Chapter 24

§ 1.

And again their invention is proved false, and their device unstable, by this circumstance; that they try to make out their proofs sometimes by numbers and by syllables of names,¹ sometimes by the letters also of syllables, and sometimes again by the numbers, which the letters by the Greeks’ account contain. They most evidently prove their own perplexity and confusion, and the instability of their knowledge, and its violent perversion. Thus Jesus being a name in another language, they transfer to the catalogue²6 of the Greeks, and sometimes they say it is the ϛʹ, having six letters, sometimes the Fulness of the Ogdoads, having the number 888. But as to His Greek Name, which is Soter, i.e., Saviour, they say nothing of it, because it suits not their device, either in number or in letters. Yet surely, had they received the Lord’s Names from the Father’s Providence, signifying by their number and letters the number in the Pleroma, then Soter being a Grecian Name, ought to indicate the mystery of the Pleroma, according to the rules of the Greek language, both by letters and by numbers. But it is not so, for it has five letters, but the number 1408. But these things have in nothing any respect to their Pleroma: the business therefore which they talk of in the Pleroma is not real.

§ 2.

But the name Jesus, in the proper tongue of the Hebrews,³ has two letters and a half, as their scholars say, signifying that Lord, Who contains Heaven and Earth: because Jesus in the old language of the Hebrews is the Heaven, and the earth again is called Sura user. The word therefore which the Heaven and Earth contains, is Jesus Himself. Their explanation therefore of the ϛʹ, (as they call it), is untrue, and the number they assign is clearly refuted. For in their proper tongue, the Greek word Soter hath five letters: but Jesus in Hebrew hath two and a half letters. The number therefore of their calculation fails, which is 888.

And throughout indeed the letters of the Hebrews do not agree with the number of the Greeks: yet those letters, being older and more settled, ought more especially to make good the reckoning of the names. For the real ancient and first letters of the Hebrews, which are also called sacerdotal, are indeed ten in number (but are written as ten and five) the last letter being coupled to the first. And therefore too they write some regularly onward as we do, others backward, turning the letters from the right side back to the left. And Christ too ought to have a name which may be so calculated as to Æons of their Pleroma, seeing that as they say He was produced to settle and amend their Pleroma. And the Father too in like manner both in letters and in number ought to have contained the number of the Æons, who were produced from him; yea, and the Deep likewise, and not less too the Only Begotten, and most of all the Name above all which is called God, which in Hebrew is also called Baruch, and has two and a half letters. From this circumstance, therefore, that the principal names in the Hebrew and Greek languages suit their device neither by the number nor by the value of their letters, it is plain that their calculation is shamelessly forced from the rest.

§ 3.

For from the Law too, selecting whatever numerical details suit their sect,⁴ they endeavour to make out proofs by violence. But if their mother, or the Saviour, had purposed to exhibit by means of the Demiurge the types of the things in the Pleroma, they would have caused the types to take place in holier and truer things; and most of all in the very ark of the Covenant, for the sake of which indeed the whole Tabernacle of Witness was framed. Now this was made,⁵ first in length two and a half Cubits, then in breadth a cubit and a half, and in height a cubit and a half: but the number of those Cubits, by which chiefly the type ought to be shewn, suits their device in nothing. And the Mercy Seat again in like sort doth in no respect suit their expositions.⁶ And besides there is also the Table of the Shewbread,⁷ two Cubits is its length, and one Cubit its width, and its height a cubit and a half: (these are in front of the Holiest of Holies:) and in these not so much as one amount of number contains any intimation of repeating the number of four or of eight, or of the rest of their Pleroma.⁸ And what means the Candlestick, having both seven pipes and seven lamps? Whereas if things had been made by way of type, it ought to have eight small pipes and as many lights, for a type of the first set of eight, which shines chief among the Æons, and enlightens the whole Pleroma.⁹ The curtains¹⁰ again, being ten, they have diligently numbered, calling them a type of the ten Æons:¹¹ but the hides they have no longer numbered, being eleven. Nor again have they measured the size of the curtains themselves, each curtain having the length of twenty eight cubits.¹² And the length of the columns, being ten cubits they expound by the ten Æons. But the saying, Each column was a cubit and a half wide, they give no explanation to; nor to the number of all the columns, and of their bars: because it has nothing to do with their argument.¹³ What again of the anointing oil, which sanctified the whole tabernacle? Perhaps it was unknown to the Saviour, or while their mother was asleep the Creator of his own head gave directions about the weight: whereby again he is in discord with their Pleroma;¹⁴ having five hundred shekels of myrrh, of casia five hundred, of Cinnamon two hundred and fifty, of calamus two hundred and fifty, and besides this, oil: so that there is a mixture of forms five in number.¹⁵ And incense again in like manner is of stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, and mint, and frankincense; things which cannot have anything to do with their argument, either in their mixtures or in their weight. It is then an unreasonable thing, and altogether clownish, that the type should not be kept up in the lofty and more elegant portions of the Law, while in the others, should any number agree with what themselves say, they affirm those things to be types of what are in the Pleroma: whereas every number is set down in Scripture in many relations: so that whoever will, may be able to make out by scripture, not only the repetition of Eight, and the Ten, and the Twelve, but any other: and may hold it as a type of the error he hath devised.

§ 4.

And that this is true, may admit of being proved out of Scripture by the number which is called Five;¹⁶ in that it enters not at all into their argument, nor agrees with their invention, nor corresponds with any typical exhibition of the things which are in the Pleroma:—it may be proved as follows. Saviour [in Greek] is a word of five letters, and Father too hath five letters, yea, and the term Love is of five letters, and our Lord blessing five loaves, satisfied five thousand men; five wise Virgins were spoken of by the Lord, and likewise five foolish ones. Again, five men are said to have been with the Lord, when He met with the Father’s testimony, namely Peter, and James and John and Moses and Elias: the Lord too with four others went in where the dead maiden was, and raised her:¹⁷ For none, it is said¹⁸, did He suffer to go in, save Peter and James and the Father and Mother of the damsel. That rich man in hell states himself to have five brethren, to whom he begs that one rising from the dead may go. The swimming pool had five porches; from which the Lord bade the paralytic depart whole to his own house. And the very form of the Cross¹⁹ hath ends and points to the number of five, two in length and two in width, and one in the middle, on which the person who is nailed to it rests. Each of our hands hath five fingers; and again we have five senses; and the parts within us may be numbered in five, Heart and Liver, Lungs, Spleen, and Kidnies. Once more: the whole Man may be divided into this number: Head, Breast, Belly, Thighs, Feet. The human race passes through five ages: one is first an infant, then a boy, then a youth, and after this a young man, then lastly an Elder. In five books Moses gave the Law to the people. Each table which he received from God, had five precepts²⁰.²¹ The veil which hid the Holy of Holies had five pillars. And the altar of burnt offering, its height²² was five cubits. Five were chosen Priests in the wilderness, namely Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. The Long Robe, and the Oracle, and the rest of the Priest’s Apparel was woven out of five materials:²³ for they had gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. And five Kings of the Amorites were shut up in caves by Joshua the son of Nun,²⁴ and their heads given to be trampled on by the people. And many thousand more instances of the same kind, both in this number and in any other number which one might select, one may collect either out of the Scriptures, or of any works of nature which come in one’s way: but we do not the more on that account say that there are five Æons above the Demiurge, nor do we hallow the number Five, as something divine, nor do we endeavour to establish vanities and drivellings by this vain labour, nor do we force the creature, so well ordained by God, to become ill-suited types of unreal things, and to further impious and nefarious doctrines, liable to be detected and overthrown by all sensible persons.

§ 5.

For who would grant to them that the year has only 365 days,²⁵ to make out twelve months of thirty days, for a type of the twelve Æons; the very type wanting resemblance? For while each Æon is a thirtieth part of the whole Pleroma, the month is called by them a twelfth part of the year. If now the year were divided into thirty parts, and the month into twelve, the figure might be thought suitable to their false statement. But now on the contrary, while their Pleroma is divided into thirty, and a certain part of it into twelve, here on the other hand the whole year is divided into twelve parts, but a certain portion of it into thirty. Foolishly then did this Saviour of theirs cause the month to prove a type of the whole Pleroma, and the year of that Twelve, which is contained in the Pleroma: since it were more suitable to divide the year into thirty, even as the whole Pleroma, and the month into twelve, as are also the Æons in their Pleroma. And while they divide the whole Pleroma into three, i.e.,²⁶ an eight, a ten, and a twelve,—the year on the other hand is divided into four, i.e., Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. But neither do the Months, which they say are a type of the number thirty, contain exactly thirty days, but some more, some less, because five days are added on to them. And the day too hath not always precisely twelve hours, but mounts from nine up to fifteen, and again declines from fifteen to nine. It follows, that the thirty Æons were not the cause of the months being made of thirty days, else they would have precisely thirty days, nor again the days of so many hours²⁷, to represent the twelve Æons by twelve hours; for they too would always have precisely twelve hours.

§ 6.

Yet again, in that they denominate material things, the Left Side,²⁸ and say that of necessity what things are on the left go away into corruption, and that the Saviour came for the Lost Sheep, to transfer it to the right, i.e., to those who belong to salvation, the ninety nine sheep who did not perish but abode in the fold:—they must needs grant them not to be of salvation, counted as they are by the lifting up of the left hand. And by the same rule, whatever thing does not attain to that number, they will be forced to own, belongs to the Left Hand, i.e., to corruption: and the name which in Greek is called Agape, according to those letters of the (Greeks, whereby counting among them is betokened, having 93 as its number is in like manner subject to the lifting of the Left Hand; and Truth too [Alethia] in like manner, by the aforesaid mode of reasoning, having 64 as its number, stops short among the things material: and in a word, all names of Saints not filling up the number of one 100, but having the numbers on the Left Side also, those they will be forced to own corruptible and material.