Part 59 (1/2)

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 const.i.tute 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 ?e?? (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 Phnician principles, the eight G.o.ds of Xenocrates, the eight angles of the cubic stone.

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

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

The novary, or triple ternary. If the number three was celebrated among the ancient sages, that of three times three had no less celebrity; because, according to them, each of the three elements which const.i.tute our bodies is ternary: the water containing earth and fire; the earth containing igneous and aqueous particles; and the fire being tempered by globules of water and terrestrial corpuscles which serve to feed it. No one of the three elements being entirely separated from the others, all material beings composed of these three elements, whereof each is triple, may be designated by the figurative number of three times three, which has become the symbol of all formations of bodies. Hence the name of ninth envelope, given to matter. Every material extension, every circular line, has for representative sign the number nine, among the Pythagoreans; who had observed the property which this number possesses, of reproducing itself incessantly and entire, in every multiplication; thus offering to the mind a very striking emblem of matter which is incessantly composed before our eyes, after having undergone a thousand decompositions.

The number nine was consecrated to the Spheres and the Muses. It is the sign of every circ.u.mference; because a circle of 360 degrees is equal to 9, that is to say, 3+6+0=9. Nevertheless, the ancients regarded this number with a sort of terror: they considered it a bad presage; as the symbol of versatility, of change, and the emblem of the frailty of human affairs. Wherefore they avoided all numbers where nine appears, and chiefly 81, the product of 9 multiplied by itself, and the addition whereof, 8+1, again presents the number 9.

As the figure of the number 6 was the symbol of the terrestrial globe, animated by a divine spirit, the figure of the number 9 symbolized the earth, under the influence of the Evil Principle; and thence the terror it inspired. Nevertheless, according to the Kabalists, the figure 9 symbolizes the generative egg, or the image of a little globular being, from whose lower side seems to flow its spirit of life.

The E_n_nead, signifying an aggregate of 9 things or persons, is the first square of unequal numbers.

Every one is aware of the singular properties of the number 9, which, multiplied by itself or any other number whatever, gives a result whose final sum is always 9, or always divisible by 9.

Nine, multiplied by each of the ordinary numbers, produces an arithmetical progression, each member whereof, composed of two figures, presents a remarkable fact; for example:

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9..10 9..18..27..36..45..54..63..72..81..90

The first line of figures gives the regular series, from 1 to 10.

The second reproduces this line doubly; first ascending, from the first figure of 18, and then returning from the second figure of 81.

It follows, from the curious fact, that the half of the numbers which compose this progression represents, in inverse order, the figures of the second half:

9...18..27..36..45 = 135 = 9.._and_ 1 + 3 + 5 = 45 = 9 90..81..72..63..54 = 360 = 9.

-- -- -- -- -- --- -- 99 99 99 99 99 495 = 18 = 9.

So 9 = 81 ...81 = 6561 = 19 = 9 ...9x2 = 18 ...18 = 324 = 9.

9x3=27 ...27 = 729 = 18 = 9. 9x4 = 36 ...36 = 1296 = 18 = 9.

_And so with every multiple of_ 9--_say_ 45, 54, 63, 72, etc.

Thus 9x8 = 72 ...72 = 5184 = 18 = 9.

And further: