"Ζεὺς ἄρσην γένετο, Ζεὺς ἄμβροτος ἔπλετο νύμφη."
Jove was created a male and an unspotted virgin.
And Plutarch, in his tract "On Isis and Osiris," says, "God, who is a male
and female intelligence, being both life and light, brought forth another
intelligence, the Creator of the World."
Now, this hermaphrodism of the Supreme Divinity was again supposed to be
represented by the sun, which was the male generative energy, and by
nature, or the universe, which was the female prolific principle.[81] And
this union was symbolized in different ways, but principally by _the
point within the circle_, the point indicating the sun, and the circle the
universe, invigorated and fertilized by his generative rays. And in some
of the Indian cave-temples, this allusion was made more manifest by the
inscription of the signs of the zodiac on the circle.
So far, then, we arrive at the true interpretation of the masonic
symbolism of the point within the circle. It is the same thing, but under
a different form, as the Master and Wardens of a lodge. The Master and
Wardens are symbols of the sun, the lodge of the universe, or world, just
as the point is the symbol of the same sun, and the surrounding circle of
the universe.
But the two perpendicular parallel lines remain to be explained. Every one
is familiar with the very recent interpretation, that they represent the
two Saints John, the Baptist and the Evangelist. But this modern
exposition must be abandoned, if we desire to obtain the true ancient
signification.
In the first place, we must call to mind the fact that, at two particular
points of his course, the sun is found in the zodiacal signs of Cancer and
Capricorn. These points are astronomically distinguished as the summer and
winter solstice. When the sun is in these points, he has reached his
greatest northern and southern declination, and produces the most evident
effects on the temperature of the seasons, and on the length of the days
and nights. These points, if we suppose the circle to represent the sun's
apparent course, will be indicated by the points where the parallel lines
touch the circle, or, in other words, the parallels will indicate the
limits of the sun's extreme northern and southern declination, when he
arrives at the solstitial points of Cancer and Capricorn.
But the days when the sun reaches these points are, respectively, the 21st
of June and the 22d of December, and this will account for their
subsequent application to the two Saints John, whose anniversaries have
been placed by the church near those days.