Truth Turned Into an Alphabet

The all-wise Sige, then, announced to him the production of the twenty-four elements in this way. Alongside Monotes there existed Henotes, and out of these came two productions, as we said earlier: Monas and Hen. Added to the other two, these make four, since twice two is four. And two and four added together give six. And these six, multiplied by four, produce the twenty-four forms. The names of the first Tetrad are held to be most holy, and beyond putting into words, and the Son alone knows them, though the Father also knows what they are. The other names, which are to be spoken with reverence and faith and awe, are, according to him, Arrhetos and Sige, Pater and Aletheia. [a]

The whole of this Tetrad comes to twenty-four letters. Arrhetos has seven letters in it, Seige five, Pater five, and Aletheia seven. Add them all together — twice five and twice seven — and they complete the number twenty-four. In the same way the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia, yields the same number of elements. And the name of the Savior that can be pronounced, Jesus, has six letters, while his unutterable name has twenty-four. “Son Christ” has twelve letters, but what is unpronounceable in Christ has thirty. That, he says, is why Christ is called Alpha and Omega: so as to point to the dove, since that bird has this number in its name.

But Jesus, he claims, has the following unspeakable origin. From the mother of all things — that is, the first Tetrad — the second Tetrad came out like a daughter, and so an Ogdoad was formed, from which in turn a Decad proceeded; thus a Decad and an Ogdoad were produced. Then the Decad, joined to the Ogdoad and multiplying it ten times, gave rise to the number eighty; and eighty, multiplied ten times again, produced eight hundred. So the whole number of the letters that proceed from the Ogdoad into the Decad is eight hundred eighty-eight. And this is the name Jesus: for if you reckon up the numerical value of its letters, it comes to eight hundred eighty-eight. There you have their opinion about the origin of the Jesus above the heavens, plainly stated. This is also why the Greek alphabet contains eight units, eight tens and eight hundreds, which present the number eight hundred eighty-eight — that is, Jesus, who is made up of all numbers; and that is why he is called Alpha and Omega, indicating that he comes from them all.

They put the matter another way as well. If the first Tetrad is added up in its numerical order, the number ten appears — one and two and three and four added together make ten, and this, they will have it, is Jesus. Chreistos, he says, is a word of eight letters and indicates the first Ogdoad, and this, multiplied by ten, gives birth to Jesus. And “Christ the Son” is also spoken of, he says — that is, the Duodecad: for “Son” has four letters and “Chreistos” eight, and combined they point out the greatness of the Duodecad.

But before the Episemon of this name appeared — that is, Jesus the Son — humanity was sunk in great ignorance and error. When this name of six letters was made known — the one who bore it clothing himself in flesh so that he might come within reach of human senses, and having in himself these six letters and the twenty-four — then people came to know him, left their ignorance behind, and passed from death to life, this name serving as their guide to the Father of truth. For the Father of all had determined to put an end to ignorance and to destroy death; and this doing away with ignorance was simply the knowledge of him. And so that Man, Anthropos, was chosen according to his will, having been formed after the image of the corresponding power above.

As for the Aeons, they proceeded from the Tetrad, and in that Tetrad were Anthropos and Ecclesia, Logos and Zoe. The powers that flowed out from these, he declares, generated the Jesus who appeared on earth. The angel Gabriel took the place of Logos, the Holy Spirit the place of Zoe, the Power of the Most High the place of Anthropos, and the Virgin marked the place of Ecclesia. So, by a special arrangement, there was generated through Mary that man whom, as he passed through the womb, the Father of all chose so that by means of the Word he might be known.

And when he came to the water, there came down on him, in the shape of a dove, that being who had earlier gone up on high and filled out the twelfth number, in whom there existed the seed of those produced at the same time as himself, who came down and went up along with him. The power that came down, he maintains, was the seed of the Father, which had in itself both the Father and the Son, and also that power of Sige which is known through them but cannot be put into words, and all the Aeons besides. And this was the Spirit who spoke through the mouth of Jesus, who confessed that he was the Son of Man and also revealed the Father, and who, having come down into Jesus, was made one with him. And he says that the Savior formed by the special arrangement did indeed destroy death, but that it was Christ who made the Father known. So he maintains that Jesus is the name of the man formed by the special arrangement, and that he was formed after the likeness and shape of the Anthropos above, who was about to come down on him. Once he had received that Aeon, he possessed Anthropos himself, and Logos himself, and Pater, and Arrhetos, and Sige, and Aletheia, and Ecclesia, and Zoe.

Such ravings, we may now fairly say, go beyond “Ah! Ah! Alas! Alas!” and every other kind of tragic outcry or wail of misery. For who would not loathe the man who is the wretched inventor of such barefaced lies, when he sees the truth turned by Marcus into a mere image — and that image punctured all over with the letters of the alphabet? The Greeks admit that they first received sixteen letters from Cadmus, and that only recently, as things go from the beginning, which the common proverb calls “yesterday and the day before.” Afterward, in the course of time, they invented for themselves the aspirated letters at one period and the double letters at another, while last of all, they say, Palamedes added the long letters to those. Was truth, then, nonexistent until these things happened among the Greeks? For according to you, Marcus, the body of truth comes later than Cadmus and the men before him, later than those who added the rest of the letters, later even than you yourself — since you alone have formed what you call the truth into a visible image.

And who will put up with your nonsensical Sige, who names the one who cannot be named, explains the nature of the one who cannot be spoken of, searches out the one who cannot be searched out, and declares that the one you insist has neither body nor form opened his mouth and sent out the Word, as if he were one of the creatures made of parts — and that his Word, though like the one who produced him and bearing the image of the invisible, nevertheless consisted of thirty elements and four syllables? It will follow, on your theory, that the Father of all, matching the likeness of the Word, consists of thirty elements and four syllables.

Or again, who will put up with your juggling of shapes and numbers — thirty at one moment, twenty-four at the next, and then again only six — while you shut up in them the Word of God, the founder and framer and maker of all things; and then again cut him up piecemeal into four syllables and thirty elements; and bring the Lord of all, who founded the heavens, down to the number eight hundred eighty-eight, so that he may be like the alphabet; and subdivide the Father, who cannot be contained but contains all things, into a Tetrad and an Ogdoad and a Decad and a Duodecad — setting out by such multiplications the unspeakable and unthinkable nature of the Father, as you yourself declare it to be? Showing yourself a regular Daedalus at inventing evil, and the wicked architect of the supreme power, you construct a nature and a substance out of a crowd of letters generated one from another for the one you call bodiless and without matter. And the power you say is indivisible you nevertheless divide into consonants and vowels and semivowels; and by falsely assigning the mute letters to the Father of all and to his Ennoia, you have driven everyone who puts confidence in you to the highest pitch of blasphemy and to the grossest godlessness.

With good reason, then, and very fittingly, a certain godly elder and preacher of the truth has burst out in verse against you and your reckless attempt:

Those are the words of the saintly elder. And I will try to state the rest of their mystery-system, which runs out to great length, in a short compass, and to bring into the light what has been hidden for a long time; for in that way it will become easy for anyone to expose.

These people blend into one the production of their own Aeons and the straying and recovery of the sheep in the Gospel, and try to set things out in a more mystical style, referring everything to numbers and maintaining that the universe was formed out of a Monad and a Dyad. Then, reckoning from one on to four, they generate the Decad: for when one, two, three and four are added together, they give rise to the number of the ten Aeons. And again the Dyad, advancing from itself by twos as far as six — two, four, six — brings out the Duodecad. Once more, if we reckon the same way up to ten, the number thirty appears, and in it are found eight, ten and twelve. [q]

They therefore call the Duodecad “the passion,” because it contains the Episemon and because the Episemon waits upon it. And for this reason, because an error occurred in connection with the twelfth number, the sheep skipped away and went astray; for they assert that a defection took place from the Duodecad. In the same way they declare, as though giving an oracle, that one power departed from the Duodecad and perished, and that this was represented by the woman who lost the drachma and, lighting a lamp, found it again. So the numbers that were left — nine, as regards the pieces of money, and eleven, as regards the sheep — when multiplied together give birth to ninety-nine, for nine times eleven is ninety-nine. And that is why they maintain that the word “Amen” contains this number.

I will not, however, wear you out by recounting the rest of their interpretations; you can see for yourself how it comes out everywhere. They maintain, for instance, that the letter Eta together with the Episemon constitutes an Ogdoad, since it occupies the eighth place from the first letter. Then again, leaving out the Episemon and reckoning the number of the letters up to Eta, they bring out the Triacontad. For if you begin at Alpha and end at Eta, omitting the Episemon, and add together the value of the letters in succession, you will find the total to be thirty: up to Epsilon fifteen are formed; adding seven to that number, the sum of twenty-two is reached; and next, with Eta added, since its value is eight, the most wonderful Triacontad is complete. And so they give it out that the Ogdoad is the mother of the thirty Aeons.

Since, then, the number thirty is composed of three powers, when it is multiplied by three it produces ninety, for three times thirty is ninety. And likewise this Triad, multiplied by itself, gives rise to nine. So the Ogdoad generates ninety-nine by these means. And since the twelfth Aeon, by her defection, left eleven behind in the heights above, they maintain that the position of the letters is a true match for their method of reckoning. For Lambda is eleventh in order among the letters and stands for the number thirty, and it also forms a picture of the arrangement of things above, since, going on from Alpha and omitting the Episemon, the number of the letters up to Lambda, added together according to their values in succession and including Lambda itself, comes to ninety-nine.

But this Lambda, being eleventh in order, went down to look for one equal to itself, so as to complete the number of twelve letters; and that it found such a one, and the number was completed, is plain, they say, from the very shape of the letter. For Lambda, being engaged as it were in the search for one like itself, and finding such a one, and clasping it to itself, thus filled up the place of the twelfth — the letter Mu being composed of two Lambdas. And that is why, by means of their “knowledge,” they avoid the place of the ninety-nine, that is, the defection, which is a figure of the left hand, and try to secure one more, which, added to the ninety-nine, has the effect of shifting their reckoning over to the right hand.

I know very well, my dear friend, that when you have read all this through you will indulge in a hearty laugh over their inflated wise folly. But the men who put out a religion of this kind are really worthy of being mourned over — men who so coldly and perversely pull to pieces the greatness of the truly unspeakable power, and the arrangements of God, striking as they are in themselves, by means of Alpha and Beta and the help of numbers. And as many as separate from the church and give heed to such old wives’ tales as these are truly self-condemned; these are the men Paul commands us to avoid “after a first and second warning.” And John, the disciple of the Lord, has made their condemnation heavier still, since he does not want us even to greet them; for, he says, “Whoever greets them shares in their evil deeds” — and with reason, for “there is no rejoicing for the ungodly,” says the Lord.

Godless indeed beyond all godlessness are these men, who assert that the maker of heaven and earth, the only God Almighty, besides whom there is no God, was produced by means of a defect which itself sprang from another defect, so that on their account he was the product of a third defect. Such an opinion we ought to detest and curse, and we ought everywhere to keep far away from those who hold it; and the more violently they maintain and delight in their invented teachings, so much the more should we be convinced that they are under the influence of the wicked spirits of the Ogdoad.

It is like people who fall into a fit of frenzy: the more they laugh, and imagine themselves to be well, and do everything as if they were in good health, some things even better than those who really are, the more seriously diseased they are shown to be. In the same way these men, the more they seem to outdo others in wisdom, and waste their strength by drawing the bow too tight, the greater fools they show themselves to be. For when the unclean spirit of folly has gone out, and afterward finds them not waiting upon God but taken up with mere worldly questions, then he takes “seven other spirits more wicked than himself,” inflates these men’s minds with the notion that they can conceive of something beyond God, gets them properly prepared for receiving deceit, and plants within them the Ogdoad of the foolish spirits of wickedness.