Saturday, March 20, 2010

The Legend Of The Stone Of Foundation


Enoch, under the inspiration of the Most High, and in obedience to the instructions which he had received in a vision, built a temple under ground on Mount Moriah, and dedicated it to God. His son, Methuselah, constructed the building, although he was not acquainted with his father's motives for the erection. This temple consisted of nine vaults, situated perpendicularly beneath each other, and communicating by apertures left in each vault. Enoch then caused a triangular plate of gold to be made, each side of which was a cubit long; he enriched it with the most precious stones, and encrusted the plate upon a stone of agate of the same form. On the plate he engraved the true name of God, or the tetragrammaton, and placing it on a cubical stone, known thereafter as the Stone of Foundation, he deposited the whole within the lowest arc. When this subterranean building was completed, he made a door of stone, and attaching to it a ring of iron, by which it might be occasionally raised, he placed it over the opening of the uppermost arch, and so covered it that the aperture could not be discovered. Enoch himself was not permitted to enter it but once a year, and after the days of Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech, and the destruction of the world by the deluge, all knowledge of the vault or subterranean temple, and of the Stone of Foundation, with the sacred and ineffable name inscribed upon it, was lost for ages to the world.

5 comments:

  1. The four letters of the tetragrammaton is said to be the totality of the divine unity on earth and the earth and the quaternity of creating one.

    It is only in relation to the four cardinal meaning. The man himself is traditionally symbolized as a pentagram (arms, legs and head). There is a male and a female symbol, depending on whether it shows one prong up or down.

    Since god according to the bible, is both male and female, he would have to be symbolized by a hexagram, which is the symbol for the union of male and female.

    Isn't it possible that the four consonant symbolize the Sense of four words than a name?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your head, every human head, is a black box.

    In this black box there is an area, which you never speak about. In this area you can find all the best of you and all the badest of you. And it is amazing for how many people a place outdoor can become a symbol of their adyton within.

    Sometimes people try to lure away the gods of other people, to convince the gods of other people to defect. For example the Romans succeeded in luring away Kastor and Pollux adored by the Latins, before the battle between Romans and Latins, and the Romans won the battle and built a temple for K&P in the forum. This luring away was called exhortatio.

    There are some places on the planet, where the density of sacred symbolization has become extremely high, like Benares, Mecca, Bethlehem... Jerusalem is probably the place where the scrap is the most intense all over the world.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, that's right.

    However, I believe that holy books tell stories on at least three levels. The individual stories tell individual small and large truths about man.

    Then they tell stories that have happened, but it seems that the historical background was distorted.

    And on the third level a story is told, which could be revealed by the original meaning of symbols. The texts were written down many centuries later. Previously they were only told verbally. In this way the details were varied. The basic story using the symbols could have been unchanged.

    I suppose that even the basic story in all world religions is the same. Unfortunately I had not the time to concern myself more with this topic yet.

    ReplyDelete
  4. “Enoch under the inspiration of the Most High”

    I wonder about the kind of devine orders to humans. The construction of a temple of stone isn´t that reasonable, but anyway, this task is understandable to Enoch and his contemporaries.

    I wonder that in those biblical times a more complicate and incomprehensible work has never been requested by the Most High. If the Most High were the most above and most absolute, and not only human´s personal image of God, it (he/she) would be able to order something more sophisticated than to build a temple of stone or an ark of wood. It would be able and it would really do this, because the Most High should be equipped with everything, even with humor! So, if this Most High really is a Mostly Most Top High, it would have placed an order out of the humor box, perhaps like this one for example: “Enoch, build a computer! You will find the instruction in your pocket, and Enoch: Don´t forget the escape-key.”

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sorry, not exhortatio, but exoratio.

    ReplyDelete