Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 18/82

'For each of them, being a part of the whole, names its own sound as though it were the whole, and does not cease sounding, until, having become one voice, it arrives at the last letter of the last element.'

'And he said that the restoration of all things would then take place, when all things, having come down into the one letter, should sound one and the same pronunciation.'

He supposed that the 'Amen' which we say together is an image of this pronunciation.

And he said that the sounds are those which give form to the without-substance and unbegotten Aeon.

And that these are the forms which the Lord called angels, those who continually behold the face of the Father.

The common and expressible names of the Elements he called Aeons, and Words, and Roots, and Seeds, and Pleromas, and Fruits; but he said that the particular names proper to each one of them individually are to be understood as contained within the name 'Church.'

Of these elements, the last letter of the last element put forth its own sound.

And its sound, going forth after the image of the elements, begot elements of its own.

He says that from these both the things here below have been ordered, and the things prior to these were begotten.

But that letter itself, whose sound was following along with the sound below, he says was taken back up above by its own syllable, for the filling up of the whole.

But the sound remained down below, as though cast outside.

As for the element itself, from which the letter, together with its own pronunciation, came down together below -- this, he says, consists of thirty letters, and each one of the thirty letters has within itself other letters, by which the name of the letter is named.

And again, these other letters are in turn named by yet other letters, and those others by still others, so that the multitude of letters falls away into infinity.

In this way you might learn more clearly what is being said:

The element Delta has within itself five letters: Delta itself, and Epsilon, and Lambda, and Tau, and Alpha; and these letters, in turn, are written by means of other letters, and those others by yet others.

If, then, the whole substance of Delta falls away into infinity, with letters continually begetting other letters and succeeding one another, how much greater must be the sea of letters belonging to that whole element? And if a single letter is thus infinite, consider the depth of letters of the whole name, out of which the Silence of Marcus has taught that the Forefather is constituted.

Wherefore also the Father, knowing his own incomprehensibility, gave to the Elements -- which he also calls Aeons -- that each one of them should cry out its own pronunciation, because a single one was not able to pronounce the whole.

And having made these things clear to him, the Tetraktys said:

'I wish also to show you Truth herself.'

'For I have brought her down from the dwellings above, that you may behold her naked and thoroughly learn her beauty, and also hear her speaking and marvel at her wisdom.'

'Behold, then, the head above: Alpha and Omega; the neck: Beta and Psi; the shoulders together with the hands: Gamma and Chi; the breast: Delta and Phi; the diaphragm: Epsilon and Upsilon; the belly: Zeta and Tau; the private parts: Eta and Sigma; the thighs: Theta and Rho; the knees: Iota and Pi; the shins: Kappa and Omicron; the ankles: Lambda and Xi; the feet: Mu and Nu.'

'This is the body of Truth according to the magician; this is the shape of the Element; this is the character of the Letter.'

And he calls this element 'Man.'

And he says that it is the fountain of every word, and the beginning of every voice, and the utterance of everything ineffable, and the mouth of the Silence that is kept silent.

And this, then, is her body.

But you, raising up on high the understanding of your mind, hear from the mouths of Truth the Word that is self-begotten and gives the Father.

And when she had said these things, Truth (so the tale goes) looked at him, opened her mouth, and spoke a word;

and the word became a name, and this name is the one we know and speak: Christ Jesus;

and having named it, she immediately fell silent.

Then the Tetrad, coming forward into the midst, says:

How contemptible you have thought the word which you heard from the mouths of Truth!

This is not the name which you know and think you have long possessed;

for you have only its sound, but you are ignorant of its power.

For Jesus is indeed a notable name having six letters, known by all who belong to the calling;

but the name among the Aeons of the Pleroma, being of many parts, is of another form and a different type, known only by those kindred beings whose Greatnesses are always present with him.

Know, then, that these twenty-four letters that are among you are emanations of the three powers, images comprehending the whole number of the elements above.

For consider that the nine mute letters belong to the Father and to Truth, because these are themselves voiceless, that is, ineffable and inexpressible;

and the semivowels, being eight, belong to the Word and Life, because they exist as it were midway between the mute letters and the vowels, receiving the emanation from those above them and the ascent from those beneath them;

and the vowels, likewise being seven, belong to Man and the Church, since it was through Man that the sound went forth and gave form to all things;

for the sound's resonance procured them their form.

So the Word and Life have the eight, Man and the Church have the seven, and the Father and Truth have the nine.

But concerning the Word that fell short, he who had been enthroned in the Father came down, sent forth to him from whom he had been separated, for the correction of what had been done, so that the unity of the Pleromas, having equality, might bring forth in all one single power composed of all.

And thus the one of the seven received the power of the eight, and the three places became alike in their numbers, being Ogdoads, which, coming upon themselves three times, brought forth the number twenty-four.

Now the three elements, which he says belong to the three powers in conjunction, and which are six, from which the twenty-four elements flowed, when multiplied fourfold by the principle of the ineffable Tetrad, make the same number as those, which he says belong to the Unnameable One.

And these are borne by the three powers into a likeness of the Invisible One; and the double letters among us are images of the images of these elements, which, counted together with the twenty-four elements by way of analogy, make up the number thirty.

He says that the fruit of this Word and of this dispensation appeared in the likeness of an image in that one who, after six days, went up the mountain as a fourth and became a sixth, who came down and was contained within the Hebdomad, being a notable Ogdoad and having in himself the entire number of the elements, which the descent of the dove made manifest when he came to his baptism — the dove whose number is Omega and Alpha;

for its number is eight hundred and one;

and for this reason Moses said that man came into being on the sixth day, and that the dispensation likewise, on the sixth day — which is the Preparation — the last man appeared for the regeneration of the first man; and that the beginning and end of this dispensation is the sixth hour, in which he was nailed to the wood.

For the perfect Mind, knowing the number six, which holds the power of creation and regeneration, made manifest to the sons of light the regeneration brought about for them through the one who appeared as the notable sign, and through him.

Hence, he says, the double letters also bear the notable number.

For the notable number, mingled with the twenty-four elements, completed the thirty-lettered name.

And he makes use, as of a servant, of the greatness of the seven numbers, as the Silence of Marcus says, so that the fruit of the self-willed counsel might be made manifest —

— namely, the one who was cut off and remained outside, who, by his own power and understanding, through the emanation proceeding from him, ensouled this world with the power of the seven powers in imitation of the power of the Hebdomad, and appointed it to be the soul of the whole visible universe.

This one, then, himself also makes use of this work as having come about of his own free will, while the powers serve, being imitations of the inimitable, ministering to the Enthymesis of the Mother.

And the first heaven utters the sound alpha, the one after it epsilon, the third eta, the fourth — the middle one of the seven — sounds forth the power of iota, the fifth omicron, the sixth upsilon, and the seventh — being the fourth from the middle — cries out the element omega, as the Silence of Marcus, who babbles much but says nothing true, asserts.

These powers, he says, all together, interwoven with one another, resound and glorify him by whom they were put forth, and the glory of the sound is sent up to the Forefather.

He says, however, that the sound of this doxology, carried down to the earth, became the fashioner and begetter of the things on earth.

And he offers the proof from newly born infants, whose soul, as soon as it comes forth from the womb, cries aloud the sound of each one of these elements.

Just as the seven powers, he says, glorify the Word, so also the soul in infants, weeping and wailing, glorifies him — so Marcus maintains.

And for this reason, when the soul comes to be in toils and afflictions, unto its own refining, it cries out the omega as a sign of praise, so that the soul above, recognizing its kindred, may send down help to it.

And concerning the whole Name — this being of thirty letters — and concerning the Depth, which increases out of the letters of this Name, and further concerning the body of Truth, which has twelve members, each member composed of two letters, and concerning her voice, with which she conversed without conversing, and concerning the interpretation of the Name that was not spoken, and concerning the soul of the world and of man, according to the dispensation they have after the image — thus has he babbled.

Next we shall report to you how the Tetrad displayed to him a power equal in number to that of the names, so that nothing of what has come to us, spoken by him, may escape you, beloved, just as you have often requested of us.

Thus, then, their all-wise Silence relates the origin of the twenty-four elements:

Unity co-exists with Oneness, from which two emanations, as has been said before, the Monad and the One, being twice two, became four;

and again, the two and the four, added together, made manifest the number six; and these six, multiplied fourfold, gave birth to the twenty-four forms.

And the names of the first Tetrad, being conceived of as holy of holies and unable to be spoken, are known by the Son alone — names which the Father knows what they are;

but those which are reverently and with faith named among them are these:

Unspeakable and Silence, Father and Truth.

And the total number of this Tetrad's letters is twenty-four elements;

for the name 'Unspeakable' has in itself seven letters, and 'Silence' five, and 'Father' five, and 'Truth' seven; and these, added together — twice five and twice seven — fulfilled the number twenty-four.

And likewise the second Tetrad also — Word and Life, Man and Church — displayed the same number of elements.

And the Savior's spoken name Jesus consists of six letters, but his unspeakable name consists of twenty-four letters;

'Son Christ' is of twelve letters, but the unspeakable name in Christ is of thirty letters.

And for this reason, he says, he is called Alpha and Omega, so as to signify the dove, since this bird bears this same number.

Jesus, he says, has this ineffable origin:

for from the Mother of all things, the first Tetrad, the second Tetrad proceeded in the place of a daughter, and it became an Ogdoad, from which a Decad proceeded;

thus there came to be a Decad and an Ogdoad.

The Decad, then, coming together with the Ogdoad and multiplying it tenfold, brought forth the number eighty; and multiplying the eighty tenfold again, it produced the number eight hundred, so that the total number of the letters, proceeding from the Ogdoad into the Decad, is eight, and eighty, and eight hundred — which is Jesus.

For the name Jesus, according to the numerical value of its letters, is eight hundred eighty-eight.

You have clearly, then, also the supracelestial origin of Jesus according to them.

Therefore also the Greek alphabet has eight units, eight tens, and eight hundreds, displaying the number eight hundred eighty-eight — that is, Jesus, who is composed of all the numbers.

And for this reason he is named Alpha and Omega, signifying his origin from all things.

When the first Tetrad, by a progression of number, is added together into itself, the number ten appears;

for one and two and three and four, added together, become ten, which is the letter iota; and this they wish to be Jesus.

But also 'Christ,' he says, being of eight letters, signifies the first Ogdoad, which, interwoven with the iota, gave birth to Jesus.

And he says he is also called 'Son Christ,' that is, the Dodecad;

for the name 'Son' is of four letters, and 'Christ' of eight;

which, added together, displayed the magnitude of the Dodecad.

Before, then, he says, the notable sign of this name appeared — that is, Jesus the Son — men existed in great ignorance and error;

but when the six-lettered name was manifested — which put on flesh so that it might descend into the perception of man, having in itself both the six and the twenty-four — then, having come to know him, they ceased from their ignorance and rose up from death into life, the name having become for them a way to the Father of truth.

For the Father of all had willed to dissolve ignorance and to destroy death.

And the dissolution of ignorance was the knowledge of him.

And for this reason Man was chosen, the one arranged according to his will after the image of the power above.

For the Aeons proceeded from the Tetrad.

And in the Tetrad were Man and the Church, Word and Life.

From these, then, he says, powers flowed forth and gave birth to the Jesus who appeared on earth; and the angel Gabriel fulfilled the place of the Word, the Holy Spirit that of Life, the power of the Most High that of Man, while the virgin displayed the place of the Church.

Thus, according to the dispensation, a man is engendered by him through Mary, whom the Father of all, after he had passed through the womb, chose through the Word for the full knowledge of himself.

And when he came to the water, the one who had run up on high and had fulfilled the twelfth number — in which the seed exists — descended upon him as a dove: these were the seeds that had been sown together with him, had descended together with him, and had ascended together with him.

And he says that the power itself which descended is the seed of the Father, containing in itself both the Father and the Son, as well as the unnameable power of Silence that is known through these, and all the Aeons together.

And that this is the Spirit that spoke through the mouth of Jesus, that confessed itself to be the Son of Man, and manifested the Father;

having indeed descended into Jesus, and been united with him.

And he says that Jesus the Savior, who came from the dispensation, destroyed death, and made known the Father — the Christ.

— that is, Man, and the Word himself, and the Father, and the Unspeakable, and Silence, and Truth, and Church, and Life.

These things by now surpass even 'woe, woe!' and 'alas!' and every tragic exclamation and lament.

For who would not hate the ill-composing author of such great falsehoods, seeing that the Truth has been turned into an idol by Marcus, and this idol tattooed with the letters of the alphabet?

For, compared with the beginning of things, it was only recently — what is proverbially called 'yesterday and the day before' — that the Greeks themselves acknowledge they first received sixteen letters from Cadmus; then afterward, as time went on, they themselves discovered, at one time the aspirated letters, at another the double consonants, and last of all, they say, Palamedes added to these the long vowels.

Before these things came to be among the Greeks, then, Truth did not exist!

For according to you, Marcus, her body is later than Cadmus and those before him, later than those who added the remaining letters, and later even than yourself!

For you alone brought down, as an idol, the 'Truth' you speak of.

And who will endure your 'Silence' that babbles so much — she who names the unnameable, expounds the ineffable, and narrates the untraceable, and says that he opened his mouth, though you call him bodiless and formless, and put forth a Word, as if he were one of the composite living creatures?

And that his Word, being like the one who put him forth and having become the form of the invisible one, consists of thirty letters and four syllables;

Therefore, according to the likeness of the Word, the Father of all, as you say, will also consist of thirty letters and four syllables!

And that substance which you claim to be indivisible, you subdivide into mute, vowel, and semi-vowel sounds — falsely attributing their muteness to the Father of all and to his Thought (Ennoia) — and thus you have cast all who obey you into the utmost blasphemy and the greatest impiety.

Wherefore, justly and fittingly, in response to such audacity of yours, the divine elder and herald of the truth cried out against you in verse, speaking as follows:

O Marcus, maker of idols and observer of portents, skilled in the art of astrology and magic, by which you strengthen the teachings of error, showing signs to those led astray by you — the undertakings of an apostate power, which your father Satan continually supplies you to perform through the angelic power of Azazel, keeping you as a forerunner of his antigod villainy!

So spoke the God-beloved elder.

But we shall try to go briefly through the rest of their mystagogy, lengthy though it is, and to bring into the light what has been hidden for so long a time.

For thus it may become easily refutable by all.

Having united together, then, the generation of their Aeons and the wandering of the sheep and its recovery, these men, who reduce everything to numbers, attempt to relate the matter in a more mystical fashion, asserting that all things are composed of the monad and the dyad;

and counting from the monad up to four, they thus generate the decad.

Two, three, and four, added together, brought forth the number of the ten Aeons.

Again, the dyad, proceeding from itself up to the Episemon — that is, two, four, and six — displayed the dodecad.

And again, when we likewise count from the dyad up to ten, the triacontad was disclosed, in which are the ogdoad, the decad, and the dodecad.

They say, then, that because the dodecad possesses the Episemon, a corresponding notable suffering (pathos) accompanied it, and that for this reason, since the error occurred with regard to the twelfth number, the sheep leapt away and went astray — for they claim that the departure took place from the dodecad.

In the same manner they also divine that one power, having departed from the dodecad, was lost, and that this is the woman who lost the drachma, lit a lamp, and found it.

Thus, then, they say, the numbers that were left behind — nine in the case of the drachma, eleven in the case of the sheep — being intertwined with one another, produce the number ninety-nine, since eleven times nine comes to ninety-nine.

Therefore they also say that the word 'Amen' has this same number.

I will not hesitate to relate to you also another of their expositions, so that from every side you may perceive the fruit that they bear.

For they wish the letter eta, together with the Episemon, to be the ogdoad, since it is situated in the eighth position from alpha;

then again, calculating the number of the letters themselves without the Episemon, and adding them up as far as eta, they demonstrate the triacontad.

For if one begins from alpha and ends at eta according to the numerical value of the letters, subtracting the Episemon and adding up the successive increase of the letters, he will find the number thirty.

For up to the letter epsilon there are fifteen;

then, when the number seven is added to these, it completes twenty-two;

and when eta, which is eight, is added to these, it fills up the most wonderful triacontad.

And from this they demonstrate the Ogdoad to be the mother of the thirty Aeons.

Since, then, the number thirty is united out of three powers, when tripled it makes ninety;

for three times thirty is ninety.

And the triad itself, added together with itself, produced nine.

Thus, then, the ogdoad, according to them, brought forth the number ninety-nine.

And since the twelfth Aeon departed and left behind the eleven above, they say that the pattern of the letters corresponds fittingly to the shape of the word (logos); for lambda stands in the eleventh place among the letters, and it is the number thirty, and it stands as an image of the dispensation above, since, from alpha, without the Episemon, the number of the letters themselves added together as far as lambda, according to the successive increase of the letters, together with lambda itself, makes the number ninety-nine.

And that lambda, being eleventh in order, went down in search of the one similar to itself, in order that it might fill up the twelfth number, and having found it, was completed — this is evident from the very shape of the letter itself.

For lambda, as though it had gone in search of its like and had found it and seized it into itself, filled up the place of the twelfth, since the letter mu is composed of two lambdas.

Therefore, they say, they flee through knowledge from the region of the ninety-nine — that is, the Deficiency, a type of the left hand — and pursue instead the one, which, added to the ninety-nine, transfers them to the right hand.

As for you, beloved, in going through these things, I know well that you will laugh a great deal at such conceited-wise folly of theirs.

But those who so coldly and forcibly ridicule such great godly reverence, and the magnitude of the truly ineffable power, and the so-many dispensations of God, by means of alpha and beta and through mere numbers, are worthy of mourning.

They are self-condemned, whom Paul commands us to reject after a first and second admonition.

And John, the disciple of the Lord, intensified their condemnation, not even wishing that a greeting of 'rejoice' be spoken to them by us:

for, he says, whoever says to them 'Rejoice' shares in their evil works.

'For there is no rejoicing for the ungodly,' says the Lord.

And these men are ungodly beyond all ungodliness, who say that the Maker of heaven and earth, the only almighty God, beside whom there is no other god, was put forth from a Deficiency, itself having come to be from yet another Deficiency;

so that, according to them, he is the projection of a third Deficiency.

This opinion one truly ought to blow away with contempt and utterly curse, and one ought to flee far and away from them; and the more they insist strongly and rejoice over their inventions, the more one ought to know that they are being worked upon by the ogdoad of evil spirits — just as those who have fallen into a feverish frenzy either laugh all the more and seem to be strong and do everything as though they were healthy, some things even beyond what health allows, and by this very fact they are all the more ill.

In like manner, these men too, the more they seem to think highly of themselves and exhaust themselves by shooting beyond their strength, the less sound of mind they are.

For the unclean spirit of folly, having gone out, and then finding them occupied not with God but with worldly speculations, took along with itself seven other spirits more evil than itself, and, having puffed up their mind into thinking that they were able to conceive of things beyond God, and having prepared it as fit for excessive derangement, implanted in them the ogdoad of folly of the evil spirits.

First, they say, the four elements — fire, water, earth, and air — were put forth as an image of the first Tetrad above, and that their properties, reckoned together — hot and cold, dry and moist — accurately image forth the Ogdoad.

Next, they enumerate ten powers as follows:

seven bodily, circular spheres, which they also call heavens;

then the encompassing circle of these, which they also 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 that proceeded from the Word and Life.

And they say that the Dodecad is signified through the circle called the Zodiac.

For they say that the twelve signs most clearly sketch out in outline the Dodecad, the daughter of Man and Church.

And since, they say, the heaven above — which presses down near the very vault of the firmament and counterbalances the swiftness of the universal motion, which is extremely swift, with its own slowness — was yoked in opposition to the swiftest motion of the whole, so that it completes its circuit from point to point in thirty years, they say that it is an image of the Horos who encompasses their Mother of thirty names.

And again, the moon, going around its own heaven in thirty days, portrays through those days the number of the thirty Aeons.

And that the sun, too, going around in twelve months and completing its cyclical restoration, makes the Dodecad manifest through the twelve months; and that the days themselves, having the measure of twelve hours, are a type of the unseen Dodecad.

But moreover they say that the hour also, the twelfth part of the day, has been adorned out of thirty degrees, on account of the image of the Thirty.

And that the circumference of the zodiacal circle itself is three hundred and sixty degrees;

for each sign of the zodiac has thirty degrees.

Thus, they say, through the circle also the image of the conjunction of the twelve with the thirty has been preserved,

declaring also that in each clime, one power apiece, received vertically from the heavens, and bringing forth children resembling the power that sends down the effluence, is most manifestly a type of the Dodecad and of her children — this they affirm most emphatically.

And here they say that, Truth having escaped him, falsehood followed after, and that on this account, when the times are fulfilled, his work receives dissolution.

And while saying such things about creation, each of them, day by day, according to his own ability, begets something newer still,

for none among them is counted perfect who has not brought forth great falsehoods.

But as for the prophetic passages which they distort, it is necessary, after pointing them out, to bring against them their refutation.

For Moses, they say, at the very beginning of his treatise on creation, straightway pointed out the Mother of all things, saying: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth.'

By naming these four things — God and beginning, heaven and earth — he thereby depicted, as they say, their Tetrad.

And, indicating also her invisible and hidden character, he said: 'Now the earth was invisible and unformed.'

As for the second Tetrad, offspring of the first Tetrad, they wish that he spoke of it thus, naming among themselves the deep, and darkness, and water, and the spirit borne upon the water.

After which, making mention of the Decad, he speaks of light and day and night, firmament and evening and what is called morning, dry land and sea, and further vegetation, and in the tenth place, the tree;

and thus, through the ten names, he indicated the ten Aeons.

And as for the Dodecad, its power is thus depicted by him: