Mysteries were carried into every country, that, without disturbing the
popular beliefs, truth, the arts, and the sciences might be known to
those who were capable of understanding them, and maintaining the true
doctrine incorrupt; which the people, prone to superstition and
idolatry, have in no age been able to do; nor, as many strange
aberrations and superstitions of the present day prove, any more now
than heretofore. For we need but point to the doctrines of so many sects
that degrade the Creator to the rank, and assign to Him the passions of
humanity, to prove that now, as always, the old truths must be committed
to a few, or they will be overlaid with fiction and error, and
irretrievably lost.
Though Masonry is identical with the Ancient Mysteries, it is so in this
qualified sense; that it presents but an imperfect image of their
brilliancy; the ruins only of their grandeur, and a system that has
experienced progressive alterations, the fruits of social events and
political circumstances. Upon leaving Egypt, the Mysteries were modified
by the habits of the different nations among whom they were introduced.
Though originally more moral and political than religious, they soon
became the heritage, as it were, of the priests, and essentially
religious, though in reality limiting the sacerdotal power, by teaching
the intelligent laity the folly and absurdity of the creeds of the
populace. They were therefore necessarily changed by the religious
systems of the countries into which they were transplanted. In Greece,
they were the Mysteries of Ceres; in Rome, of _Bona Dea_, the Good
Goddess; in Gaul, the School of Mars; in Sicily, the Academy of the
Sciences; among the Hebrews, they partook of the rites and ceremonies of
a religion which placed all the powers of government, and all the
knowledge, in the hands of the Priests and Levites. The pagodas of
India, the retreats of the Magi of Persia and Chaldea, and the pyramids
of Egypt, were no longer the sources at which men drank in knowledge.
Each people, at all informed, had its Mysteries. After a time the
Temples of Greece and the School of Pythagoras lost their reputation,
and Freemasonry took their place.
Masonry, when properly expounded, is at once the interpretation of the
great book of nature, the recital of physical and astronomical
phenomena, the purest philosophy, and the place of deposit, where, as in
a Treasury, are kept in safety all the great truths of the primitive
revelation, that form the basis of all religions. In the modern Degrees
three things are to be recognized: The image of primeval times, the
tableau of the efficient causes of the Universe, and the book in which
are written the morality of all peoples, and the code by which they must
govern themselves if they would be prosperous.
The Kabalistic doctrine was long the religion of the Sage and the
Savant; because, like Freemasonry, it incessantly tends toward spiritual
perfection, and the fusion of the creeds and Nationalities of Mankind.
In the eyes of the Kabalist, all men are his brothers; and their
relative ignorance is, to him, but a reason for instructing them. There
were illustrious Kabalists among the Egyptians and Greeks, whose
doctrines the Orthodox Church has accepted; and among the Arabs were
many, whose wisdom was not slighted by the Mediæval Church.
The Sages proudly wore the name of Kabalists. The Kabalah embodied a
noble philosophy, pure, not mysterious, but symbolic. It taught the
doctrine of the Unity of God, the art of knowing and explaining the
essence and operations of the Supreme Being, of spiritual powers and
natural forces, and of determining their action by symbolic figures; by
the arrangement of the alphabet, the combinations of numbers, the
inversion of letters in writing and the concealed meanings which they
claimed to discover therein. The Kabalah is the key of the occult
sciences; and the Gnostics, were born of the Kabalists.
The science of numbers represented not only arithmetical qualities, but
also all grandeur, all proportion. By it we necessarily arrive at the
discovery of the Principle or First Cause of things, called at the
present day THE ABSOLUTE.
Or UNITY,--that loftiest term to which all philosophy directs itself;
that imperious necessity of the human mind, that pivot round which it is
compelled to group the aggregate of its ideas: Unity, this source, this
centre of all systematic order, this principle of existence, this
central point, unknown in its essence, but manifest in its effects;
Unity, that sublime centre to which the chain of causes necessarily
ascends, was the august Idea toward which all the ideas of Pythagoras
converged. He refused the title of _Sage_, which means _one who knows_.
He invented, and applied to himself that of _Philosopher_, signifying
one who _is fond of_ or _studies things secret and occult_. The
astronomy which he mysteriously taught, was _astrology_: his science of
numbers was based on Kabalistical principles.
The Ancients, and Pythagoras himself, whose real principles have not
been always understood, never meant to ascribe to numbers, that is to
say, to abstract signs, any special virtue. But the Sages of Antiquity
concurred in recognizing a ONE FIRST CAUSE (material or spiritual) of
the existence of the Universe. Thence UNITY became the symbol of the
Supreme Deity. It was made to express, to represent God; but without
attributing to _the mere number_ ONE any divine or supernatural virtue.
The Pythagorean ideas as to particular numbers are partially expressed
in the following:
LECTURE OF THE KABALISTS.
_Qu_ Why did you seek to be received a Knight of the Kabalah?
_Ans_ To know, by means of numbers, the admirable harmony which there
is between nature and religion.
_Qu_ How were you announced?
_Ans_ By twelve raps.
_Qu_ What do they signify?
_Ans_ The twelve bases of our temporal and spiritual happiness.
_Qu_ What is a Kabalist?
_Ans_ A man who has learned, by tradition, the Sacerdotal Art and the
Royal Art.
_Qu_ What means the device, _Omnia in numeris sita sunt_?
_Ans_ That everything lies veiled in numbers.
_Qu_ Explain me that.
_Ans_ I will do so, as far as the number 12. Your sagacity will discern
the rest.
_Qu_ What signifies the _unit_ in the number 10?
_Ans_ GOD, creating and animating matter, expressed by 0, which, alone,
is of no value.
_Qu_ What does the unit _mean_?
_Ans_ In the moral order, a Word incarnate in the bosom of a virgin--or
religion.... In the physical, a spirit embodied in the virgin earth--or
nature.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number _two_?
_Ans_ In the moral order, _man_ and _woman_.... In the physical, the
_active_ and the _passive_.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 3?
_Ans_ In the moral order, the three theological virtues.... In the
physical, the three principles of bodies.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 4?
_Ans_ The four cardinal virtues.... The four elementary qualities.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 5?
_Ans_ The quintessence of religion.... The quintessence of matter.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 6?
_Ans_ The theological cube.... The physical cube.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 7?
_Ans_ The seven sacraments.... The seven planets.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 8?
_Ans_ The small number of Elus.... The small number of wise men.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 9?
_Ans_ The exaltation of religion.... The exaltation of matter.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 10?
_Ans_ The ten commandments.... The ten precepts of nature.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 11?
_Ans_ The multiplication of religion.... The multiplication of nature.
_Qu_ What do you mean by the number 12?
_Ans_ The twelve Articles of Faith; the twelve Apostles, foundation of
the Holy City, who preached throughout the whole world, for our
happiness and spiritual joy.... The twelve operations of nature: The
twelve signs of the Zodiac, foundation of the _Primum Mobile_, extending
it throughout the Universe for our temporal felicity.
[The Rabbi (President of the Sanhedrim) adds: From all that you have
said, it results that the unit develops itself in 2, is completed in
three internally, and so produces 4 externally; whence, through 6, 7, 8,
9, it arrives at 5, half of the spherical number 10, to ascend, passing
through 11, to 12, and to raise itself, by the number 4 times 10, to the
number 6 times 12, the final term and summit of our eternal happiness.]
_Qu_ What is the generative number?
_Ans_ In the Divinity, it is the unit; in created things, the number 2:
Because the Divinity, 1, engenders 2, and in created things 2 engenders
1.
_Qu_ What is the most majestic number?
_Ans_ 3, because it denotes the triple divine essence.
_Qu_ What is the most mysterious number?
_Ans_ 4, because it contains all the mysteries of nature.
_Qu_ What is the most occult number?
_Ans_ 5, because it is inclosed in the centre of the series.
_Qu_ What is the most salutary number?
_Ans_ 6, because it contains the source of our spiritual and corporeal
happiness.
_Qu_ What is the most fortunate number?
_Ans_ 7, because it leads us to the decade, the perfect number.
_Qu_ Which is the number most to be desired?
_Ans_ 8, because he who possesses it, is of the number of the Elus and
Sages.
_Qu_ Which is the most sublime number?
_Ans_ 9, because by it religion and nature are exalted.
_Qu_ Which is the most perfect number?
_Ans_ 10, because it includes unity, which created everything, and
zero, symbol of matter and chaos, whence everything emerged. In its
figures it comprehends the created and uncreated, the commencement and
the end, power and force, life and annihilation. By the study of this
number, we find the relations of all things; the power of the Creator,
the faculties of the creature, the Alpha and Omega of divine knowledge.
_Qu_ Which is the most multiplying number?
_Ans_ 11, because with the possession of two units, we arrive at the
multiplication of things.
_Qu_ Which is the most solid number?
_Ans_ 12, because it is the foundation of our spiritual and temporal
happiness.
_Qu_ Which is the favorite number of religion and nature?
_Ans_ 4 times 10, because it enables us, rejecting everything impure,
eternally to enjoy the number 6 times 12, term and summit of our
felicity.
_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 circumference?
_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 identity, 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 God. Spiritual beings, emanating from God,
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 GOD, expressed in Latin by _Solus_, whence
the words _Sol_, _Soleil_, symbol of this God), 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 sex, etc. Hence the Romans
dedicated the second month in the year to Pluto, the God of Hell, and
the second day of that month to the _manès_ of the dead.
The number _One_, with the Chinese, signified unity, harmony, order, the
Good Principle, or God; _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 principal gods, 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 constitute 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 God; Who is the first. It is to be
noted that the name of God 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 God. In the centre is
the Hebrew JOD (initial of יהוה), 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 Hindūs.
The name of Deity, in many Nations, consisted of three letters: among
the Greeks, Ι.Α.Ω.; among the Persians, H.O.M.; among the Hindūs, 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 Gods 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 God, 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 ... Σιγή,
_Silence_: Βυθος, _Profundity_: Νοος, _Intelligence_: and Αληθεια,
_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 Timæus 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 gods
and numbers, which constitutes 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 Δ, the emblem of
God; _i.e._, man bearing with himself a Divine principle.
Four was a divine number; it referred to the Deity, and many Ancient
Nations gave God a name of four letters; as the Hebrews יהוה, the
Egyptians AMUN, the Persians SURA, the Greeks ΘΕΟΣ, 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, ΖΕΥΣ among the Greeks, PHTA among the Egyptians,
THOTH among the Phoenicians, and AS-UR and NEBO among the Assyrians. 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 Goddess 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 πεντε (5) and Παν the Universe, as
the whole.
The number 5 designated the universal quintessence, and symbolized, by
its form ς, 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 God
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.
Ormuzd created six good spirits, and Ahriman six evil ones. These typify
the six Summer and the six Winter months.
No number has ever been so universally in repute as the septenary. Its
celebrity is due, no doubt, to the planets being _seven_ in number. It
belongs also to sacred things. The Pythagoreans regarded it as formed of
the numbers 3 and 4; the first whereof was, in their eyes, the image of
the three material elements, and the second the principle of everything
that is neither corporeal nor sensible. It presented them, from that
point of view, the emblem of everything that is perfect.
Considered as composed of 6 and unity, it serves to designate the
invisible centre or soul of everything; because no body exists, of which
six lines do not constitute the form, nor without a seventh interior
point, as the centre and reality of the body, whereof the external
dimensions give only the appearance.