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Article THE INEFFABLE WORD. ← Page 4 of 5 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Ineffable Word.
Lanci applied this kabbalistic mode to the tetragrammaton , when he found that IH-OH , being read reversely , makes the word HO-III . But in Hebrew , ho is the masculine pronoun , equivalent to the English he ; ancl Iii is the feminine pronoun , equivalent to she : and thereforethe word HO-HI
, , literally taanslated , is equivalent to the English compound HE-SHE—that is to say , the Ineffable Name of God in Hebrew , being read kabbalistically , includes within itself the male and female principle , the generative and prolific energy of creation ; and here we have , again , the widelyspread symbollism of the phallus and the cteis , the
lingam and the yoni , or their equivalent , the point within a circle , and another pregnant - proof of the connection between Freemasonry aud the ancient mysteries . And here , perhaps , Ave may begin to find some meaning to the hitherto incomprehensible passage in Genesis ( i . 27 ) : —So God created man in his own image , in the
image of God , created he him ; male and female , created lie them . " They could not haA'e been " in the image" of IHOH , if they had not been " male and female . " The Kabbalists haA'e exhausted their ingenuity and imagination in speculations on this sacred name , and some of their fancies are really sufficientlinteresting to
y repay an investigation . Sufficient , hoAvever , has been here said to account for the important position that it occupies in the Masonic system , and to enable us to appreciate the symbols by which it has been represented . The great reverence , or indeed the superstitious venerationentertained by the ancients for the name of the
, Supreme Being , led them to express it rather in symbols or hieroglyphics than in any word at length . "We knoAV , for instance , from the recent researches of the archceologists , that in all the documents of the ancient Egyptians , written in the demotic or common character of the
country , the names of the gods were invariably denoted by symbols , and I have already alluded to the different modes by ivhich the Jews expressed the tetragrammaton . A similar practice pevailed among the other nations of antiquity . Freemasonry has adopted the same expedient , and the Grand Architect of the Universe , whom it is the even in ordinary writingto designate hthe
usage , , y initials G . ' . A . ' . O . -. T .- . U . - ., is accordingly presented to us in a variety of symbols , three of which particularly require attention . These are the letter Gr , the equilateral triangle , and the All-Seeing Eye . Of the letter Gt I haA'e already sjioken . A letter of the English alhabet can scarcely be considered an
p appropriate symbol of an institution Avhich dates its organization and refers its primitive history to a period long anterior to the origin of that language . Such a symbol is deficient in the tAvo elements of antiquity and universality which should characterize every Masonic symbol . There can , therefore , be no doubt that , in its
present form , it is a corruption of the old Hebrew symbol , the letter yod , by ivhich the sacred name Ai * as often expressed . This letter is the initial of the Avord Jehovah , or Ihoh , as I have already stated , and is constantly to be met with in Hebrew writings as the symbol or abbreviature of Jehovah , which word , it will be remembered ,
is neA'er Avritten at length . But because G is , in like manner , the initial of God , the equivalent of Jehovah , this letter lias been incorrectly , and I cannot refrain from again saying , most injudiciously , selected to supply , in modern lodges , the place of the Hebrew symbol . Havingthenthe same meaning and force as the
, , Hebrew yod , the letter G must be considered , like its prototype , as the symbol of the life-giving and life sustaining power of God , as manifested in the meaning of the word Jehoi'ah , or Ihoh , the generative and prolific energy of the Creator .
The All-Seeing Eye is another , and still more important , symbol of the same great Being . Both the Hebrews and the Egyptians appear to have derived its use from that natural inclination of figurative minds to select an organ as the symbol of the function which it is intended peculiarlto discharge . Thusthe foot was
y , often adopted as the symbol of swiftness , the arm of strength , and the hand of fidelity . On the same principle , the open eye was selected as the symbol of watchfulness , and the eye of God as the symbol of divine watchfulnes and care of the Universe . The use of the symbol iu this sense is repeatedly to be found in the
Hebrew writers . Thus , the Psalmist says ( Ps . xxxi . 15 ) : " The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their cry , " which explains a subsequent passage ( Ps . cxxi . 4 ) , in which it is said : "Behold he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep . " On the same principle , the Egyptians represented Osiris , their chief deity , by the symbol of an open eye ,
and placed this hieroglyphic of him in all their temples . His symbolic name , on the monuments , was represented by the eye accompanying a throne , to which was sometimes added an abbreviated figure of the god , and sometimes what has been called a hatchet , but which , I consider , may as correctly be supposed to be a representation of a square .
The All-Seeing Eye may , then , be considered as a symbol of God manifested in his omnipresence—his guardian and presendng character—to which Solomon alludes in the Book of Proverbs ( xv . 3 ) , when he says : " The eyes of Jehovah are in every place , beholding ( or as it miht be more faithfulltranslatedwatching ) the evil
g y , and the good . " It is a symbol of the Omnipresent Deity The triangle is another symbol which is entitled to our consideration . There is , in fact , no other symbol which is more various in its application or more generally diffused throughout the whole system of both spurious and pure Freemasonry .
The equilateral triangle appears to have been adopted by nearly all the nations of antiquity as a symbol of the Deity . Among the Hebrews , it has already been stated that this figure , with a yod , in the centre , was used to represent the tetragrammaton , or ineffable name of God . The Egyptians considered the equilateral triangle as
the most perfect of figures and a representative of the great principle of animated existence , each of its sides referring to one of the three departments of creationthe animal , the i * egetable , and the mineral . The symbol of universal nature among the Egyptians was the right-angled triangle , of which the perpendicular
side represented Osiris , or the male principle ; the base , Isis , or the female principle ; and the hypothenuse , their offspring , Horus , or the world emanating from the union of both principles . All this , of course , is nothing more nor less than the phallus and cteis , or lingam and yoni , under a different form .
The symbol of the right-angled triangle was afterward adopted by Pythagoras when he visited the banks of the Nile ; and the discovery which he is said to have made in relation to the properties of this figure , but which he really learned from the Egyptian priests , is commemorated in Masonry by the introduction of the forty-seventh
problem of Euclid ' s First Book , among the symbols of the third degree . Here the same mystical application is supplied as in the Egyptian figure , namely : that the union of the male and female , or active and passive principles of nature , has produced the world . For the geometrical proposition being—that the squares of the
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Ineffable Word.
Lanci applied this kabbalistic mode to the tetragrammaton , when he found that IH-OH , being read reversely , makes the word HO-III . But in Hebrew , ho is the masculine pronoun , equivalent to the English he ; ancl Iii is the feminine pronoun , equivalent to she : and thereforethe word HO-HI
, , literally taanslated , is equivalent to the English compound HE-SHE—that is to say , the Ineffable Name of God in Hebrew , being read kabbalistically , includes within itself the male and female principle , the generative and prolific energy of creation ; and here we have , again , the widelyspread symbollism of the phallus and the cteis , the
lingam and the yoni , or their equivalent , the point within a circle , and another pregnant - proof of the connection between Freemasonry aud the ancient mysteries . And here , perhaps , Ave may begin to find some meaning to the hitherto incomprehensible passage in Genesis ( i . 27 ) : —So God created man in his own image , in the
image of God , created he him ; male and female , created lie them . " They could not haA'e been " in the image" of IHOH , if they had not been " male and female . " The Kabbalists haA'e exhausted their ingenuity and imagination in speculations on this sacred name , and some of their fancies are really sufficientlinteresting to
y repay an investigation . Sufficient , hoAvever , has been here said to account for the important position that it occupies in the Masonic system , and to enable us to appreciate the symbols by which it has been represented . The great reverence , or indeed the superstitious venerationentertained by the ancients for the name of the
, Supreme Being , led them to express it rather in symbols or hieroglyphics than in any word at length . "We knoAV , for instance , from the recent researches of the archceologists , that in all the documents of the ancient Egyptians , written in the demotic or common character of the
country , the names of the gods were invariably denoted by symbols , and I have already alluded to the different modes by ivhich the Jews expressed the tetragrammaton . A similar practice pevailed among the other nations of antiquity . Freemasonry has adopted the same expedient , and the Grand Architect of the Universe , whom it is the even in ordinary writingto designate hthe
usage , , y initials G . ' . A . ' . O . -. T .- . U . - ., is accordingly presented to us in a variety of symbols , three of which particularly require attention . These are the letter Gr , the equilateral triangle , and the All-Seeing Eye . Of the letter Gt I haA'e already sjioken . A letter of the English alhabet can scarcely be considered an
p appropriate symbol of an institution Avhich dates its organization and refers its primitive history to a period long anterior to the origin of that language . Such a symbol is deficient in the tAvo elements of antiquity and universality which should characterize every Masonic symbol . There can , therefore , be no doubt that , in its
present form , it is a corruption of the old Hebrew symbol , the letter yod , by ivhich the sacred name Ai * as often expressed . This letter is the initial of the Avord Jehovah , or Ihoh , as I have already stated , and is constantly to be met with in Hebrew writings as the symbol or abbreviature of Jehovah , which word , it will be remembered ,
is neA'er Avritten at length . But because G is , in like manner , the initial of God , the equivalent of Jehovah , this letter lias been incorrectly , and I cannot refrain from again saying , most injudiciously , selected to supply , in modern lodges , the place of the Hebrew symbol . Havingthenthe same meaning and force as the
, , Hebrew yod , the letter G must be considered , like its prototype , as the symbol of the life-giving and life sustaining power of God , as manifested in the meaning of the word Jehoi'ah , or Ihoh , the generative and prolific energy of the Creator .
The All-Seeing Eye is another , and still more important , symbol of the same great Being . Both the Hebrews and the Egyptians appear to have derived its use from that natural inclination of figurative minds to select an organ as the symbol of the function which it is intended peculiarlto discharge . Thusthe foot was
y , often adopted as the symbol of swiftness , the arm of strength , and the hand of fidelity . On the same principle , the open eye was selected as the symbol of watchfulness , and the eye of God as the symbol of divine watchfulnes and care of the Universe . The use of the symbol iu this sense is repeatedly to be found in the
Hebrew writers . Thus , the Psalmist says ( Ps . xxxi . 15 ) : " The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their cry , " which explains a subsequent passage ( Ps . cxxi . 4 ) , in which it is said : "Behold he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep . " On the same principle , the Egyptians represented Osiris , their chief deity , by the symbol of an open eye ,
and placed this hieroglyphic of him in all their temples . His symbolic name , on the monuments , was represented by the eye accompanying a throne , to which was sometimes added an abbreviated figure of the god , and sometimes what has been called a hatchet , but which , I consider , may as correctly be supposed to be a representation of a square .
The All-Seeing Eye may , then , be considered as a symbol of God manifested in his omnipresence—his guardian and presendng character—to which Solomon alludes in the Book of Proverbs ( xv . 3 ) , when he says : " The eyes of Jehovah are in every place , beholding ( or as it miht be more faithfulltranslatedwatching ) the evil
g y , and the good . " It is a symbol of the Omnipresent Deity The triangle is another symbol which is entitled to our consideration . There is , in fact , no other symbol which is more various in its application or more generally diffused throughout the whole system of both spurious and pure Freemasonry .
The equilateral triangle appears to have been adopted by nearly all the nations of antiquity as a symbol of the Deity . Among the Hebrews , it has already been stated that this figure , with a yod , in the centre , was used to represent the tetragrammaton , or ineffable name of God . The Egyptians considered the equilateral triangle as
the most perfect of figures and a representative of the great principle of animated existence , each of its sides referring to one of the three departments of creationthe animal , the i * egetable , and the mineral . The symbol of universal nature among the Egyptians was the right-angled triangle , of which the perpendicular
side represented Osiris , or the male principle ; the base , Isis , or the female principle ; and the hypothenuse , their offspring , Horus , or the world emanating from the union of both principles . All this , of course , is nothing more nor less than the phallus and cteis , or lingam and yoni , under a different form .
The symbol of the right-angled triangle was afterward adopted by Pythagoras when he visited the banks of the Nile ; and the discovery which he is said to have made in relation to the properties of this figure , but which he really learned from the Egyptian priests , is commemorated in Masonry by the introduction of the forty-seventh
problem of Euclid ' s First Book , among the symbols of the third degree . Here the same mystical application is supplied as in the Egyptian figure , namely : that the union of the male and female , or active and passive principles of nature , has produced the world . For the geometrical proposition being—that the squares of the