Chapter 14

§ 1.

This Mark then, affirming himself most entirely by himself to have been made the Womb and Receptacle of Colorbasus’ Silence, as being her only-begotten, did somewhat in this way deliver himself of the seed of Decay¹ which was deposited in him: That the Most High Quaternion itself from the unseen and unnamed regions descended to him in a female form (since, says he, the world could not bear the masculine form thereof); and signified what she herself was, and declared to him quite alone the origination of all things, which she never revealed to any either God or Man; thus speaking: “When the Father first had his birthpangs, He who is beyond comprehension and without substance, He who is neither male nor female: when He willed the Unspeakable to become subject to speech, and the Invisible to Form, He opened His mouth, and emitted a word like unto Himself: which Word presenting itself shewed Him what He was, itself being made manifest as the Form of the Invisible. And the enunciation of his name was on this wise: He spake the first word of his name, which was the beginning, and the syllable thereof was of four letters: He knit on to it the second, and this also was of four letters: next in order he spake the third, and this was of ten letters: and he spake also the following one, and this was of twelve letters. The enunciation therefore of the whole name was of thirty letters, and four syllables. And each of the letters has its own writing and its own character and its own sound and forms and images: and there is no one of them which discerns the form of that letter which is above itself. Nay it has no knowledge at all thereof, nor does it all care about² the pronunciation, each one of that which comes next to it, but the sound which itself utters, it utters as though it were the whole, and thinks it is naming the entire sum of things: that is, each one of them being a part of the whole, utters its own note as the whole, and they cease not sounding, until with their single articulations they are come to the last line of the last letter.³ And then he said the restitution of all things took place, when they all having come down to that one line, shall give forth one and the same utterance: of which utterance he supposed there was an image, when we pronounce the Amen together: while the notes are those who figure the Æon without Substance and Unbegotten, and that these are the forms which the Lord called Angels, which see continually the face of the Father.⁴

§ 2.

“Moreover the names of the letters as they are spoken and ordinary, he named Æons, and words, and roots, and seeds, and plenitudes, and fruits. But those which belong to them one by one, and are peculiar to each, he said were included and understood in the name of the Church. Of the letters whereof the last in its last line uttered its own voice: the sound whereof having gone forth, generated letters of its own after the image of those former letters, out of which both the things here, he saith, were put in order, and the things before them generated. The letter itself however, to which the sound belonged, following the sound downwards, was received back by its own syllable upwards (so he speaks) to complete the sum of things: but the sound remained in the parts below, as it were cast out. But the element itself, he says, from which the letter together with its proper sound descended below, has thirty letters: and each one of the thirty letters has in itself other letters, by which the name of the letter is spelt; and these others again are named by other letters, and these others by others; so that the multitude of the letters falls out infinite.

“And you may more clearly understand what is said, thus. The Element Delta has five letters in itself, δ itself, and ε; and λ, and τ, and α: and these letters again are written by other letters, and those others by others. If then the whole substance of the Delta turns out infinite, fresh letters continually generating other fresh ones, and succeeding one another; how much greater than that element, saith he, must the whole sea of letters be! And if that one letter is so immense, consider the depth of the letters of the whole name, of which letters Mark’s friend Silence laid it down that the First Father is made up. Wherefore also the Father, he says, knowing how incomprehensible He is, permitted the Elements, whom he also calls Æons, each one to cry out his own sound, because no one could utter the whole.”

§ 3.

And the Quaternion, he said, having explained this to him, added, “Now then I am minded to manifest unto thee the very Truth herself. For I have brought her down from the mansions on high, that thou mayest look on her unclothed, and discern her beauty, yea, and hear her speak, and marvel at her wisdom. Behold then her head above, the Α and Ω; her neck Β and Ψ; her shoulders with her hands, Γ and Χ; her bosom, Δ and Φ; her chest, Ε and Υ; her back Ζ and Τ; her belly Η and Σ; her thighs Θ and Ρ; her knees Ι and Π; her legs Κ and Ο; her ancles Λ and Ξ; her feet Μ and Ν.” This is the body of that truth which our wizard teaches: this is the figure of the alphabetical element, this the form of the letter: and he calls this element, Man: and he says “it is the fountain of all discourse, and the beginning of all sound, and the utterance of all that is unspeakable, and the mouth of that still Silence. And this indeed is her body: but do thou, lifting on high the thought of thy mind, hear from the mouth of Truth the self-producing Word, which also conveys the Father.”

§ 4.

Now upon her saying this, “the Truth (he says) looked upon him, and opened her mouth and spake a Word; and the Word became a Name, and it became that Name, which we know and speak, Christ Jesus: which Name as soon as she had pronounced, she became silent. And while Mark was looking for her to say something more, the Quaternion again coming forward saith, Thou didst esteem as contemptible that Word, which thou heardest from the mouth of Truth. It is not that which thou knowest and thinkest, an old name. Nay, thou hast the sound of it only, but knowest not its meaning. For as to JESUS, it is the name of the Sign⁵, being six letters, known by all who are of His calling. But that which exists among the Æons of the Pleroma, having many parts, is of another form, and of a different stamp, known by those of that place who are akin to him; whose magnitudes are with him continually.

§ 5.

“These twenty-four letters then which are among you, understand to be emanations bearing the image of the three Powers, which comprehend the whole number of the elements on high. That is, for the nine mute letters, account thou them to belong to the Father and Truth, because of their being dumb, i.e., unspeakable and unutterable. And the eight semi-vowels, as belonging to the Word and the Life, because they are in a kind of mean between the mutes and vowels, and may be regarded as emanating from those above, and having those beneath referred to them. And the vowels, themselves also being seven, belong to the Man and the Church, since voice going forth throngh the Man, gave form to all. For the tone of the voice invested them with form. First the Word and the Life have their eight, then the Man and the Church their seven, then the Father and the Truth their nine. And towards⁶ that sum which fell short he who was set apart in the Father came down, being sent to the same being, from which he had been separated to amend his deeds, that the united Pleroma having equality, might bear as fruit in all the same power, that which proceeds from all. And thus the sum of the seven received the power of the eight; and the regions become equal in their numbers, being so many Ogdoads: which being three, when added to one another, exhibit the number of twenty-four. The three Elements moreover, which he says are in conjunction with the three powers, which make six, from which have flowed out the twenty-four Elementary Forms, being quadrupled by the ratio of the Unspeakable Quaternion, make the same number with them: which Elements, he saith, belong to Him who cannot be named. And that they are worn as dresses by the three Powers, after the similitude of the Invisible. And that the double letters among us are images of the images of those Elements: and being numbered with the twenty-four elements, virtually make up the number thirty, the number which proportion requires.

§ 6.

“Of this discourse, and of this Œconomy, the fruit, he says, appeared in the likeness of an image, He namely, who after six days went with three others into the mountain,⁷ and became the sixth in company; He who was overcome, and went down in the space of seven days, being in some signal sense the eighth, and comprehending in himself the whole number of the Elements. That number was manifested, on his coming to Baptism, by the descent of the Dove, which is Ω and Α: for its number is 801⁸c. And that on this account Moses said, Man was framed on the sixth day: and that the Œconomy too, that is, the appearance of the last Man for the Regeneration of the first man, took place on the sixth day, which is the preparation:⁹ of which Œconomy the beginning and the end was the sixth hour,¹⁰ in which He was nailed to the Cross. Because the Perfect Mind, knowing that the number six had a power of Creation and Regeneration, manifested to the children of light the regeneration which took place by him who shewed himself in a marked way to have relation to that number¹¹d. Whence also he saith that the double letters have the notable number, [i.e. six¹²e]. For the Notable Number joined to the twenty-four letters, makes out the Name of thirty Letters.

§ 7.

“And he [i.e. the Only Begotten] used as his attendant the Power of the Seven Letters [i.e. The Truth] (as Mark’s friend Silence affirms) that the fruit of his self-actuated counsel might be manifested. Consider however, saith she, for the present, this notable number, formed upon the other notable one, consider him who was in a manner divided or cut in sunder, and abode without; who by his own power and wisdom, by the emanation from himself, animated this world of the seven powers, after the pattern of the¹³f Seven-fold Virtue, and caused it [his emanation] to be the soul of this visible Universe. And while he himself disposes of this work, as made by him of his free will, all the others ministering supply the imagination of their Mother, being imitations of the things inimitable. And the first Heaven utters the sound Α, the next after it Ε, the third Η, the fourth and middle of the seven, its sound is equivalent to Ι; the fifth the Ο, the sixth the Υ, the seventh and fourth from the middle utters loudly the Element Ω; as Mark’s Silence, so full of babbling, but uttering no kind of truth, constantly affirms. And these powers, she saith, all entwined one with another ring out and glorify Him from whom they emanated; and the glory of their peal is conveyed on to the First Father. She says too that the sound of this hymn of glory being borne to Earth, became the moulder and producer of all things that are on the earth.

§ 8.

“And her proof she brings from infants newly born; whose soul, as soon as they come out of the womb, cries out in the sound of each of these Elements. As then the seven Powers (so she speaks) glorify the Word, so also the soul in these babes, weeping and wailing about Mark, glorifies him.¹⁴ And that on this account David said, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise: and again, The Heaven of Heavens declare the glory of God.¹⁵ Wherefore also the soul, when it is in labours and distresses, for the straining itself off¹⁶g, utters aloud the Ω for a token of praise: that the soul above recognising its own kindred, may send it an helper.”

§ 9.

Concerning the whole Name then, this I mean of thirty letters, and the Deep, whose bulk is made up of the letters thereof, moreover concerning the Body of Truth with its twelve members, each member consisting of two letters, and her word which she solemnly pronounced to him without pronouncing, and concerning the solution of the name which was not spoken, and concerning the soul of the world and of man, how they have their proper Œconomy in a typical way; these are his dotings. But in the next place we will declare how the Quaternion shewed him out of the names the same numerical value: that thou, beloved, as thou hast often requested of us, mayest not be ignorant of any of his statements which have reached us.