ANCIENT NUMBER SYMBOLISM: GLOSSARY

Joel Kalvesmaki
Updated 4 October 2004
Part of the Theology of Arithmetic website.
arithmetic
The mathematical science of absolute quantity (see quadrivium). The term is based on the Greek
word arithmos, translated "number," but with plurality implied: one was for the ancient Greeks,
not a number, but the source or principle of number. Arithmetic, then, treats the progression of
numbers, their basic division into odd and even (the two fundamental classes of numbers in
antiquity), and basic operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
arithmology
This term was reintroduced by A. Delatte, who observed it in the title of an anonymous treatise
preserved in an eighteenth century manuscript. The word appears to be a hapax legomenon, and
late in Greek literature, but it is useful nonetheless. Scholars apply it generally to any kind of
number symbolism or numerology in the ancient world.
astronomy
The mathematical science of relative magnitude (see quadrivium), more conventionally, the
mathematical science of the motions and relations of the heavenly bodies. Some ancient authors
combine, others separate, stereometry from astronomy. Ancient astronomers did not distinguish
astrology from astronomy, although they seem to have used the same science to different ends,
thereby forming the basis for the distinction, which first appears around the sixth century A.D. As
the fourth mathematical discipline, it is also the most complex.
gematria
See isopsephy.
geometry
The mathematical science of absolute magnitude (see quadrivium). The term is based on a

combination of Greek words meaning "land" and "measure," probably indicating its roots in land
surveying. Ancient geometry usually dealt with objects in one or two dimensions. Some authors
subsume three-dimensional objects under geometry, but others create a separate category,
stereometry. Geometry also included trigonometry and the science of proportions between line
segments, as seen in Euclid.
isopsephy
Better known today as gematria, this literary device is built upon the ancient convention of
assigning the letters of the alphabet numerical values. Letters, words, or entire sentences could
then be composed or interpreted based upon the sum of their numerical values. Isopsephy first
emerged as a literary phenomenon in Greek during the Hellenistic period, not much before earlier
than the first century A.D. It was adopted from the Greeks in the first or second century A.D.,
and later used in Arabic. There is no clear evidence that the practice caught on in Latin. The term
isopsephy derives from Greek terms that mean literally "equal count," and refers to the specific
practice of taking a verse or phrase and finding another one equal in count to it. It is also correct
to refer to the practice as psephy and the numerical value of a word or phrase as its psephic value.
The term gematria is a Hebrew calque on the Greek grammateia, and was initially applied to
different kinds of techniques for literary interpretation, but in the sixth century A.D., the term
began to apply specifically to isopsephy. N.B., many scholars would like to assign the linguistic
origins of isopsephy to Hebrew, and its origin in Biblical times. I argue in my dissertation, and
will argue in future studies, that there is no basis for this claim.
mathematics
The modern definition of the term encompasses a great variety of pure sciences, ranging from
simple arithmetic to string theory. The Greek word upon which ours is based, mathema, refers
generally to something learned, but more specifically to sciences concerned with quantity and
magnitude. Under the scheme of mathematics that would become the basis of the medieval
quadrivium, these four mathemata were arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy
(sometimes called stereometry). Throughout this website, I use mathematics in the classical sense
(and in the sense used in English until the eighteenth century), to refer to all four sciences, and
not just arithmetic, geometry, and other disciplines thought of today as constituting mathematics.
music
The mathematical science of relative quantity (see quadrivium; but note that music failed to
make it into many ancient lists of what constituted mathematics), but more conventionally, the
mathematical science of tonality. Musical tones were thought of in terms of relations between two
numbers, e.g., the octave, which exhibits the ratio two to one. Of the four branches of ancient
mathematics, music is the least well preserved.
number symbolism
The use of numbers to represent other realities, or to bring together them into relation with each
other. This is often achieved through epithets given numbers. For instance, seven is called Athena
or ever-virgin because it is neither the product nor the factor of any number ten or less. In a case
like this, the arithmetical properties of seven illustrate the properties of virginity, and vice versa.
To take another example, Platonic texts often use the numerical connection between the seven
planets and the seven notes in the scale to discuss the music of the spheres. In this case, the
number seven serves a connective tie between otherwise disconnected realities. Compare
numerology.

numerology
Loosely, any non-mathematical use or interpretation of numbers. Most English dictionaries
specify that numerology treats the occult significance of numbers. This qualification is important.
Like astrology, in its modern usage numerology should refer to acts of prognostication and magic
that use numbers to uncover or to manipulate the hidden realities of the world. There are about a
half dozen major types of Greek numerical prognostication, and an unknown number of variants.
Magic regularly uses numbers, albeit not as intently or creatively as prognostic texts. Compare
number symbolism. N.B.: I catalogue in my dissertation the major forms of Greek numerical
prognostication, as well as the manuscript evidence for each type. I also argue that it is
improper to apply to the exegesis of writers such as Philo or Clement of Alexandria the term
numerology since they are not interested in the occult significance of numbers, but in the hidden
realities of the world and Scripture, which are accessed through a literary, symbolic use of
numbers.
quadrivium
This is the Latin term, first coined by Boethius (under the slight change of spelling, quadruium),
to describe the four mathematical disciplines (see mathematics). Although the term was
developed late, the quadrivium as a cornerstone of ancient pedagogy goes back at least to late
antiquity, if not before. Evidence from the era of Plato, Aristotle, and their predecessors suggest
that the number and order of the mathematical disciplines was not standardized. It first took on
the traditional fourfold orderarithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomyunder the popular
influence of pseudo-Pythagorean writings circulated and epitomized in textbooks composed in the
second century A.D. and later. In this scheme, especially popularized by Nicomachus of Gerasa,
there is the science of quantity, and that of magnitude. Each of these subdivide further into the
study of quantities/magnitudes as either absolutes, or in relation to each other (numbers as
properties or as relations). Arithmetic is the science of absolute quantity; music, of relative
quantity; geometry, of absolute magnitude; astronomy, of relative magnitude. NB: most scholars
date the origin of the quadrivium to Archytas and other pre-Platonic thinkers. The position I
outline here I argue for in my dissertation.
stereometry
See geometry.
tetraktys
This is a Doric Greek term for the first four numbers (one, two, three, and four), the sum of which
is ten. It was often thought of in the form of ten pebbles arranged in the shape of an isosceles
triangle. The ancient Pythagoreans regarded the term as sacred, and used it for oath taking.