Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Eusebius Makes Reference to the Pythagorean Terminology When Describing the Fourfold Gospel

"This appears also to be the proper place, to give a summary statement of the books of the New Testament already mentioned. And here, among the first, must be placed the holy tetrakyts of the gospels." [HE 3.25.1 - 7]

As David Dungan notes the terminology "is evidently a mystery to most translators, since neither 'quaternion' nor 'quartet' (as in choral quartet) is the right translation. The Greek is tetraktys, and it was the famous term used by the Pythagorean School for the set of their four sacred numbers 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 (= 10, ten being the perfect number). Eusebius may have been thinking that the four Christian Gospels were like the Christian "perfect number": Jesus Christ. In any case, to my knowledge, this allusion to Pythagorean numerology is Eusebius's own invention; I am unable to find any use of this term in Origen or after Eusebius." [Constantine's Bible p. 70]


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