Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 5.djvu/87

eight,^[1] and the three sets were rendered alike in point of number, all becoming Ogdoads; which three, when brought together, constitute the number four-and-twenty. The three elements, too (which he declares to exist in conjunction with three powers,^[2] and thus form the six from which have flowed the twenty-four letters), being quadrupled by the word of the ineffable Tetrad, give rise to the same number with them; and these elements he maintains to belong to Him who cannot be named. These, again, were endowed by the three powers with a resemblance to Him who is invisible. And he says that those letters which we call double^[3] are the images of the images of these elements; and if these be added to the four-and-twenty letters, by the force of analogy they form the number thirty.

6. He asserts that the fruit of this arrangement and analogy has been manifested in the likeness of an image, namely, Him who, after six days, ascended^[4] into the mountain along with three others, and then became one of six (the sixth),^[5] in which character He descended, and was contained in the Hebdomad, since He was the illustrious Ogdoad,^[6] and contained in Himself the entire number of the elements, which the descent of the dove (who is Alpha and Omega) made clearly manifest, when He came to be baptized; for the number of the dove is eight hundred and one.^[7] And for this reason did Moses declare that man was formed on the sixth day; and then, again, according to arrangement, it was on the sixth day, which is the preparation, that the last man appeared, for the regeneration of the first. Of this arrangement, both the beginning and the end

1. The ninth letter being taken from the mutes and added to the semi-vowels, an equal division of the twenty-four was thus secured.
2. Viz. Pater, Anthropos, and Logos.
3. Viz. ζ, ξ, ψ = δς, κς, πς.
4. Matt. xvii. 7; Mark ix. 2.
5. Moses and Elias being added to the company.
6. Referring to the word Χρειστός, according to Harvey, who remarks, that "generally the Ogdoad was the receptacle of the spiritual seed."
7. The Saviour, as Alpha and Omega, was symbolized by the dove, the sum of the Greek numerals, π, ε, ρ, ι, σ, τ, ε, ρ, α (περιστερά dove), being, like that of Α and Ω, 801.