The symbolism of the alphabet

for many centuries, these views were accepted by men who identified as Christians. For now, we are not concerned with whether Gnostic beliefs were absurd, but rather with the marks they and their predecessors left on symbolism.

Marcus the Gnostic claimed that the Tetrad A divine four-fold entity in Gnostic cosmology, while explaining the mysteries to him, said: "I wish to show you Aletheia Truth herself; for I have brought her down from the heavenly dwellings so that you may see her without a veil and understand her beauty. I want you to hear her speak and admire her wisdom. Look at her head, which is Alpha and Omega; her neck, Beta and Psi; her shoulders and hands, Gamma and Chi; her breast, Delta and Phi; her diaphragm, Epsilon and Upsilon; her back, Zeta and Tau; her belly, Eta and Sigma; her thighs, Theta and Rho; her knees, Iota and Pi; her legs, Kappa and Omicron; her ankles, Lambda and Xi; and her feet, Mu and Nu."

To this description, Irenaeus adds: "Such is the body of Truth, such is the shape of the element, and such is the character of the letter; and he calls this element Anthropos Man." It is clear that this "Figure of Truth" is constructed by pairing the Greek letters from each end of the alphabet, starting with A and Ω at the head and moving down to M and N at the feet. The remaining letters form a double column, read first downward and then upward.

It is interesting to note that the floor plan of a cathedral is traditionally designed to resemble a man with his arms extended in the shape of a Roman Cross. The head (caput) is in the east—which is why the governing body of a cathedral is called the Chapter—and the body extends through the transept and nave to the feet, represented by the twin towers in the west. The baptismal font is located here at the feet. It is possible that the letters Mu and Nu coinciding with this location explain the puzzling answer to the question in the English Church Catechism: "What is your name?" The "N. or M." given as the answer in the text may refer to Nun and Mem, the original forms of Nu and Mu. In the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets, these mean "Fish" and "Water" respectively; one is masculine and the other feminine, symbolizing the gender of the person being baptized the neophyte.

The connection between letters and the interior of a church was demonstrated in the "Ceremony of the Alphabet," which was part of the consecration of the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Westminster in 1910. On the floor of the nave, two broad white lines were drawn in the shape of a giant X. Small piles of ashes were placed every six feet along these lines. Next to each pile on one line was a card with a Greek letter, and on the other line, the corresponding Latin letter. Starting from the left corner at the main entrance, the Archbishop used his pastoral staff to trace the Greek alphabet in the ashes of one line, and then