Collected Works (Vol. II)

218 AMBROSIIT MAGI HORTUS ROSARUM Griphus VIII. Griphus IX, Griphus X. Culpa Urbium Nota Terrae. Nechesh. Our Father: And she answered him: I am in the place of the bridge. Go thou up higher : go thou where these are not. Thereat was commotion and bitter wailing, and the eighth virgin came forth with rent attire and cried the eighth riddle : The sea hath conceived. Our Father raised his head, and there was a great darkness. The ninth virgin, sobbing at his feet, the ninth riddle : By wisdom. | Then our Father touched his crown and they all rejoiced : but laughing he put them aside and he said: Nay! By six hundred and twenty’ do ye exceed ! Whereat they wept, and the tenth virgin came forth, bearing a royal crown having twelve jewels: and she had but one eye, and from that the eyelid had been torn. A prodigious beard had she, and all of white: and they wist he would have smitten her with his sword. But he would not, and she propounded unto him the tenth riddle: Countenance beheld not countenance. So thereto he answered: Our Father, blessed be thou !— Countenance ? Then they brought him the Sword and bade him smite withal: but he said : If countenance behold not countenance, then let the ten be five. And they wist that he but mocked them; for he did bend the sword fivefold and fashioned therefrom a Star, and they all vanished in that light; yet the lotus abode nine-petalled and he cried, ‘‘ Before the wheel, the axle.” So he chained the Sun,? and slew the Bull, and exhausted the Air, breathing it deep into his lungs: then he broke down the ancient tower, that which he had made his home, will he nill he, for so long, and he slew the other Bull, and he broke the arrow in twain; after that he was silent, for they grew again in sixfold order, so that this latter work was double: but unto the first three he laid not his hand, neither for the first time, nor for the second time, nor for the third time. So to them he added that spiritual flame (for they were one, and ten, and fifty, thrice, and again) and that was the Beast, the Living One that is Lifan. Let us be silent, therefore, my brethren, worshipping the holy sixfold Ox?4 that was our Father in his peace that he had won into, and that so hardly. For of this shall no man speak. Now therefore let it be spoken of our Father’s journeyings in the land of Vo® and of his suffering therein, and of the founding of our holy and illustrious Order. Our Father, Brethren, having attained the mature age of three hundred 1 Kether adds up to 620, 2 These are the letters of Ain Soph Aur, the last two of which he destroys, so as to leave only Ain, Not, or Nothing. 3 To (1+10+ 50) 3 x 2 he adds 300, Shin, the flame of the Spirit =6664. 4 666=:6x 111. 111=Aleph, the Ox. 5 His journeys as Initiator.