(6) And God saith in the Prophet, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What house would you build for me? I compass the heaven with a span, and the earth with three fingers. Also, I will dwell in Jacob, and Israel shall be my tabernacle.

(5) ¶And when they saw the child with Mary his mother, they worshipped him: and they opened their treasures, and presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

(34) "Now the vestment of the high-priest being made of linen, signified the earth; the blue denoted the sky, being like lightning in its pomegranates, and in the noise of the bells resembling thunder. And for the Ephod, it showed that God had made the universe of four (elements); and as for the gold interwoven, * * * it related to the splendor by which all things are enlightened. He also appointed the breastplate to be placed in the middle of the Ephod, to resemble the earth, for that has the very middle place of the world. And the girdle which encompassed the high-priest round signified the ocean, for that goes round about and includes the universe. Each of the sardonyxes declares to us the sun and the moon, those, I mean, that were in the nature of buttons on the high-priest's shoulders. And for the twelve stones, whether we understand by them the months, or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the Zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning. And for the mitre, which was of a blue colour, it seems to me to mean heaven; for how otherwise could the name of God be inscribed upon it? That it was also illustrated with a crown, and that of gold also, is because of that splendour with which God is pleased." It is also symbolically significant that the Tabernacle was built in seven months and dedicated to God at the time of the new moon.

(15) Again, Moses, not allowing altars and temples to be constructed in many places, but raising one temple of God, announced that the world was only-begotten, as Basilides says, and that God is one, as does not as yet appear to Basilides. And since the gnostic Moses does not circumscribe within space Him that cannot be circumscribed, he set up no image in the temple to be worshipped; showing that God was invisible, and incapable of being circumscribed; and somehow leading the Hebrews to the conception of God by the honour for His name in the temple. Further, the Word, prohibiting the constructing of temples and all sacrifices, intimates that the Almighty is not contained in anything, by what He says: "What house will ye build to Me? saith the Lord. Heaven is my throne," and so on. Similarly respecting sacrifices: "I do not desire the blood of bulls and the fat of lambs," and what the Holy Spirit by the prophet in the sequel forbids.

(4) .... And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.

(5) Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus being wearied with his journey, sat on the well.

(485) 1025 To say: [The two doors of heaven] are open, [the two doors of bw are open]. 1025 ------------------------------------------- 1025 ------------------------------------------- 1025 [take N. to heaven to the house] of Horus, which is in heaven. 1026 Each god who will take N. to heaven, living, enduring, 1026 for him oxen shall be slaughtered, to him legs shall be offered, 1026 and he shall ascend to the house of Horus, which is in heaven. 1027 Each god who will not take him to heaven, 1027 he shall not be respected, he shall have no ba-loin-cloth, he shall smell (taste) no p-cake, 1027 he shall not ascend to the house of Horus, which is in heaven, on the day of the hearing of the word (trial). 1028 ------------------------------------------- 1028 ------------------------------------------- 1028 ------------------------------------------- 1029 [N. has come] to thee, R`, 1029 calf of gold, born of heaven, 1029 fattened (calf) of gold, created by the s.t-cow. 1030 Horus, take N. with thee, living, enduring; 1030 Horus, let not N. be without a boat. 1030 N. comes to thee, father; N. comes to thee, Geb. 1030 Give thine arm to N., that N. may ascend to heaven to his mother Nut. 1031 -------------------------------------------- 1031 -------------------------------------------- 1031 -------------------------------------------- 1032 that we, the Two Enneads, may find an avenger beside him (lit. at his hand), 1032 although we, the Two Enneads, did not find him who (seized him) from behind (lit. on his hinder part). 1032 Geb comes, (his) lion-helmet on his head, his two (angry) eyes (lit. yellow eyes) in his face, 1033 that he may smite you and count (search) foreign lands in search of Osiris. 1033 He found him lying on his side in G.ti. 1033 Osiris, stand up for thy father, Geb, that he may protect thee against Set. 1034 Nun ---------------------------------------- 1034 -------------------------------------------- 1035 -------------- [I have protected] Osiris against his brother, Set. 1035 I am that which bound his feet, bound his hands, 1035 which laid him on his side in T-rw. 1036 Horus who is over the sdsd of heaven, give thou thine arm to N., 1036 that N. may ascend to heaven to Nut; (Nut) give thine arm to N., in life and satisfaction, 1036 that thou mayest unite his bones and collect his limbs. 1037 Thou unitest his bones [to] ----------------------- 1037 --------------------------------------------- 1037 -------------------------------------------- 1037 [There is not a limb to N] which is without a god, 1038. when he ascends, when he lifts himself up to the sky as the great star which is in the east.

(15) Because of the idolatry of the Israelites, Moses deemed the people unworthy to receive the sapphire tables; hence he destroyed them, that the Mysteries of Jehovah should not be violated. For the original set Moses substituted two tablets of rough stone into the surface of which he had cut ten ancient letters. While the former tables--partaking of the divinity of the Tree of Life--blazed forth eternal verities, the latter--partaking of the nature of the Tree of Good and Evil--revealed only temporal truths. Thus the ancient tradition of Israel returned again to heaven, leaving only its shadow with the children of the twelve tribes.

(238) 242 To say: The bread of thy father belongs to thee, 'Iki-nhii; 242 thine own bread belongs to thy father and to thee, 'Ik(i)-nhii. 242 jewelry, oil, `i-tw, that is thine ox, the renowned, for whose deed this is being done.

(4) Then cometh he to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

(1) WHEN Solomon--the beloved of God, builder of the Everlasting House, and Grand Master of the Lodge of Jerusalem--ascended the throne of his father David he consecrated his life to the erection of a temple to God and a palace for the kings of Israel. David's faithful friend, Hiram, King of Tyre, hearing that a son of David sat upon the throne of Israel, sent messages of congratulation and offers of assistance to the new ruler. In his History of the Jews, Josephus mentions that copies of the letters passing between the two kings were then to be seen both at Jerusalem and at Tyre. Despite Hiram's lack of appreciation for the twenty cities of Galilee which Solomon presented to him upon the completion of the temple, the two monarchs remained the best of friends. Both were famous for their wit and wisdom, and when they exchanged letters each devised puzzling questions to test the mental ingenuity of the other. Solomon made an agreement with Hiram of Tyre promising vast amounts of barley, wheat, corn, wine, and oil as wages for the masons and carpenters from Tyre who were to assist the Jews in the erection of the temple. Hiram also supplied cedars and other fine trees, which were made into rafts and floated down the sea to Joppa, whence they were taken inland by Solomon's workmen to the temple site.

(37) In the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters are pictured the new heaven and the new earth to be established at the close of Ahriman's reign. St. John, carried in the spirit to a great and high mountain (the brain), beheld the New Jerusalem descending as a bride adorned for her husband. The Holy City represents the regenerated and perfected world, the trued ashlar of the Mason, for the city was a perfect cube, it being written, "the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal." The foundation of the Holy City consisted of a hundred and forty-four stones in twelve rows, from which it is evident that the New Jerusalem represents the microcosm, patterned after the greater universe in which it: stands. The twelve gates of this symbolic dodecahedron are the signs of the zodiac through which the celestial impulses descend into the inferior world; the jewels are the precious stones of the zodiacal signs; and the transparent golden streets are the streams of spiritual light along which the initiate passes on his path towards the sun. There is no material temple in that city, for God and the Lamb are the temple; and there is neither sun nor moon, for God and the Lamb are the light. The glorified and spiritualized initiate is here depicted as a city. This city will ultimately be united with the spirit of God and absorbed into the Divine Effulgency.

(104) 10. When the Patriarch Abraham had comprehended the great truths, meditated upon them, and understood them perfectly, the Lord of the Universe (the Tetragrammaton) appeared to him, called him His friend, kissed him upon the head, and made with him a covenant. First, the covenant was between the ten fingers of his hands, which is the covenant of the tongue (spiritual); second, the covenant was between the ten toes of his feet, which is the covenant of circumcision (material); and God said of him, "Before Abraham bound the spirit of the twenty-two letters (the Thora) upon his tongue and God disclosed to him their secrets. God permitted the letters to be immersed in water, He burned them in the fire and imprinted them upon the winds. He distributed them among the seven planets and gave them to the twelve zodiacal signs.

(32) There is no doubt that the Jews in early times realized, at least in part, that their Tabernacle was a symbolic edifice. Josephus realized this and while he has been severely criticized because he interpreted the Tabernacle symbolism according to Egyptian and Grecian paganism, his description of the secret meanings of its drapes and furnishings is well worthy of consideration. He says:

(29) In the upper left-hand corner is shown the destruction of Babylon, also the angel which cast the great millstone into the sea, saying, "Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more at all." Below is the horseman, called Faithful and True, casting the beast into the bottomless pit. At the lower right is the angel with the key to the bottomless pit, who with a great chain binds Satan for a thousand years. In the heavens above is represented one like unto the Son of Man, who carries a great sickle with which he reaps the harvest of the world. In the center is the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, with its twelve gates and the mountain of the Lamb rising in the midst thereof. From the throne of the Lamb pours the great river of crystal, or living water, signifying the spiritual doctrine: upon all who discover and drink of its waters are conferred immortality. Kneeling upon a high cliff, St. John gazes down upon the mystic city, the archetype of the perfect civilization yet to be. Above the New Jerusalem, in a great sunburst of glory, is the throne of the Ancient One, which is the light of those who dwell in the matchless empire of the spirit. Beyond the recognition of the uninitiated world is an ever-increasing aggregation composed of the spiritual elect. Though they walk the earth as ordinary mortals, they are of a world apart and through their ceaseless efforts the kingdom of God is being slowly but surely established upon earth. These illumined souls are the builders of the New Jerusalem, and their bodies are the living stones in its walls. Lighted by the torch of truth they carry on their work, through their activities the golden age will return to the earth and the power of sin and death will be destroyed. For this reason the declare that virtuous and illumined men, instead of ascending to heaven, will bring heaven down and establish it in the midst of earth itself.

(13) While upon the heights of Mount Sinai, Moses received from Jehovah two tablets bearing the characters of the Decalogue traced by the very finger of Israel's God. These tables were fashioned from the divine sapphire, Schethiyâ, which the Most High, after removing from His own throne, had cast into the Abyss to become the foundation and generator of the worlds. This sacred stone, formed of heavenly dew, was sundered by the breath of God, and upon the two parts were drawn in black fire the figures of the Law. These precious inscriptions, aglow with celestial splendor, were delivered by the Lord on the Sabbath day into the hands of Moses, who was able to read the illumined letters from the reverse side because of the transparency of the great jewel. (See The Secret Doctrine in Israel or The Zohar for details of this legend.)

(21) Moses speaks only of the Tables of God, which were graven through with the Ten Commandments, so that they could see through them into the Paradise. He hung the Vail before his Face (as is to be seen concerning [the People of] Israel) because Man was become earthly, and therefore must put Virgin-like. off the earthly again, and then he must with Joshua (or Jesus) enter into the paradisical promised Land, and not with Moses stay in the Wilderness of this World, where the Vail of this World hangs before him, before the Paradise.

(5) As Odin founded his Mysteries in Scandinavia, and Quexalcoatl in Mexico, so Moses, laboring with the then nomadic people of Israel's twelve tribes, established in the midst of them his secret and symbolic school, which has came to be known as The Tabernacle Mysteries. The Tabernacle of: the Jews was merely a temple patterned after the temples of Egypt, and transportable to meet the needs of that roving disposition which the Israelites were famous. Every part of the Tabernacle and the enclosure which surrounded it was symbolic of some great natural or philosophic truth. To the ignorant it was but a place to which to bring offerings and in which to make sacrifice; to the wise it was a temple of learning, sacred to the Universal Spirit of Wisdom.

(18) The twelve stones, set in four rows on the breast, describe for us the circle of the zodiac, in the four changes of the year. It was otherwise requisite that the law and the prophets should be placed beneath the Lord's head, because in both Testaments mention is made of the righteous. For were we to say that the apostles were at once prophets and righteous, we should say well, "since one and the self-same Holy Spirit works in all." And as the Lord is above the whole world, yea, above the world of thought, so the name engraven on the plate has been regarded to signify, above all rule and authority; and it was inscribed with reference both to the written commandments and the manifestation to sense.

(63) What is this? “Of unknown attributes, which Hemen hath given” is the name of the Funereal Chest. “The Witness of that which is lifted” is the name of the Shrine