and receives certain sacred marks upon his person, whosoever his master may be, he cannot lay hand on him ” (ii., 113). In the treatise “concerning the Syrian goddess” falsely attributed to Lucian, it is said of the slaves of the temple, “all are branded, some upon the wrist and some upon the neck.” Paul, in Gal. vi. 17, applies the word for these brands, ottypara, to the marks of Christ’s service which he bears in his body. In 3 Maccabees ii. 29, we read that Ptolemy Philopator required all the Jews of Alexandria to be registered among the common people; and that those who were thus registered were to be marked (yapac- ocoJat) on their persons by the ivy-leaf symbol of Dionysus (Bacchus). In Lev. xix. 28, the Israelites are forbidden to make cuttings in their flesh for the dead and to print marks (ypdupara otieTd) upon themselves.
17. The number. The method of mystic numbering ob- tained alike among pagan Greeks, Gnostics, Christian Fathers, and Jewish Cabbalists. Jupiter was invoked under the number %17 contained in the letters‘H "APXH the beginning. The Gnostics affixed to their gems and amulets the mystic word dBpacat or a8pakas, under the idea of some virtue attaching to its number, 365, as being that of the days of the solar cycle. Barnabas and Clement of Alexandria speak of the virtue of the number 318 as being that of IHT, the common abbreviation for Jesus crucified. In the pseudo-Sybilline verses, written by Christians, about the end probably of the second century, are found versified enigmas giving the number and requiring the name. The translation of one of these on the word Jesus is as follows: “He will come upon earth clothed with flesh like mortal men. His name contains four vowels and two conso- nants: two of the former being sounded together. And I will declare the entire number. For the name will exhibit to in- credulous men eight units, eight tens, and eight hundreds.”
18. Here is wisdom. Directing attention to the challenge which follows.
Count (Wngicdrw). See on Luke xiv. 28.