The Thirty Years and the Meaning of Numbers

And God himself, as a pledge of the reward to come, now gives him what we might call the crowns of a thirtieth anniversary, woven from seasons of prosperity. Now that three ten-year circles have run their course, he lets all humankind celebrate this general festival, or rather this festival of the whole world. [a] And while those on earth rejoice like this, crowned, as it were, with the flowers of the knowledge of God, we may surely suppose, without going too far, that the choirs of heaven, drawn by a natural sympathy, join their joy to the joy of those on earth. Indeed, we may suppose that the Supreme Sovereign himself, as a kind father, delights in the worship of dutiful children, and for this reason is pleased to honor the one who is the author and cause of their obedience with a long span of time. Far from limiting his reign to three ten-year circles, he extends it to the most distant time, even to far-off eternity.

Now eternity as a whole is beyond the reach of decline or death. Neither its beginning nor its extent can be measured by mortal thought. It will not let its midpoint be seen, nor let what we call its present span be grasped by the searching mind. Still less can the future or the past be grasped. The past no longer is, but is already gone; and the future has not yet arrived, and so it is not. As for what we call the present, it vanishes even as we think or speak, faster than the word itself can be spoken. Nor can we in any way grasp this time as present, for we must either look ahead to the future or look back on the past; the present slips away from us and is gone even while we think of it. Eternity as a whole, then, resists mortal reason and refuses to be subject to it. [b] But it does not refuse to acknowledge its own Sovereign and Lord. It carries him, as it were, mounted on its back, and rejoices in the fine trappings he gives it. And he does not bind it with a golden chain, as the poet imagined, but guides its movements, as it were, with the reins of a wisdom beyond words. He has arranged its months and seasons, its times and years, and the changes of day and night, in perfect harmony, and so has fastened on it limits and measures of many kinds. For eternity by its nature runs straight on, stretching forward without end. It takes its name, eternity, from its everlasting existence. It is alike in all its parts, or rather it has no divisions or intervals at all, and it moves forward only in a single straight line. But God has marked it off into intervening sections. He has divided it at many points, like a line drawn out to a great length, and so has set within it a vast number of portions. And though by nature it is one, and resembles unity itself, he has fastened on it a great many numbers, and has given it, formless as it is in itself, an endless variety of forms. [c]

For first of all he made within it formless matter, a substance able to receive every form. Next, by the power of the number two, he gave matter its qualities, and gave beauty to what before had no grace at all. Then, by means of the number three, he made body, compounded of matter and form and having the three dimensions of breadth, length, and depth. Then, by doubling the number two, he devised the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, and appointed them to be everlasting sources of supply for this universe. The number four, again, produces the number ten, for one and two and three and four added together make ten. Three multiplied by ten gives the length of a month, and twelve months in succession complete the course of the sun. From this come the cycles of the years and the changes of the seasons. Like the variety of colors in a painting, they give grace to eternity, which before had no form or beauty, for the refreshment and delight of those whose lot it is to run the course of life within it. [e]

The ground is marked off at set distances for those who run in the hope of winning the prize, and the road of those on a long journey is marked with resting places and measured stages, so that the traveler’s courage will not fail at the sight of a road without end. In the same way the Sovereign of the universe holds eternity itself within the restraining power of his own wisdom, and steers and turns its course as he judges best. The same God, I say, who clothes the once boundless eternity as if with fine colors and blooming flowers, gladdens the day with the rays of the sun. He spreads a covering of darkness over the night, yet makes the glittering stars shine in it like golden spangles. It is he who kindles the brightness of the morning star, the changing splendor of the moon, and the glorious companies of the host of stars, and he has clothed the expanse of heaven, like some vast cloak, in colors of varied beauty. Again, having created the high and deep expanse of the air, and made the world in its length and breadth feel its cooling power, he decreed that the air itself should be adorned with birds of every kind. He left this vast ocean of space open to be crossed by every creature, seen or unseen, whose path runs through the regions of the sky. In the middle of this air he balanced the earth, as it were its center, and surrounded it with the ocean like a beautiful sky-blue robe. He appointed this earth to be at once the home, the nurse, and the mother of all the creatures it holds. He watered it with rain and with springs, and made it rich in plants and flowers of every kind for the enjoyment of life. And when he had formed man in his own likeness, the noblest of earthly creatures and the dearest to himself, a creature gifted with intellect and knowledge, the child of reason and wisdom, he gave him rule over all the other animals that move and live on the earth. For man was truly, of all earthly creatures, the dearest to God. It is man, I say, to whom, as a generous Father, he has made the animals subject; for whom he has made the sea navigable and crowned the earth with an abundance of plants of every kind; to whom he has given powers of reason to master every branch of knowledge; under whose control he has placed even the creatures of the deep and the winged creatures of the air; to whom he has allowed the study of the heavens, and revealed the courses and changes of the sun and moon, and the cycles of the planets and the fixed stars. In short, to man alone of earthly beings he has given the command to acknowledge him as his heavenly Father, and to sing his praises as the Supreme Sovereign of eternity itself. But the Creator has bounded the unchanging course of eternity by the four seasons of the year. He brings winter to an end with the coming of spring, and balances, as on an even scale, the season that begins the yearly round. Having graced the everlasting course of time with the varied growth of spring, he added the heat of summer, and then gave, as it were, a rest from labor in the interval of autumn. Last of all, refreshing and cleansing the season with the showers of winter, he brings it back once more to the gates of spring, sleek and glossy from these abundant rains, like a noble horse. [f]

As soon, then, as the Supreme Sovereign had bound his own eternity to the yearly circle by these cords of wisdom, he entrusted it to the guidance of a mighty Governor, his Word, his only Son, to whom, as the Preserver of all creation, he handed the reins of power over all things. And the Word, receiving this inheritance as from a generous Father, joins all things, both above and below the circle of heaven, into one harmonious whole, and directs their steady course. With perfect justice he provides whatever is good for his rational creatures on earth. He sets the appointed limits of human life, and he lets all alike look forward, even here, to the beginning of a life to come. For he has taught them that beyond this present world there is a divine and blessed state, kept for those who have been sustained here by the hope of heavenly blessings; that those who have lived a virtuous and godly life will move from here to a far better dwelling; and that he assigns to those who have been guilty and wicked here a place of punishment that fits their crimes. Again, as at the giving of prizes at the public games, he proclaims different crowns for the winners, and rewards each for a different virtue. But for our good emperor, clothed in the very robe of godliness, he declares that a higher reward for his labors is prepared. And as a prelude to that reward he now lets us gather at this festival, which is made up of perfect numbers: three tens, and ten threes.

The first of these, the three, is the offspring of the unit, the number one. And the unit is the mother of number itself, and presides over all months and seasons and years and every span of time. It may rightly be called the origin, foundation, and first principle of all number, and it takes its name from its abiding nature. For every other number grows smaller or larger as others are taken away from it or added to it, but the unit alone stays fixed and steady. It stands apart from all plurality and from the numbers formed from it, and it resembles that undivided being which is distinct from all other things, yet by sharing in which all other things exist. [g] For the unit is the source of every number, since every plurality is made up by putting units together and adding them, and without the unit it is impossible even to think of number at all. But the unit itself does not depend on plurality. It stands apart from all number and above it, forming and making every number, yet receiving no increase from any.

Akin to it is the number three, equally undivided and perfect, the first of the sums formed from even and odd numbers. For the perfect number two, when the unit is added to it, forms three, the first perfect compound number. And three, by showing what equality is, first taught people justice, since it has itself an equal beginning, middle, and end. It is also an image of the mysterious, most holy, and royal Trinity, which, though itself without beginning or origin, holds the seeds, the reasons, and the causes of the existence of all created things. So the power of three may rightly be regarded as the first cause of all things. Again, the number ten, which holds the end of all the numbers and brings them to a close in itself, may truly be called a full and perfect number, since it takes in every kind and every measure of numbers, ratios, concords, and harmonies. For example, the units, by being added together, form ten and come to their end in it. With this number as their parent, and as the limit of their course, they round it like the turning post at the end of a race. Then they run a second lap, and a third, and a fourth, up to the tenth, and so with ten tens they complete the number one hundred. Going back from there to the first starting point, they again advance to ten; and when they have completed one hundred ten times over, they turn back once more and run their long course around the same barriers, going out from themselves and back to themselves again in a circling motion. For the unit is the tenth part of ten, and ten units make a ten, which is itself the limit, the fixed goal and boundary of the units. It is what brings the endlessness of number to a stop, the finish and end of the units. Again, three joined with ten, running a threefold circuit of tens, produces that most natural number, thirty. For as three is among the units, so thirty is among the tens. Thirty is also the fixed limit of the course of the light that is second only to the sun in brightness. For the moon’s course from one conjunction with the sun to the next completes the span of a month. After that, receiving as it were a second birth, it begins a new light and a new set of days, adorned and honored with thirty units, three tens, and ten threes.

In the same way the Giver of every good thing has marked out the worldwide reign of our victorious emperor. It now enters a new round of blessing. At present it is completing this festival of thirty years, but it reaches forward beyond it to far more distant spans of time, and holds the hope of blessings to come in the heavenly kingdom. There not a single sun, but countless hosts of lights surround the Almighty Sovereign, each surpassing the splendor of the sun, glorious and shining with rays drawn from the everlasting source of light. There the soul lives surrounded by fair and unfading blessings. There is a life beyond the reach of sorrow; there is the enjoyment of pure and holy pleasures, and a time without measure or end, stretching into boundless space. It is not marked off by intervals of days and months, by the cycles of years or the return of times and seasons, but its length matches a life that knows no end. And this life does not need the light of the sun, nor the brightness of the moon or the host of stars, since it has the great Light himself, God the Word, the only Son of the Almighty Sovereign. That is why the mystic and sacred oracles reveal him to be the Sun of righteousness, and the Light that far surpasses all light. We believe that he also lights up the thrice-blessed powers of heaven with the rays of righteousness and the brightness of wisdom, and that he receives truly godly souls not only within the sphere of heaven but into his own bosom, and indeed makes good the promises he himself has given. [h] No mortal eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor can the mind clothed in flesh understand, what things are prepared for those who have been adorned here with the graces of godliness. These blessings await you too, most godly emperor. To you alone since the world began has the Almighty Sovereign of the universe given power to purify the course of human life. To you, too, he has revealed his own saving sign, by which he overcame the power of death and triumphed over every enemy. And you have set this victorious trophy, the scourge of evil spirits, in battle array against the errors of idol worship. You have won the victory not only over all your ungodly and savage foes, but over adversaries just as barbarous, the evil spirits themselves. [i]