2.
Moreover, Jesus, which is a word belonging to the proper tongue of the Hebrews, contains, as the learned among them declare, two letters and a half, 1 and signifies that Lord who contains heaven and earth; 2 for Jesus in the ancient Hebrew language means "heaven," while again "earth" is expressed by the words sura usser. 3 The word, therefore, which contains heaven and earth is just Jesus. Their explanation, then, of the Episemon is false, and their numerical calculation is also manifestly overthrown. For, in their own language, Soter is a Greek word of five letters; but, on the other hand, in the Hebrew tongue, Jesus contains only two letters and a half. The total which they reckon up, viz., eight hundred and eighty-eight, therefore falls to the ground. And throughout, the Hebrew letters do not correspond in number with the Greek, although these especially, as being the more ancient and unchanging, ought to uphold the reckoning connected with the names. For these ancient, original, and generally called sacred letters 4 of the Hebrews are ten in number (but they are written by means of fifteen 5 ), the last letter being joined to the first. And thus they write some of these letters according to their natural sequence, just as we do, but others in a reverse direction, from the right hand towards the left, thus tracing the letters backwards. The name Christ, too, ought to be capable of being reckoned up in harmony with the Aeons of their Pleroma, inasmuch as, according to their statements, He was produced for the establishment and rectification of their Pleroma. The Father, too, in the same way, ought, both by means of letters and numerical value, to contain the number of those Aeons who were produced by Him; Bythus, in like manner, and not less Monogenes; but pre-eminently the name which is above all others, by which God is called, and which in the Hebrew tongue is expressed by Baruch, 6 [a word] which also contains two and a half letters. From this fact, therefore, that the more important names, both in the Hebrew and Greek languages, do not conform to their system, either as respects the number of letters or the reckoning brought out of them, the forced character of their calculations respecting the rest becomes clearly manifest.
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Being written thus, ysv, and the small y being apparently regarded as only half a letter. Harvey proposes a different solution which seems less probable. ↩
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This is one of the most obscure passages in the whole work of Irenaeus, and the editors have succeeded in throwing very little light upon it. We may merely state that ysv seems to be regarded as containing in itself the initials of the three words yhvh, Jehovah; smym, heaven; and v'rts, and earth. ↩
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Nothing can be made of these words; they have probably been corrupted by ignorant transcribers, and are now wholly unintelligible. ↩
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"Literae sacerdotales,"--another enigma which no man can solve. Massuet supposes the reference to be to the archaic Hebrew characters, still used by the priests after the square Chaldaic letters had been generally adopted. Harvey thinks that sacerdotales represents the Greek leitourgika, "meaning letters as popularly used in common computation." ↩
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The editors have again long notes on this most obscure passage. Massuet expunges "quaeque," and gives a lengthened explanation of the clause, to which we can only refer the curious reader. ↩
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vrvk, Baruch, blessed, one of the commonest titles of the Almighty. The final k seems to be reckoned only a half-letter, as being different in form from what it is when accompanied by a vowel at the beginning or in the middle of a word. ↩
