Tractatus de numerorum mysteriis

Of Our Father among the Saints Epiphanius, Bishop of the City of Constantia in Cyprus, On the Mysteries of the Numbers. On Faith. 1. Faith is. Faith in God is a thing intangible, incomprehensible, invisible, not to be meddled with, not to be satiated, honored by silence, and worshipped by the mind, a seat of the soul, a foundation of life, a living root, an unfading branch, a fruit of immortality, a substance of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen, a justification of all the saints. On the Holy Trinity. 2. Trinity simple, uncompounded, incomparable, inexpressible, indescribable, undefinable: Father, Son, Holy Spirit; consubstantial in all things, in harmony, in power, in energy, in divinity, in magnitude, divided only in hypostasis and names, united in power and in things. Trinity existing before the ages, without beginning, without time, ageless, deathless, endless, not ceasing, not ending, always the same as it is, not now discovered, but always worshipped, proclaimed by apostles, magnified by the faithful Church; all-powerful, all-overseeing, creator, philanthropic, good, without need, perfect. That the number of this Trinity itself, as it appears in the divine Scriptures, is mysterious and a wonder.

3. Thirdly, the Cherubim hymn the Trisagion: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord." Three are the great elements: heaven, earth, and sea. Three are the things within us: mind, spirit, word. Three fathers: Adam, Seth, Enoch. Three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Three angels at the tent of Abraham. Three days of Abraham's sacrifice. Three measures of fine flour which Sarah, having received the angels, set before them. Three rods which Jacob, having hewn, placed in the troughs of the watering-places. Three decades of years, and then Joseph was king. Three months during which Moses was hidden by his parents. Thrice three, nine, the plagues of the Egyptians. Three months from Egypt, and then the law was written and the tablets were polished. Three good things of the desert: water, quail, manna. Three times, it is said, Moses appeared before the Lord. Three priests: Moses, Aaron, Samuel. Three wondrous generals: Joshua son of Nun, Caleb son of Jephunneh, and Phinehas. Three who stood against Amalek on the rock: Moses, Joshua, Hur. Three mighty judges: Gideon, Jephthah, Samson. Three elders of the sons of Israel: Moses, Job, Daniel. Three weeks was the fast of Daniel. Three youths who did not worship the golden image: Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. By three things the earth is shaken, as Solomon said: if a servant, he says, becomes king, and a fool is filled with food, and a hateful woman obtains a good husband. Three things that are filled: Hades, love of woman, dry earth. Three things that are incomprehensible: the tracks of a flying eagle, the path of a serpent on a rock, the course of a ship sailing the sea. Three things that proceed well:

a lion's cub is stronger than beasts, a rooster walking among females is animate, a goat leading a herd. Three wise women: the Thekuite, the Shunammite, and Abigail; for one saved her husband Nabal, another saved Absalom through skill, and the third ran to the son of the prophet and, not despairing, saved him. Three prophetesses who are drummers: Miriam, Deborah, Judith. Three holy women: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah. Three remembered kings: David, Hezekiah, Josiah. Three orders of beings: celestial, terrestrial, subterranean. Three virtues: faith, hope, love. Three gifts from God: kingship, priesthood, prophecy. Three times: present, past, future. Three possessions of the righteous: paradise, the bosom of Abraham, the kingdom of the heavens. Three punishments of sinners: darkness, worm, Gehenna. Three renewals of the world: that under Noah, that under the Lord, that at the consummation. Thirdly, Elijah, having sprinkled the limbs of the ox and the wood, brought down fire from the heavens according to the Styx. Thirdly of the day Daniel prayed. Three months the Virgin spent in the house of Zacharias. Three gifts offered to the Lord by the Magi: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Three baptisms: the legal, that of John, that of the Lord. Three invocations of baptism: into Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Three immersions and three emergences of baptism. Three victories of the Lord over the devil: not eating after hungering, not worshipping the foul one, not casting himself down.

Three days after the baptism, and then the water becomes choice wine. Three are the reproaches against the Virgin of the Only-Begotten: Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be in the things of my Father? What have I to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come; who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Three are the disciples who are more trusted than the others: Peter, James, John. Three years is the time of the Lord’s signs. For three years the Lord came seeking fruit on the fig tree, and found none. The Lord cursed three things: the fig tree—Let no fruit ever come from you again; the Synagogue—Not one stone shall remain upon another; Judas—Woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is handed over to be crucified. Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale. The destruction of the Ninevites was three days. The death of the Savior was three days, and the resurrection of the Lord from the dead by his own authority was also three days. Paul regained his sight after three days of blindness; three times he urged the Lord about the thorn, that it might depart from him; three times he was shipwrecked; he ascended to the third heaven. Three satas of flour, and the woman likened to the kingdom of heaven, taking them and hiding them in a small leaven, leavened the whole dough, as it is written.

That the number as a double triad is observed in the divine Scripture in great matters. 4. In six days God constructed the world. On the sixth day he formed Adam. At the sixth hour he sought the one stripped by manifest sin. He appeared a sixth time to Abraham: once at Charran, *** a third time in dreams, a fourth at the addition of the letter of the name, a fifth at the Mamre noon, the sixth hour, a sixth at the sacrifice of the only-begotten on the mountain. He commanded the Hebrews to serve for six years. In the sixth month he sent Gabriel to the Virgin. He made the water into wine at six water-jars. At the sixth hour he spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well. Six days before Passover he raised Lazarus. At the sixth hour, while being crucified, he was reconciled to the thief. He appeared a sixth time after rising from the dead: to the women, to Cleopas, to the disciples without Thomas, to the disciples with Thomas, to Peter and John washing the net, at the last of the ascension. A sixth time, as Paul says, he appeared to the brothers: to Cephas, to the ten, to the five hundred, once to James, to all the apostles, lastly to Paul himself. Our Lord Jesus Christ performed six great mysteries in one of them, as Paul says: He was fulfilled in flesh, he was justified in spirit, he appeared to angels, he was preached among nations, he was believed in the world, he was taken up in glory. The great names are written with six letters: Adonai,

Sabaoth, Jesus, Lord, physician, good, cloud, Mary. That the number seven is a perfect number. 5. On the seventh day God rested from all his works. Seven avengers destroyed Cain when they killed him. For the polluted one, having committed seven sins—envy, deceit, fratricide, first teacher of murders, abomination of such a life, grieving his parents, lying to God—also fell under seven punishments: he inhabited the accursed land, he worked, he groaned looking away, he trembled, he was out of sight, he agonized over the passerby, he had a mark that made him public. Enoch was the seventh after Adam, who pleased God, and like wheat from tares, was separated from the impious. Jacob served Laban for Rachel seven years the first time, and seven years the second time. Abraham gave seven ewe lambs to Abimelech as a testimony of the ownership of the well. Seven lean cows and seven ears of grain on tablets depicted the abundance of Pharaoh's dream. Joshua the son of Nun carried seven sacred trumpets when he brought down the walls of Jericho. In the seventh year of servitude the Jews release the Hebrews. From the fifteenth to the twenty-first, during which the Passover of the Jews was celebrated, seven days of the feast. God recorded seven nations as slaves to the Jews: the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, the Amorites. The sister of Moses, having been set apart, made the tabernacle in six days with seven branches. Samson was bound with seven withes and cut them like a cord. He had seven sacred locks of hair; the cutting of them banished their strength and power.

There are seven eyes that look upon the whole earth. Seven bowls and seven lamps Zacharias saw, because there are seven spirits from God. Seven are the gifts of the Holy Spirit: spirit of wisdom, spirit of understanding, spirit of counsel, spirit of might, spirit of knowledge, spirit of piety, spirit of fear of God. Wisdom set up seven pillars of her own tent. Seven women in Isaiah will beseech the one Lord, saying: Let us eat our bread and put on our garments; only let your name be called upon us; take away our reproach. For seven legal books bear witness to Christ, that he himself, having become flesh, took away their reproach: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges. For if he had not become man, they would have been dismissed as myths. Sacrificed without sacrifice, like Isaac, and suffering without passion, and carrying his own cross on his shoulders, he confirmed the things set down in the book of Genesis. Having entered a virgin womb and not consuming the one who bore him with the fire of his divinity, he depicted the burning bush that is not consumed, which is set down in the book of Exodus. Having served as high priest, like Aaron, mediating for us with God, he presented the things written in Leviticus. Joining the New Testament to the Old, and saying: It was said to the ancients, You shall not commit adultery; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with a view to committing adultery with her has already committed adultery in his heart; and again: It was said to the ancients, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

I say to you, do not resist the evil one, but if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him also the other. The things in Deuteronomy he delivered as second, and taking up again the beneficial things. Leading our race into the true rest, and preparing for us various abodes in the heavenly realms, he revealed the things in the book of Numbers. Entering the Jordan, and sanctifying the waters, and recalling the sun that fled at the cross, and making a double day instead of a single one, he depicted the things in the book of Joshua the son of Nun for those who read not superficially. Having placed his beloved soul for us, and giving himself as a ransom for many, he interpreted the things in the book of Judges; for Jephthah also offered his daughter to God as a whole burnt offering for the people. Jesse was the father of seven sons. Moses was the seventh from Abraham. The name of John consists of seven letters. The appellation of Christ also consists of seven letters. Seven deacons were chosen from the disciples for the service of Christians: Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicholas. Seven youths overthrew the tyranny of Antiochus. And to speak briefly, this number is praiseworthy and marvelous; for the Lord himself cries out in writing from above: Honor the day of the Sabbath, and sanctify it, because on it God rested from all his works which he began to make. Glory to him unto the ages of ages. Amen.