit, which flows [_serpentat_] through all nature. In fact, this ingenious figure is the union of the two Greek accents, placed over those vowels which ought to be or ought not to be aspirated. The first sign [?] bears the name of potent spirit; and signifies the Superior Spirit, the Spirit of G.o.d aspirated (_spiratus_), respired by man. The second sign is styled mild spirit, and represents the secondary spirit, the spirit purely human.

The triple triangle, a figure of five lines uniting in five points, was among the Pythagoreans an emblem of Health.

It is the Pentalpha of Pythagoras, or Pentangle of Solomon; has five lines and five angles; and is, among Masons, the outline or origin of the five-pointed Star, and an emblem of Fellowship.

The number 6 was, in the Ancient Mysteries, a striking emblem of nature; as presenting the six dimensions of all bodies; the six lines which make up their form, viz., the four lines of direction, toward the North, South, East, and West; with the two lines of height and depth, responding to the zenith and nadir. The sages applied the senary to the physical man; while the septenary was, for them, the symbol of his immortal spirit.

The hieroglyphical senary (the double equilateral triangle) is the symbol of Deity.

Six is also an emblem of health, and the symbol of justice; because it is the first perfect number; that is, the first whose aliquot parts (1/2, 1/3, 1/6, or 3, 2, and 1), added together, make itself.