Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of FreemasonryPike, Albert
Religion
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
Pike, Albert
Freemasons
The square of a number is the product of that number, multiplied by
itself. Thus, 4 is the square of 2, and 9 of 3.
The first ten numbers are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10;
their squares are 1, 4, 9,16,25,36,49,64,81,100;
and 3, 5, 7, 9,11,13,15,17, 19
are the differences between each square and that which precedes
it; giving us the sacred numbers, 3, 5, 7, and 9.
Of these numbers, the square of 3 and 4, added together, gives the
square of 5; and those of 6 and 8, the square of 10; and if a
right-angled triangle be formed, the base measuring 3 or 6 parts, and
the perpendicular 4 or 8 parts, the hypothenuse will be 5 or 10 parts;
and if a square is erected on each side, these squares being subdivided
into squares each side of which is one part in length, there will be as
many of these in the square erected on the hypothenuse as in the other
two squares together.
Now the Egyptians arranged their deities in _Triads_; the FATHER or the
Spirit or Active Principle or _Generative Power_; the MOTHER, or Matter,
or the Passive Principle, or the _Conceptive_ Power; and the SON,
_Issue_ or _Product_, the Universe, proceeding from the two principles.
These were OSIRIS, ISIS, and HORUS. In the same way, PLATO gives us
_Thought_ the _Father_; Primitive _Matter_ the _Mother_; and _Kosmos_
the _World_, the _Son_, the Universe animated by a soul. Triads of the
same kind are found in the Kabalah.
PLUTARCH says, in his book _De Iside et Osiride_, "But the better and
diviner nature consists of three,--that which exists within the
Intellect only, and Matter, and that which proceeds from these, which
the Greeks call Kosmos; of which three, Plato is wont to call the
Intelligible, the 'Idea, Exemplar, and Father'; Matter, 'the Mother, the
Nurse, and the place and receptacle of generation'; and the issue of
these two, 'the Offspring and Genesis,'" the KOSMOS, "a word signifying
equally _Beauty_ and _Order_, or the Universe itself." You will not fail
to notice that Beauty is symbolized by the Junior Warden in the South.
Plutarch continues to say that the Egyptians compared the universal
nature to what they called the most beautiful and perfect triangle, as
Plato does, in that nuptial diagram, as it is termed, which he has
introduced into his Commonwealth. Then he adds that this triangle is
right-angled, and its sides respectively as 3, 4, and 5; and he says,
"We must suppose that the perpendicular is designed by them to
represent the masculine nature, the base the feminine, and that the
hypothenuse is to be looked upon as the offspring of both; and
accordingly the first of them will aptly enough represent OSIRIS, or the
prime cause; the second, ISIS, or the receptive capacity; the last,
HORUS, or the common effect of the other two. For 3 is the first number
which is composed of even and odd; and 4 is a square whose side is equal
to the even number 2; but 5, being generated, as it were, out of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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