1.

Blending in one the production of their own Aeons, and the straying and recovery of the sheep [spoken of in the Gospel ¹ ], these persons endeavour to set forth things in a more mystical style, while they refer everything to numbers, maintaining that the universe has been formed out of a Monad and a Dyad. And then, reckoning from unity on to four, they thus generate the Decad. For when one, two, three, and four are added together, they give rise to the number of the ten Aeons. And, again, the Dyad advancing from itself [by twos] up to six--two, and four, and six--brings out the Duodecad. Once more, if we reckon in the same way up to ten, the number thirty appears, in which are found eight, and ten, and twelve. They therefore term the Duodecad--because it contains the Episemon, ² and because the Episemon [so to speak] waits upon it--the passion. And for this reason, because an error occurred in connection with the twelfth number, ³ the sheep frisked off, and went astray; for they assert that a defection took place from the Duodecad. In the same way they oracularly declare, that one power having departed also from the Duodecad, has perished; and this was represented by the woman who lost the drachma, ⁴ and, lighting a lamp, again found it. Thus, therefore, the numbers that were left, viz., nine, as respects the pieces of money, and eleven in regard to the sheep, ⁵ when multiplied together, give birth to the number ninety-nine, for nine times eleven are ninety-nine. Wherefore also they maintain the word "Amen" contains this number.