Bible, in black
letter, printed at Lyons, in 1522. The frontispiece is a coarsely executed
wood cut, divided into six compartments, and representing the six days of
the creation. The Father is, in each compartment, pictured as an aged man
engaged in his creative task.

[138] Christian Iconography, Millington's trans., vol. i. p. 59.

[139] The triangle, or delta, is the symbol of Deity for this reason. In
geometry a single line cannot represent a perfect figure; neither can two
lines; three lines, however, constitute the triangle or first perfect and
demonstrable figure. Hence this figure symbolizes the Eternal God,
infinitely perfect in his nature. But the triangle properly refers to God
only in his quality as an Eternal Being, its three sides representing the
Past, the Present, and the Future. Some Christian symbologists have made
the three sides represent the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but they
evidently thereby destroy the divine unity, making a trinity of Gods in
the unity of a Godhead. The Gnostic trinity of Manes consisted of one God
and two principles, one of good and the other of evil. The Indian trinity,
symbolized also by the triangle, consisted of Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu,
the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, represented by Earth, Water, and
Air. This symbolism of the Eternal God by the triangle is the reason why a
trinitarian scheme has been so prevalent in all religions--the three sides
naturally suggesting the three divisions of the Godhead. But in the Pagan
and Oriental religions this trinity was nothing else but a tritheism.

[140] Noachidae, or Noachites, the descendants of Noah. This patriarch
having alone preserved the true name and worship of God amid a race of
impious idolaters, the Freemasons claim to be his descendants, because
they preserve that pure religion which distinguished this second father of
the human race from the rest of the world. (See the author's _Lexicon of
Freemasonry_.) The Tyrian workmen at the temple of Solomon were the
descendants of that other division of the race who fell off, at Shinar,
from the true worship, and repudiated the principles of Noah. The Tyrians,
however, like many other ancient mystics, had recovered some portion of
the lost light, and the complete repossession was finally achieved by
their union with the Jewish masons, who were Noachidae.

[141] "A mythis omnis priscorum hominum tum historia tum philosophia
procedit."--_Ad Apollod. Athen. Biblioth. n