DiotimosReading Desk

Art, nature and the work

Number, measure and duration

nombres, numbers; septenaire, group of seven; semaine, week; mois, month; ans, years; poids, weight; measure by weight

Number organizes represented leaves, repeated operations, material and angelic orders, bodily parts, time and multiplication.

From the book

The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Attributed to Abraham the Jew · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordNumber organizes represented leaves, repeated operations, material and angelic orders, bodily parts, time and multiplication. The title's promise of explanation according to numbers is fulfilled through several different kinds of numerical relation, not one universal code.
  • In this bookThe book uses sevenfold emblems, ninefold orders, changing temporal units, extraordinary natural durations and numerical illustrations of increase. It also explicitly says that the pictured arrangement does not disclose the work's complete operative order.
  • TranslationThe edition retains the stated counts and periods, including discrepancies and unusual biblical quantities. It distinguishes represented book-pages, manuscript locators, scan numbers and modern edition pagination.
  • A place to readRead manuscript 12r–12v, scans 41–42: seven leaves become weeks, days or months in differing local explanations, and the author warns against equating image order with operation order.

Meaning

Numbers have different jobs in the source. A counted set of children or stars can distinguish parts or agents; an ordinal locates a sphere or operation; a duration describes formation; a ratio-like sequence illustrates multiplication. The meaning follows the numbered subject and the relation being asserted.

Measure also includes weight. The garden water remains unrecognized despite visible presence until one observer examines its weight, and the final art/nature account assigns nature knowledge of elemental weights and dispositions. Counting is thus one form of discrimination among others, not a replacement for material knowledge.

The book's ambitious numerical claims should retain their status. Very long natural formation and very rapid artistic preparation support an argument about causal knowledge and acceleration. They are the author's periods and comparisons, not a verified chronological schedule reconstructed by the lexicon.

Use in the book

The title explicitly places its explanation under numbers (scan 9). The model of a represented source-book then supplies leaves and septenaries, while the surviving manuscript supplies its own foliation and the digital witness its scans. These distinct systems are easy to confuse because later headings refer back to pages within the model. A number in such a heading is not a Getty scan locator.

The caduceus discussion initially assigns repeated sublimations seven weeks or forty-nine days through seven leaves. The next side considers leaves as months, then gives a day to the first septenary, a week to the second and a month to the third, with each sublimation taking a day. These changing units are transmitted together rather than harmonized into one schedule (12r–12v; scans 41–42).28

The same passage says the caduceus was placed to show diversity, not operative order. Consequently, the numbered arrangement can disclose relations without supplying a reader with a complete sequence. The distinction is part of the book's stated practice of guarded exposition.

The massacre image counts seven children and three pairs of soldiers with different actions. Its explanation assigns seven parts to sulfur and, in another comparison, counts the king with the attendants to correspond to the children (7v and 38r–38v; scans 28 and 101–102). The text does not enumerate all seven sulfur parts in the sentence that names them. Their existence as a counted set should not become an invented list.

The celestial-natural order is ninefold because first mobile and starry heaven precede the planetary sequence. Its ranks are compared with angelic offices and metallic functions (54v–57r; scans 136–141). The golden apocalyptic lamps and stars supply another sevenfold relation, with gold said to contain seven metals virtually and eminently (78v; scan 186). The two numerical systems answer different questions.

The woman's crown provides a visible difficulty: twelve stars are explained through spirits of the six other stars and metals (86r; scan 203). The witness gives both numbers and does not supply a calculation resolving them. The lexicon records the relation claimed without inventing a missing formula that would make the figures agree.29

Duration similarly varies by subject. Fixed bodies take at least a thousand years in earth's beds, while a harmonious mercurial compound requires at least five hundred (78r; scan 185). Art is elsewhere said to do quickly what nature takes centuries or millennia to accomplish and, later, in a moment what nature would not in a thousand years (14r and 119r; scans 45 and 273). These comparisons express the ambition of skilled causal preparation.

The mythic cleaning of Augeas' thousand cattle-stalls over thirty years is accomplished in three days in this witness (50r; scan 127). The multiplication example gives ten to a hundred and a hundred to a thousand (126v; scan 288). Both numbers are source-specific; neither should be silently replaced by a more familiar tale or a modern rate law.

Finally, the claimed experiment gives a small drop acting on four ounces of lead, while the feeding miracle is retold with one loaf and one or two fish (133r and 128r; scans 301 and 291). Their exactness or indefiniteness belongs to the transmitted argument. Fidelity requires preserving what the author counts and how confidently he counts it.

Places to read

  1. Manuscript Title page · Scan 9The title's explanation according to numbers.
  2. Manuscript 7v · Scan 28Weight distinguishes the elusive water; the emblem counts children and soldier-pairs.
  3. Manuscript 12r · Scan 41Seven leaves, seven weeks and forty-nine days.
  4. Manuscript 12v · Scan 42Changing time units and the distinction of diversity from operative order.
  5. Manuscript 50r · Scan 127Augeas' thousand cattle, thirty years and three-day cleaning.
  6. Manuscript 78r · Scan 185Thousand-year and five-hundred-year natural formation.
  7. Manuscript 86r · Scan 203Twelve stars interpreted through six other metallic/celestial spirits.
  8. Manuscript 126v · Scan 288Numerical illustration of increase in quality and quantity.

Translation

Number and count are retained where the source gives them; septenaire is a group of seven. Weeks, months, years and days remain their own units. No temporal unit is silently converted merely to make a table consistent.

The final manuscript side is visibly numbered 140 after the preceding side numbered 139, and its locator preserves that fact. Likewise, the six/ twelve star relation, the eighth-part eclipse and indefinite fish count remain the witness's readings rather than corrected canonical figures.30

nombres

Attested: H001-S009. The title's organizing expression.

septenaire

Attested: H001-S041; H001-S042; H001-S055; H001-S068. The represented book's sevenfold groups.

semaine

Attested: H001-S042. One temporal reckoning of a group.

mois

Attested: H001-S042. A different stated temporal unit.

ans

Attested: H001-S127; H001-S185. Years in mythic and natural-duration accounts.

poids

Attested: H001-S028; H001-S300. Weight as a means of recognition or elemental proportion.

Source note

H001-S041–042's time units and disclosure warning are preserved together. The lexicon does not create an operative calendar from their changing statements.

H001-S203 explicitly gives twelve stars and then the six other astral/metallic spirits. The discrepancy is the source's own.

H001-S225 retains an eighth-part eclipse; H001-S291 retains one loaf and one or two fish; H001-S316 preserves the written final locator 140.