FORMATION OF THE EARLY
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY OF ARITHMETIC
NUMBER SYMBOLISM IN THE
LATE SECOND AND EARLY THIRD CENTURY
A DISSERTATION
Submitted to the Faculty of the Department of Early Christian Studies
School of Arts and Sciences of the Catholic University of America
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of
Philosophy
By Joel Kalvesmaki
Washington, D.C.
2006
Director: William
McCarthy, Ph.D.
Abstract
Numbers were widely used in antiquity to symbolize reality and to
structure theological and philosophical systems. Early Christian
authors embraced this
practice, but not without controversy. In the late second century there
emerged distinct
Christian movements that used Pythagorean number symbolism to structure
their ideas about the
godhead. Notable were the various Valentinian schools (including Marcus
“Magus” and Colarbasus), Monoïmus, and
later followers of Simon
“Magus.” Contemporary orthodox authors, such as
Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, opposed them, particularly for
undermining the Trinitarian doctrine received in the churches. But
Irenaeus and Clement
do not approach the matter identically. Irenaeus criticizes the
Valentinians directly, and
without squaring everything in his critique with his own number
symbolism. Clement
criticizes such groups indirectly, and uses his own well-developed
number symbolism to
illustrate the proper way to approach the subject.
The Christian debates have striking parallels in roughly contemporary
non-Christian texts. Marsanes, Plutarch, and Theodore of Asine show
that
non-Christians too debated these matters. All of these
figures—Christian and
non-Christian—illustrate the tensions that existed between
those who used number symbolism to shape theological
and philosophical traditions and those who used their traditions to
shape their number
symbolism. The orthodox theology of arithmetic formed not a single
position but rather
a defense against arbitrary number symbolism that justified departures
from the received
tradition.
I argue for several important ancillary points. Pythagoreanism was
reinvented during the late Roman Republic, and the number symbolism
that emerged
in the following centuries had a traceable history. The distinction
between hen and
monad, the popular formulation of the quadrivium, and numerology and
the use of psephy
(gematria) all have their genesis in this period. Older traditions of
number symbolism,
such as the distinction between male and female numbers and the
importance of the tetraktys,
all received new life. I outline the historical development of each of
these trends and
classify and describe the major types of Greek numerological
prognostication. Furthermore, I
argue for a new sequence to Irenaeus’s Against Heresies, and
I challenge
scholars’ dependence upon the dichotomies eastern versus
western, and monadic versus dyadic
Valentinianism.
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