Taylor - Theoretic Arithmetic.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

and well-ordered digression (from the monad)." As the decad
likewise contains every number in itself, and number is infinite,
perhaps it was on this account called eternity; for eternity
is infinite life. I say perhaps, for Meursius stupidly omits the
reasons assigned by the anonymous writer for these appellations,
as well as for those of faith and necessity. As to the epithet
Atlas, the anonymous writer observes, "that the decad is
so called in allusion to the Titan Atlas, who is fabled to bear
the heavens on his shoulders. For Homer says of him,
And the long pillars which on earth he rears,
End in the starry vault and prop the spheres.
Rut the decad preserves the reason or productive principle of
the spheres, being as it were a certain diameter, and convolving
and enclosing these in the most connected manner."
With respect to the epithet Phanes, as the decad is denominated
the world, and as Phanes who subsists at the extremity of
the intelligible order is the paradigm of the world, the reason
is obvious why the decad is thus called. To which we may add
that Phanes who is the a~70C~ov or animal itself of Plato, contains
in himself the first ideas, which are four, and 4 is paradigmatically
or causally 10. From the anonymous writer we
learn that it was called strength, because mundane natures are
corroborated by it, and because it appears to rule over other
numbers. It is also a certain defensive enclosure and receptacle
of all reasons or productive principles, whence it is called the
key -bearer, ( ~ X ~ ~ ~ O ~ XAccording O S ) . to Cedrenus likewise "it
was denominated ~ X ~ ~ O ~ or X Othe C , brand-bearer, because all
the numbers (posterior to it) germinate from it as certain
branches." Again, according to Anatolius, as we learn from
the anonymous writer, "the decad was denominated strength
and all-perfect, because it bounds every number, comprehending
within itself every nature of the even- and the odd, the
moveable and the immoveable, the evil and the good." And