(1) WE SHALL NOW TELL OF THE HOUSE of the God. The house was also given the same name as the god. The Great Edifice of Tohil was the name of the Temple of Tohil, of those of Cavec. Avilix was the name of the Temple of Avilix, of the people of Nihaib; and Hacavitz was the name of the Temple of the God of the people of Ahau-Quiché. Tzutuhá, which is seen in Cahbahá, is the name of a large edifice in which there was a stone which all the lords of Quiché worshiped and which was also worshiped by all the tribes.

(2) And there are those who fashion ears and eyes of costly material, and consecrate them, dedicating them in the temples to the gods - by this plainly indicating that God sees and hears all things. Besides, the lion is with them the symbol of strength and prowess, as the ox clearly is of the earth itself, and husbandry and food, and the horse of fortitude and confidence; while, on the other hand, the sphinx, of strength combined with intelligence - as it had a body entirely that of a lion, and the face of a man. Similarly to these, to indicate intelligence, and memory, and power, and art, a man is sculptured in the temples. And in what is called among them the Komasiae of the gods, they carry about golden images - two dogs, one hawk, and one ibis; and the four figures of the images they call four letters. For the dogs are symbols of the two hemispheres, which, as it were, go round and keep watch; the hawk, of the sun, for it is fiery and destructive (so they attribute pestilential diseases to the sun); the ibis, of the moon, likening the shady parts to that which is dark in plumage, and the luminous to the light. And some will have it that by the dogs are meant the tropics, which guard and watch the sun's passage to the south and north. The hawk signifies the equinoctial line, which is high and parched with heat, as the ibis the ecliptic. For the ibis seems, above other animals, to have furnished to the Egyptians the first rudiments of the invention of number and measure, as the oblique line did of circles.

(38) "As for that which was within it, the leaves of bark or rind, were engraven and with admirable diligence written, with a point of iron, in fair and neat Latin letters colored. It contained thrice seven leaves, for so were they counted in the top of the leaves, and always every seventh leaf there was painted a virgin and serpent swallowing her up. In the second seventh, a cross where a serpent was crucified; and the last seventh, there were painted deserts, or wildernesse, in the midst whereof ran many fair fountains, from whence there issued out a number of serpents, which ran up and down here and there. Upon the first of the leaves, was written in great capital letters of gold, Abraham the Jew, Prince, Priest, Levite, Astrologer, and Philosopher, to the Nation of the Jews, by the Wrath of God dispersed among the Gauls, sendeth Health. After this it was filled with great execrations and curses (with this word Maranatha, which was often repeated there) against every person that should cast his eyes upon it, if he were not Sacrificer or Scribe.

(11) Because their doctrines were the sure foundation of all knowledge and the first step in the attainment of conscious immortality, the Mysteries were often represented as cubical or pyramidal stones. Conversely, these stones themselves became the emblem of that condition of self-achieved godhood. The unchangeability of the stone made it an appropriate emblem of God--the immovable and unchangeable Source of Existence--and also of the divine sciences--the eternal revelation of Himself to mankind. As the personification of the rational intellect, which is the true foundation of human life, Mercury, or Hermes, was symbolized in a like manner. Square or cylindrical pillars, surmounted by a bearded head of Hermes and called hermæ, were set up in public places. Terminus, a form of Jupiter and god of boundaries and highways, from whose name is derived the modern word terminal, was also symbolized by an upright stone, sometimes ornamented with the head of the god, which was placed at the borders of provinces and the intersections of important roads.

(1) And now we shall tell of their stay and abode there on the mountain, where the four called Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam were together. Their hearts mourned for Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz, whom they had placed among the air-plants and the moss. We shall tell now how they made the sacrifices at the foot of the place where they had carried Tohil, when they arrived in the presence of Tohil and Avilix. They went to see them, to greet them, and also to give them thanks for the arrival of the dawn. They were in the thicket amidst the stones, there in the woods. And only by magic art did they speak when the priests and sacrificers came before Tohil. They did not bring great gifts, only resin, the remains of the gum, called noh, and pericón, they burned before their gods.

(22) [paragraph continues] My House be established. "In the splendor of mental and spiritual illumination, the High Priest stood between the pillars as a mute witness to the perfect virtue of equilibrium--that hypothetical point equidistant from all extremes. He thus personified the divine nature of man in the midst of his compound constitution--the mysterious Pythagorean Monad in the presence of the Duad. On one side towered the stupendous column of the intellect; on the other, the brazen pillar of the flesh. Midway between these two stands the glorified wise man, but he cannot reach this high estate without first suffering upon the cross made by joining these pillars together. The early Jews occasionally represented the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, as the legs of Jehovah, thereby signifying to the modern philosopher that Wisdom and Love, in their most exalted sense, support the whole order of creation--both mundane and supermundane.

(32) The Primitive custom of worshiping the gods in the form of heaps of stones gave place to the practice of erecting phallic pillars, or cones, in their honor. These columns differed widely in size and appearance. Some were of gigantic proportions and were richly ornamented with inscriptions or likenesses of the gods and heroes; others--like the votive offerings of the Babylonians--were but a few inches high, without ornament, and merely bore a brief statement of the purpose for which they had been prepared or a hymn to the god of the temple in which they were placed. These small baked clay cones were identical in their symbolic meaning with the large hermæ set up by the roadside and in other public places. Later the upper end of the column was surmounted by a human head. Often two projections, or tenons, corresponding to shoulders were placed, one on either side, to support the wreaths of flowers adorning the columns. Offerings, usually of food, were placed near the hermæ. Occasionally these columns were used to uphold roofs and were numbered among the art objects ornamenting the villas of wealthy Romans.

(220) 194 The two doors of the horizon are open; its bolts slide. I 94 He has come to thee, N.t (Crown of Lower Egypt); he has come to thee, Nsr.t (Uraeus); 194 he has, come to thee, Great One; he has come to thee, Great-inmagic (Crown of Lower Egypt). 194 He is pure for thee; he is in awe of thee. 195 Mayest thou be satisfied with him; mayest thou be satisfied with his purity; 195 mayest thou be satisfied with his word, which he speaks to thee: 195 "How beautiful is thy face, when it is peaceful, new, young, for a god, father of the gods, has begotten thee!" 195 He has come to thee, Great-in-magic (Crown of Lower Egypt). 195 It is Horus, who has fought in protection of his eye, Great-inmagic.

(60) 6. The Gardens of Semiramis at Babylon--more commonly known as the Hanging Gardens--stood within the palace grounds of Nebuchadnezzar, near the Euphrates River. They rose in a terrace-like pyramid and on the top was a reservoir for the watering of the gardens. They were built about 600 B.C., but the name of the landscape artist has not been preserved. They symbolized the planes of the invisible world, and were consecrated to Venus as the goddess of love and beauty.

(14) And he took all these in the middle of the month ; and he dwelt at the oak of Mamre, which is near Hebron. II. And he built there an altar, and sacrificed all these ; and he poured their blood upon the altar, and divided them in the midst, and laid them over against each other; but the birds divided he not.

(1) AFTER THEY HAD LEFT THERE, THEY CAME here to the town of Gumarcaah, as the Quiché named it when Kings Cotuhá and Gucumatz and all the lords came. There had then begun the fifth generation of men, since the beginning of civilization and of the population, the beginning of the existence of the nation. There, then, they built many houses and at the same time constructed the temple of God; in the center of the high part of the town they located it when they arrived and settled there.

(2) Immediately after, they took up their gods and put them on their backs. In this way they carried Avilix to the ravine called Euabal-Ziván, so named by them, to the large ravine of the forest. now called Pavilix, and there they left him. In this ravine he was left by Balam-Acab. They were left one by one. The first one left was Hacavitz, he was left on a large red pyramid, on the mountain now called Hacavitz. There they founded their town, there in the place where the god called Hacavitz, was. In the same way, Mahucutah left his god, who was the second one hidden by them. Hacavitz was not in the forest, but on a hill cleared of trees, Hacavitz was hidden. Then Balam-Quitzé came, he came there to the large forest; Balam-Quitzé came to hide Tohil at the hill which is today called Patohil. Then they celebrated the hiding of Tohil in the ravine, in his refuge. A great quantity of snakes, jaguars, vipers, and cantiles were in the forest where they were hidden by the priests and sacrificers. Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah. and Iqui-Balam were together; together they awaited the dawn, there on the mountain, called Hacavitz.

(28) In the ritualism of the early Jewish Mysteries the pageantry of creation was enacted, the various actors impersonating the Creative Agencies. The red dirt from which the Adamic man was fashioned may signify fire, particularly since Adam is related to the Yod, or fire flame, which is the first letter of the sacred name Jehovah. In John ii. 20 it is written that the Temple was forty and six years in the building, a statement in which St. Augustine sees a secret and sacred Gematria; for, according to the Greek philosophy of numbers, the numerical value of the name Adam is 46. Adam thus becomes the type of the Temple, for the House of God-like primitive man--was a microcosm or epitome of the universe.

(36) Silver, used as the capitals for the pillars, has its reference to the moon, which was sacred to the Jews and the Egyptians alike. The priests held secret ritualistic ceremonies at the time of the new and the full moon, both of which periods were sacred to Jehovah. Silver, so the ancients taught, was gold with its sun-ray turned inward instead of objectified. While gold symbolized the spiritual soul, silver represented the purified and regenerated human nature of man.

(2) Those very Yagus verses (as bees) brooded over the Yagur-veda sacrifice (the flower); and from it, thus brooded on, sprang as its (nectar) essence, fame, glory of countenance, vigour, strength, and health.

(5) Immediately afterward Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz were turned to stone, together with the deified beings the puma, the jaguar, the snake, the cantil, and the hobgoblin. Their arms became fastened to the trees when the sun, the moon, and the stars appeared. All alike, were changed into stone. Perhaps we should not be living today because of the voracious animals, the puma, the jaguar, the snake, and the cantil, as well as the hobgoblin; perhaps our power would not exist if these first animals had not been turned into stone by the sun. When the sun arose, the hearts of Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam were filled with joy. Great was their joy when it dawned. And there were not many men at that place; only a few were there on the mountain Hacavitz. There dawn came to them, there they burned their incense and danced, turning their gaze toward the East, whence they had come. There were their mountains and their valleys, whence had come Balam-Quitzé, BalamAcab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam, as they were called.

(12) Before the throne of God was the crystal sea representing the Schamayim, or the living waters which are above the heavens. Before the throne also were four creatures--a bull, a lion, an eagle, and a man. These represented the four corners of creation and the multitude of eyes with which they were covered are the stars of the firmament. The twenty-four elders have the same significance as the priests gathered around the statue of Ceres in the Greater Eleusinian Rite and also the Persian Genii, or gods of the hours of the day, who, casting away their crowns, glorify the Holy One. As symbolic of the divisions of time, the elders adore the timeless and enduring Spirit in the midst of them.

(60) But the male is named Behemoth, who occupied with his breast a waste wilderness named †Dûidâin†, on the east of the garden where the elect and righteous dwell, where my grandfather was taken up, the seventh from Adam, the first man whom the Lord of Spirits created.

(135) For his circumference, conception or chief mother, was the Son of God, and there he stood as a king or prince of God.

(20) Man's veneration for trees as symbols of the abstract qualities of wisdom and integrity also led him to designate as trees those individuals who possessed these divine qualities to an apparently superhuman degree. Highly illumined philosophers and priests were therefore often referred to as trees or tree men--for example, the Druids, whose name, according to one interpretation, signifies the men of the oak trees, or the initiates of certain Syrian Mysteries who were called cedars; in fact it is far more credible and probable that the famous cedars of Lebanon, cut down for the building of King Solomon's Temple, were really illumined, initiated sages. The mystic knows that the true supports of God's Glorious House were not the logs subject to decay but the immortal and imperishable intellects of the tree hierophants.