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 were formed at that sixth hour, at which
He was nailed to the tree. For that perfect being Nous, knowing that the number six had
the power both of formation and regeneration, declared to the children of light, that regen-
eration which has been wrought out by Him who appeared as the Episemon in regard to
that number. Whence also he declares it is that the double letters198 contain the Episemon
number; for this Episemon, when joined to the twenty-four elements, completed the name
of thirty letters.
7. He employed as his instrument, as the Sige of Marcus declares, the power of seven
letters,199 in order that the fruit of the independent will [of Achamoth] might be revealed.
“Consider this present Episemon,” she says—“Him who was formed after the [original]
Episemon, as being, as it were, divided or cut into two parts, and remaining outside; who,
by His own power and wisdom, through means of that which had been produced by Himself,
gave life to this world, consisting of seven powers,200 after the likeness of the power of the
Hebdomad, and so formed it, that it is the soul of everything visible. And He indeed uses
this work Himself as if it had been formed by His own free will; but the rest, as being images
of what cannot be [fully] imitated, are subservient to the Enthymesis of the mother. And
the first heaven indeed pronounces Alpha, the next to this Epsilon, the third Eta, the fourth,
which is also in the midst of the seven, utters the sound of Iota, the fifth Omicron, the sixth
Upsilon, the seventh, which is also the fourth from the middle, utters the elegant Omega,”—
as the Sige of Marcus, talking a deal of nonsense, but uttering no word of truth, confidently
asserts. “And these powers,” she adds, “being all simultaneously clasped in each other’s
embrace, do sound out the glory of Him by whom they were produced; and the glory of that
sound is transmitted upwards to the Propator.” She asserts, moreover, that “the sound of
this uttering of praise, having been wafted to the earth, has become the Framer and the
Parent of those things which are on the earth.”
8. He instances, in proof of this, the case of infants who have just been born, the cry of
whom, as soon as they have issued from the womb, is in accordance with the sound of every
one of these elements. As, then, he says, the seven powers glorify the Word, so also does the
complaining soul of infants.201 For this reason, too, David said: “Out of the mouth of babes
and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise;”202 and again: “The heavens declare the glory of
198 That is, the letters ζ, ξ, ψ all contain ς, whose value is six, and which was called ἐπίσημον by the Greeks.
199 Referring to Aletheia, which, in Greek, contains seven letters.
200 By these seven powers are meant the seven heavens (also called angels), formed by the Demiurge.
201 We here follow the text of Hippolytus: the ordinary text and the old Latin read, “So does the soul of infants,
weeping and mourning over Marcus, deify him.”
202 Ps. viii. 2.
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Chapter XIV.—The various hypotheses of Marcus and others. Theories respecting…