Origins of Gematria (Gow, A short history of Greek mathematics, 1884)

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   31. It has been commonly assumed, since the use of the alphabet for numerals was undoubtedly a Semitic practice and since the Greek alphabet was undoubtedly derived from Semitic sources, that therefore the Greeks derived from the Semites the numerical use of the alphabet with the alphabet itself. And this theory derives further colour from the fact that the Greek numerical alphabet contains three Semitic letters which were, within historical times, discarded from the literary alphabet. Yet this evidence is in all probability wholly illusory. The Greek alphabet was derived from the Phoenicians but the Phoenicians never used the alphabet for numerical purposes at all. The Jews and Arabs did, but the earliest documentary evidence for the practice, even among them, is not older than 141—137 b. c. when dates, given in alphabetic numerals, appear on shekels of Simon Maccabaeus. The Greek evidence goes a good deal further back than this.

   Against these facts it may be urged (1) that the Jewish practice of Gematria,   adopted by the later Kabbalists, is said by them to be very early, and is perhaps as old as the 7th century b. c. This was a curious system of Biblical interpretation, whereby two words were treated as interchangeable, if their letters, considered as numerals amount, when added together, to the same sum. And again (2) both the Hebrew and the Greek literary alphabets are too short for a good arithmetical symbolism and both are supplemented up to the same limit (the 27th letter in each standing for 900). But as to (1), it must be observed that the supposed antiquity of gematria depends solely on a merely conjectural and improbable comment on Zechariah xii. 10. There is in fact no clear instance of gematria before Philo or Christian writers strongly under Philonic influence (e.g. Rev. xiii. 18; Ep. Barn. c. 9). The practice belongs to Hellenistic Jews; its name is Greek and it is closely connected with Alexandria, where, we shall see,   alphabetic numerals are first found. And as to (2), it seems more likely that the Jews took the idea of alphabetic numerals from the Greeks than vice versa. The Greeks could, by hook or by crook, furnish the necessary 27 alphabetic symbols.   The Jews could not. Their alphabet is only 22 letters, and the numbers, 500 to 900, must be represented by the digraphs תר,תק etc. compounded of 100-400, 200-400, etc. There is in fact no evidence against, and a good deal for, the supposition that the Jews derived alphabetic numerals from the Greeks. The contrary belief is perhaps only a relic of the old superstition which counted it profane to question the priority of the Hebrews in all arts.

Gow, James, A short history of Greek mathematics, Cambridge: At the University Press, 1884, pp. 43-45.

Online Source: archive.org/details/shorthistoryofgr00gowj

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