Speaking such things concerning creation, each of them, according to his ability, daily generates something more novel; for among them no one is "perfect" who has not borne the fruit of great falsehoods. And as for how many things from the prophetic writings they transform, it is necessary, having pointed it out, to bring against them the refutation. For Moses, they say, beginning his account concerning creation, immediately at the outset displayed the Mother of all, saying, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth." Naming, then, these four—God, beginning, heaven, and earth—he delineated, as they themselves say, their Tetractys. And indicating its invisible and hidden aspect, he said, "And the earth was invisible and unformed." The second Tetrad, the offspring of the first, they wish him thus to have spoken of, naming Abyss and Darkness, and within these Water also, and the Spirit borne upon the water. After which, making mention of the Decad, he speaks of light, and day, and night, and firmament, and evening, and what is called morning, and dry land and sea; further, herb; and in the tenth place, tree. Thus through the ten names he made known the ten Aeons. And the power of the Dodecad was so imaged by him: for he speaks of sun and moon, and stars and seasons, years and sea-monsters, fishes and creeping things, birds and quadrupeds, wild beasts—and at the twelfth, man. Thus, they teach, the Triacontad was spoken by the Spirit through Moses. Moreover, the formed man too, after the image of the power above, has within himself the power that comes from the one Source; and this is seated in the region of the brain, from which flow four faculties, after the image of the Tetrad above, called sight, hearing, the third smell, and the fourth taste. And the Ogdoad, they say, is shown through man thus: having two ears and as many eyes, and also two nostrils, and a double taste, of bitter and sweet. And they teach that the whole man has the entire image of the Triacontad in this way: in his hands, through the fingers, he bears the Decad; and in the whole body, divided into twelve members, the Dodecad. They divide it just as the body of Truth has been divided among them, of which we have spoken before. The Ogdoad, then, being ineffable and invisible, is to be understood as hidden in the inward parts.
Again, they assert that the sun, the great luminary, came to be on the fourth of the days because of the number of the Tetrad. And the curtains of the tabernacle that was constructed by Moses, being made of fine linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, displayed among them the same image. The high priest's robe also, adorned with four rows of precious stones, they declare signifies the Tetrad; and if any such things lie in the Scriptures that can be brought to the number four, they say these came to be because of their Tetractys. And the Ogdoad, again, is shown thus: on the eighth of the days, they say, man was formed. For sometimes they hold that he came to be on the sixth, and sometimes on the eighth—unless they will say that the earthy man was formed on the sixth of the days, but the fleshly on the eighth; for these are distinguished by them. Some, however, hold that the man made after the image and likeness of God, male-and-female, is a different one, and that this is the spiritual man; while the one formed from the earth is another. And the dispensation of the ark in the flood, in which eight persons were saved, most plainly, they say, indicates the saving Ogdoad. The same is signified also by David, who was eighth in birth among his brothers. Furthermore, circumcision, taking place on the eighth day, makes plain the circumcision of the Ogdoad above. And, in a word, whatever is found in the Scriptures that can be reduced to the number eight, they say fulfills the mystery of the Ogdoad. But the Decad, also, they say, is signified through the ten nations which God promised to give Abraham for a possession; and the dispensation concerning Sarah, who after ten years gives him her own maidservant Hagar, that he might beget a child by her, declares the same. And the servant of Abraham, sent to Rebecca and giving her at the well bracelets of ten pieces of gold, and her brothers detaining her ten days; furthermore Jeroboam, who received the ten scepters; and the ten curtains of the tabernacle, and the pillars ten cubits high, and the ten sons of Jacob first sent into Egypt for the purchase of grain, and the ten Apostles to whom the Lord appeared after the resurrection, Thomas being absent—these, according to them, delineated the invisible Decad.
And the Dodecad—about which they hold that the mystery of the passion of the Deficiency took place, and from which passion the visible things were constructed—they say lies marked out conspicuously and openly everywhere: as in the twelve sons of Jacob, from whom also came the twelve tribes; and the embroidered breastplate having twelve stones; and the twelve bells; and the twelve stones set by Moses under the mountain; and likewise those set by Joshua in the river, and others on the far side; and those who bore the ark of the covenant; and those laid by Elijah at the whole-burnt-offering of the bullock; and also the number of the Apostles; and, in a word, all things whatsoever that preserve the number twelve, they say characterize their Dodecad. And the union of all these, which is named the Triacontad, they contentiously try to demonstrate through such things: through the thirty cubits of the height of Noah's ark; and through Samuel's seating of Saul foremost among the thirty invited guests; and through David, when he hid himself thirty days in the field; and through those who entered with him into the cave; and through the length of the holy tabernacle being thirty cubits; and if they find any other things equal in number to these, they love to wrangle and exhibit through such means their Triacontad.