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Latest revision as of 21:20, 20 February 2025
- This article is about a Thelema topic
In numerology, gematria (/ɡəˈmeɪtriə/; Hebrew: גמטריא or גימטריה, gimatria, plural גמטראות or גימטריות, gimatriot) is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase by reading it as a number, or sometimes by using an alphanumerical cipher. The letters of the alphabets involved have standard numerical values, but a word can yield several values if a cipher is used. According to Aristotle (384–322 BCE), isopsephy, based on the Milesian numbering of the Greek alphabet developed in the Greek city of Miletus, was part of the Pythagorean tradition, which originated in the 6th century BCE. The first evidence of use of Hebrew letters as numbers dates to 78 BCE; gematria is still used in Jewish culture. Similar systems have been used in other languages and cultures, derived from or inspired by either Greek isopsephy or Hebrew gematria, and include Arabic abjad numerals and English gematria. The most common form of Hebrew gematria is used in the Talmud and Midrash, and elaborately by many post-Talmudic commentators. It involves reading words and sentences as numbers and assigning numerical instead of phonetic values to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. When read as numbers, they can be compared and contrasted with other words or phrases – cf. the Hebrew proverb נכנס יין יצא סוד (nichnas yayin yatza sod, lit. 'wine entered, secret went out', i.e. "in vino veritas"). The gematric value of יין ('wine') is 70 (י=10; י=10; ן=50) and this is also the gematric value of סוד ('secret', ס=60; ו=6; ד=4). Gematria sums can involve single words, or a string of lengthy calculations. A short example of Hebrew numerology that uses gematria is the word חי, chai, 'alive', which is composed of two letters that (using the assignments in the mispar gadol table shown below) add up to 18. This has made 18 a "lucky number" among Jews. In early Jewish sources, the term can also refer to other forms of calculation or letter manipulation, for example, atbash.
Etymology
Classical scholars agree that the Hebrew word gematria was derived from the Greek word γεωμετρία geōmetriā, "geometry", though some scholars believe it to derive from Greek γραμματεια grammateia "knowledge of writing".[citation needed] both Greek words likely influenced the formation of the Hebrew word. Some hold it to derive from the order of the Greek alphabet, gamma being the third letter of the Greek alphabet ("gamma tria").
The word has existed in English since at least the 17th century, from translations of works by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. It is largely used in Jewish texts, notably those associated with the Kabbalah. Neither the concept nor the term appears in the Hebrew Bible itself.
History
Further information: Numbers in Egyptian mythology and Biblical numerology The first documented use of gematria is from an Assyrian inscription dating to the 8th century BCE, commissioned by Sargon II. In this inscription, Sargon II states: "the king built the wall of Khorsabad 16,283 cubits long to correspond with the numerical value of his name."
The practice of using alphabetic letters to represent numbers developed in the Greek city of Miletus, and is thus known as the Milesian system. Early examples include vase graffiti dating to the 6th century BCE. Aristotle wrote that the Pythagorean tradition, founded in the 6th century BCE by Pythagoras of Samos, practiced isopsephy, the Greek predecessor of gematria. Pythagoras was a contemporary of the philosophers Anaximander, Anaximenes, and the historian Hecataeus, all of whom lived in Miletus, across the sea from Samos. The Milesian system was in common use by the reign of Alexander the Great (336–323 BCE) and was adopted by other cultures during the subsequent Hellenistic period. It was officially adopted in Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (284–246 BCE).
In early biblical texts, numbers were written out in full using Hebrew number words. The first evidence of using Hebrew letters as numerals appears during the late Hellenistic period, in 78 BCE. Scholars have identified gematria in the Hebrew Bible, the canon of which was fixed during the Hasmonean dynasty (c. 140 BCE to 37 BCE), though some scholars argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later. The Hasmonean king of Judea, Alexander Jannaeus (died 76 BCE) had coins inscribed in Aramaic with the Phoenician alphabet, marking the 20th and 25th years of his reign using the letters K and KE (למלכא אלכסנדרוס שנת כ and למלכא אלכסנדרוס שנת כה).
Some old Mishnaic texts may preserve very early usage of this number system. Still, no surviving written documents exist, and some scholars believe these texts were passed down orally and during the early stages before the Bar Kochba rebellion were never written. Gematria is not known to be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a vast body of texts from 100 BCE – 100 CE, or in any documents from the Bar-Kochba revolt circa 150 CE.
According to Proclus in his commentary on the Timaeus of Plato written in the 5th century, the author Theodorus Asaeus from a century earlier interpreted the word "soul" (ψυχή) based on gematria and an inspection of the graphical aspects of the letters that make up the word. According to Proclus, Theodorus learned these methods from the writings of Numenius of Apamea and Amelius. Proclus rejects these methods by appealing to the arguments against them by the Neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus. The first argument was that some letters have the same numerical value but opposite meanings. His second argument was that the form of letters changes over the years, and so their graphical qualities cannot hold any deeper meaning. Finally, he puts forth the third argument that when one uses all sorts of methods as addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, and even ratios, the infinite ways in which these can be combined allow virtually any number to be produced to suit any purpose.
Some scholars propose that at least two cases of gematria appear in the New Testament. According to one theory, the reference to the miraculous "catch of 153 fish" in John 21:11 is an application of gematria derived from the name of the spring called 'EGLaIM in Ezekiel 47:10. The appearance of this gematria in John 21:11 has been connected to one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, namely 4Q252, which also applies the same gematria of 153 derived from Ezekiel 47 to state that Noah arrived at Mount Ararat on the 153rd day after the beginning of the flood. Some historians see gematria behind the reference to the number of the name of the Beast in Revelation as 666, which corresponds to the numerical value of the Hebrew transliteration of the Greek name "Neron Kaisar", referring to the 1st century Roman emperor who persecuted the early Christians. Another possible influence on the use of 666 in Revelation goes back to Solomon's intake of 666 talents of gold in 1 Kings 10:14.
Gematria makes several appearances in various Christian and Jewish texts written in the first centuries of the common era. One appearance of gematria in the early Christian period is in the Epistle of Barnabas 9:6–7, which dates to sometime between 70 and 132 CE. There, the 318 servants of Abraham in Genesis 14:14 is used to indicate that Abraham looked forward to the coming of Jesus as the numerical value of some of the letters in the Greek name for Jesus and the 't' representing a symbol for the cross also equaled 318. Another example is a Christian interpolation in the Sibylline Oracles, where the symbolic significance of 888 (equal to the numerical value of Iesous, the Latinized rendering of the Greek version of Jesus' name) is asserted. Irenaeus also heavily criticized the interpretation of letters by the Gnostic Marcus. Because of their association with Gnosticism and the criticisms of Irenaeus and Hippolytus of Rome and Epiphanius of Salamis, this form of interpretation never became popular in Christianity—though it does appear in at least some texts. Another two examples can be found in 3 Baruch, a text that may have either been composed by a Jew or a Christian sometime between the 1st and 3rd centuries. In the first example, a snake is stated to consume a cubit of the ocean every day but can never finish consuming it because 360 rivers also refill the oceans. The number 360 is given because the numerical value of the Greek word for snake, δράκων, when transliterated to Hebrew (דרקון) is 360. In a second example, the number of giants stated to have died during the Deluge is 409,000. The Greek word for 'deluge,' κατακλυσμός, has a numerical value of 409 when transliterated in Hebrew characters, thus leading the author of 3 Baruch to use it for the number of perished giants.
Gematria is often used in Rabbinic literature. One example is that the numerical value of "The Satan" (השטן) in Hebrew is 364, and so it was said that the Satan had authority to prosecute Israel for 364 days before his reign ended on the Day of Atonement, an idea which appears in Yoma 20a and Peskita 7a. Yoma 20a states: "Rami bar Ḥama said: The numerological value of the letters that constitute the word HaSatan is three hundred and sixty-four: Heh has a value of five, sin has a value of three hundred, tet has a value of nine, and the nun has a value of fifty. Three hundred and sixty-four days of the solar year, which is three hundred and sixty-five days long, Satan has license to prosecute." Genesis 14:14 states that Abraham took 318 of his servants to help him rescue some of his kinsmen, which was taken in Peskita 70b to reference Eleazar, whose name has a numerical value of 318.
The total value of the letters of the Islamic Basmala, i.e. the phrase Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim ("In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful"), according to the standard Abjadi system of numerology, is 786. This number has, therefore, acquired significance in folk Islam and Near Eastern folk magic and also appears in many instances of pop culture, such as its appearance in the 2006 song '786 All is War' by the band Fun-Da-Mental. A recommendation to recite the basmala 786 times in sequence is recorded in Al-Buni. Sündermann (2006) reports that a contemporary "spiritual healer" from Syria recommends the recitation of the basmala 786 times over a cup of water, which is then to be ingested as medicine. Gematria is still pervasive in many parts of Asia and Africa.
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Sources
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