Tetraktys
(Gr.)
Or the Tetrad. The sacred “Four” by which the Pythagoreans swore, this being their most binding oath. It has a very mystic and varied signification, being the same as the Tetragrammaton. First of all it is Unity, or the “ One” under four different aspects; then it is the fundamental number Four, the Tetrad containing the Decad, or Ten, the number of perfection; finally it signifies the primeval Triad (or Triangle) merged in the divine Monad. Kircher, the learned Kabbalist. Jesuit, in his Œdipus ‐Ægvpticus (II p. 267), gives the Ineffable Name IHVH — one of the Kabbalistic formulæ of the 72 names — arranged in the shape of the Pythagorean Tetrad. Mr. I. Myer gives it in this wise: . . . . . . . . . . . y = The Ineffable hy = Name thus w hy = hw hy = . He also shows that “the sacred Tetrad of the Pythagoreans appears to have been known to the ancient Chinese”. As explained in Isis Unveiled (I, xvi.): The mystic Decad, the resultant of the Tetraktys, or the 1+2+3+4=10, is a way of expressing this idea. The One is the impersonal principle ‘God’; the Two, matter; the Three, combining Monad and Duad and partaking of the nature of both, is the phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of perfection, expresses the emptiness of all; and the Decad, or sum of all, involves the entire Kosmos. (TG).
See also: Tetragrammaton
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- Quotes: H. P. Blavatsky
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Shortly: Or the Tetrad. The sacred “Four” by which the Pythagoreans swore, this being their most binding ...