except perhaps by a few philosophers and scholars who imbibed it
in a modified form from original sources in the far East.

After the establishment of the Trinity, the creative energy,
which had formerly been represented by a mother and child, came
to be figured by the mother, father, and the life derived
therefrom. Sometimes the Trinity took the form of the two
creative forces, female and male, and the Great Mother.

Whenever the two creative principles were considered separately,
there always appeared stationed over or above them, as their
Creator, an 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