indivisible unity. This Creator was the "Beyond," the "most High
God"--Om or Aleim. It was the Mother of the Gods in whom were contained
all the elements of the Deity. Among the representations of the god-idea
which are to be observed on the monuments and in the temples of Egypt
appear triads, each of which is composed of a woman stationed between
a male figure and that of a child. She is depicted as the Light of the
sun, or Wisdom, while the male is manifested as the Heat of the orb
of day. She is crowned and always bears the male symbol of life--the
crux-ansata.

Later, it is observed that the worship of Light has in a measure given
place to the adoration of Heat, in other words Light is no longer
adored as essence of the Deity, Heat or Passion having become the most
important element in creative power.

After the ancient worship of the Virgin and Child had become somewhat
changed or modified so as to better accommodate itself to the growing
importance of the male, the most exalted conception of the Deity in
Egypt seems to have been that of a trinity composed of Mout the Mother,
Ammon the Father, and Chons the Infant Life derived from the other two.
Mout is identical with Neith, but she has become the wife as well as the
mother of Ammon. Directly below this conception of the Deity is a triad
representing less exalted attributes, or lower degrees of wisdom, under
the appellations of Sate, Kneph, and the child Anouk; and thus downward,
through the varying spheres of celestial light and life involved in
their theogony are observed the divine creative energies represented
under the figures of Mother, Father, and the Life proceeding therefrom,
until, finally, when the earth is reached, Isis, Osiris, and Horus
appear as the representation of the creative forces in human beings, and
therefore as the embodiment of the divine in the human.

The Deity invoked in all the earlier inscriptions is a triad, and we are
assured that in Babylonia, where Beltis is associated with Belus, "no
god appears without a goddess."

The supreme Deity of Assyria was Asshur, who was worshipped sometimes
as female, sometimes as male. This God doubtless represents the dual or
triple creative principle observed in all the earlier forms of worship.
Asshur had no distinct temple, but as her position was at the head of
the Pantheon, all the shrines throughout Assyria were supposed to have
been open to her worship.

According to Bunsen, in the Sidoni