Five cornerstones

I recently received another batch of emails from a correspondent who keeps encountering repetitions of the number 5 (55, 555, etc.). This made me think of the Five Pillars of Islam, one of which is praying five times a day. Looking this up led to the discovery that, despite the universal translation pillars, the literal meaning of the first word in the expression arkān al-Islām is "corners" or "cornerstones." Well, one can see why the translation has been fudged! A building can be supported by any number of pillars, but cornerstones by their very nature come in sets of four, not five. What kind of structure would have five cornerstones? A pentagonal one -- or a pyramid.

I decided the pyramid was the best way of conceptualizing the Five Cornerstones of Islam: four on the ground, with the fifth -- or, rather, the first, "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet" -- at the apex. I wondered, though, if the Benben stone at the top of a pyramid could really properly be called a cornerstone.

Since I've been on a Tarot kick recently (oh, there's a new post up about the Visconti-Sforza Emperor cards), I also of course noticed the coincidental similarity of arkān, "cornerstones," to the Tarot term arcana, "secrets, mysteries." I realized that the Tarot also has a five-fold structure, with the four Minor Arcana suits (derived from cards used by the Muslim Mamluks) corresponding to the four lower cornerstones of the pyramid, and the Major Arcana to to the capstone.

I have been slowly reading Fundamental Symbols, a collection of René Guénon essays translated into English. Just a day after looking up the Five Pillars of Islam and having the thoughts described above, I turned the page in this book and found that the next essay was called "The Cornerstone." Guénon takes the text "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner" (Ps. 118:22, Matt. 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Acts 4:11, 1 Pet. 2:7) and notes how strange the usual interpretation of it is. If we take "cornerstone" in its usual sense, as one of the four stones placed at the corners of the foundation, then there is no one unique "head of the corner" corresponding to Christ. Furthermore, the foundational cornerstones are the very first stones laid in the construction process, so how could any of them first be rejected by the builders only later to be incorporated into the building after all? Guénon makes a very strong case that Christ is actually being compared to the keystone, placed at the apex ("corner") of a domed building. This is initially rejected by the builders because it is not square in shape and is thus not suitable for use in the rectilinear lower part of the building. This very shape which caused it to be rejected at first, though, makes it uniquely suitable for use as a capstone. The parallel to my own thoughts about the Shahada as the capstone of Islam is obvious.

As I read further in this essay (I still haven't finished it), I was amazed to find this additional parallel to my thoughts of the day before:

We find other interesting information in the meanings of the Arabic word rukn, 'angle' or 'corner'. This word, because it designates the extremities of a thing, that is, its most remote and hence most hidden parts (recondita and abscondita as one might say in Latin), sometimes takes a sense of 'secret' or of 'mystery'; and in this respect, its plural, arkān, is comparable to the Latin arcanum which likewise has this same sense, and which it strikingly resembles; moreover, in the language of the Hermeticists at least, the use of the term 'arcane' was certainly influenced by the Arabic word in question.

Do the five arkān of Islam, then, correspond to the arcana of the Tarot? Most of the mappings are surprisingly straightforward. I have already said that the Major Arcana correspond to the capstone and thus to the Shahada. Of the four suits of the Minor Arcana, Coins obviously maps to almsgiving, Cups to fasting, and Wands (the pilgrim's staff) to the hajj. That leaves Swords and prayer, which are not obviously related. However, I remembered that earlier in the Guénon book I have been reading, there was an essay on "The Sword of Islam," so I went back and skimmed that. Guénon mentions that the khatīb -- the person who delivers a sermon during Friday prayers -- traditionally holds a sword in his hands. "The sword of the khatīb," he writes, "symbolizes  above all the power of the word, as should be obvious to anyone."

Dolphin

Our English word dolphin comes from the Latin delphinus. This in turn comes from Greek delphis (genitive delphinos) and ultimately from delphus, "womb," presumably because the dolphin was thought of as the "fish with a womb." Delphus, "womb," is also the source of adelphos, "brother or sister" (literally "from one womb"), whence for example Philadelphia, "city of brotherly love."

"Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn," writes Isaiah, "and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged." Then, explaining his metaphor, he adds, "Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you" (Isa. 51:1-2). Thus is the womb from which one is born assimilated to a pit from which one is dug. The Old English word for "to dig" was delfan (whence our modern delve), and the past participle (as would be used to translate Isaiah) was dolfen.

Less than a century after his time, Adolf Hitler is already well on his way to becoming a mythical or legendary figure. In the future, when the details of 20th-century history have been lost in the mists of time, philologists will assume that his name has a similar derivation to that of dolphin, with Adolphus coming from Adelphos, and they will consider him to be essentially the same figure as his English counterpart, Big Brother.

In fact, though, the true etymology of Adolf is not a-dolf but ad-olf -- from Athalwolf, "noble wolf." Isn't it a curious coincidence, though, that Germanic names ending in -olf always seem to end in -dolf, even though dolf is not a morpheme? Besides Adolph, there are also Rudolph ("fame wolf," but sure to be misinterpreted by future etymologists as Rudelaph, "red deer"), Bardolph ("axe wolf"), and Randolph ("shield wolf"). Randolph is especially noteworthy, as it derives from Old Norse Rannulfr, with the d added later for no apparent reason other than some sort of magnetic attraction between the wolf and the dolphin.

Apollo was closely associated with the wolf and was given the epithet Lyceus, "wolf-like." He also had a close connection with the dolphin, though, and it is from this animal that Delphi presumably takes its name. Apollo himself once took dolphin form to guide Cretan sailors to Delphi, and it was after singing a hymn to Apollo that Arion was rescued by dolphins.

René Guénon, in his essay on the meaning of the Arabic letter nun, writes that the whale plays a womb-like role in the story of Jonah and notes the relevance of the etymological link between dolphin and the womb. I have alredy mentioned (here) that the "big bad wolf" plays a similar role in the story of Little Red Riding Hood. And just as Jonah must have been swallowed by a whale, a dolphin being much too small, so I have conjectured that the "big bad wolf" of the fairy tale was actually a bear. (Bear, by coincidence, is also the verb associated with the womb.)

Coming back to -dolf names, there is also the Italian Gandolfo -- of Germanic origin and meaning "spell wolf," but suggesting Tolkien's Gandalf, in which the latter element means not "wolf" but "elf." Do elves, like wolves, have a dolphin connection? It is interesting to note that Tolkien's orcs came from elves and represented a monstrous distortion of elf-nature. And what do we call the most "monstrous" member of the dolphin family, scarcely recognizable as a dolphin at all? Orca.

Gee, I think Guénon underestimates "modern" languages

I've been reading some René Guénon essays, including one on the meaning of the Masonic letter G. He begins by dismissing the idea that the Roman letterform itself could have any special meaning, since unlike Hebrew and Greek, "modern languages" (like Latin!) are devoid of sacred significance.

He then proceeds to analyze G only as a stand-in for other letters from other languages -- "sacred" ones, unlike Latin, English, and his own native French. For example, a newly initiated Mason is at first told that G stands for geometry. Geometry is from the Greek γεωμετρία, and so the G represents Γ -- the Masonic square!

Well, why didn't those learned Masons, who apparently knew enough Greek to know that G = Γ = a square, just use a gamma in their symbol? And why would that symbol consist of a square, a compass, and in the center -- another representation of the square? You'd think someone whose own name begins with la lettre maçonnique would have tried a little harder than that.

Well, let's take a look at the Masonic G -- not mentally substituting some other letter, but seeing it as itself. 

Isn't it obvious? Of what does the letter G consist but a right angle (such as is made with a square) combined with an arc (such as one uses a compass to draw)? It's not just a redundant second square in a symbol which already explicitly includes a square; it symbolizes the unity of the square and the compass, with all that implies (squaring the circle, heaven and earth, etc.) Furthermore, the angles of the square and compass suggest a square (the polygon) and an equilateral triangle, respectively. The combination of the two is 4 + 3 = 7, and G (unlike gamma) is the 7th letter of the alphabet.

Guénon also connects G with the Hebrew letter yodh -- and this is where he really should have started to question his assumption that certain "sacred languages" were divinely inspired whereas all the rest, I s'pect they jes' growed. G corresponds to yodh because it is the initial letter of God, just as yodh is the initial letter of the Tetragrammaton -- and, he notes, the word God itself strongly suggests yodh.

But if God resembles Yodh -- God's initial -- is that just a meaningless coincidence, or is it evidence that "modern" languages do have sacred significance? Éliphas Lévi made much of the fact that the Bacchic exclamation Io! Evoe! resembles a spelled-out Tetragrammaton, Yodh He-vau-he -- which I guess is kosher because Greek is a certified "sacred language." When similar parallels are found in "modern" languages (among which Latin is for some reason included), they are dismissed. The similarity of Jove to Jehovah is just a coincidence, as is that of God to Yodh.

Besides its resemblance to Yodh, God also represents the Tetragrammaton itself by way of gematria. In Hebrew numerals, yodh he vau he = 10 + 5 + 6 + 5 = 26. In English ordinal gematria, God = 7 + 15 + 4 = 26. This should make 26 the most sacred of numbers -- and guess which language's alphabet is based on that number? It ain't Hebrew or Greek.

Guénon should have known all this. I mean, in interpreting a symbol consisting of a square, a compass, and a letter representing geometry, how could he possibly have overlooked the importance of the language of the Angles?