Chapter 15

§ 1.

Thus then doth their Silence, full of all wisdom, declare the generation of the twenty-four elements: “that with onlyness co-exists oneness, whereof are two Emanations, as was said before, the Monad and the Unity: which being added to two, became four: for 2 × 2 = 4. And again, the two and four being put together, exhibited the number of six. And these six being quadrupled, brought forth the twenty-four forms. And that as to the names of the first quaternion, which are most holy, being subjects of thought and incapable of being spoken, they are comprehended by the Son alone: which they are, the Father knoweth. But that these following are venerable ones, and named with faith, in his teaching: Unspeakable and Silence; Father and Truth. And of this quaterníon the whole number is of twenty-four elements. For the name Ἄῤῥητος hath in itself seven letters, and σευγὴ and πατὴρ five, and Ἀλήθεια seven: which being added together, the 2×5 and 2×7, complete the number of twenty-four. And in like manner also the second Quaternion, the Word and the Life, the Man and the Church, exhibit the same number of their Elements. And that the Saviour’s Name which may be spoken, Ἰησοῦς, is of six letters, but His ineffable one of twenty-four letters. Υἱὸς and Χριστὸς¹h [the Son and Christ] is of twelve letters; but that which is unspeakable in Christ, of thirty letters. And therefore He calls Himself Α and Ω, in order to indicate the Dove, this number belonging to that bird.

§ 2.

“But Jesus, saith he, hath the following unspeakable generation. From the mother of all, the first Quaternion, the second Quaternion proceeded as a daughter, and it became an Ogdoad, from which proceeded a Decad: thus there came to be a set of eighteen. The Decad therefore combining with the Ogdoad, and making it tenfold, put forth the number of eighty, and having multiplied the eighty again, produced the number of 800. So that the whole number of the letters going on from the Ogdoad to the Decad, is 888, which is JESUS. For the Name JESUS, according to the number in the letters, is 888. Thou hast clearly the supercelestial generation of Jesus also, by their account. And that the Greek Alphabet has accordingly eight units, and eight tens, and eight hundreds, thus exhibiting the calculation of the 888, that is, the Name Jesus, made out of all the numbers: and that He is therefore called Α and Ω, signifying His generation from all. And again thus: The first Quaternion in arithmetical progression being added to itself, the number of ten comes out: for 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10: which is I: and this, they say, is Jesus. But Christ also, they say, being of eight letters, signifies the first Ogdoad, which being conjoined with the ten, brought forth Jesus = 888.

“And he is called too, saith he, the Son Christ, i.e. the number Twelve. For the name Son is of four letters, and Christ of eight: which being added exhibit the sum twelve. Now before the mark of this name, which mark is Jesus, appeared to his sons, men were in much ignorance and error. But He appeared who is the name with six letters, who put on flesh, that He might come to the perception of Man, having in Himself the six and the twenty-four: then knowing Him they ceased from their ignorance, and ascended from death unto life, the name being made their way to the Father of Truth: it having been the will of the Father of all to do away with ignorance and to destroy Death. And the doing away with ignorance was by the better knowledge of Him. And to this end was elected the Man who according to His will was mysteriously provided as an image of the Power on high.

§ 3.

“For from the Quaternion proceeded the Æons. And in the Quaternion were the Man and the Church, the Word and the Life. From these then, saith he, certain powers flowing forth, generated the Jesus who appeared on Earth. And the place of the Word was filled by the Angel Gabriel, and of the Life by the Holy Ghost, and of the Man by the Power of the Son: and the place of the Church the Virgin supplied. And thus by his account is produced the Man of the Dispensation by Mary, whom the Father of all selected, after he had passed through the womb, for the perfect knowledge of Himself. And when He had come to the water, there descended upon Him, as a Dove, he that hastened upwards, and fulfilled the number of twelve: and that in him exists the seed of these who are sown with him, and with him descended and arose. But the virtue itself, which descended, he says is the seed of the Father, having in itself both the Father and the Son, and the Power of Silence, made known through these, but without a name, and all the Æons. And this is the Spirit that spake by Jesus, which professed itself to be the Son of Man, and manifested the Father, descending upon Jesus, yet so as to be made one with Him. And he who by this dispensation is our Saviour, while he destroyed death, made known the Father Christ. Jesus then, he said, is a name for the man who comes of the Œconomy, but it was assigned for a resemblance and figure of the Man who was afterwards to come down upon him. And that he by receiving him, had both the Man himself, and the Word himself, and the Father, and the Unspeakable, and the Silence, and the Truth, and Church, and Life.”

§ 4.

These things then surely are what no O, nor Alas, nor any tragical exclamation and deploration can reach. For who would not hate the evil contriver and framer of so great falsehoods, seeing, first of all, The Truth made by Mark but an Idol; and that branded with the letters of the Alphabet? Lately, but yesterday and the day before, as they say, compared with that which was from the beginning, do the Greeks own that they received from Cadmus first sixteen, then afterwards in process of time themselves discovered at one time the aspirates, at another the double letters. Last of all Palamedes they say added to these the long vowels. Was there then no truth, before the Greeks had these? For her body according to thee, Mark, was later than Cadmus and those before him, and later than those who added the other letters; yea, later than thyself; for thou alone didst bring down as an idol that which thou denominatest Truth.

§ 5.

But who will endure thy Silence, babbling such things? her who names the Unnamed, and explains the Unspeakable, and declares Him who cannot be traced, and saith that He opened His mouth, whom thou affirmest to be without body or form: and that He produced a word, as it might be any one of the animals made up of parts: and that His Word being like Him who produced it, and having been made the Form of the Invisible One, is of thirty Letters, and four Syllables. Wherefore the Father of all, by thy account, according to his resemblance to the Word, will consist of thirty letters and four syllables. Or again who will bear with thee, shutting up the Word of God, the Creator, Artificer and Maker of all things in figures and numbers, now thirty, now twenty-four, now six only; and mincing Him small into four syllables and thirty letters: and reducing the Lord of all, the Establisher of the Heavens, to the number of 888, as though He were framed like the Alphabet: subdividing the the Father Who comprehends all and is Himself incomprehensible, into sets of four, and eight, and ten, and twelve respectively, and by such multiplications expressing the Father’s being, unspeakable and inconceivable as thou sayest it is. And Whom thou termest incorporeal and without substance, His being and substance thou framest out of many letters, generated one set from another: thyself turning out a false Dædalus, and a bad artificer of the Most High Virtue: dividing moreover that which thou sayest is indivisible into mute and vowel and semivowel sounds, falsely assigning that which is mute in them to the Father of all and to His Mind, thou hast cast all who believe in thee into the highest blasphemy and greatest impiety.

§ 6.

Wherefore also justly and suitably to this boldness of thine did the divine Ancient and herald of the truth exclaim against thee in verse, thus saying:

Thou idol-framer, Mark, and portent-gazer

Skill’d in the astrologer’s and wizard’s art

Strengthening thereby the words of thy false lore,

Dazzling with signs whome’er thou lead’st astray,

Strange handywork of God-defying power,

Such to perform thy father Satan still

Affords thee might, by an angelic Power

Azazel:—thee, by the destroyer mark’d

Chosen forerunner of the impious craft.

Thus far that Elder, beloved of God. But we will endeavour in few words to go through the rest of their mysterious system, far as it reaches; and to bring into the light what has been long hidden: for so will all be able easily to refute it.