Anf-01 ix.ii.xvii Pg 2
Luke xv. 4.
], 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 2867
Anf-01 ix.ii.ix Pg 21
Luke xv. 4; 8.
For they explain the wandering sheep to mean their mother, by whom they represent the Church as having been sown. The wandering itself denotes her stay outside of the Pleroma in a state of varied passion, from which they maintain that matter derived its origin. The woman, again, who sweeps the house and finds the piece of money, they declare to denote the Sophia above, who, having lost her enthymesis, afterwards recovered it, on all things being purified by the advent of the Saviour. Wherefore this substance also, according to them, was reinstated in Pleroma. They say, too, that Simeon, “who took Christ into his arms, and gave thanks to God, and said, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word,”2767 2767
Anf-01 ix.iv.xxiv Pg 26
Luke xv. 4.
For if it has not been found, the whole human race is still held in a state of perdition. False, therefore, is that, man who first started this idea, or rather, this ignorance and blindness—Tatian.3774 3774 An account of Tatian will be given in a future volume with his only extant work.
As I have already indicated, this man entangled himself with all the heretics.3775 3775 His heresy being just a mixture of the opinions of the various Gnostic sects.
