The SATOR Square - David Mitchell - Bright Morning Star
THE SATOR SQUARE is an ancient “rebus” or word-square. Similar word-squares are known to us from ancient times. But, among them all, the SATOR square is an especially ingenious little construction. Yet more ingenious still is what is concealed within it. Once we decipher it, it will teach us something very significant about the earliest creeds of the Christian faith.
If we look carefully at the SATOR square, we will notice that it is a fourfold palindrome. That is, the sequence of its five words—SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS—can be read back-to-front in all four different directions, starting from top left downwards or rightwards and from bottom right upwards or leftwards.
What’s more, if a line is drawn from the top left S to the bottom right S, all the letters on either side of the line reflect one another in perfect symmetry. So too with a line running from top right to bottom left R.
It is also a multiple acrostic. That is, any letter in one word in the outer square is the first letter of another word running away at right angles to it.
