The Magus/Book 1/Part 2/Chapter 25

THE number Ten is called every number, or an univerfal number, complete, fignifying the full courfe of life; for beyond that we cannot number but by replication; and it either implies all numbers within itſelf, or explains them by itself, and its own, by multiplying them; wherefore it is accounted to be of manifold religion and power, and is applied to the purging of fouls. Hence the antients called ceremonies Denary, becauſe they were to be expiated and to offer facrifices, and were to abftain from fome certain things for ten days.

There are ten fanguine parts of man: the menftrues, the fperm, the plafonatic fpirit, the mafs, the humours, the organical body, the vegetative part, the fenfitive part, reafon, and the mind. There are, alfo, ten fimple integral parts conftituting man: the bone, cartilage, nerve, fibre, ligament, artery, vein, membrane, flesh, and fkin. There are, alfo, ten parts of which a man confifts intrinfically the fpirit, the brain, the lungs, the heart, the liver, the gall, the fpleen, the kidnies, the tefticles, and the matrix. There are ten curtains in the temple, ten ftrings in the pfaltery, ten muſical inftruments with which the pfalms were fung, the names whereof were—neza, on which their odes were fung; nablum, the fame as organs; mizmor, on which the Pfalms; fir, on which the Canticles; tehila, on which orations; beracha, on which benedictions; halel, on which praifes; hodaia, on which thanks; afre, on which the felicity of any one; hallelujah, on which the praifes of God only, and contemplations. There were alfo ten fingers of pfalms, viz. Adam, Abraham, Melchifedeck, Mofes, Afaph, David, Solomon, and the three fons of Chora. There are, alfo, ten commandments. And the tenth day after the afcenfion of Chrift, the Holy Ghoft came down. Laftly, this is the number, in which Jacob, wreftling with the Angel all night, overcame, and, at the rifing of the fun, was bleffed, and called by the name of Ifrael. In this number, Jofhua overcame thirty-one kings; and David overcame Goliah and the Philiftines; and Daniel efcaped the danger of the lions. This number is alfo circular, as unity; becaufe, being heaped together, returns into a unity, from whence it had its beginning; and it is the end and perfection of all numbers, and the ​beginning of tens. As the number ten flows back into a unity, from whence it proceeded, fo every thing that is flowing is returned back to that from which it had the beginning of its flux: fo water returns to the fea, from whence it had its beginning; the body returns to the earth, from whence it was taken; time returns into eternity, from whence it flowed; the fpirit fhall return to God, who gave it; and, laftly, every creature returns to nothing, from whence it was created.^[1] Neither is it fupported but by the word of God, in whom all things are hid, and all things with the number ten, and by the number ten, make a round, as Proclus fays, taking their beginning from God, and ending in him. God, therefore (that firft unity, or one thing), before he communicated himfelf to inferiors, diffufed himſelf firft into the firft of numbers, viz. the number three; then into the number ten, as into ten ideas and meafures of making all numbers and all things, which the Hebrews call ten attributes, and account ten divine names; from which caufe there cannot be a further number. Hence all tens have fome divine thing in them, and in the law are required as his own, together with the firft fruits, as the original of all things and beginning of numbers, and every tenth is as the end given to him, who is the beginning and end of all things.

SCALE OF THE NUMBER TEN.

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