FIRST INSTRUCTION
Wishing to form this physical universe from visible matter for the manifestation of his Power, his Justice, and his Glory, the plan the Creator conceived presented itself to his imagination in a triangular form, rather as the plan or design for a picture presents itself to the imagination of a painter before he begins to execute it. This plan being triangular, the work derived from it must bear its imprint, must, like it, be triangular or ternary, and such is indeed the case. [13]
I say that universal material Creation was enacted by the Creator for the manifestation of his Power, his Justice, and his Glory; his Power is indeed manifested by the very act of Creation, which has been produced from nothing by his will alone; his Justice has been manifested by the punishment of the first disobedient spirits, whom he drove from his presence. The Creator, being immutable in his decrees, could not deprive them of the virtues and powers that were innate to them on account of their principle of divine emanation, but he did change their Laws of spiritual action; he formed this material Universe, to which he relegated them, to be a place of privation, in order that they might exercise their action, Power, and bad Will within the Bounds that he has fixed for them; from this manifestation of the Creator's Power and Justice results without contradiction the manifestation of his Glory; this Universe must further serve to manifest his infinite Goodness and mercy, as will be explained in its place.
It is through the senary number that Universal Creation was enacted, as Moses gives us to understand through the six days he speaks of in Genesis, which is only a veil he has employed to express what he wished to say. The Creator is a pure spirit, the eternal simple that cannot be subject to time; moreover, since time began only at the universal Creation of which we are speaking, nothing preceding it could have been temporal. Therefore Moses could not have wished to speak of six days, nor of any Lapse of determined time, but rather of six divine thoughts that in reality enacted the Creation; we learn to know them through the mysterious addition of the three divine faculties the Order teaches: thought, will, and action, or in another sense that we shall explain at the proper time, intention, Word, and operation.
Thought is one, simple, and indivisible, like the Mind that produces it; it is the principle of all free spiritual action, and it consequently holds the first rank among the three spiritual faculties in question; for this reason we reckon it one, in engendering Will, without which it would be null and would produce nothing; in virtue of its binary rank we reckon it two, and, joining to it thought from which it is derived, we reckon it three, which completes [14] the first spiritual ternary. But thought and Will would be nothing and would produce no effect were they not put into act. It is this faculty productive of effect that we term action; this action, on account of its ternary rank, we reckon THREE, and adding to it the preceding ternary of the thought and Will whence it proceeds, it completes the senary number that has enacted universal Creation.
This table of the three potent, innate faculties within the Creator gives us at the same time an idea of the incomprehensible mystery of the Trinity, Thought given to the Father 1, Word or intention attributed to the Son 2, and operation attributed to the Spirit 3. As will follows thought, and as action is the result of thought and will, the Word likewise proceeds from thought, and operation proceeds from thought and Word, the mysterious addition
of these three numbers also yielding the principial senary number of all temporal Creation. In this example you will recognize three faculties that really are distinct, that proceed from one another and that produce different results, but that are brought together in the same single being, unique and indivisible.
You have been taught that man was created in the image and likeness of God. As the Creator is pure spirit, it cannot be in his bodily form that man is his image and likeness, but only in his spiritual faculties, since the lesser spiritual being, or man, is an emanation of the divinity and must participate in the very essence of this divinity and its faculties. We have a quite feeble but sensible image of this in the day-to-day reproduction of temporal beings; but for all that, the being produced, though similar to the being that produced it, and though participating in its nature, is not the producing being itself; in the same way, man comes from God and participates in his essence and faculties without being God himself; without destroying the image and likeness that link the two, the immense difference that must exist between Creator and Creature will always remain. Thus, as man senses within himself the Power or the distinct faculties of Thought, Will, and action, we can say with truth that by these three faculties, which are united in him, he really is the true image of the Creator, just as he bears his likeness through the three potent faculties that are likewise innate to him, namely Thought, Word or intention, and operation, of which we shall speak at another time, and which must not be confused with thought, will, and action.
Having explained the senary number by virtue of which Creation is enacted, I shall now speak of the ternary number, the producer of forms, and of the novenary number we attribute to matter, for this visible and palpable matter that strikes our senses must no longer be confused with the impalpable principles that constitute it; it is the union of these principles put into action that composes bodies.