law to the people in five books. Each table which he received from God contained five533
commandments. The veil covering534 the holy of holies had five pillars. The altar of burnt-
offering also was five cubits in breadth.535 Five priests were chosen in the wilder-
ness,—namely, Aaron,536 Nadab, Abiud, Eleazar, Ithamar. The ephod and the breastplate,
and other sacerdotal vestments, were formed out of five537 materials; for they combined in
themselves gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. And there were five538
kings of the Amorites, whom Joshua the son of Nun shut up in a cave, and directed the
people to trample upon their heads. Any one, in fact, might collect many thousand other
things of the same kind, both with respect to this number and any other he chose to fix
upon, either from the Scriptures, or from the works of nature lying under his observation.539
But although such is the case, we do not therefore affirm that there are five Æons above the
Demiurge; nor do we consecrate the Pentad, as if it were some divine thing; nor do we strive
to establish things that are untenable, nor ravings [such as they indulge in], by means of
that vain kind of labour; nor do we perversely force a creation well adapted by God [for the
ends intended to be served], to change itself into types of things which have no real existence;
nor do we seek to bring forward impious and abominable doctrines, the detection and
overthrow of which are easy to all possessed of intelligence.
5. For who can concede to them that the year has three hundred and sixty-five days
only, in order that there may be twelve months of thirty days each, after the type of the
twelve Æons, when the type is in fact altogether out of harmony [with the antitype]? For,
in the one case, each of the Æons is a thirtieth part of the entire Pleroma, while in the other
they declare that a month is the twelfth part of a year. If, indeed, the year were divided into
thirty parts, and the month into twelve, then a fitting type might be regarded as having been
found for their fictitious system. But, on the contrary, as the case really stands, their Pleroma
is divided into thirty parts, and a portion of it into twelve; while again the whole year is di-
vided into twelve parts, and a certain portion of it into thirty. The Saviour therefore acted
unwisely in constituting the month a type of the entire Pleroma, but the year a type only of
that Duodecad which exists in the Pleroma; for it was more fitting to divide the year into
533 It has been usual in the Christian Church to reckon four commandments in the first table, and six in the
second; but the above was the ancient Jewish division. See Joseph., Antiq., iii. 6.
534 Ex. xxvi. 37.
535 Ex. xxvii. 1; “altitudo” in the text must be exchanged for “latitudo.”
536 Ex. xxviii. 1.
537 Ex. xxviii. 5.
538 Josh. x. 17.
539 [Note the manly contempt with which our author dismisses a class of similitudes, which seem, even in
our day, to have great attractions for some minds not otherwise narrow.]
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Chapter XXIV.—Folly of the arguments derived by the heretics from numbers,…