There are indications that at some time during the development of Gothic architecture in France, this sex-distinction became a recognized principle, moulding and modifying the design of a cathedral in much the same way that sex modifies bodily structure.  The masonic guilds of the Middle Ages were custodians of the esoteric—­which is the theosophic—­side of the Christian faith, and every student of esotericism knows how fundamental and how far-reaching is this idea of sex.

[Illustration 13:  CAPITAL FROM THE TOWER OF THE WINDS, ATHENS; CORINTHIAN CAP FROM HADRIAN BUILDINGS, ATHENS; ROSETTE FROM TEMPLE OF MARS, ROME; CAULICULUS OF CORINTHIAN CAP; BULUSTER BY SAN GALLO]

[Illustration 14:  EGG AND TONGUE; BEAD AND REEL; BANDED TORUS]

The entire cathedral symbolized the crucified body of Christ; its two towers, man and woman—­that Adam and that Eve for whose redemption according to current teaching Christ suffered and was crucified.  The north or right-hand tower ("the man’s side”) was called the sacred male pillar, Jachin; and the south, or left-hand tower ("the woman’s side"), the sacred female pillar, Boaz, from the two columns flanking the gate to Solomon’s Temple—­itself an allegory to the bodily temple.  In only a few of the French cathedrals is this distinction clearly and consistently maintained, and of these Tours forms perhaps the most remarkable example, for in its flamboyant facade, over and above the difference in actual breadth and apparent sturdiness of the two towers (the south being the more slender and delicate), there is a clearly marked distinction in the character of the ornamentation, that of the north tower being more salient, angular, radial—­more masculine in point of fact (Illustration 17).  In Notre Dame, the cathedral of Paris, as in the cathedral of Tours, the north tower is perceptibly broader than the south.  The only other important difference appears to be in the angular label-mould above the north entrance:  whatever may have been its original function or significance, it serves to define the tower sexually, so to speak, as effectively as does the beard on a man’s face.  In Amiens the north tower is taller than the south, and more massive in its upper stages.  The only traceable indication of sex in the ornamentation occurs in the spandrels at the sides of the entrance arches:  those of the north tower containing single circles, and those of the south tower containing two in one.  This difference, small as it may seem, is significant, for in Europe during the Middle Ages, just as anciently in Egypt and again in Greece—­in fact wherever and whenever the Secret Doctrine was known—­sex was attributed to numbers, odd numbers being conceived of as masculine, and even, as feminine.  Two, the first feminine number, thus became a symbol of femininity, accepted as such so universally at the time the cathedrals were built, that two strokes of a bell announced the death of a woman, three, the death of a man.