The Logoj: Notes and Ideas from Early Christian and Gnostic Gematria and Sacred Geometry
By Kerry A. Shirts
Abstract:
What I will do in this paper is discuss some Gnostic writings in light of Gematria and Sacred Geometry. This was the mindset of the Early Christians in many instances, as it was with the Gnostics. I think we have ignored this area of understanding which causes us grief when reading the Gnostic writings. I will explore the First Book of Jeu, the Gnostic writings called "The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit," and the book called "Eugnostos," and "The Sophia of Jesus Christ." I will also take another look at the "Greek Magical Papyri" that have come down to us from antiquity and suggest there may be more there than meets the eye also. I will explore the Sacred Geometry and Gematria of the Early Christians, especially as we find the evidence in the New Testament itself as well as other writings. I will present sacred geometric diagrams and charts, as well as the fully spelled out gematria of the correlations that exist, that I can find. This will be a very visual presentation, which is how it should be done. To actually have the eyes to "see" what is being said is an experience that is truly spiritually uplifting.
I will explore some of the "Mysteries of Godliness" as the Early Christians and Gnostics understood them and show they are a coherent and systematic exploration of Godliness in ways we have been ignoring. These ways are hidden right in front of our eyes. Scholarship generally ignores anything that smacks of superstition and the supernatural. Yet we continue to insist on understanding the milieu of Jesus and the Early Christians, and this cannot be fully done without considering the underlying structural thinking of their approach to God, scriptures, their own religiosity, etc. This subject must begin to be dealt with if we are to make more headway into the value, the use, and the incredible
insights the Gnostics and Early Christians have to offer us.
------------------------------------------
First, it is beyond the scope of this exploration to worry about defining Gnostics as either Christian or not. I will assume they were another branch of Christianity in the milieu of Jesus, and not worry about splitting hairs as to who had the true doctrines, and who were the heretics. I wish to explore themes in this paper. The themes, not of authenticity and who were correct in their doctrines, but the themes underlying many early Christian, Gnostic, Greek Magical Papyritic writings and New Testament scriptures, those of Gematria and Sacred Geometry.
The Gnostics have always been thought of as crackpots, mere silly rambling expositors of a religious faith. I must confess, I have had my doubts on this. How would it happen that mere verbiage of worthlessness could be accepted for centuries by many people? If it was incoherent, it would have fallen apart by itself. I believe in my research, I have found what may be a key worth at least noting, that demonstrates the Gnostics were not just rambling prophets out in the wilderness, but they instead had a coherent, logical, and highly spiritual system of thought, religion, theology, cosmology, etc. My first clue came from reading David Fideler’s book Jesus Christ Sun of God, which has opened an inspiring correspondence between the Greeks and their sciences and the early Christians in powerful ways. Others clues simply fell into my hands as I researched, and which I am eagerly willing to share for the benefit of our understanding.
In order for us to get into the mindset of the Early Christians and understand their viewpoint, it is very necessary to get into their mindsets! You may think I am being circular here, and to an extent I plead guilty, but consider that most views of the Early Christians (including the Gnostics), are such that they are the so-called "lesser-thinkers" just mystically producing mumbo-jumbo while we are more enlightened theologically, spiritually, etc. It is a symptom of our pride that we believe we are more elevated than they.
What was one of the underlying themes running through the Early Christian and Gnostic thinking? Gematria combined with Sacred Geometry. But first a little background for understanding.
Gematria is the correlation of letters to numbers. There is Greek gematria, Hebrew, Latin, etc. Anciently the peoples did not apparently have a separate numbering system as we do today, so they made their letters work double duty as corresponding to certain numbers also. To give you the gist, in the English alphabet, A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc. It is the same with Hebrew and Greek and Latin alphabets.
Now that being said, I must say gematria is artificial. It’s not arbitrary, but artificial. What gematria is designed to do is to suggest themes and correlations in scriptures to your mind you would not normally associate with whatever words you are reading. The words that end up having the same gematric value are somehow related, and cause your mind to look into the scriptures with that in mind to see potentially instructive and interesting teachings you would not normally think through in your reading. They bring out hidden dimensions and ideas about God, man, marriage, work, spirituality, etc. There are hidden encrypted messages, wonderfully in-depth meanings and ideas in the scriptures right in front of our eyes. We have eyes to read, but we still are not seeing. This includes the Gnostic and Greek Magical Papyri writings.
David Fideler notes that the Kosmos of the Pythagoreans "is made up of a dynamic harmony of opposites or complementary forces… the universe is a living harmony of opposing tendencies and forces."1 The etymology of kosmos itself suggests this. It is from the Greek meaning "ornament" or "adornment" (Cf. "cosmetic") which is why Pythagorus said the earth and the heavens are adorned and ornamented with beauty, with the implication of an ordered universe, which inspires delight and aesthetic appreciation.2
The next issue to realize in the ancient minds was that the kosmos is a harmonia, which means a fitting together. Fideler notes that harmony derives form the Indo-European root ar- meaning "to fit together," which is the root of the words "arm, harmony, art. Order, ornament, adorn, ratio, reason, read, rite, arithmos (number) and Rhyme. Through the principle of harmony, the parts fit together into the whole.3 The relationships of these concepts is what the Pythagoreans expressed through the language of number and geometry, i.e. gematria and sacred geometry. "Number is a natural language because, like harmonic ratios in music, it is not invented, but discovered."4
Our goal, however, in order to discover how the ancients saw their world, is to realize they understood number as a qualitative essence, a principle of relationship or logos. Below I will return to this "logos" idea with full fury. It is an astonishing concept which the opening chapter of John 1:1 simply does not fully capture, but is necessary to understand in order to relaize what the ancients were trying to depict in their kosmos. What we see and think of numbers as quantity, the ancients saw it as a description of a principle, so to speak. The number one, in Greek, the Monad – is not a number at all. It represents the principle of unity, which is in turn the underlying essence and continuum from which all the other numbers emerge. So they called this One, Apollo, Apollwn, which means literally "not of many."5
In the same way that One instead of being seen as just a number, but is seen as the "Monad", the Unity of things, so the number two is called the Dyad, because the principle it represents is that of duality and multiplicity, as movement away from the divine unity toward manifesting the forms and ideas in the world and kosmos.6 The Dyad is expressed in many ancient writings as the "Unlimited," :Birth," "Growth," "Matter," "Nature," and "anguish." These are the titles of what we would understand to be the number Two which Theon of Smyrna says is "made by the doubling of unity which becomes 2, in which are seen matter, and all that is perceptible, the generation of motion, multiplication and addition, composition and the relationship of one thing to another."7
As we begin to comprehend the ancients’ way of speaking, as we learn their vocabulary, it becomes quite easy to understand what it is they are saying. The "vagaries" of the Gnostics, are simply such, because we have not yet tapped into knowing their vocabulary, their descriptions of what we think of as numbers, and as geometric shapes. If my theory here is correct, we begin realizing that in many instances what they are saying with their weird and arcane words, such as monad, dyad, the ineffible, the eternal light, the totalities of totalities, the unbegotten, ungenerated, etc., may very well be simply describing geometric shapes and working within parameters of gematric relationships, instead of describing wildly improbably and weird gods which are not gods. I don’t think I can underestimate this. If I am right that one key to honestly coming to the point to where we can say, "Oh I get it now," is realizing the ancients were describing physical objects such as circles, squares, triangles, etc., then we may very well be on the way to comprehending what it is they are talking about. When we begin to realize that the ancients put number together with diagrams and pictures, i.e. sacred geometry, and then named them by their qualities, our eyes begin to open as to what they are saying. And when we get to this point, we will start seeing that instead of being gibberish, the ancients’ kosmos and religion was actually a very coherent, sophisticated harmony of doctrines, practices, and spiritual fulfilments.
When we read "monad," "Dyad," and "Triad," or when we read of something as being "unlimited," "without beginning and end" or as the New Testament indicates of Jesus, "The Alpha & Omega," etc., this is symbolic language for numbers and the shapes they represent! It can also very well indicate an understanding of the reality behind the images, behind the symbolism, etc. This is not to reduce Jesus or any other God to a mere number or shape, but it is to describe the quality of a thing or person, instead of a quantity. This can be very powerfully and graphically shown for us to actually see the principles involved.

1. Monad 2. (Middle)Dyad 3. (right) Triad
Here, the ancients graphically depicted the unity, duality and multiplicity of all forms in the Kosmos with circles. As Michael Schneider has indicated, all shapes arise from the first circle. 8 When read read in the Gnostic writings, which I will examine below, of the "Ineffible Father of all," of the "mystery beyond mysteries," of the "emanation of the archons," etc., we are reading about geometric shapes, such as the circle, which is indeed, "unending," and the "father of the all in all," "the beginning of the Pleroma of light," as the Gnostics correctly describe!
When we read the word "emanation" in the Gnostic writings, it throws us off. We are not used to this kind of vocabulary. What we now realize, if my theory is correct about the Gnostics describing shapes and the properties of numbers in many of their writings, is how the one becomes the many. This is an age old perennial discussion. We can now begin to fathom how the "Ungenerated, Unbegotten, everlasting Unity," became the many! Schneider gives us the key. The ancients saw the metaphor of the Unity as a circle, which is virtually the same everywhere whether we are seeing it from without the circle or from within it. It is only one shape, that of the "womb and creadle of our symbolic universe."9 Unity multiplied by itself is always unity, hence its eternal property. 1x1x1x…1x1x1x1 = 1. In this case, how then does the property of "Unity" beyond itself, ever become the many? How can the Gnostics logically describe the Monad generating other "principles" (i.e., geometric shapes!) and other numbers? As Schneider asks it:
"How does the primeval ‘I’ generate its ‘Thou’? With a mirror. It simply needs another circle identical to itself. The circle replicates a mate for itself by contemplating itself, reflecting its light, and casting its own shadow. The process is mirrored through geometry as the birth of a line.10
This is the exact description we find in the Gnostic work called Eugnostos. There we begin to understand the rather strange description of the "All Father," now that we suspect it is a circle that is being described, the circle of Sacred Geometry:
He who is ineffible. No principle knew him, no authority, no subjection, nor any creature from the foundation of the world, except he alone. For he is immortal and eternal, having no birth; for everyone who has birth shall perish. He is unbegotten, having no beginning; for everyone who has a beginning has an end. No one rules over him. He has no name; for whoever has a name is the creature of another. He is unnameable. He has no human form; for whoever has a human form is the creation of another. He has his own semblence – not like the semblence we have received and seen, but a strange semblence that surpasses all things and is better than the totalities. It looks to every side and sees itself from itself. He is infinite; he is incomprehensible. He is ever imperishable (and) has no likenesses (to anything). He is unchanging good. He is faultless. He is everlasting. He is blessed, he is unknowable, while he (nonetheless) knows himself, he is immeasurable. He is untractable. He is perfect, having no defect, he is imperishably blessed. He is called Father of the universe. Before anything is visible among those that are visible, the majesty and the authorities that are in him, he embraces the totalities of the totalities, and nothing embraces him…For he (the Lord) is the beginningless Forefather. He sees himself within himself, like a mirror, having appeared in his likeness as Self-Father, that is Self-Begetter, and as Confronter, since he confronted Unbeggoten First Existent.11 (my emphasis in bold)
I have read this and re-read this, but never with the understanding that what very well could be being described here is the sacred geometry of the "Father of All" shapes, is the circle itself. Re-read it again and "see" what is being said. It is an overly elaborate and incredible description of what they considered to be the most sacred shape in their theology, the geometric circle!
The state of harmony that is seen in the Monad (the single circle in the picture above), and then the Dyad, and then the Triad, is achieved only through the Logoj (Logos), which indeed, does in fact, mean "the inward thought or reason itself. Ration, thought, reason, kata logon agreeable to reason, reflexion, calculation, reckoning, relation, proportion, analogy, a reasonable ground, a condition."12
With the Dyad representing the beginning of manifestation (of other geometric shapes, of course) this also is the beginning of strife. "With the Dyad arises the duality of subject and object, the knower and the known. Nonetheless, the Dyad also signals the possiblity of logos, the relation of one thing to another. This possibility of relation is consummated in Three, the Triad, where the gulf of dualism is bridged, for it is through the third term that a relation or harmonia is obtained between the two extremes. For this reasons, the Pythagoreans called the Triad "Proportion" (analogia), "Marriage," "Peace," "The Mean Between Two Extremes," "Onness of Mind," "The All," "Perfection," "Friendship," and "Purpose." The Triad is also called "Knowledge" or gnosis, knower and known, are brought together, reflecting a higher unity."13
Once we begin to understand the vocabulary used in the ancient Gnostic writings, and realize they are discussing relationships (Logos!) with number, and the coming into manifestation, i.e. the creation of other geometric shapes that they have called Father, Son, Mother, etc., then the problems are largely removed from us in reading the Gnostic writings. Now we also begin to "get it" with many of Jesus’ sayings about the "Father in Heaven!" In fact, many of the Gospel stories concerning Jesus can be illustrated in astonishing ways with gematric sacred geometry circles within circles! The Early Christians were powerfully minded mystics and geometers as the evidence shows, which I will get to shortly, but first the Book of Jeu. This is a magnificent illustration of what I have been saying here.
The 2 books of Jeu have been described as being just "magical formulae and mystical cryptograms as the way of gaining access to the divine mysteries, and an untitled theological teatise, difficult to interpret."14 The Gnostic Society Library on the Internet won’t even put both of the books on their webpage! They give us just a tantalizing glimpse of some of the first book of Jeu, and say the rest of it is just more of the same. It is a totally neglected book because it is hard to understand, because we are not used to realizing that the ancients are describing gematria and sacred geometric figures, and the relationships and hence meanings that arise from these shapes. But the diagrams of the Sacred Geometry of the Book of 1 Jeu is a dead give away of its Sacred Geometry

. I am only using a small number od diagrams of what is in the book as a way of illustrating the idea of their sacred geometry.
So lets start up at the upper corner diagram with #1 and read what Jeu says about this.
Diagram #1
The Coptic inscription in it says "This is his type when he brings forth."
In chapter 5, the Book of Jeu says "He will set him up in this type as head over the treasuries which are outside this… This is the type in which he was before he was moved to bring forth emanations."
Now what is this saying? What does it mean? Easy, once you get the gist of the vocabulary. His form, his type, is the circle we are seeing! When the circle (the Monad, the Unity) emanates others, it is duplicating itself into other circles, and hence other forms. As Schneider said as well as the Gnostic work Eugnostos said, it "mirrors" itself.
As Jeu continues, "He will be father of a multitude of emanations. And a multitude of emanations will come forth from him through the command of my Father, and they themselves will be fathers of the treasuries. It is he who will be father of all the Jeus, because he is an emanation of my Father."
In other words, the "Father" is the original first circle from which the other circles and shapes come forth. The other emanations, (coming forth of more circles) are called Sons and Daughters.
Notice how the circles within circles have begun to connect with the verticle line! Here is the beginning of duality and other geometric forms as I will show with Schneider’s work. All geometric forms in the universe begin when circles are reduplicated and the centers of the circles as well as the edges begin to become connected. This is the essence of sacred geometry and reality to the ancient view of the world. It is reflected in their philosophy, religion, ethics, music, and lives.
I will show you exactly how this happens in a moment below the explanations of the diagrams.
Diagram #2
The Coptic says "His Character: he caused the powers to move in… It welled up in him. He gave voice as he emanated. This is the first emanation." It is the Father "emanating," i.e., creating more circles, through mirroring and division as slices of pie. The Gnostics say emanation, though we would say creation or origination. It is the same principle just in the Gnostic vocabulary. As Jeu says in chapter 6:
"But I have called upon the name of my Father [perhaps fancy language to say he looked at the circle?], so that he should move the true God in order to emanate [mirroring itself]. But he himself caused This is his character an idea (thought) to come forth which is on his face thus: from his treasuries. A power of my Father moved the true God. It radiated within him through this small idea (thought) which came forth from the treasuries of my Father. It radiated within the true God. A mystery moved through my Father. The True God gave voice, saying thus:… And when he had given voice, there came forth this voice which is the emanation. It was of this type as it proceeded forth from one side after another of each treasury. The first voice is this, which Jeu, the true God, called, which came forth from him, the one above." (my emphasis)
So a circle produced another circle. In other words, they begin with the original circle, and draw another one. The first circle (Father) produced another circle (the Son), which the Gnostics call emanation. We would say it copied itself. It’s the same principle using different words. They are describing sacred geometry in their religious vocabulary.
Diagram #3
The Coptic says "His name Jeu. His Character is this:" The Character, is the actual circles within circles we are looking at. The squares within squares are also emanations, that is, squares coming from other squares, expanding, movement, increase. This is how things grow, i.e. it’s a diagram of growing, living life, only mathematically depicted, and religiously described!
Diagram #4
The Coptic says "He will emanate, Jeu." Notice how from the circle, other forms are now existing. Note his name is in the middle of the circle. In the full illustration in the Book of Jeu, it has already shown emanations by names of "three watchers," and the emanations are described as "twelve heads in each place of the treasuries," which reminds us, of course, of Jesus as the Head of the twelve apostles. We read the same arrangement of twelve in the Sophia of Jesus Christ, where it notes there are also twelve aeons for retinue for the twelve angels.15
There are ranks now within these emanations. Before the Father emanated there was no rank according to Jeu, and with the creation of more figures, that is, geometric shapes, we now have various "types" in the treasuries, and different kinds of forms in the sacred geometry. That is what this language is all about if my idea is correct here. The reason there are so many odd names that do not translate out into anything coherent is because instead of being actual beings or people, the names may simply relate to gematria correlations of the doctrines Jeu is expounding. We will see this more when we examine the gematria in the New Testament.
Diagram #5
The Coptic says "Jeu the true God. This is his name…" The Coptic also says in a diagram opposite of this one in writing (not shown here), that the form he emanates is this form, i.e. the circle.
When we read in Jeu that "the Father is ready to bring forth emanations," and does so this is what the Gnostics are saying. Here is the picture of this language:

The One circle emanates another, so there are two circles within the all surrounding circle (the Father of the Two). This is the middle figure shown above. Then Three circles are formed (emanated), and now we begin to see all forms manifested in the universe.The original circle is called the Father, the All in All because it is from this first circle that all forms are "emanated" or brought out as we would say. With the central figure with two smaller circles, we see the Son, an emanation of the All Father, the Self-Begotten, because he reflected himself into further emanations which are called His children, his sons and daughters. We see these beginning to emanate, that is, appear, in the third picture with three circles, and then more and more emanations (children being begotten as it were) come from this. The Gnostic language is describing sacred geometry in many cases such as this. The first emanation, in fact, is called "Adam"!
When we read in the Eugnostos that "All the attributes that exist are perfect and immortal. In respect to imperishableness, they are indeed equal. (But) in respect to power, there is a difference, like the difference between father and son, and son and thought, and the thought and the remainder. As I said earlier, among the things that were created, the monad is first, the dyad follows it, and the triad, up to the tenths. Now the tenths rule the hundredths, the hundredths rule the thousandths…this is the patterns among the immortals… it is the pattern that exists among the immortals… First Begetter Father is called Adam of the Light… From thoughts, reflectings; from reflectings considerings; from considerings, rationalities; from rationalities, wills; from wills, words."16
This is their idea of the Logoj (Logos). The Logos is pictured in their sacred geometry and gematria, as I shall also demonstrate. It is the perfect summation of what the Logos as ratio is. It is the connection, the relationship, the synergy of form. It is the word that emanates forth from the Father (the first circle). It is the mediator of Creation.
From the Father of Light (the first circle), all other types are emanated (created). Here is what they are talking about in picture form. All shapes are brought into being in the world in sacred geometry from the first circle (The Father). Because the circle has mirrored itself, now points along centers, as well as overlapping areas of circles can bring lines into manifestation, the Gnostics would say emanation. Now all creation can occur because of the work of the Father through his Son, the second circle! Let us see the forms in their basic ten shapes, realizing that as you work with Sacred Geometry, the forms can literally become infinite.

1. The Monad, the Father, the Unity, the All in All, the Perfect, the Same
2. The mirror of #1, hence centers can now connect and the line can come forth in emanation as the Gnostics would say. The Vesica Pisces now occurs in the overlap, which is the small area between the circles wherein the line perfectly divides it in the middle. Now duality can occur, opposites, movement, energy, etc. Now there are two circles, the Sophia of Jesus Christ says "Begetter of all things. His female name is designated ‘All Begettress Sophia’ Some call her Pistis."17
3. The divine triangle, trinity now emanates, i.e. is created, or shown to come into existence as we would say. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the triadness of the Kosmos now reigns. The number three is actually written with a beginning, middle and an end.
4. In the Vesica Pisces, in the smaller circle which is divided by the divine energy moving (the line), we now have four points on which other lines can emanate, hence the beginning of the solid square, earth, stability, etc.
5. In the Vesica Pisces, the origin of the Pentagram, the beginning of life as we actually know it. The number five is associated with life in the holiest sense of the word. The 3-D dodecahedron is the fifth of the five Platonic solids, the Quintessence of nature which gathers all the four elements together, solids, gases, liquids, and fire, without which life would not exist.
6. The Hexagon emanates in this configuration. It is at the sixth level that proper order, function and structure can occur. Six is the third of the four triangular numbers, 1,3,6,10. Six is the only number that its divisors, 1,2 and 3 are the only unit of three integers where each number divides the sum of the other two.
7. Seven was known as the virgin number anciently. It is one of the most important numbers in the Bible, that being the day the Lord rested from his labors. In the number line the 7 bridges a chasm between the other numbers. 1x2x3x4x5x6 is equal to the same number as 7x8x9x10 which is the number 5040. With the number 7 out of the equation altogether, 1x2x3x4x5x6 equals the same number as 8x9x10 which is 720. No number less than 7 divides into it, as two divides the number four, or three divides 6, or five divides ten, etc. Seven also produces no number by multiplication within the ten as two produces four, three produces six, four to eight and five to ten. Hence seven was the virgin number.
8. This is divided by more numbers within 1 to 10 than any of the numbers. It is divided by 1x2x4 and its roots are in the monad, dyad and Tetrad. It is the only number that can be divided evenly all the way down as well. To four then to two then to one.
9. Thus number has three trinities 3x3=9. Nice was considered triply sacred for this reason. The Egyptian Council of the Gods were nine. The Greeks honored nine muses. Beyond nine a new cycle is emanated, or comes into existence as we would say.
10. Ten represents a whole new cycle. We are beyond number here hence into new relationships and connections. Ten was not considered a number from the viewpoint of the ancients, but it was considered the epitome of the concept of number, since it was the completion of all the numbers. It was an all encompassing archetype hence the famous pythagorean Tetractys being their most important symbol The Tetractys was the divine triangle of numbers. All arithmetic proportions were inclusive, with the ten fingers and toes of mankind embracing everything from the Monad to the Decad. It was with ten that we have all for comprehending everything stucturally in order in the universe. And it all began from the illimitable light of the Father (the original circle), according to the ancients.

To Be Continued………

Endnotes

1. 1. David Fideler, Jesus Christ Sun of God, Quest Books, 1993: 59.
2. 2. Fideler, p. 59.
3. 3. Fideler, p. 59.
4. 4. Fideler, p. 60.
5. 5. Fideler, p. 60.
6. 6. Fideler, p. 60.
7. 7. Fideler, p. 60.
8. 8. Michael Schneider, A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science, HarperPerrenial, 1995, where he shows that every shape we know of begins at the circle, as he works his way through the numbers from One to Ten.
9. 9. Schneider, p. 22.
10. 10. Schneider, p. 22, (my emphasis).
11. 11. James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library in English, Harper & Row, Revised, 1988: 224, 227, (My emphasis).
12. 12. Liddell and Scott’s Greek – English Lexicon, Abridged, American Book Co., 1871: 416-417. Cf. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2^nd ed., revised, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1979: 477-478.
13. 13. Fideler, p. 61.
14. 14. Giovanni Filoramo, A History of Gnosticism, Blackwell Books, Paperback, 1992: 10.
15. 15. Robinson, p. 236.
16. 16. Robinson, p. 229,230,232,233.
17. 17. Robinson, p. 233.