The decad, then, joining with the ogdoad and making it tenfold, produced the number eighty, and the eighty begot the number eight hundred; so that the whole number of the letters, proceeding from the ogdoad to the decad, is eight, eighty, and eight hundred, which is "Jesus"; for the name "Jesus," in letters, is the number eight hundred and eighty-eight.
And the Greek alphabet has eight units, and tens, and eight hundreds, exhibiting the number eight hundred and eighty-eight — that is, "Jesus," composed out of all the numbers. And for this reason he is named Alpha and Omega, signifying his origin.
Concerning the fashioning of this one, he speaks thus: that powers, flowing out from the second tetrad, fashioned the Jesus who appeared on earth; and that the angel Gabriel fulfilled the place of the Word, and the Holy Spirit that of Life, the power of the Most High that of Man, and the virgin that of Church. Thus, according to the dispensation, the man is generated through Mary, in their account.
And when he came to the water, that which ascends above descended into him as a dove, and fulfilled the number twelve, in which resides the seed of those who were sown together with him and descended together and ascended together.
This power that descended into him, he says, is the seed of the pleroma, having within itself both the Father and the Son, the unnameable power of Silence known through these, and all the aeons.
And this is the Spirit that spoke within him through the mouth of the Son, that confessed itself Son of Man and manifested the Father — having descended, indeed, into Jesus, it was united with him. And, they say, he who came of the dispensation destroyed death, while Christ Jesus made the Father known.
He says, then, that "Jesus" is the name of the man belonging to the dispensation, but was set in place for the assimilation and forming of the Man who was about to descend into him, whom, having made room for and received, he came to possess; and that he himself is Man, he himself is the Word, he himself is the Father, and Silence, and Truth, and Church, and Life.
These things, then, I hope are plain to all who possess a sound mind, being invalid and far removed from the knowledge that accords with piety toward God, being parts of astrological pseudo-reasoning and Pythagorean arithmetic, as you who love learning will recognize, these doctrines having been set forth in what we discussed beforehand.
But that we may show more clearly that these men are disciples not of Christ but of Pythagoras and of those occupied with the celestial motions of the stars, I will set forth, so far as is possible, in summary. For they say the following: that all things consist of the monad and the dyad, and counting from the monad up to four, they thus generate the decad.
Again, the dyad, proceeding up to the notable number, that is, two and four and six, exhibited the dodecad. And again, when we count from the dyad up to ten, the triacontad was displayed, in which are the ogdoad, the decad, and the dodecad.
They say, then, that the dodecad, because it possesses the notable number, has the notable passion following upon it; and for this reason, at about the twelfth number of that which came into being, the sheep broke away and went astray — and likewise also one strayed out of the decad.
And in connection with these they speak of the drachma which a woman, having lost it, lit a lamp and sought; and, combining among themselves the loss concerning the one sheep and the ninety-nine, they fabricate that the eleven, interwoven with the nine, make the number ninety-nine, and that for this reason "Amen" is spoken, comprising the number ninety-nine.
Another number they explain thus: the letter eta, together with the notable letter, is an ogdoad, standing in the eighth place from alpha; then again, reckoning the number of the elements themselves without the notable letter, and adding up as far as eta, they display the number thirty.
For if one begins from alpha up to eta, taking away the notable letter, and reckons the number of the letters, one will find the number thirty. Since, then, the number thirty is united out of powers, taken three times it produces ninety; for three times thirty is ninety.
Thus the ogdoad brought forth the number ninety-nine, out of the first ogdoad, decad, and dodecad; from which, sometimes gathering the number into a whole, they make the triacontad, and sometimes, subtracting the twelfth, they reckon eleven; likewise also they make the tenth into nine; and interweaving these, and multiplying them tenfold, they arrive at the number ninety-nine.
And since the twelfth aeon, leaving behind the eleven, departed and went off below, they say that this too corresponds. For the shape of the letters teaches this: lambda is placed eleventh among the letters, which is the number thirty; and it is placed thus after the image of the dispensation above, since from alpha, apart from the notable letter, the number of the letters themselves, added up as far as lambda, according to the successive increase of the letters, makes with lambda itself the number ninety-nine.
And that lambda, standing in the eleventh place, went down in search of one like itself, in order to fill up the number twelve, and, having found it, was made complete, is evident from the very shape of the letter. For lambda, as though having gone forth in search of one like itself and having found and seized it, filled up the twelfth place with the letter mu, which is composed of two lambdas. Wherefore also they say one must flee, through knowledge, the place of the ninety-nine — that is, the deficiency, the pattern of the left hand — and pursue after the one, which, added to the ninety-nine, sets them in the right hand.
They say that first, through the Mother, the four elements were constructed — which he says are fire, water, earth, air — projected as an image of the tetrad above; and reckoning together their activities, namely hot, cold, wet, dry, they say these accurately represent the ogdoad.
Next they enumerate ten powers thus: seven circular bodies, 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.
And these, being ten in number, they say are images of the invisible decad, that of the Word and Life; and the dodecad, they say, is signified through the so-called zodiacal circle. For they say that the twelve zodiacal signs most clearly cast the shadow-image of the daughter of Man and Church, the dodecad.
And since, he says, the heaven above was yoked in counterpoise to the swiftest revolution of the universe, weighing down as it were by its own bulk and counterbalancing the swiftness of the others by its own slowness, so that it makes its circuit from point to point in thirty years, they say it is an image of the Horos who encompasses their mother of thirty names.
And again the moon, going around the heaven in thirty days, through its days figures forth the number of the aeons; and the sun, going around in twelve months and completing its cyclical restoration, makes manifest the dodecad.
And the days themselves, having the measure of twelve hours, are a pattern of the empty dodecad; and the circumference of the zodiacal circle itself is three hundred and sixty degrees, for each sign has thirty.
Thus, then, they say that through the circle the image of the conjunction of the twelve with the thirty has been preserved; and moreover, saying that the earth also is divided into twelve climes, and that in each clime, receiving in a direct line one power from the heavens, and bearing children made like to the power that sends down the emanation, this is a pattern of the dodecad above.
Besides these things, they say that the demiurge, wishing to imitate the boundlessness and eternity and infinitude and timelessness of the ogdoad above, but not being able to portray its permanence and everlastingness, because he himself is the fruit of deficiency, set in its place times and seasons and numbers of many years toward its eternity, thinking by the multitude of times to imitate its boundlessness.
And here they say that, Truth having escaped him, falsehood followed after; and for this reason, when the times are fulfilled, his work will come to dissolution.
These things, then, are what those of the school of Valentinus say concerning creation and concerning the universe, continually engendering ever newer doctrines; and they consider it a mark of fruitfulness if anyone, likewise devising something greater, appears to work wonders.
And finding in the Scriptures things consonant with the aforementioned numbers, they bring accusation against Moses and the prophets, claiming that these speak allegorically of the measures of the aeons — which I have not thought fit to set out, being incoherent nonsense, since the blessed presbyter Irenaeus has already, with great force and painstaking labor, refuted their doctrines, from whom also we have received their inventions — showing that they, having appropriated these things from the officious speculations of the Pythagoreans and the astrologers, charge Christ with having handed these down.
But since I think the trifling doctrines of these men also have been sufficiently set forth and clearly demonstrated -- whose disciples Marcus and Colarbasus were, who became the successors of the school of Valentinus -- let us see what Basilides too has to say.