The Single Stroke of the Iota

The Monad — that is, the single stroke — is therefore also a Decad, he says. For by the working power of this one stroke there are produced a Dyad, a Triad, a Tetrad, a Pentad, a Hexad, a Heptad, an Ogdoad, an Ennead, up to ten. These numbers, he says, can be divided many ways, and they all reside in that simple, uncompounded single stroke of the iota. And this is what was declared: “All the fullness was pleased to dwell bodily in the Son of Man.” For combinations of numbers like these, made out of the simple, uncompounded single stroke of the iota, become bodily realities. [a]

The Son of Man, then, he says, was begotten from the perfect Man, whom no one has known; but every creature that does not know the Son takes him for the child of a woman. Some very faint rays of this Son reach as far as this world, and they hold in check and govern change and coming-to-be. And the beauty of that Son of Man is to this day beyond the grasp of everyone who has been misled about the child of the woman. So nothing in our part of creation, he says, was produced by that Man, and nothing here ever will be. Everything has been produced out of some part of that Son of Man, not out of the whole of him. For the Son of Man, he says, is an iota in a single stroke, which comes down from above, is full, and fills all things completely. And it holds in itself whatever the Man also has — the Man who is the Father of the Son of Man.

The world, then, as Moses says, was made in six days — that is, by six powers, which are contained in the single stroke of the iota. But the seventh day, a rest and a Sabbath, was produced from the Hebdomad, which stands over earth and water and fire and air. And out of these elements the world was formed by the single stroke. For cubes and octahedrons and pyramids and all the figures like them, which fire, air, water and earth are made of, arose from numbers that are held inside that simple stroke of the iota. And this stroke is a perfect son of a perfect man. [d]

So when Moses relates that the rod was waved this way and that to bring on the plagues throughout Egypt — and these plagues, he says, are figures standing for creation — he did not shape the rod for more plagues than ten. Now this rod is the single stroke of the iota, and it is twofold and takes many forms. This run of ten plagues, he says, is the making of the world. For all things, when they are struck, give birth and bear fruit, just as vines do. A man, he says, bursts out and is forced apart from a man, cut off by a kind of blow — and this happens so that man may be brought to birth, and may set out the law that Moses laid down after receiving it from God.

Matching that single stroke, the law is a series of ten commandments, and these express as figures the divine mysteries of those rules. For all knowledge of the universe, he says, is contained in the run of ten plagues and the series of ten commandments. And no one has that knowledge who is among those misled about the child of the woman. And if you say that the five books of Moses are the whole law, that comes from the Pentad contained in the single stroke.

But for those who have not been fully brought to understanding, the whole of it is a mystery: a feast new and never grown old, lawful and everlasting, a Passover of the Lord God kept for our generations by those able to make it out, beginning on the tenth day, which is the start of the decad they count from. For the Monad, counted as far as fourteen, sums up that single stroke of the perfect number. One, two, three and four make ten, and this is the single stroke. But from the fourteenth to the twenty-first, he says, there is a Hebdomad that belongs to the single stroke of the world, and that makes an unleavened creation in all of them. For why, he says, would the single stroke need any substance from outside, such as leaven, for the Lord's Passover, the eternal feast that is given for generation after generation?

For the whole world and all the causes of creation are a Passover, a feast of the Lord. For God delights in the changing of creation, and this is brought about by ten blows of the single stroke. And this stroke is the rod of Moses, which was given by God into the hand of Moses. With it he strikes the Egyptians, in order to alter bodies — water into blood, for instance, and other material things in the same way, such as the locusts, which are a symbol of grass. By this he means the alteration of the elements into flesh; “for all flesh,” he says, “is grass.”

These men take the whole law, in fact, in some such manner as this, adopting — very probably, I think — the opinions of those Greeks who say that there are Substance, Quality, Quantity, Relation, Place, Time, Position, Action, Having, and Being Acted Upon.

Monoimus himself, then, in his letter to Theophrastus, states it plainly: “Stop looking for God, and for creation, and for things of that kind. Look for him out of yourself, and learn who it is inside you who takes everything as absolutely his own and says, ‘My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body.’ Learn where grief and joy and love and hate come from, and being awake against your will, and drowsy against your will, and angry against your will, and loving against your will. And if you examine these things carefully,” he says, “you will find him in yourself — one and many, like that stroke — and you will find that he has his way out from yourself.” [l]

That, then, is what these people say. But there is no need for us to set such teachings beside what the Greeks had already thought out, since what these men assert plainly takes its origin from geometry and arithmetic. The followers of Pythagoras, however, set out that art by a better method, as our readers can find for themselves in the earlier passages where we laid out the whole wisdom of the Greeks. And since the heresy of Monoimus has now been refuted well enough, let us see what invented doctrines the rest of them devise as well, in their eagerness to set up an empty name for themselves.

Tatian, though he was himself a student of Justin the Martyr, did not hold the same opinions as his teacher. He tried to establish certain new doctrines, and claimed that there are certain invisible Aeons. He made up a legendary account of them, like the accounts given by Valentinus. And like Marcion, he asserts that marriage is ruin. But he alleges that Adam is not saved, since he was the one who began the disobedience. So much for the doctrines of Tatian. [m]

A certain Hermogenes, also imagining that he was putting forward some new opinion, said that God made all things out of matter that is as old as God himself and was never brought into being. For it was impossible, he said, for God to make things that come into being out of things that are not. And God is always Lord and always Creator, and matter is always his slave and always coming into being — though not the whole of it. For while matter was being moved continually in a rough and disorderly way, God reduced it to order by the following method. Looking at it seething like a pot with a fire burning underneath, he brought about a partial separation. He took one portion out of the whole and subdued it, and the other he allowed to be whirled about in disorder. What was subdued, he asserts, is the world, while another portion stays wild and is called unordered matter. [o]

This, he asserts, is what all things are made of — as though he were introducing a new doctrine for his disciples. It does not occur to him that this happens to be the argument of Socrates, and that Plato worked it out far more thoroughly than Hermogenes does. He does acknowledge, however, that Christ is the Son of the God who created all things, and along with that he confesses that Christ was born of a virgin and of the Spirit, according to the voice of the Gospels. And he maintains that after his suffering Christ was raised up in a body, appeared to his disciples, and, as he went up into heaven, left his body in the sun, while he himself went on to the Father. And Hermogenes appeals to testimony, thinking to support himself by what is spoken — what David says in the Psalms: “In the sun he has set his tent; and he himself is like a bridegroom coming out of his bridal chamber, and he will rejoice like a giant to run his course.” These, then, are the opinions that Hermogenes too attempted to establish.

And certain others, quarrelsome by nature, entirely uninformed as regards knowledge, and in their manner more contentious than most, insist together that the Passover must be kept on the fourteenth day of the first month, as the law commands, on whatever day of the week it falls. In this they attend only to what has been written in the law — that anyone who does not keep the command as it is laid down will be cursed. But they do not attend to this: that the legal enactment was made for Jews, who in time to come would kill the real Passover. And this has now spread to the Gentiles, and is discerned by faith, and is no longer observed as a matter of the letter. They attend to this one commandment, and do not look at what was said by the apostle: “For I testify to every man who is circumcised that he is under obligation to keep the whole law.” In everything else, however, these people agree with all the traditions handed down to the church by the apostles. [s]

But there are others who are even more given to heresy than these, and who are Phrygians by birth. They have been made victims of error after being captivated by two wretched women, a certain Priscilla and Maximilla, whom they supposed to be prophetesses. They assert that the Paraclete Spirit went into these women; and before them they hold Montanus in the same way to be a prophet. Possessing an endless number of their books, they are overrun with delusion. They do not judge by reason whatever statements are made by them, nor do they give heed to those competent to decide; they are simply swept along, without care, by the reliance they place on these people. And they allege that through these two they have learned something more than they have from the law, the prophets, and the Gospels. They magnify these wretched women above the apostles and every gift of grace, so that some of them presume to assert that there is something in them superior to Christ. [v]

These people acknowledge God to be the Father of the universe and the Creator of all things, in the same way the church does, and they receive as many things as the Gospel testifies concerning Christ. They bring in novelties, however: fasts, and festivals, and meals of dry food, and dinners of radishes, alleging that they were instructed by women. And some of them assent to the heresy of the Noetians, and affirm that the Father himself is the Son, and that this same one came under birth and suffering and death. Concerning these I will offer an explanation again, in a more detailed manner, for their heresy has been an occasion of evils to many. We are of the opinion, therefore, that what has been said about these people is sufficient, once we have briefly proved to everyone that the majority of their books are silly, and their attempts at reasoning weak and worth no consideration. But there is no need for anyone who has a sound mind to pay attention to them.

Others, however, who style themselves Encratites, acknowledge some things concerning God and Christ in the same way the church does. In their way of life, though, they pass their days inflated with pride. They suppose that they magnify themselves by what they eat, abstaining from animal food, drinking only water, forbidding marriage, and devoting the rest of their lives to habits of hard self-denial. But people of this description are reckoned Cynics rather than Christians, since they pay no attention to the words spoken against them through the apostle Paul. For he, predicting the novelties that certain men would later bring in to no purpose, made a statement as follows: “The Spirit says expressly: in the latter times certain people will depart from sound teaching, giving heed to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons, speaking falsehoods in hypocrisy, their own conscience branded with a hot iron, forbidding marriage and telling people to abstain from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and by prayer.” [z]

This word of the blessed Paul, then, is enough to refute those who live in this manner and plume themselves on being righteous, and to prove that this teaching of theirs also amounts to a heresy. And although certain other heresies have been named — I mean those of the Cainites, the Ophites or Noachites, and others of that description — I have not thought it necessary to explain what these people say or do, in case that should make them consider themselves somebody, or deserving of attention. Since, however, what has been said about them appears to be sufficient, let us pass on to the cause of evils to everyone: the heresy of the Noetians. And once we have laid bare the root of it, and marked out in the open the poison lurking within it, let us try to turn away from an error of this kind those who have been driven into it by a violent spirit, as if by a river in flood.