RUINS OF SAIS. 311 
by early writers of the Church, as having ^"^p. 
caused such a stir among Christians and Pagans^ '- y ' .-' 
at the destruction of the Heathen temples in 
Alexandria'^ From the time of Ruffinus, of 
Socrates, and of Sozomen, this type has occa- 
sionally exercised the ingenuity and the eru- 
dition of the most learned scholars \ It is seen 
suspended from a hook, which is fastened by 
(2) See Chap. IV. p. 150, of this volume. 
(3) Jamhlichus, in an earlier period, had endeavoured to explain it. 
Among the moderns, Kircher, Jablonski, our countryman Dr. Shaw, 
De Pauw, and others, have all written upon this subject. It is the 
jewel of X.\i^ Royal Arch among Freemasons, and is expressed in this 
manner, UJ a sign consisting of three Tatts joined by their feet at 
right angles ; thus completing the monogram of Thoth, or Tamit, the 
symbolical and mystic name of hidden wisdom, and of the Supreme 
Being, among the antient Egyptians ; the ©EOS of the Greeks. 
" Numen illud," says Jallonski, ( Punth. ^gypt. torn. III. p. 170. 
Franco/. 17.'>2.) " erat ipse Phthns, Vulcanus /Egyptiorum, Spiritus 
" infinitus, rerum omnium creator et conservator, ipsorumque 
" Deorum pater ac princeps." It is amusing to trace the various 
modifications by which this type of hidden wisdom is expressed. Some- 
times, as the sun in the lower hemisphere, f See Jablonski, torn. I. p. 23a), 
it appears in hieroglyphic writing under this sign, \;^>j-^. At other 
times it weis written 0» ^^^ hence we see clearly what is meant by 
an antient patera with a knob in the bottom of it. Its other principal 
varieties were, M^ -^ ~P" —[— Hr-I j— '-!• Upon Greek me<lals 
we find the last monogram written J-j . However, as all the sacred 
mysteries seem to owe their origin to those sources whence the 
human race derived the means of subsistence, the following remarks 
of the Bishop of Clogher may, with reference to an instrument in 
agriculture, simply explain all that was intended by the earliest 
representations 
