Let the Decalogue be set forth cursorily by us as a specimen for gnostic exposition.

That ten is a sacred number, it is superfluous to say now. And if the tables that were written were the work of God, they will be found to exhibit physical creation. For by the “finger of God” is understood the power of God, by which the creation of heaven and earth is accomplished; of both of which the tables will be understood to be symbols. For the writing and handiwork of God put on the table is the creation of the world.

And the Decalogue, viewed as an image of heaven, embraces sun and moon, stars, clouds, light, wind, water, air, darkness, fire. This is the physical Decalogue of the heaven.

And the representation of the earth contains men, cattle, reptiles, wild beasts; and of the inhabitants of the water, fishes and whales; and again, of the winged tribes, those that are carnivorous, and those that use mild food; and of plants likewise, both fruit-bearing and barren. This is the physical Decalogue of the earth.

And the ark which held them³⁴⁴⁶

3446 i.e., the Commandments.

3447 For perfect wisdom, which is knowledge of things divine and human, which comprehends all that relates to the oversight of the flock of men, becomes, in reference to life, art (Instructor, book ii. chap. ii. p. 244, supra).

And perhaps the two tables themselves may be the prophecy of the two covenants. They were accordingly mystically renewed, as ignorance along with sin abounded. The commandments are written, then, doubly, as appears, for twofold spirits, the ruling and the subject. “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.”³⁴⁴⁸

3448 Gal. v. 17.

And there is a ten in man himself: the five senses, and the power of speech, and that of reproduction; and the eighth is the spiritual principle communicated at his creation; and the ninth the ruling faculty of the soul; and tenth, there is the distinctive characteristic of the Holy Spirit, which comes to him through faith.

Besides, in addition to these ten human parts, the law appear to give its injunctions³⁴⁴⁹

3449 The text reads ἐντολαῖς, which, however, Hervetus, Heinsius, and Sylburgius, all concur in changing to the accusative, as above.

Through the corporeal spirit, then, man perceives, desires, rejoices, is angry, is nourished, grows. It is by it, too, that thoughts and conceptions advance to actions. And when it masters the desires, the ruling faculty reigns.

The commandment, then, “Thou shalt not lust,” says, thou shalt not serve the carnal spirit, but shall rule over it; “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,”³⁴⁵⁰

3450 Gal. v. 17.

Is not man, then, rightly said “to have been made in the image of God?”—not in the form of his [corporeal] structure; but inasmuch as God creates all things by the Word (λόγῳ), and the man who has become a Gnostic performs good actions by the faculty of reason (τῷ λογικῷ), properly therefore the two tables are also said to mean the commandments that were given to the twofold spirits,—those communicated before the law to that which was created, and to the ruling faculty; and the movements of the senses are both copied in the mind, and manifested in the activity which proceeds from the body. For apprehension results from both combined. Again, as sensation is related to the world of sense, so is thought to that of intellect. And actions are twofold—those of thought, those of act.

The First Commandment.

The first commandment of the Decalogue shows that there is one only Sovereign God;³⁴⁵¹

3451 Ex. xx. 2, 3.

The Second Commandment.

The second word³⁴⁵²

3452 i.e., commandment. The Decalogue is in Hebrew called “the ten words.”

The Fourth Commandment.

And the fourth³⁴⁵³

3453 The text has τρίτος, but Sylburgius reads τέταρτος, the third being either omitted, or embraced in what is said of the second. The next mentioned is the fifth.

3454 i.e., Christ. [And the first day, or the Christian Sabbath.]

3455 [Barnabas, vol. i. chap. xv. p. 146, this series.]

Wherefore Solomon also says, that before heaven, and earth, and all existences, Wisdom had arisen in the Almighty; the participation of which—that which is by power, I mean, not that by essence—teaches a man to know by apprehension things divine and human. Having reached this point, we must mention these things by the way; since the discourse has turned on the seventh and the eighth. For the eighth may possibly turn out to be properly the seventh, and the seventh manifestly the sixth, and the latter properly the Sabbath, and the seventh a day of work. For the creation of the world was concluded in six days. For the motion of the sun from solstice to solstice is completed in six months—in the course of which, at one time the leaves fall, and at another plants bud and seeds come to maturity. And they say that the embryo is perfected exactly in the sixth month, that is, in one hundred and eighty days in addition to the two and a half, as Polybus the physician relates in his book On the Eighth Month, and Aristotle the philosopher in his book On Nature. Hence the Pythagoreans, as I think, reckon six the perfect number, from the creation of the world, according to the prophet, and call it Meseuthys³⁴⁵⁶

3456 μεσευθύς, μέσος and εὐθύς, between the even ones, applied by the Pythagoreans to 6, a half-way between 2 and 10, the first and the last even numbers of the dinary scale.

And as marriage generates from male and female, so six is generated from the odd number three, which is called the masculine number, and the even number two, which is considered the feminine. For twice three are six.

Such, again, is the number of the most general motions, according to which all origination takes place—up, down, to the right, to the left, forward, backward. Rightly, then, they reckon the number seven motherless and childless, interpreting the Sabbath, and figuratively expressing the nature of the rest, in which “they neither marry nor are given in marriage any more.”³⁴⁵⁷

3457 Luke xx. 35.

And they called eight a cube, counting the fixed sphere along with the seven revolving ones, by which is produced “the great year,” as a kind of period of recompense of what has been promised.

Thus the Lord, who ascended the mountain, the fourth,³⁴⁵⁸

3458 i.e., with the three disciples.

And the character³⁴⁵⁹

3459 The numeral ϛ´ = 6. This is said to be the Digamma in its original place in the alphabet, and afterwards used in mss. and old editions as a short form of στ (Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon).

Wherefore also man is said to have been made on the sixth day, who became faithful to Him who is the sign (τῷ ἐπισήμῳ³⁴⁶⁰

3460 That is, Christ, who answers to the numeral six.

3461 Ps. xix. 1.

The sensible types of these, then, are the sounds we pronounce. Thus the Lord Himself is called “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,”³⁴⁶²

3462 Rev. xxi. 6.

3463 John i. 3.

And now the whole world of creatures born alive, and things that grow, revolves in sevens. The first-born princes of the angels, who have the greatest power, are seven.³⁴⁶⁴

3464 [By Rabbinical tradition. But see Calmet, Dict. Bib., p. 78.]

And of the fixed stars, the Pleiades are seven. And the Bears, by the help of which agriculture and navigation are carried through, consist of seven stars. And in periods of seven days the moon undergoes its changes. In the first week she becomes half moon; in the second, full moon; and in the third, in her wane, again half moon; and in the fourth she disappears. Further, as Seleucus the mathematician lays down, she has seven phases. First, from being invisible she becomes crescent-shaped, then half moon, then gibbous and full; and in her wane again gibbous, and in like manner half moon and crescent-shaped.

writes a poet of note, teaching us that the ancient lyre was seven-toned. The organs of the senses situated on our face are also seven—two eyes, two passages of hearing, two nostrils, and the seventh the mouth.

And that the changes in the periods of life take place by sevens, the Elegies of Solon teach thus:—

Again, in diseases the seventh day is that of the crisis; and the fourteenth, in which nature struggles against the causes of the diseases. And a myriad such instances are adduced by Hermippus of Berytus, in his book On the Number Seven, regarding it as holy.³⁴⁶⁵

3465 [The honour put upon this number in the Holy Scriptures is obvious to all, and it seems to be wrought into nature by the author of Scripture. But see Dan. viii. 13, the original, and (Palmoni) Eng. margin.]

3466 Ps. xc. 9, 10.

3467 Gen. ii. 4.

3468 Ps. cxviii. 24.

3469 [1 Cor. v. 7.]

And, in fine, the Decalogue, by the letter Iota,³⁴⁷⁰

3470 The first letter of the name of Jesus, and used as the sign of ten.

The Fifth Commandment.

Now the fifth in order is the command on the honour of father and mother. And it clearly announces God as Father and Lord. Wherefore also it calls those who know Him sons and gods. The Creator of the universe is their Lord and Father; and the mother is not, as some say, the essence from which we sprang, nor, as others teach, the Church, but the divine knowledge and wisdom, as Solomon says, when he terms wisdom “the mother of the just,” and says that it is desirable for its own sake. And the knowledge of all, again, that is lovely and venerable, proceeds from God through the Son.

The Sixth Commandment.

Then follows the command about murder. Now murder is a sure destruction. He, then, that wishes to extirpate the true doctrine of God and of immortality, in order to introduce falsehood, alleging either that the universe is not under Providence, or that the world is uncreated, or affirming anything against true doctrine, is most pernicious.

The Seventh Commandment.

This is followed by the command respecting adultery. Now it is adultery, if one, abandoning the ecclesiastical and true knowledge, and the persuasion respecting God, accedes to false and incongruous opinion, either by deifying any created object, or by making an idol of anything that exists not, so as to overstep, or rather step from, knowledge. And to the Gnostic false opinion is foreign, as the true belongs to him, and is allied with him. Wherefore the noble apostle calls one of the kinds of fornication, idolatry,³⁴⁷¹

3471 In close conjunction with idolatry, fornication is mentioned, Col. iii. 5, Gal. v. 20; 1 Pet. iv. 3.

3472 Jer. ii. 27, iii. 9.

The Eighth Commandment.

And after this is the command respecting theft. As, then, he that steals what is another’s, doing great wrong, rightly incurs ills suitable to his deserts; so also does he, who arrogates to himself divine works by the art of the statuary or the painter, and pronounces himself to be the maker of animals and plants. Likewise those, too, who mimic the true philosophy are thieves. Whether one be a husbandman or the father of a child, he is an agent in depositing seeds. But it is God who, ministering the growth and perfection of all things, brings the things produced to what is in accordance with their nature. But the most, in common also with the philosophers, attribute growth and changes to the stars as the primary cause, robbing the Father of the universe, as far as in them lies, of His tireless might.

The elements, however, and the stars—that is, the administrative powers—are ordained for the accomplishment of what is essential to the administration, and are influenced and moved by what is commanded to them, in the way in which the Word of the Lord leads, since it is the nature of the divine power to work all things secretly. He, accordingly, who alleges that he has conceived or made anything which pertains to creation, will suffer the punishment of his impious audacity.

The Tenth Commandment.³⁴⁷³

3473 [The ninth is not altogether omitted, but is supposed to be included in the eighth. False testimony is theft of another’s credit, or of another’s truth. Migne, Strom., vi. 361. Elucidation X.]

And the tenth is the command respecting all lusts. As, then, he who entertains unbecoming desires is called to account; in the same way he is not allowed to desire things false, or to suppose that, of created objects, those that are animate have power of themselves, and that inanimate things can at all save or hurt. And should one say that an antidote cannot heal or hemlock kill, he is unwittingly deceived. For none of these operates except one makes use of the plant and the drug; just as the axe does not without one to cut with it, or a saw without one sawing with it. And as they do not work by themselves, but have certain physical qualities which accomplish their proper work by the exertion of the artisan; so also, by the universal providence of God, through the medium of secondary causes, the operative power is propagated in succession to individual objects.

E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH