Besides the marriage quaternio, the Gnostics also used the quaternity of the rivers of Paradise as a means of organizing their numerous symbols. There are thus two (compensatory) attempts, in the symbols we have listed, to organize the apparently disconnected images. This accords with our experience of the series of pictures produced during active imagination and in chaotic psychic states. In both cases quaternity symbols appear from time to time. They signify stabalization though order as opposed to the instability caused by chaos, and have a compensatory meaning.
the snake in not just a nefarious, chthonic being; it is also, as we have already mentioned, a symbol of wisdom, and hence of light, goodness, and healing. Just as the serpent forms the lower opposite of man, so the lapis complements the serpent. Here we enter a later developmental stage of symbolism, the alchemical stage, whose central idea is the lapis just as the serpent forms the lower opposite of man, so the lapis complements the serpent. Indeed, this serpent dwells even in the interior of the earth and is the eanor oreroer
i and e finds r for as e where there is r there is m for e as i there is i, m in e as i as i
find aie oea i and 1 2 3 fgh
ecinomal f
means what and when was the hallic of the edoces that lies hidden in the stone.
We shall now try to condense the argument of the previous chapter and represent it graphically. Vertically arranged, our schema looks like this:
(hontha)
(thoth thouth ont in)
(scocial)
(enodhoi)
)) euar vo - v1 ((es-1 qv-
thoth luon meem ))
