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| Chapter XVI.—Absurd interpretations of the Marcosians.
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Chapter XVI.—Absurd interpretations
of the Marcosians.
1. Blending in one the production of
their own Æons, and the straying and recovery of the sheep [spoken of in
the Gospel2864
], these persons endeavour to
set forth things in a more mystical style, while they refer everything to
numbers, maintaining that the universe has been formed out of a Monad and
a Dyad. And then, reckoning from unity on to four, they thus generate the
Decad. For when one, two, three, and four are added together, they give
rise to the number of the ten Æons. And, again, the Dyad advancing from
itself [by twos] up to six—two, and four, and six—brings
out the Duodecad. Once more, if we reckon in the same way up to ten, the
number thirty appears, in which are found eight, and ten, and twelve.
They therefore term the Duodecad—because it contains the
Episemon,2865
| 2865 All the
editors, Grabe, Massuet, Stieren, and Harvey, differ as to the text and
interpretation of this sentence. We have given what seems the simplest
rendering of the text as it stands. | and because the Episemon
[so to speak] waits upon it—the passion. And for this reason,
because an error occurred in connection with the twelfth number,2866
| 2866 Referring to the last of the
twelve Æons. | the sheep frisked off, and went astray; for
they assert that a defection took place from the Duodecad. In the same
way they oracularly declare, that one power having departed also from the
Duodecad, has perished; and this was represented by the woman who lost
the drachma,2867
and, lighting a lamp, again
found it. Thus, therefore, the numbers that were left, viz., nine, as
respects the pieces of money, and eleven in regard to the sheep,2868
| 2868 Meaning the Æon who left the
Duodecad, when eleven remained, and not referring to the lost sheep of
the parable. | when multiplied together, give birth to the
number ninety-nine, for nine times eleven are ninety-nine. Wherefore also
they maintain the word “Amen” contains this number.
2. I will not, however, weary thee by recounting their
other interpretations, that you may perceive the results everywhere. They
maintain for instance, that the letter Eta (η) along with the
Episemon (ς) constitutes an
Ogdoad, inasmuch as it occupies the eighth place from the first letter.
Then, again, without the Episemon, reckoning the number of the
letters, and adding them up till we come to Eta, they bring out
the Triacontad. For if one begins at Alpha and ends with
Eta, omitting the Episemon, and adds together the value of
the letters in succession, he will find their number altogether to amount
to thirty. For up to Epsilon (ε) fifteen are formed;
then adding seven to that number, the sum of twenty-two is reached. Next,
Eta being added to these, since its value is eight, the most
wonderful Triacontad is completed. And hence they give forth that the
Ogdoad is the mother of the thirty Æons. Since, therefore, the number
thirty is composed of three powers [the Ogdoad, Decad, and Duodecad],
when multiplied by three, it produces ninety, for three times thirty are
ninety. Likewise this Triad, when multiplied by itself, gives rise to
nine. Thus the Ogdoad generates, by these means, ninety-nine. And since
the twelfth Æon, by her defection, left eleven in the heights above,
they maintain that therefore the position of the letters is a true
coordinate of the method of their calculation2869
| 2869 Harvey gives the above paraphrase of the
very obscure original; others propose to read λ´ instead
of λόγου. |
(for Lambda is the eleventh in order among the letters, and represents
the number thirty), and also forms a representation of the arrangement of
affairs above, since, on from Alpha, omitting Episemon, the number
of the letters up to Lambda, when added together according to the
successive value of the letters, and including Lambda itself,
forms the sum of ninety-nine; but that this Lambda, being the
eleventh in order, descended to seek after one equal to itself, so as to
complete the number of twelve letters, and when it found such a one, the
number was completed, is manifest from the very configuration of the
letter; for Lambda being engaged, as it were, in the quest of one
similar to itself, and finding such an one, and clasping it to itself,
thus filled up the place of the twelfth, the letter Mu (Μ) being composed of
two Lambdas (ΛΛ). Wherefore also
they, by means of their “knowledge,” avoid the place of
ninety-nine, that is, the defection—a type of the left hand,2870
| 2870 Massuet explains this and the
following reference, by remarking that the ancients used the fingers of
the hand in counting; by the left hand they indicated all the numbers
below a hundred, but by the right hand all above that sum.—Comp.
Juvenal, Sat., x. 249. | —but endeavour to secure
one more, which, when added to the ninety and nine, has the effect
of changing their reckoning to the right hand.
3. I well know, my dear friend, that when thou hast
read through all this, thou wilt indulge in a hearty laugh over this
their inflated wise folly! But those men are really worthy of being
mourned over, who promulgate such a kind of religion, and who so frigidly
and perversely pull to pieces the greatness of the truly unspeakable
power, and the dispensations of God in themselves so striking, by means
of Alpha and Beta, and through the aid of numbers. But as many as
separate from the Church, and give heed to such old wives’ fables
as these, are truly self-condemned; and these men Paul commands us,
“after a first and second admonition, to avoid.”2871
And John, the disciple of the
Lord, has intensified their condemnation, when he desires us not even to
address to them the salutation of “good-speed;” for, says he,
“He that bids them be of good-speed is a partaker with their evil
deeds;”2872
and that with reason,
“for there is no good-speed to the ungodly,”2873
saith the Lord. Impious indeed, beyond all impiety, 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, according to
them, He was the product of the third defect.2874
| 2874 The Demiurge being the fruit of the
abortive conversion of the abortive passion of Achamoth, who, again, was
the abortive issue of Sophia. | Such an opinion we should
detest and execrate, while we ought everywhere to flee far apart from
those that hold it; and in proportion as they vehemently maintain and
rejoice in their fictitious doctrines, so much the more should we be
convinced that they are under the influence of the wicked spirits of the
Ogdoad,—just as those persons who fall into a fit of frenzy, the
more they laugh, and imagine themselves to be well, and do all things as
if they were in good health [both of body and mind], yea, some things
better than those who really are so, are only thus shown to be the more
seriously diseased. In like manner do these men, the more they seem to
excel others in wisdom, and waste their strength by drawing the bow too
tightly,2875
| 2875 i.e., by aiming
at what transcends their ability, they fall into absurdity, as a bow is
broken by bending it too far. | the greater fools do they show
themselves. For when the unclean spirit of folly has gone forth, and when
afterwards he finds them not waiting upon God, but occupied with mere
worldly questions, then, “taking seven other spirits more wicked
than himself,”2876
and inflating the minds
of these men with the notion of their being able to conceive of something
beyond God, and having fitly prepared them for the reception of deceit,
he implants within them the Ogdoad of the foolish spirits of
wickedness.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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