(23) Critias: and Hephaestus, and after that ours. And the duration of our civilization as set down in our sacred writings is 8000 years. Of the citizens, then, who lived 9000 years ago, I will declare to you briefly certain of their laws and the noblest of the deeds they performed:

(20) All the good things have been spread out for thee, before Rā. Thou hast a beginning and thou hast an end as Horus and Thoth have ordered for thee. They call upon N. , they see how he is glorious, they give him to come forth like a god to meet the Powers of Heliopolis. Thou journeyest on the great path as thy mummy has received the sacred things from thy father; thy hands are wrapped in linen every day; the beginning of the journey of the god is at the gate of the Great Dwelling

(33) James Morgan Pryse also notes that according to this method of figuring, the Greek term ἡ φρην, which signifies the lower mind, has 666 as its numerical equivalent. It is also well known to Qabbalists that Ἰησους, Jesus, has for its numerical value another sacred and secret number--888. Adding the digits of the number 666 and again adding the digits of the sum gives the sacred number--9 the symbol of man in his unregenerate state and also the path of his resurrection.

(26) " me. "..." [The following twenty-two lines are taken from K. 3,449a, and probably form part of the Fifth Tablet.] (66 ). (67) (68 ) From (69) In E-sagil (70) To establish (71) The station of (72) The great gods (73) The gods (74) He took and (75) The gods [his fathers] beheld the net which he had made, (76) They beheld the bow and how [its work] was accomplished. (77) They praised the work which he had done (78) Then Anu raised [the ...] in the assembly of the gods. (79) H e kissed the bow, (saying), "It is !" (80) And thus he named the names of the bow, (saying), (81) "'Long-wood' shall be one name, and the second name [shall be ...] (82) "And its third name shall be the Bow-star, in heaven [shall it ...]" (83) Then he fixed a station for it (84) Now after the fate of (85) [He set] a throne (86) in heaven (87) ... [The following traces of the last thirteen lines of the Fifth Tablet are taken from the reverse of K. 11,641 and from the reverse of K. 8,526.] (128) " him " (129) " them " (130) " him " (131) " them " (132) " their may " (133) the gods spake, (134) the heavens : 1 (135) "[... your] son " (136) " our hath he " (137) " he hath caused to live " (138) " splendour " (139) " not !" (140) " we !"

(70) It would take an entire volume to give the translations of all the forms the chapter has assumed. It must be sufficient here to give the earliest forms known to us of the text and of the first commentaries. These are printed in characters which show the difference between text and later additions; all of which, it must be remembered, are of extreme antiquity—some two thousand years before any probable date of Moses

(1) Said by Anubis Amut, in his divine hall, when he puts his hands over the body of N. , and provides him with all that belongs to him

(1) Then others from the seed of Ham and Japheth come, four hundred thousand, and enter another land and stay with those people who came from the great eternal knowledge. The shadow of their power protects those with them from everything evil and every filthy desire.

(6) just sent thee, is the glory of the name of the mystery of the Revealer, which is the First Commandment, and of the mystery of the five Impressions, and of the mystery of the great Envoy of the Ineffable, who is the great Light, and of the mystery of the five Leaders, who are the five Helpers. There is further in this vesture the glory of the name of the mystery of all orders of the emanations of the Treasury of the Light and of their saviours, and [of the mystery] of the orders of the orders, which are the seven Amēns and the seven Voices and the five Trees and the three Amēns and the Twin-saviour, that is the Child of the Child, and of the mystery of the nine guards of the three gates of the Treasury of the Light. There is further therein the whole glory of the name [of all those] which are in the Right, and of all those which are in the Midst. And further there is therein the whole glory of the name of the great Invisible, which is the great Forefather, and the mystery of the three triple-powers and the mystery of their whole region and the mystery of all their invisibles and of all those who are in the thirteenth æon, and the name of the twelve æons and of all their rulers and all their archangels and all their angels and of all those who are in the twelve æons, and the whole mystery of the name of all those who are in the Fate and in all the heavens, and the whole mystery of the name of all those who are in the sphere, and of its firmaments and of all who are in them, and of all their regions. "'Lo, therefore, we have sent thee this vesture, which no one knew from the First Commandment

(10) All higher numbers can be reduced to one of the original ten numerals, and the 10 itself to 1. Therefore, all groups of numbers resulting from the translation of names of deities into their numerical equivalents have a basis in one of the first ten numbers. By this system, in which the digits are added together, 666 becomes 6+6+6 or 18, and this, in turn, becomes 1+8 or 9. According to Revelation, 144,000 are to be saved. This number becomes 1+4+4+0+0+0, which equals 9, thus proving that both the Beast of Babylon and the number of the saved refer to man himself, whose symbol is the number 9. This system can be used successfully with both Greek and Hebrew letter values.

(5) It is written and ordained that He will show mercy to all who turn from all their guilt once each year.] 19. " The bracketed clauses have been either transposed here cr interpolated from xxxiv. -

(16) Chapter IX. We have a magic writing, copied from that divine alphabet with which God writes His will upon the face of celestial and terrestrial Nature. With this new language we read God's will for all His creatures, and just as astronomers predict eclipses so we prognosticate the obscurations of the church and how long they shall last. Our language is like unto that of Adam and Enoch before the Fall, and though we understand and can explain our mysteries in this our sacred language, we cannot do so in Latin, a tongue contaminated by the confusion of Babylon.

Now, the word, who is more exalted than anyone, was sent for this work only, to announce what is unknown. He said, “There is nothing hidden that will not appear, and what was unknown will be known.” Now these were sent so they might reveal what is hidden and expose the seven authorities of chaos and their impiety. And they were condemned to be killed. So when all the perfect ones appeared in the fashioned bodies of the rulers and revealed incomparable truth, they put to shame every wisdom of the gods, and their fate was discovered to be condemnable, their power dried up, their dominion was destroyed, and their forethought and their glory became empty.

(16) Another sign of antiquity as regards the present chapter may be seen in the numerous forms in which it has come down to us. These are so different, and sometimes so irreconcileable, that it seems evident that tradition has handed down very corrupt texts, and that the original meaning of this chapter had been entirely lost at a very early date and cannot be discovered now. The oldest text is the shortest of all, but it is both imperfect and incorrect. The earliest papyri differ greatly from the later ones. But both the earlier and the later papyri have the 149th chapter which contains another recension of the 108th, and chapter 111 in the Turin and later papyri is another form of it

(4) N. is welcome among the gods; he sees the great god, he is led on the good roads, he is presented with funerary offerings, his enemies are beaten down under him in the house of the Prince of Heliopolis

(6) Hail, N. , arise on thy bed, and come forth. Thou are raised by Rā on the horizon of the Maati in his boat

(1) This also is worthy, in my opinion, of intellectual attention, that the tradition of the Oracles concerning the Angels affirms that they are thousand thousands, and myriad myriads, accumulating and multiplying, to themselves, the supreme limits of our numbers, and, through these, shewing clearly, that the ranks of the Heavenly Beings cannot be numbered by us. For many are the blessed hosts of the supermundane minds, surpassing the weak and contracted measurement of our material number, and being definitely known by their own supermundane and heavenly intelligence and science alone, which is given to them in profusion by the supremely Divine and Omniscient Framer of Wisdom, and essentiating Cause and connecting Force, and encompassing Term of all created things together. Next: Caput XV. Sacred Texts | Christianity « Previous: The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite: On the Heavenly Hi... Index Next: The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite: On the Heavenly Hi... » Sacred Texts | Christianity

(34) And he returned in peace, and made peace with them, and they became his servants, until the day thathe and his sons went down into 2149 a.m. Egypt.

(2) They say, then, that the character representing 300 is, as to shape, the type of the Lord's sign, and that the Iota and the Eta indicate the Saviour's name; that it was indicated, accordingly, that Abraham's domestics were in salvation, who having fled to the Sign and the Name became lords of the captives, and of the very many unbelieving nations that followed them.

(30) And in the first year of the sixth week he 2143 went up to Salem, to the east of Shechem, in peace, in the fourth month.

(1) THE time, then, is come for our discourse, to sing the God of many Names, as "Sovereign Lord," and as "Ancient of days." For He is called the former, by reason that He is an all-controlling basis, binding and embracing the whole, and establishing and supporting, and tightening, and completing the whole. Continuous in itself, and from itself, producing the whole, as it were from a Sovereign root, and turning to itself the whole, as to a sovereign parent stock, and holding them together as an all-embracing basis of all, securing all the things embraced, within one grasp superior to all, and not permitting them, when fallen from itself to be destroyed, as moved from an all-perfect sanctuary. But the Godhead is called Sovereign, both as controlling and governing the members of His household, purely, and as being desired and beloved by all, and as placing upon all the voluntary yokes, and the sweet pangs of the Divine and Sovereign, and in dissolvable love of the Goodness itself,