The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) · 314 of 530
Qabbalistic Keys to the Creation of Manh
Bede the Venerable, declared that Noah in all things typified Christ as Noah alone of his generation was just, so Christ alone was without sin.
With Christ there was a sevenfold spirit of grace: with Noah seven righteous Persons.
Noah by water and wood saved his own family Christ by baptism and the cross saves Christians.
The ark was built of wood that did not decay.
the church is composed of men who will live forever, for this ark means the church which floats upon the waves of the world.
The diagram shown above is also reproduced in The Rosicrucians, by Hargrave Jennings.
This author adds to the original diagram appearing in Antiquitatum Judaicarum Libri IX the signs of the zodiac, placing Aries at the head and continuing in sequential order to Leo, which occupies the fifth cross section of the ark.
Jennings assigns the panel containing the door to the undivided constellation of Virgo-Libra-Scorpio (which is continued into the first subdivision of the second section) and the remaining four cress sections to the constellations of Sagittarius to Pisces inclusive.
A study of the plate discloses the ark to be divided into eleven main sections, and along the base and roof of each section are shown three subdivisions, thus making in all the sacred number 33.
Occupying the position corresponding to the generative system of the human body will also be noted the cross upon the door of the central section.
Two openings are shown in the ark: one--the main door representing the orifice through which the animal lives descend into physical existence; the other a small window proximate to the crown of the head through which the spirit gains liberty according to the ancient rites.
"When the androgenic Scorpio-Virgo was separated and the Balance or Harmony made from Scorpio, and placed between Scorpio, i.e., male, and Virgo, i.e., female, then appeared the 32 constellations or signs, as we now have them.
The ark is three stories high (perhaps to symbolize Heaven, Man, Earth).
In the figure of the Man, notice the parting of the hair in the middle of the forehead and the arrangement of the beard, whiskers, moustache and the hair, on the back of the neck and shoulders." (See The Qabbalah by Isaac Myer.) *** In the Mysteries, Adam is accredited with having the peculiar power of spiritual generation.
Instead of reproducing his kind by the physical generative processes, he caused to issue from himself--or, more correctly, to be reflected upon substance--a shadow of himself.
This shadow he then ensouled and it became a living creature.
These shadows, however, remain only as long as the original figure of which they are the reflections endures, for with the removal of the original the host of likenesses vanish with it.
Herein is the key to the allegorical creation of Eve out of the side of Adam; for Adam, representative of the idea or pattern, is reflected into the material universe as a multitude of ensouled images which collectively are designated Eve .
According to another theory, the division of the sexes took place in the archetypal sphere; hence the shadows in the lower world were divided into two classes consistent with the orders established in the Archetype.
In the apparently incomprehensible attraction of one sex for the other Plato recognized a cosmic urge toward reunion of the severed halves of this archetypal Being.
Exactly what is to be inferred by the division of the sexes as symbolically described in Genesis is a much-debated question.
That man was primarily androgynous is quite universally conceded and it is a reasonable presumption that he will ultimately regain this bisexual state.
As to the manner in which this will be accomplished two opinions are advanced.
Themes
◆Anthropomorphismtheology
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The text describes the 'Man' figure with specific physical features like hair parting and beard arrangement to symbolize cosmic structure.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage extensively links the ark's sections to constellations, the Man's body to generative systems, and Noah/Christ to Christ/Noah typologically.