56 M like two A's, Mark's theory therefrom. Book 1. his most marvellous thirty. And hence they demonstrate the Ogdoad to be the mother of the thirty Æons. Since then the number thirty is combined of thirty Powers, itself being taken three times, produces ninety: for 3 x 30 =90. And this triad again multiplied by itself produces nine: and thus the Ogdoad in their account was mother of the number ninety-nine. And because the twelfth on fell away and left the eleven on high, the form of the letters, they say, framed corresponding to the fashion of their argument (for A is set eleventh of the letters, which is the number of thirty): and is set for an image of the Economy on high: Since beginning from a, and omitting S', the numerical value of the said letters as far as A being summed up, by the gradual increase of the letters, makes with λ the number ninety-nine". And that λ being the eleventh in order, came down to seek one like itself, to fill up the number of twelve, and finding it was satisfied:-that this is evident from the very form of the letter. For that A having as it were come to seek its own likeness, and having found it, and caught it, supplied the place of the twelfth, the letter M being made up of two A's. Wherefore also they by their knowledge escape from the place of the ninety-nine, i. e., deficiency, which answers to the left hand°: and follow after the one, which being added to the ninety-nine, transfers them to the right hand. § 3. Tit. iii. 11, 10. I know well indeed that thou, beloved, going over all this, wilt greatly ridicule this madness of theirs, so wise in its own conceit. But worthy of bewailing are they, who in so cold and forced a way expose to scorn so high worship, and the greatness of that Power Which is truly unspeakable, and such vast Economies of GOD, by their Alpha and Beta, and certain numbers. And as many as withdraw from the Church, and have faith in these old wives' fables, verily they are self-condemned. Whom Paul commands us after a first and second admonition to reject. But John, the Disciple of "a + B + y + 8 + e + 8 + n + • Because in counting with fingers they passed from the left to the right band when they got to 100: so it is said of Nestor, "Suos jam dextera computat annos." Massuet. Those who neglect God empty for other 7 unclean spirits. 57 22. the Lord, hath enhanced their condemnation, not willing that so much as "Hail" should be said by us to them. For 2S. John 10, 11. he, saith he, that biddeth them Hail, is partaker of their evil deeds. And with reason: for there is no Peace, saith Isa.xlviii. the Lord, to the impious P. And impious above all impiety are these, who affirm the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the Only Almighty God, above Whom is no other God, to have been produced from a Defect, and that the produce of another Defect: so that by their account He is an Emanation from a third Defect. A notion which we ought altogether. to exorcise and anathematize, and to escape from them as we may, to some great distance: and the more obstinate they are, and the more they delight in their inventions, so much the more ought we to know that they are actuated by their own ogdoad of evil spirits. As those who are seized with brain fever, the more they laugh and appear strong, and do all as healthful persons and some things even beyond what sound health could do, so much the worse are they: in like manner these too, the more they seem to have exceeding high thoughts, and unnerve themselves, straining their bow too vehemently, so much the less are they in their sober senses. For the unclean spirit of ignorance having gone out, after- xii. 43. wards upon finding them at leisure not for God but for @xoλáζοντας worldly disputations, hath taken to him seven other spirits from ver. more wicked than himself, and puffed up their mind, as "empty." though they could understand the things which are higher than God, and thus making each one apt to be entirely cast out, hath packed up in them the whole ogdoad of the folly of wicked spirits. 2 I have a mind also to explain to thee, how they affirm the creation itself to have been wrought by the Demiurge, after the image of the things invisible, through the agency of his Mother, as though himself knew it not. First they say that the four elements, fire, water, earth, air, were produced as an image of the first quaternion on high: and that their p Isaiah xlviii. 22. LXX., rendering Di, Peace, the word of salutation (cf. St. Matt. x. 12, 13) by xaipei. q I. e., Wisdom first by some Passion or Defect produced Achamoth, and Achamoth afterwards the Creator. 2 S. Matth. 44, Ib. 45. CHAP § 1. XVII. 58 The numbers 10, 12, and 30. Book 1. operations being counted with them, I mean hot and cold, dry and moist, form an exact image of the Ogdoad. Next they enumerate ten Powers, as follows: first seven circular bodies which they also call Heavens, then the Circle which includes them, which moreover they name the eighth Heaven; and besides these the Sun and the Moon. These, being ten in number, they say are images of the invisible Decad, which proceeded from the Word and the Life. And that the Dodecad is signified by the Circle called the Zodiac: the twelve signs most evidently shadowing out the Dodecad, the daughter of the Man and the Church. And Saturn, they say, being fastened in a contrary direction to the motion of the Universe (which is most rapid) gravitating towards the very bottom, and counter-balancing the swiftness of the others by his own slowness, so as to accomplish in thirty years his circuit from sign to sign :-they say he is the image of Order, who compasses about their mother with the thirty names. And that the Moon again, taking thirty days to perform the circuit of her proper heaven, by those days figures out the number of the thirty ons. And that the Sun too, revolving in twelve months, and so completing his circular restitution of things, doth by his twelve months declare the Dodecad. And that the days, having their measure of twelve hours, are a type of that Twelve which is not apparent. Yea, and the hour also they observe, being the twelfth part of the day, to be furnished with thirty parts, for the image' sake of the Thirty. And that the Circumference of the Zodiac itself is of 360 parts, each sign having thirty parts. And thus by the circle also the image of the connexion of the twelve with the thirty, they say, is preserved. And again remarking that the earth is divided into twelve climates, they are confident that it too, receiving in each climate a virtue perpendicularly from the Heavens, and bearing children such as correspond to the power which sends down that influence, is a very clear type of the Twelve and the offspring thereof. That is, the Pleroma with its thirty compasses it that there may be no such outbreak as Sophia's was, again. 59 First chapter of Genesis misapplied by them. They add moreover, that the Demiurge, desiring to imitate § 2. the infinity, eternity, freedom from space and time, of the Supernal Ogdoad, and not being able to express its perseverance and eternity, because he is himself the fruit of a Defect, distributed its Eternity into times and seasons and numbers of many years, thinking by the number of his times to imitate the infinitude thereof. And hence, they say, the truth having escaped him, falsehood followed after: and therefore that his work will admit of dissolution, when the times are fullfilled. XVIII. $ 1. LXX. Of the Creation, then, they so speak; and daily each one. CHAP. of them generates something new, as he is able. For none is perfect, unless he have borne fruit of some great fictions among them. Next I must state what passages out of the Prophetic writings they distort, and subjoin the refutation thereof. Thus, Moses, say they, beginning his treatise of the Creation, presently at the outset points out the Mother of all, saying, In the beginning God created the Heaven and Gen. i. 1. the Earth. By naming therefore these four, God, and the Beginning, Heaven, and Earth, he draws, as they say, the form of their Quaternion. And that to signify the invisible and occult nature of it he says, But the earth was invisible Ib. 2. and unformed. And the second Quaternion, the progeny of the first, they will have him to have thus expressed, by mentioning the deep and darkness, in them also water, and the Spirit borne upon the water. After which he, meaning the the Decad, speaks, they say, of Light, and Day, and Night, Ib.3, 4, 5. and the Firmament, and Evening, and what is called Morn- Ib. 6. ing, and dry land and sea, moreover also the Herb and in Ib. 9, 10, the tenth place the Wood: thus by the ten names signifying Ib. 12. the ten ons. And in like manner the virtue of the Twelve they say is imaged out in his writings: in his mention of the sun and moon and of the stars, and times and years, of whales and fishes and creeping things, of birds and quadrupeds and wild beasts, and after all these the twelfth which is Man. Thus, say they, the Thirty are expressed by the Spirit through Moses. Yea further, that the Man who was moulded after the image of the higher Virtue, hath in him the virtue 11. Book 1. derived from that one Fountain : and that it is situated in the region of the brain, out of which flow four virtues, after the image of the supreme quaternion called, the first Sight, the next Hearing, the third Smell, and the fourth Taste. And the Ogdoad they say is indicated by the Man as follows; by his having two organs of hearing and as many of sight, moreover two of smelling, and a double taste, of the bitter and sweet. And the whole man they teach hath in the following manThirty ner the whole image of the thirty. First in his hands by of ten, 12, his fingers he bears the ten, then in his whole body divided Above p. into twelve members, the twelve: now they divide it as made up eight. 46. § 2. Ex. xxxviii. 9, 18. 10. the body of Truth is divided among them, concerning which we have before spoken. And as to the Ogdoad, unspeakable and invisible as it is, they say it is understood to be hidden in the bowels. And the Sun again, the great light, they say was made Gen. i. 16. on the fourth day because of the number of the four. And of the Tabernacle framed by Moses, the courts being made. of fine linen and blue and purple and scarlet, exhibited in their account the same image. And the Priest's long robe, Ib. xxxix. adorned with four rows of precious stones, they define to mean the Tetrad. And whatever such things are found in the Scriptures capable of being brought to the number four, they say were made such because of the Quaternion. And that the Ogdoad again is thus indicated: In the eighth day they say Man was formed, for sometimes they say he had his beginning on the sixth and sometimes on the eighth (except they will tell us that the earthly Man was formed on the sixth day, and the carnal on the eighth, for they make a distinction of these two): and some say that there was a difference between the man made after the image and likeness of God, both male and female (who is also the spiritual man), and him who was formed out of the Earth. § 3. 1 S. Pet. iii. 20. And the dispensation too of the Ark in the Deluge, wherein eight men were saved, they say most evidently indicates the saving Ogdoad; and the same also David signifies, being eighth in birth among his brethren. Yea, and Circumcision Gen. xvii. too, taking place on the eighth day, points out the circum 1 Sam. xvii. 12, 14. 12. |