demonstrates in the clearest manner their overthrow or confusion,[1] as well as the untenable and perverse character of their [professed] knowledge. For, transferring the name Jesus, which belongs to another language, to the numeration of the Greeks, they sometimes call it "Episemon,"[2] as having six letters, and at other times "the Plenitude of the Ogdoads," as containing the number eight hundred and eighty-eight. But His [corresponding] Greek name, which is "Soter," that is, Saviour, because it does not fit in with their system, either with respect to numerical value or as regards its letters, they pass over in silence. Yet surely, if they regard the names of the Lord, as, in accordance with the preconceived purpose of the Father, by means of their numerical value and letters, indicating number in the Pleroma, Soter, as being a Greek name, ought by means of its letters and the numbers [expressed by these], in virtue of its being Greek, to show forth the mystery of the Pleroma. But the case is not so, because it is a word of five letters, and its numerical value is one thousand four hundred and eight.[3] But these things do not in any way correspond with their Pleroma: the account, therefore, which they give of transactions in the Pleroma cannot be true.
2. Moreover, Jesus, which is a word belonging to the proper tongue of the Hebrews, contains, as the learned among them declare, two letters and a half,[4] and signifies that Lord who contains heaven and earth;[5] for Jesus in the ancient Hebrew language means "heaven," while again "earth" is
- ↑ "Sive confusionem" is very probably a marginal gloss which has found its way into the text. The whole clause is difficult and obscure.
- ↑ Comp. i. 14, 4.
- ↑ Thus: Σωτὴρ (σ = 200, ω = 800, τ = 300, η = 8, ρ = 100) = 1408.
- ↑ Being written thus, ישו, and the small י being apparently regarded as only half a letter. Harvey proposes a different solution which seems less probable.
- ↑ This is one of the most obscure passages in the whole work of Irenæus, and the editors have succeeded in throwing very little light upon it. We may merely state that ישו seems to be regarded as containing in itself the initials of the three words יהוה Jehovah; שמים, heaven; and ואדין, and earth.
