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
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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 ו ?Y?H?W?H), 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 Hindu_s.
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 Hindu_s, 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.
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
