THE PRINCIPLE OF HOPE

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Gnosis precisely characterizes the exodus ideology in which Christian architecture, culminating in the Gothic, arose. But in fact, if freemasonry is mentioned here all the
same, this occurs despite its silly occult historical misrepresentation for the sake of its recollection, not improbable in places, of ancient architectural metaphors. What
matters is the revelation of actual architectural symbols there and then, the understanding of ancient architecture from the standpoint of goal­images of its actual
construction which were undoubtedly effective. And however unimportant the invention of a pedigree by the freemasons may be as such, what still remains important is
the fact that it could not have occurred either if tradition had not continued to maintain, both stubbornly and significantly, the contact of the masons' guilds with a certain
spatial mythology, but also spatial utopia. There is an ancient consecration of the house, and one intended objectively, one in which the traditional precision, indeed
pedantry in laying out a magical point of contact cannot be denied. The cheapened allegory of freemasonry and the way in which it was possible probably only isolated
the element in sacred architecture which helped to form and overformed at all times: mathesis of a magic space, ‘the pattern of the tabernacle’ (Exodus 25, 9). As a
very old superstructure, very slowly revolutionizing itself, standardly supplying various foundations, though with changing goal­relations of the standard. Structures like
the Pantheon, the Babylonian stepped pyramid, the Hagia Sophia, the Cheops pyramid, and Strasbourg cathedral by no means arose outside the ideology of a strict
world of faith and hope, one determining the work itself in an imitative fashion. In the case of the Babylonian stepped pyramid the astral­mythical character has long
been established, in the case of the Gothic cathedral its architectural utopia must first be gauged from the logos­mythical character. But everywhere, in the entire sacred
masons' guild, the artistic aspiration is an aspiration to correspond, an actually constructed congruence with the utopianized space imagined as most perfect in each
case. And it can be said that as a stone dance­movement in keeping with the dimensions of this space, or as a sheer built dancing­mask of this kind, sacred architecture
was ultimately born. Indeed, even the Greek edifice was ultimately born as such an imitatio, despite its never trancendent­sacred character. And hence despite its
body­sculpture sustained in all temple proportions, whose divina proportio, as the Renaissance said later, stands out in such a nobly animated way from Egyptian
crystal, in such a quietly harmonious way from Gothic vitality. There is imitatio even in this well­balanced level­headedness, this moderate coastal shipping, which does
not exaggerate to death, around the natural