"28th Degree - Knight of the Sun or Prince Adept" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Albert)

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 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, 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, the Egyptians AMUN, the Persians SURA, the Greeks, 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, ZEYS 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 nwnber 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, a fire, and ether or spirit. Thence the origin of (5) and 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 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) the symbol of Deity.

Six is also an emblem of health, and the symbol of justic; 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.

The numerous applications of the septenary confirmed the ancient sages in the use of this symbol. Moreover, they exalted the properties of the number 7, as having, in a subordinate manner, the perfection of the unit; for if the unit is uncreated, if no number produces it, the seven is also not engendered by any number contained in the interval between 1 and 10. The number 4 occupies an arithmetical middle-ground between the unit and 7, inasmuch as it is as much over 1, as it is under 7, the difference each way being 3.

The number 7, among the Egyptians, symbolized life; and this is why the letter Z of the Greeks was the initial of the verb I live; and Jupiter, Father of Life.

The number 8, or the octary, is composed of the sacred numbers 3 and 5. Of the heavens, of the seven planets, and of the sphere of the fixed stars, or of the eternal unity and the mysterious number 7, is composed the ogdoade, the number 8, the first cube of equal numbers, regarded as sacred in the arithmetical philosophy.

The Gnostic ogdoade had eight stars, which represented the eight Cabiri of Samothrace, the eight Egyptian and Phoenician principles, the eight gods of Xenocrates, the eight angles of the cubic stone.

The number eight symbolizes perfection and its figure, 8 or (infinity) indicates the perpetual and regular course of the Universe.

It is the first cube (2 X 2 X 2), and signifies friendship prudence, counsel, and justice. It was a symbol of the primeval law which regarded all men as equal.