Chapter XVII. Mysteries of the Ancients. The Ark of Noah

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CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH

MYSTERIES OF THE ANCIENTS

THE ARK OF NOAH

NOTE to Plate 'Mysterium': The explanation of this engraving will be found at a previous page. The ancient volume from which it is taken is very rare, and bears the following title:

Antiquitatum ludaicarum LIBRI IX:

In qüis, præter Ivdæe, Hierosolymorum, et Templi Salomonis accuratam delineationem, præcipui Sacri ac profani gentis Titus describuntur (auctore Benedicto Aria Montano Hispalensi). Adiectis formis æneis. Lvgdani Batavorum. Ex officina Planteniana apud Franciscum Raphelengium--1595.

The Ark of Noah--the medium of escape from the Deluge, and the mythic means of the perpetuation of the Human Family (afterwards Race). The Post-Diluvian 'Signs of the Zodiac' are here correctly designated as in number 'Twelve'. Let the judicious Reader remark that twelve times thirty are Three-Hundred-and-Sixty, which is not the number of the degrees of this symbolical plan. There are twelve divisions in this ark. The centre space is that through which the 'Dove', or 'Raven', escaped out into the 'open' in search of its new home, or into the restored world when the waters 'went down' or 'disappeared'. Each of the twelve spaces in the accompanying plan contains twenty-five degrees, which make an aggregate of three hundred degrees. The mythical figure contained

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in the Ark is presumably that of Noah. It is also evidently the symbolical figure of the 'Saviour', and typically only that of Noah; for the hands are 'crossed', and the feet and hands bear the marks of the 'Incision'--the 'Nails of the Crucifixion (or Passion)'. Twenty-five, the number of the degrees in each space or sign of this 'Noachic Ark', Arca, or Chest (Gigantic), are the number of the Knights of the Garter; with the reserved 'twenty-sixth', or Kingly or Sovereign Seat. In this respect the ark may be regarded as the grand mythic 'Idea' of the 'Round Table'; as that was the production of the central mythic 'Idea' of the 'Sangreal', or 'Sangreil'--Refer to the Engravings, and to the Rosicrucian comment throughout both parts. See pages generally, and the whole of the Chapters referring to the 'origin' of the Order of the 'Garter'.