6. The Orthodox Limits of theTheology of Arithmetic: Irenaeus of Lyons

Most scholarly reconstructions of Valentinianism attempt to excise Irenaeus’ interpretation, so as to achieve as uncontaminated an account of the movement as possible. The ultimate goal, a bias-free view of the Valentinians, is misguided. For the unintended consequence—or so I argue in this chapter—of excluding Irenaeus and his writings is to leave the picture of their number symbolism incomplete. Irenaeus’ critique of Valentinian theological arithmetic reveals the rules and restraints held in common by many Christians. And his vision for the appropriate use of number symbolism illuminates the general early Christian impulse to number symbolism that the Valentinians shared. Irenaeus’ ideals, and his success and failure in holding to them, provide a glimpse into tensions in early Christian thought, both orthodox and heretical. So to understand the Valentinians, we must study Irenaeus, too, on his own terms.

Born in the early second century and growing up in Asia Minor, Irenaeus listened to the teaching of Polycarp of Smyrna (d. 156), the famous martyred bishop who, in turn, had reportedly learned at the feet of the apostle John. [1] Irenaeus made the most of his status as a spiritual grandson of the apostles. His early interaction with Polycarp and other local elders, and his immersion in the Christian community of Asia Minor, shaped his career as a priest and bishop in Lyons, where he remained from the 170s until the end of his life, probably around 200. He was popular with his Gallic Christian flock, who suffered persecution during his tenure. He gained Church-wide renown from his attempts to reconcile the Roman church with other Christians who used a different calculation for Easter. Little else is known of his life, aside from what Eusebius reports. [2]

Only two of Irenaeus’ many known works are preserved complete: Against Heresies and Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. Of his lost treatises, one, titled On the Ogdoad, was directed against a certain Florinus, who broke away from the church in Rome and later joined Valentinian circles. This attests to Irenaeus’ unflagging interest in and opposition to the Valentinians, and perhaps his obsession with their theology of arithmetic. [3] But since we no longer have that treatise, we must rely upon Against Heresies to reconstruct his views on the Ogdoad and on Valentinian number symbolism in general.

Setting aside the rhetorical flourishes expected in ancient theological polemic—Irenaeus’ often wry sarcasm and labeling (e.g. his accusation that Valentinianism derives from Pythagoreanism and paganism)—he advances four general theses against the Valentinian use of numbers. First, the aeons in their Pleroma are inconsistently numbered; second, their doctrine makes claims that depend upon the changing, culture-bound customs of language and numeration; third, their number symbolism does not correspond to the structures of the created, natural world; and fourth, their method of interpreting the rule of faith, Scripture in particular, is faulty. While pursuing these four lines of attack, Irenaeus promotes some basic principles about theology and exegesis, both to discredit his opponents and to articulate core principles of the faith held by the churches around the world.

Irenaeus’ sarcastic asides are of little substance. Yet his colorful insults provide context for his substantive points. He mocks the Valentinian Tetrad by inventing his own out of an emptiness, a gourd, a cucumber, and a melon (Against Heresies 1.11.4). This emanation of fruits, Irenaeus argues, is just as plausible as that of their aeons, and equally arbitrary. While reporting Marcus’ system, Irenaeus accuses him of trying to preach something more mystical than the other systems, of achieving new spiritual heights by breaking everything down into numbers. He also associates his opponents with pagan teachings and habits. A Pythagorean slur occurs in Book 2, where Irenaeus claims that the Valentinian tendency to translate everything into numbers comes from the Pythagoreans (2.14.6, upon which the rest of this paragraph is based). His logic: they were the first to make numbers the origin of everything, the first to make even and odd the foundation of numbers, and the first to make odd and even the basis of sensible and intelligible things. Even numbers are the basis for underlying substance (in Aristotelian terms, a ‘primary substance’), whereas odd numbers are the basis for intellection and essence. [4] The difference between even and odd resembles the parts of a statue, which has both substance (equivalent to even numbers) and form (odd numbers). This is the sort of model, he says, that the Valentinians apply to beings outside the Pleroma. They (the Pythagoreans or the Valentinians—the text is vague) claim that by knowing “what was first assumed” (quod primum adsumptum est), a person seeks out the beginnings of intellection and in exhaustion races to that which is one and indivisible. This One—the ἕν—is the principle of everything and the basis of all generation. From it come the Dyad, Tetrad, and Pentad—terms that the Valentinians use to describe the Pleroma and Depth. This Pythagorean number symbolism undergirds their doctrine of the syzygies. Marcus, boasting about the great novelty of his invention, speaks about the τετρακτύς of Pythagoras as if it were the origin and mother of everything.

Unlike Hippolytus, who establishes simplistic one-to-one correspondences between various philosophers and heresiarchs, [5] Irenaeus links Valentinianism to all the various strains of Hellenistic thought, claiming their system to be a pastiche of Homer, Hesiod, Democritus, Epicurus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle, and the Cynics, as well as the Pythagoreans. To cap the slander, he claims that his opponents draw inspiration from the pagan pantheon of twelve gods, and make them images of the Dodecad (2.14.9). [6]

Such ridicule and insults are mere flourishes to Irenaeus’ more substantive, theological arguments, which he presents directly and forcefully. Using counterexamples drawn from Scripture, history, and the natural world, he insists that the Valentinians—exemplified by the extended system of the Triacontad—have not correctly counted the number of aeons in the Pleroma (the first of his four main arguments). To make this point, he defends two claims. First, by their own reckoning, their Pleroma has fewer than thirty aeons. Second, the Pleroma ought to have more than thirty aeons. In each case, the Valentinian school is shown to be incapable of responsibly handling the numbers it so esteems in its theology.

In the first of these arguments, that there are really fewer than thirty aeons, Irenaeus first focuses on the role of the Forefather (2.12.1). If he is the source of the various projections, he ought not to be counted with them, since we should not group one who emits, who is unbegotten, who is neither circumscribed nor given form, with one who is emitted, begotten, circumscribed, or formed. Likewise, the Forefather should not be grouped with Wisdom, since this is to group together an errant aeon with an inerrant one. To classify them together is to suggest they share the same nature, an impossibility given Wisdom’s fall from the Pleroma. So if we were to exclude the Forefather and Wisdom from the Pleroma, as seems appropriate, we would end up with only twenty-eight aeons. [7]

And what about Silence (Thought), Depth’s consort (2.12.2)? Can any being be separated from its own silence and thought? Indeed, does not the very notion of conjugal unity forbid any idea of separation? If so, then Thought is in every way similar to Depth; they share a single existence. This applies as well to the other conjugal pairs. Mind and Truth, who always indwell one another, cannot be separated, just as water and moisture, fire and heat, and stone and hardness cannot be separated. Likewise, Word and Life, Human and Church, and all the other pairs of aeons cannot be disentangled. After all, the feminine aeon must necessarily be equal to the masculine, “since the former resembles the latter’s disposition.” [8] ‘Disposition,’ a Valentinian term, implies metaphysical unity. So we should count only syzygies, not aeons. Irenaeus anticipates their response, that the syzygies are in fact divided, so that individual aeons can be enumerated apart from their mates (2.12.4). But, Irenaeus charges, this renders absurd their other claim that the syzygies are unities and that the male and female are one. If the aeons of a given syzygy are separate, then the female gives birth to offspring apart from her mate. If so, then she is like a hen who hatches eggs without the help of a rooster. Irenaeus’ argument here boils down to whether the syzygies are real or only symbolic, and whether they are to be counted singly or doubly. The Valentinians’ inability to specify whether the syzygies are true unions or only token ones, he says, makes it impossible to tell whether they have counted accurately.

Irenaeus also argues that the Valentinians’ system results in more than thirty aeons in their Pleroma (2.12.7, upon which this paragraph is based). They say that four other entities are projected—Limit, Christ, Holy Spirit, and Savior (see Figure 3, p. 38 above)—but they do not include them in the canonical thirty of the Pleroma. Why not? Irenaeus asks. Are they so weak as to be unworthy of the designation? Are they superior to the other aeons? It would be absurd to suggest that they are weaker, since they were projected to stabilize and correct the Pleroma. But it would be equally absurd to suggest that they are better than the primal Tetrad. So, if they are neither weaker than the weakest aeons in the Pleroma, nor better than the best, then either they should be numbered with the Pleroma, or the honor associated with such a name (πλήρωμα means “fullness”) should be removed from the other aeons since, obviously, the Pleroma does not include the fullness of the aeons.

Irenaeus’ second line of attack calls Marcus to account for his misuse of numeration conventions. He ridicules the notion that the Word the Father uttered consisted of thirty letters and four syllables (1.15.5). If this were so, then the Father, whose image the Word bears, should also consist of thirty letters and four syllables. Indeed, is this really the final arrangement? Marcus, says Irenaeus, bottles up the Creator in various numbers and patterns: at one time thirty, at another twenty-four, at another merely six. Even the technique he uses to calculate alphabetic numbers is inconsistent, since at one time he computes a name’s psephic value, at another time the number of letters in the word (2.24.1–2). ‘Jesus,’ Irenaeus points out, is not a Greek name, yet Marcus nevertheless makes its Greek transliteration the center of his theology. Sometimes he calls it the ἐπίσημον because it has six letters, and sometimes the fullness of the Ogdoad, since the psephic value of Ἰησοῦς is 888. But even if this were true, he does not do this with the Lord’s other names and titles, such as Σωτήρ. And no wonder, since neither its psephic value, 1,408, nor the number of letters in it, five, is related to the numbers or patterns in the Pleroma. The psephic value of ‘Christ,’ Χρειστός, is 1,485, but this has no arithmetical connection with the Pleroma that Christ allegedly stabilizes and corrects. The same applies to Πατήρ, Βύθος, Μονογενής, and other aeons. These inconsistencies—applying Greek linguistic conventions to Hebrew names and not applying the same method to the more important Greek names—proves that their system isfalse.

Irenaeus argues that the system does not square with the history of the alphabet. He says that the Greeks agree: only recently—recently, that is, relative to the creation of the world—Cadmus introduced the first sixteen letters (1.15.4). Some time after, other Greeks invented the aspirates (θ, φ, χ) and the double letters (ζ, ξ, ψ). Palamedes provided the long vowels (η, ω), the final step in the alphabet’s evolution. Thus, Irenaeus argues, how could Marcus’ Truth exist before the rise of the Greek alphabet, seeing that her body had to have postdated Cadmus? Indeed, Truth postdates “even yourself [Marcus], for you alone have dragged down your so-called ‘Truth’ as an idol.” [9] Although Irenaeus’ version of the history of the alphabet is overly confident—the specifics about who invented the Greek alphabet, and when, vary from one ancient author to the next—his overall point that the Greek alphabet had a progressive origin is correct, both by his generation’s understanding of the history of the alphabet and by that of modern scholars. [10]

Irenaeus charges Marcus with failing to abide by the conventions appropriate to a given language (2.24.2). ‘Jesus,’ a Hebrew name, properly consists in its source language of two and a half letters, a claim Irenaeus justifies by appealing to Jewish experts, who take each of the letters in עשי (instead of the biblical העושי) as an acronym for “Lord, heaven, earth.” (Here the yod seems to be counted as the half letter.) Thus, just as Σωτήρ exposes the inconsistency of their system, so too does Jesus’ Hebrew name. Its mere two and a half letters show that ‘Jesus’ cannot be considered the ἐπίσημον. The interpretation of ‘Jesus’ as 888 too cannot be sustained in the context of the name’s origin. Hebrew letters do not match Greek letters, and because the former are older and more stable than the latter, any calculation of names should be based upon the older. And besides, the very structure of the Hebrew alphabet precludes any kind of psephy. [11]

According to the Valentinians, the Demiurge fashioned the natural world as an image of the unseen Pleroma. [12] This proposition leads to Irenaeus’ third argument against the Valentinians, that the numbers in their system do not correspond to what we know of the natural world. Irenaeus pursues this attack numerous times, in every case criticizing as illogical the notion that an errant being, the Demiurge, could create the world (itself errant) as a true reflection of an inerrant Pleroma (2.7.1–6). He anticipates the response that the natural world is the image of the Pleroma, not in figure or form, but in number and rank (2.7.7). Irenaeus answers that not even this is true, since the Valentinians tend to tinker with their numbers and their aeons so as to make them fit creation. But even then, granted that they have managed to make some associations with the natural world, how can they claim on this basis that a mere thirty aeons are the antitype? The enormous numerical complexity of the creation cannot be explained merely by a group of thirty entities. The world is no image of the Pleroma.

Later in Book 2, Irenaeus extends this argument (2.15.1). The Valentinians, he says, claim that the thirty aeons were not made for creation but vice versa. That is, the creation is the image of the thirty aeons, not the other way around. According to their reasoning, the month has thirty days because of the thirty aeons. So too the day has twelve hours, and the year twelve months, because of the Dodecad. The reasoning is arbitrary and incomplete, Irenaeus says, since it does not explain why Human and Church had to project twelve, no more and no less. It also does not explain why an Ogdoad, and not, say, a Pentad, Trinity, or Heptad, is the core of the Pleroma. If the year is an image of the Dodecad, and the month of the Pleroma, then of what important natural occurrence of the number eight is the Ogdoad an image?

Irenaeus accuses the Valentinians of using analogies that invert the order of nature (2.24.5). They appeal to the divisions of the year and the day as symbols of the Pleroma. The number of months and the number of hours of the day point to the Dodecad; the days in the month, to the Triacontad. The scheme is inconsistent. Each aeon is supposed to be one-thirtieth of the Pleroma, but a month is one-twelfth of a year. If the divisions of time really reflected those of the Pleroma, wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for the year to be divided into thirty months and each month divided into twelve days? The Savior must have been an idiot, Irenaeus chides them, to have made the month an image of the Pleroma and the year, the more important division of time, that of the Dodecad, a less important subset of the Pleroma. And their analogy does not account for the realities of the calendar. Not every month has precisely thirty days, just as not all days have twelve hours, depending upon the season of the year. Thus neither can the day be a true image of the Dodecad, nor can the month of the Pleroma. And why do they group the Pleroma into Ogdoad, Decad, and Dodecad and no other arrangement? (2.15.2) Why three divisions, and not four, five, six, or some other number more commonly found in creation? After all, the year is divided into four seasons (2.24.5). Were the year truly an image of the Pleroma, the aeons would fall into four major tiers, not three.

Whenever they are cross-examined about the Pleroma, Irenaeus says, they retreat to explanations about human dispositions and to discourses about creation (2.15.3). But this is to focus on secondary rather than primary matters, since the issue at hand is not harmony in creation or human dispositions, but the Pleroma, of which creation is an image. If the Pleroma is trisected into Ogdoad, Decad, and Dodecad, then they must admit that the Father arranged the Pleroma in vain and without providence, since its organization did not correctly anticipate the structures of the natural world. If so, then the Father acted irrationally and, like the Demiurge, made a deformity. Given their analogy between the Pleroma and creation, they must admit that the Forefather is just as inept as they say the creator of the natural world is. But if they want to avoid that conclusion and instead maintain the providence of the Forefather, then they must say that the Pleroma was projected so as to provide a template for creation. But in this case, although the harmony of the cosmos is preserved, the Pleroma exists not for itself but for its image. The Pleroma is then inferior to creation, as if it were a clay model, made only to facilitate the construction of a gold, silver, or brass statue. In sum, if the Pleroma is a template for creation, then the Father’s creation is inferior to what the Demiurge made.

Irenaeus accuses the Valentinians of fostering an infinite regression that wreaks havoc with their arithmetical theology. If they don’t agree that the Pleroma was made for creation, then they must say that it was made for a higher reason or cause (2.16.1). But this is to postulate that Depth used a higher pattern to shape and arrange the Pleroma. A vicious regression begins, since you must ask how and why this super-Pleroma was made. The same line of questioning can lead to super-super-Pleromas, and so on. Irenaeus argues that you must accept that one God, who made the world, took the pattern for creation from his own power and his own self. If you deviate the least bit from monotheism, you end up always asking and seeking out how and from what source the creator patterned his creation, upon what he styled the number of projections, and from where he derived the substance that was used. If they try to argue that Depth perfected the design of the Pleroma from himself, then it should be allowed that perhaps the Demiurge also patterned the world, not from the Pleroma, but from himself. That is, maybe the Demiurge is not so evil after all. But if they insist that creation is an image of the Pleroma, then what is to prevent the Pleroma from also being an image, and so descend into an endless regression of images of images?

Throughout his argument, Irenaeus focuses on Valentinian number symbo-lism. He pursues the numerical patterns and structures central to their theo-logy to test their claims that there are innate, direct connections between creation and the Pleroma. That there are differences between natural and divine patterns raises difficult questions. Why those numbers in particular? Where did they come from? Are they intrinsic to the highest reality, or merely accidental parts? Irenaeus argues that the heretics make number external to the deity, which is why they always try to trump each others’ protologies, since deity is subservient to unbounded, arbitrary arithmetical patterns. And the origin of those patterns is troublesome. Basilides (2.16.2) says that Ineffable based the pattern for the emanation of the heavens upon his dispensation. But where did that dispensation come from? Ineffable had to have created the dispensation either from himself, or from a yet higher power. If the former, then one might as well abandon the entire theological complex of aeons in favor of simply the one God, who created the one world from a numerical pattern of his own design (2.16.3). If the latter, then the endless regression resumes.

Irenaeus mocks his opponents’ increasingly complex systems as symptomatic of their spiritual arrogance (2.16.4). Just as the Valentinians accused less spiritual Christians such as Irenaeus of remaining in the Hebdomad, so the Basilideans could accuse the Valentinians of remaining at the level of the Triacontad, and not ascending to the 45 ogdoads, then the 365 heavens. The higher the number, the better, no? Why not invent a system of heavens or aeons numbering 4,380, the number of daytime hours in a year? And then build upon the nighttime hours an even greater number? This endless one-upmanship means that the Valentinians and Basilideans will always be unable to rise to the highest conception of the number of heavens or aeons. The creation of such tiers above our world is an invitation to descend into endless levels of worlds (2.35.1).

Irenaeus returns to this theme in Book 4 of Against Heresies, where he advises that anyone who seeks a Father beyond the one Father of the Scriptures will need to find a third, a fourth, and so on (4.9.3). Such a person will never rest in the one God, but will drown in a Depth without Limits, until repentance brings him back to the place from which he was cast out, the one God. In his admonition, Irenaeus symbolizes God by the garden of Eden, the place of single simplicity. To develop other gods or aeons is to begin a journey into a bottomless pit of multiplicity, a transience ended only by returning to the garden of God’s unity.

In his fourth line of argumentation, Irenaeus deals with the numerous specimens of Valentinian numerical exegesis presented in Book 1, attacking their hermeneutical principles as arbitrary and inconsistent. According to the Valen-tinians, the prologue of the Gospel of John justifies the names and sequence of the aeons of the Ogdoad (1.9.1). [13] But, Irenaeus answers, John introduces the terms in an order quite different from theirs. If the structure of their Pleroma is so important, surely John would have preserved this sequence, documented their conjugal unions, and mentioned every aeon by name (Church, Human’s consort, is never explicitly mentioned in John 1).

To the notion that Judas represents Wisdom, the fallen twelfth aeon, Irenaeus responds (2.20.2): [14] Judas was indeed expelled, but never reinstated, as Wisdom allegedly was. Since Matthias took Judas’ place (Acts 1.20), their myth ought to follow suit, and have another aeon projected to replace Wisdom. Furthermore, they say that Wisdom suffered, but then they themselves admit that Jesus, not Judas, suffered. How can an unsuffering traitor be the image of a suffering aeon? After mentioning other dissimilarities between Judas and Wisdom, Irenaeus takes the Valentinians to task for their counting mistakes (2.20.4). True, Judas is the twelfth, but they teach that Wisdom was the thirtieth. How could a twelfth-ranked Judas be a type of the thirtieth-ranked aeon? Even if you accept the Judas-Wisdom connection, other problems in enumeration occur (2.20.5). They say that Judas’ death represents the Inclination of Wisdom, an entity that, in their myth, returns to the Pleroma. But this cannot resemble Judas, who was never reinstated with the apostles. In the course of their explanation they try to use two biblical figures, Judas and Matthias, to stand in for three aeons, Passion, Inclination, and Wisdom. But two cannot equal three.

Moreover, if the Valentinians want the twelve apostles to represent Human and Church’s projected twelve aeons, to be consistent they should produce ten more apostles to represent the other Decad of aeons, emitted by Word and Life (2.21.1). How could the Savior provide a type for the youngest (and therefore least significant) aeons, but overlook the elder ten? The same applies to the Ogdoad, which ought to have been numerically signified by the election of eight apostles. Indeed, their system can make nothing of the seventy other apostles the Lord sent after he commissioned the twelve, since seventy prefigures neither an Ogdoad nor a group of thirty. If their reasoning is correct, that the election of the twelve apostles signifies the twelve aeons, then they must hold that the seventy apostles were chosen because of seventy aeons. If this is the case, then the two groups of apostles, twelve and seventy in number, symbolize eighty-two aeons, far beyond the canonical thirty.

The Valentinians claim that the woman with the twelve-year flow of blood symbolizes the restoration of Wisdom (1.3.3). [15] Irenaeus argues that the story is inconsistent with their system, which holds that eleven of the twelve aeons in the Dodecad were unaffected by suffering, and that only the twelfth suffered (2.23.1). But the woman who was healed experienced the opposite. She suffered for eleven years and was healed in the twelfth. Irenaeus concedes that a type or image differs from the truth it represents according to the material and underlying substance, but the type must nevertheless preserve the form and outline of the truth. A type should make evident by its presence that which is not present. [16] Furthermore, the Valentinians do not apply this exegetical principle consistently. What do they do with the woman who suffered for eighteen years (2.32.2, citing Luke 13.11)? If one woman is a type of the aeons, then the other should be, too. The same goes for the man who was healed after being sick for thirty-eight years (John 5.5). Since these two examples have no bearing on their system, then neither should the first.

To the Valentinian appeal to the numbers in the Mosaic Law as symbols of the Pleroma, Irenaeus offers numerous counterexamples (2.24.3). Their system, he asserts, has nothing to say about the dimensions of vessels in the holy of holies: the ark of the covenant (2½ by 1½ by 1½ cubits), the mercy seat (2½ by 1½ cubits), and the table of the showbread (2 by 1 by 1½ cubits). The seven-branched candelabra, by their scheme, ought to have been made with eight lights, to typify the primal Ogdoad (Exodus 25.31–37). They appeal to the 10 curtains (Exodus 26.1) as a type of the 10 aeons, but they neglect the skin coverings, 11 in total (Exodus 26.7), and the length of the curtains, 28 cubits (Exodus 26.2). Although they say the 10-cubit length of the columns typifies the Decad of aeons, they cannot explain their 1½-cubit width (Exodus 26.16). Furthermore, they cannot account for the oil (500 shekels of myrrh), the cassia (also 500), the cinnamon, and the calamus (both 250). These four items plus the oil make five ingredients, a number that does not fit their scheme.

Irenaeus argues that the Valentinians’ application of finger calculation and psephy is inconsistent (2.24.6). [17] To say that the Savior came to gather the hundredth lost sheep and to transfer to the right hand the 99 that are on the left does not mesh with their own analogy. According to them, anything on the left belongs to corruption, in which case it is not the hundredth but the 99 who are lost, since they are the ones who exist on the left hand. Furthermore, they think that anything that does not carry at least the number 100 belongs to the left side, of corruption. So since the psephic value of ἀγάπη ‘love’ is 93, it too must reside on the left side, as must ἀλήθεια ‘truth’, which is 64, and anything else whose psephic value is less than 100. [18]

To show that Valentinian exegesis of the numbers in Scripture is capricious, Irenaeus mocks it by glorifying the wonders of five, a number that fits nowhere in the structures of Valentinian theology (2.24.4). Five recurs throughout Scripture. Σωτήρ, Πατήρ, and ἀγάπη all have five letters. The Lord, blessing the five loaves, feeds the five thousand. There are five wise virgins and five foolish. There are five men with the Lord at the Transfiguration. The Lord is the fifth of those who entered the house of the ruler whose daughter was ill (Luke 8.51). The rich man in the infernal regions says he has five brothers (Luke 16.19–31). The pool at Bethesda has five porticoes (John 5.2). The cross consists of five parts: the four arms and the center. Every hand has five fingers and there are five senses and five internal organs: heart, liver, lungs, spleen, and kidneys. There are five divisions in the body and five phases in human life. [19] Moses gave the Law in five books and each tablet contained five laws. [20] Five priests were elected in the desert—Aaron, Nadab, Abiud, Eleazar, and Ithamar—and the ephod and breastplate were made of five materials—gold, hyacinth, porphyry, scarlet, and fine linen. Joshua surrounded five kings of the Amorites. The list could go on, Irenaeus notes, but this vast array of fives is no reason for claiming a divine group of five aeons.

Irenaeus turns the Valentinians’ technique against them. He notes sarcastically that according to the Scriptures, an exorcised spirit of ignorance finds those who were formerly possessed “striving not after God but after cosmic inquiries, and brings along seven other spirits more wicked than himself” (1.16.3, citing Matthew 12.43). One spirit plus seven others makes eight. By the Valentinians’ own logic, a demon has left them but returned and found them ready to be inhabited, and so has taken along “seven other spirits, thus constituting their Ogdoad of spirits of wickedness.” Their arrogance is so great that, in enumerating seven heavens, they presume to have surpassed the apostle Paul, who ascended only to the third heaven, four short of the highest level (2.30.7, citing 2 Corinthians 12.2).

All four of these lines of argumentation boil down to charges of incompleteness, inconsistency, and arbitrariness. But someone must have pressed Irenaeus to offer his own account of how numbers should be used responsibly in theology and biblical interpretation. We get a hint of this when the text asks: Are the placement of names, the election of apostles, and the acts of the Lord and his deeds recorded for no reason whatsoever? Irenaeus replies:

No other passage is as important for understanding Irenaeus’ theology of arithmetic. He argues that numbers, syllables, and letters are unfit to be the foundation of a system because they are composite, they have many different qualities, and they can be used to prove anything one likes. Anyone can dream up a narrative and find numbers and letters to corroborate it. By calling numbers and letters weak, Irenaeus gives priority to Scripture and the rule of faith, which are unchanging. So the Valentinians’ principal fault is in going first not to the Bible but to the world of numbers and letters. Although the Valentinians appeal to the Scriptures and to the order of the natural world, these appeals are based ultimately upon preconceived arithmetical ideas. Scripture is extra.

Irenaeus offers his own, alternative principle, captured eloquently in the ancient Latin translation numeri ex regula. A narrative should not take shape from numbers, but vice versa. The relationship between God and creation provides the template. Just as all things come from one and the same God, so numbers and their proper, intended use emerge from the underlying narrative of truth, the canon of faith maintained by the Church. [22]

Irenaeus’ doctrine of God follows this principle. The only number symbolism he applies to God is that of the “number” one, and he grounds this whenever possible in the Bible. He says, “John preached one God Almighty and one Only Begotten Jesus Christ,” in direct opposition to Valentinian interpretations of the same Gospel (1.9.2). [23] Paul’s phrase “one God the Father” (Ephesians 4.6) is evidence of the Church’s belief in only one God (2.2.6), a belief that has existed throughout history, from the protoplast Adam, through the prophets, to the age of the universal Church (2.9.1). That Church, he says, received a common faith in one God the Father almighty and one Jesus Christ, the Son of God (1.10.1). Elsewhere throughout Against Heresies he frequently insists on the unity of God. [24] As a reflection of the one God, the Church, though dispersed, dwells as if in one house, possesses one soul, and proclaims the Gospel with one mouth. Like God, the Church’s tradition has a single power, and its faith is one and the same (1.10.2, 3). Despite this emphasis on divine unity, Irenaeus avoids any language that refers to God as the One, thus distancing himself from both Platonists and Pythagoreans.

Although Irenaeus roots his doctrine of the oneness of God in the rule of faith, he expresses it so as to refute Valentinianism. His insistence that there is but one Father responds to Valentinian claims that there are two; his proclamation of there being only one Son counters the Valentinian notion that Only Begotten, Word, Christ, and Jesus are names for four separate entities. But Irenaeus is silent about the unity of the Holy Spirit, whose numerical integrity the Valentinians had not challenged. In Book 1, he presses home “faith in one God the Father Almighty … and in one Jesus Christ the Son of God … and in the Holy Spirit.” Many other creeds follow this same formula, preserving intact Irenaeus’ concern with the Valentinian numbering of the Father and the Son (but not the Spirit). [25]

Irenaeus’ concern for Valentinianism is evident, too, in that he never uses τριάς ‘trinity’ of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, despite the use of the term in his day and despite his consistent teaching that all three are the one God. [26] To some modern readers, Irenaeus’ omission of the term suggests the slow, late development of the doctrine of the Trinity. But this is to ignore that for Irenaeus τριάς, analogous to Dyad, Tetrad, or Ogdoad, was open to Valentinian overtones (e.g. 2.15.1). Further, Irenaeus says that the Valentinians, by using arithmetical terms such as ‘Dyad’ and ‘Tetrad,’ have made arithmetic a determining factor over the Pleroma. That is, they set the creation over the creator. So Irenaeus avoids the term ‘Triad’ of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to ensure that his readers do not subject the divinity to mathematical abstractions.

So much for numbers in Irenaeus’ theology. But what about his Bible interpretation? Irenaeus was quite attracted to the numbers found in the Bible, and he interpreted many of them symbolically. In certain respects he tried to stay close to the rule of faith; in others he was just as arbitrary as the Valen-tinians.

In discussing Isaiah 11.2–3 (“And the Spirit of God will rest upon him, a Spirit of wisdom and understanding …”), Irenaeus, like the Valentinians, uses number symbolism to connect the Scripture and the natural world. According to this verse there are seven virtues that come upon the Messiah: wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Spirit. [27] Irenaeus explains that the virtues refer to the seven heavens, the model Moses used for the seven-branched candlestick, in obedience to the command to fashion things as a type of what was revealed to him on the mountain (Exodus 25.40).

In another passage, Irenaeus explains some obscure numbers in the story of Jericho—why are there three spies and seven marches around the city? [28] For the explanation he draws from orthodox tradition. Rahab, who welcomed the three men spying out the entire inhabited land, reveals in herself the Father and the Son, with the Holy Spirit. The fall of Jericho indicates the seven last trumpets. Thus, the capture of Jericho symbolizes the final age of history, when salvation will belong only to those who embrace in their hearts the three divine persons.

When discussing God’s command to Gideon to break up the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah, Irenaeus interprets his taking ten men as a prophecy of Christ. [29] Irenaeus’ version of Judges 6.27 must have had the alphabetic numeral for ten (ιʹ) instead of the word δέκας, to read: καὶ ἔλαβεν Γεδεων ιʹ ἄνδρας. The numeral ten, an ἰῶτα, is Jesus’ initial. This, Irenaeus says, shows that Gideon appeared to have Jesus as his help.

Irenaeus interprets the thirty-, sixty-, and hundredfold fruit in the parable of the sower as three levels of reward in the hereafter (5.36.2, citing Matthew 13.8). The hundred represent those who will be taken up into the heavens, the sixty, those spending time in paradise, and the thirty, those inhabiting the city (i.e. the heavenly Jerusalem). To corroborate this interpretation, Irenaeus claims as his authority the elders who were disciples of the apostles. According to them, those being saved advance by stages, by rank, through the Spirit toward the Son, and through the Son toward the Father. Thus Irenaeus draws from an oral tradition to elucidate a parable whose interpretation is not immediately clear. Unlike the Valentinians, Irenaeus pays no attention to the symbolism of the numbers themselves. Rather he focuses on their structure, that of a tripartite hierarchy.

Eschatological numbers fascinated Irenaeus. I have already mentioned how he takes the seven marches around Jericho to represent the trumpets of the end of time. His most sustained discussion of number symbolism occurs at the end of Book 5 of Against Heresies, where he treats numerous passages in Daniel and Revelation, whose symbolic numbers seem to have attracted as much attention then as they have since. Irenaeus suggests that, because one day is as a thousand years to the Lord, the world must come to an end after six millennia, reflecting the six days in which it was created (5.28.3, citing 2 Peter 3.8). He also addresses the very contentious issue of the interpretation of the number of the beast (Revelation 13.18). He begins by noting that the name of the beast is fittingly 666, since the number shows how he sums up in his person the pervasive spread of wickedness before the deluge (5.29.2). Noah, after all, was six hundred at the time of the flood (Genesis 7.6). And the beast, the sum of idolatry, is symbolized by Nebuchadnezzar’s image, which had a height of sixty cubits and a breadth of six. Six hundred, sixty, and six make 666, QED. This recapitulation, where six recurs in units, tens, and hundreds, signifies the recapitulation of the apostasy at the beginning, middle, and end of history (5.30.1). Staying true to his principles, Irenaeus draws from the Scriptures, choosing verses whose treatment of the number six allows for a broader, moral treatment of Revelation. He does not characterize the number six as a falling short of the perfection of seven, nor does he suggest, at least here (see below), that the beast’s number has anything to do with the psephic value of a name (in contrast to Marcus’ 888, the psephic value of Ἰησοῦς). The first of these explanations would have been a difficult sell, since six was considered a perfect number, and it had only positive connotations in ancient number symbolism. [30] The second explanation would have veered too close to Marcus’ techniques and would have encouraged speculation in gematria, which Irenaeus found exasperating.

Some Christians, probably a sizable minority, held that the number of the beast was 616. [31] Irenaeus criticizes this position, partly because 616 disrupts an intentional numerical pattern that symbolizes the recapitulation of evil, and partly because this reading depends upon textual corruption. Irenaeus says that the number results from a common error, the Greek letter xi unraveling so as to look like an iōta. [32] Those who depend upon this reading may seek a sure and certain interpretation, but in so doing they open themselves up to deception. They are working from a deficient manuscript, they have not consulted the oral tradition of the apostles, and they have ignored the proper, moral significance of 666. [33]

Although Irenaeus recognizes that the number 666 indicates the psephic value of a name in Greek, he treats it as a secondary line of interpretation. And he pleads for temperance in solving the riddle (1.30.3). He discusses several possibilities—Εὐάνθας, Λατεῖνος, and Τεῖταν—each of which adds up to 666. Τεῖταν has an added bonus: it has six letters. Despite these possibilities, Irenaeus says, we should not endanger ourselves by claiming with certainty that we know the name. If it had been imperative that the name be clearly proclaimed now, the seer would have written the name directly. In line with his general theories of biblical interpretation, Irenaeus treats it as an obscure number that does not allow an immediate, obvious interpretation. [34]

Irenaeus’ most famous use of number symbolism is his argument for there being four and only four Gospels (3.11.8). [35] It is not so much Bible interpretation as meta-Bible interpretation. Responding simultaneously to those who espoused more Gospels (the Valentinians) and to those who held to a much smaller number (Marcion, who accepted only Luke, and an abridged form at that), Irenaeus claims that the Gospels had to have been four, no more and no fewer. There are four regions of the world and four universal winds. [36] The Church is spread throughout the whole earth and the Gospel is the “pillar and support” (1 Timothy 3.15) of the Church and the spirit of life. [37] Because of all these things, the Church fittingly has four columns, breathing incorruption and granting people life from all directions. From this it is evident that the Word, the craftsman of all things, after manifesting itself to humanity, gave a quadriform gospel encompassed by a single Spirit. The Word rests on the cherubim and the cherubim have four faces (Psalms 79.2; Ezekiel 1.6, 1.10). These faces are images of the activity of the Son of God. Following the language and order of Revelation 4.7 (and not Ezekiel 1.10), Irenaeus interprets the lion, ox, man, and eagle as, respectively, John, Luke, Matthew, and Mark, on the basis of the opening lines of each Gospel. [38] The four animal shapes reflect the four activities of the Son of God, and the four Gospels. For the same reason, four covenants were given to humanity, the first before the deluge, the second to Noah, the third to Moses, and the fourth is that which “renews man and recapitulates in itself everything, through the gospel raising and granting wing to men for the heavenly kingdom.” [39] Thus everyone who nullifies the shape of the Gospel and introduces more or fewer faces of the Gospel is foolish and ignorant (3.11.9). Those who have more (the Valentinians) claim they have found something greater than the truth. Those who have fewer (the Marcionites) nullify the dispensation of God. God creates all things to be harmonious and well fitted, so the form of the gospel too had to be harmonious and well fitted. Thus the four gospels alone are true and certain, and admit neither increase nor decrease.

How well does this argument for the four Gospels conform to Irenaeus’ principles? He does not seem to appeal to the rule of faith, and it looks like the argument arises from a predilection for number symbolism. Is Irenaeus com-mitting the Valentinians’ sin of regula ex numeris?

Irenaeus claims that the Church’s teachings, unlike those of the Valentinians, are well fitted (2.15.3). He calls the Church’s proclamation a rhythm, fitted to the things that have been created by the rhythm (apta est enim haec rhythmizatio his quae facta sunt huic rhythmizationi). That is, the rule of faith conforms exactly to the contours of creation because it is the very rule by which creation was shaped. Creation is well ordered, and the tradition fits the order of creation. [40] The sentiment is less an argument than a pair of self-referential claims, akin to the early Christian notion that by the Word all things were made, and that this very Word is that which the Church proclaims. [41] The claims are two arcs of a single circle. The causes underlying the structure of the world reside within the Church, and the Church’s proclamation is made manifest in the structures of the world. Throughout Against Heresies, Irenaeus expounds the rule of faith and emphasizes this internal consistency. He is no epistemological founda-tionalist.

But is Irenaeus consistent? How well fitted is his rule of truth to the principles he outlines? He charges the Valentinians with mishandling Scripture, with putting numbers ahead of doctrine. But has he himself committed this very error? Recall the four main lines of Irenaeus’ substantive critique of Valentinian number symbolism, but phrased as principles that Irenaeus must necessarily defend. First, the numbers in one’s taxonomy of the godhead should be consistent. Second, theology should not derive from and depend upon the changing linguistic or mathematical habits of a particular society. Third, numerical patterns of the natural world, if used to justify one’s theology, should be applied consistently. Fourth, numbers in theology should emerge from the entire body of Scripture, and proof texts should be used with regard to their context. This last principle is especially important for him: numbers should emerge from the rule of faith (the Scripture being part of that rule), not the other way around.

In his second and third principles Irenaeus is inconsistent. He criticizes exegetical techniques that he himself uses. When he says that Gideon took 10 men as a prophecy of Jesus, he breaks a rule similar to the one he accuses Marcus of breaking. It was known in the late second century, as today, that habits of numeration in Gideon’s time were quite different than those in the second century. [42] So Irenaeus’ anachronistic use of a contemporary Greek technique to interpret Judges 6.27 is just as misplaced as Marcus’ application of Greek psephy to what were originally Hebrew names. Perhaps Irenaeus was thinking in this instance of the Hebrew alphabet, and treating Gideon’s 10 men as a yod, which, like the iōta, stood for the number ten. But this too would have been anachronistic, since alphabetic numeration had been in wide use in Hebrew only for about 120 years. [43]

As for the third principle, the need for one’s number symbolism to be consistent with nature, Irenaeus is unfair to his opponents. In Irenaeus’ day, the four winds and the four cardinal points were unquestionable, natural phenomena subject to neither change nor social convention. Even if we grant him the science, was it any reason to conclude that there are four and only four Gospels? Recall his criticizing the Valentinians for justifying their various levels of the Pleroma on the basis of inappropriate divisions of time. Irenaeus is just as arbitrary. A Valentinian, for instance, could have argued for the five Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Gospel of Truth—on the basis of the five senses, the same basis upon which deutero-Simon argues for the perfection of the Pentateuch. Whose argument is stronger? Are the Gospels more like geography or sensation? And if the Gospels resemble the four winds, as Irenaeus claims, then how does the number of epistles or other biblical books fit into that analogy? Why the specific number of letters by Paul and other apostles? Why the number of Old Testament books? If the Gospels represent the four winds, what do the other books represent? After all, Irenaeus insists that if the Valentinians find evidence for the Dodecad in the calendar year, then they must find chronological divisions that are prototypes of the Decad and Ogdoad as well, to be consistent. By the same token, the numbers of the other books of the Bible should be reflected in the appropriate parts of the natural world. Both Irenaeus and Valentinians depended upon incomplete, ad hoc natural analogies.

In the first and fourth principles, however, Irenaeus is entirely consistent. He keeps numbers subservient to God, their creator, and interprets numbers in conformity with the rule of faith preserved in the churches of Asia Minor, Gaul, and Rome. He is especially careful to preserve inviolate the first principle, that of a consistently numbered godhead. In pursuing his biblical exegesis, Irenaeus tries to apply the fourth principle, making his interpretation come from the Scriptures and the rule of faith itself, or at least remain in conformity with them.

Irenaeus held to four Gospels not because of the weather patterns but because of the churches’ tradition (Against Heresies 3.1). He learned from the elders of Asia Minor, who themselves preserved what the apostles taught them, that there are but four Gospels. This is the apostolic rule of faith, and Irenaeus treats it as having the authority of Scripture. The rule of faith preserves four and only four books, and this unalterable fact enlightens other, more obscure parts of the tradition. The four Gospels explain the meaning of the four faces of the cherubim, as well as of the four covenants God gave throughout human history. Such numbers are drawn exclusively from the tradition.

We might imagine the Valentinians’ objecting, claiming that they too were working from within a tradition, albeit a specially revealed one. Irenaeus’ counterargument, however, would be strong. Doctrine respects the narrative structures of the Scriptures, and it engages in the entire breadth of the tradition. It flows out of the tradition, not into it. The tradition does not depend on any one person, school, movement, or special revelation, but is the possession of all the churches. The Valentinians cannot justifiably claim to be following this rule. If they could, they would be able to point everywhere to churches that preserve their tradition from the apostles (3.1–4), they would have a place for the sacred number five, and their system would harmonize with the Scriptures taken in their broader context.

Irenaeus’ fourth principle is his chief axiom. The rule of faith is a constant, consisting of the Scriptures, the oral tradition, and the life and teaching of the churches founded by the apostles. Numbers should be treated as a part of that rule, and numbers from another rule should not force their way in. For Irenaeus, the various numbers in Scripture are not so much proofs as implications of his system. The four animals of Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4 do not justify the claims that there are exactly four Gospels; rather, these verses are explained by that part of the tradition. Irenaeus’ phrases of inference—“for also” (καὶ γάρ), “and because of this” (καὶ διὰ τοῦτο)—do not look backward, to a basis for belief, but forward, to its implication. Throughout Against Heresies, Irenaeus uses inferential language for two purposes: one for proof, and the other to show off a doctrine’s explanatory power. When interpreting the four Gospels, he uses only the second technique. His clause of inference “for since” (ἐπεὶ γάρ; 3.11.8.176–177) explicates rather than justifies. He is, in the end, not proving the number of Gospels but rather explaining the coherence of that number. He cloaks his explanation in clauses of inference to strengthen the persuasive power of his rhetoric, albeit at the expense of clarity.

Irenaeus responded thoroughly to the Valentinian theology of arithmetic by setting down strictures and principles that applied to all of Christian theology and exegesis. He carefully upheld the principles he most cared about. In his exegesis, he maintained his commitment to orthodoxy as a driving principle, but he used some of the same arithmological techniques the Valentinians, Philo, and Plutarch used. Irenaeus was typical of many orthodox writers in his day, but his approach, with its ideals and inconcinnities, is only one example of the orthodox approach to number symbolism. A more complete picture requires us to consider Irenaeus’ near contemporary, Clement of Alexandria.