Against Heresies: Book I

In blending their creation of Æons with the straying and recovery of the sheep mentioned in the Gospel, these people try to present things more mystically, referring everything to numbers and claiming that the universe was formed from a Monad and a Dyad. By counting from one to four, they create the Decad, as adding one, two, three, and four results in the number of the ten Æons. Then, the Dyad, progressing by twos up to six—two, four, and six—produces the Duodecad. If we count in the same manner up to ten, the number thirty appears, containing eight, ten, and twelve. They call the Duodecad the passion, because it contains the Episemon, which, in a way, accompanies it. They say an error with the twelfth number caused the sheep to stray, asserting a defection occurred from the Duodecad. Similarly, they claim that a power also left the Duodecad and was lost, represented by the woman who lost a drachma and found it again after lighting a lamp. Thus, the remaining numbers—nine for the pieces of money and eleven for the sheep—when multiplied, result in ninety-nine, as nine times eleven equals ninety-nine. They argue that the word “Amen” contains this number.

I WILL NOT: however, tire you by recounting their other interpretations, so you can see the results everywhere. They claim, for instance, that the letter Eta, along with the Episemon, forms an Ogdoad since it is the eighth letter from the first one.

Then, without the Episemon, if you count and add up the letters until you reach Eta, they get the number thirty, the Triacontad. For if you start at Alpha and end with Eta, skipping the Episemon, and add the value of the letters in order, you will find their total is thirty.

Up to Epsilon there are fifteen; then by adding seven, the total becomes twenty-two. Next, adding Eta, which is valued at eight, completes the wonderful Triacontad.

Therefore, they claim the Ogdoad is the mother of the thirty Æons. Since the number thirty is made of three powers [the Ogdoad, Decad, and Duodecad], multiplying by three produces ninety, as three times thirty is ninety. Similarly, this Triad, when multiplied by itself, results in nine. Thus the Ogdoad generates, in this way, ninety-nine.

Since the twelfth Æon, by her fall, left eleven above, they claim the order of the letters shows their calculation's accuracy (as Lambda is the eleventh in letter order and represents the number thirty), and also represents the order of things above. For starting from Alpha, without Episemon, when adding the letters up to Lambda according to their value, including Lambda itself, it totals ninety-nine; but Lambda, being the eleventh in order, sought one equal to itself to complete twelve letters, and when it found one, the number was complete, which is obvious from the shape of the letter.

For Lambda is in the position, so to speak, of finding one like itself. When it finds such a one, and joins with it, it completes the twelfth, as the letter Mu is made of two Lambdas.

Thus, with their “knowledge,” they avoid the place of ninety-nine, representing failure, a symbol of the left hand, but aim to get one more, which, when added to ninety-nine, shifts their calculation to the right hand.

I AM WELL AWARE: my dear friend, that when you read through all this, you will have a good laugh at their grand but foolish wisdom! But those people truly deserve to be pitied, who spread such a kind of religion and who so coldly and perversely dismantle the greatness of the truly indescribable power and the plans of God, which are clearly evident, using letters and numbers. Those who separate themselves from the Church and pay attention to such old wives' tales as these are truly self-condemned; and Paul instructs us to "avoid them after a first and second warning." John, the disciple of the Lord, has strengthened their condemnation by advising us not even to greet them with "good-speed," because, he says, "He who wishes them good-speed shares in their evil deeds;" and rightly so, "for there is no good-speed for the ungodly," says the Lord.

These people are extremely impious, beyond all measure, who claim that the Maker of heaven and earth, the only God Almighty, besides whom there is no God, was created through a defect, which came from another defect, making Him the product of the third defect according to them. We should detest and utterly reject such an opinion, and we should distance ourselves from those who hold it; and as they strongly maintain and rejoice in their fictitious beliefs, we should be even more convinced that they are under the influence of the wicked spirits of the Ogdoad—just like those who fall into a frenzy, the more they laugh and believe they are well, and act as if they are healthy in both body and mind, even doing some things better than those who truly are healthy, the more seriously ill they are revealed to be.

Similarly, these people, the more they seem to surpass others in wisdom and strain themselves with excessive efforts, the greater fools they prove to be. For when the unclean spirit of folly has left, and finds them not focusing on God, but busy with worldly matters, then, "taking seven other spirits more wicked than itself," it fills their minds with the idea that they can conceive something beyond God, and prepares them to embrace deceit, implanting within them the Ogdoad of foolish spirits of wickedness.