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Updated: June 24, 2025
TETRACTYS. A figure used by Pythagoras, consisting of ten points, arranged in a triangular form so as to represent the monad, duad, triad, and quarterniad. It was considered as very sacred by the Pythagoreans, and was to them what the tetragrammaton was to the Jews.
Vit. Pythag, cap. iii., iv. "The sacred words were intrusted to him, of which the Ineffable Tetractys, or name of God, was the chief." OLIVER, Hist. Init. p. 109.
Cont. Gent. The just and literal rendering of the passage is this: 'The true God who in reality is such, namely, the Father of Christ. It cannot, however, be denied that in changing the 'formula' of the 'Tetractys' into the 'Trias', by merging the 'Prothesis' in the 'Thesis', the Identity in the Ipseity, the Christian Fathers subjected their exposition to many inconveniences. Ib. p. 432.
The Eternal Word, Christ from everlasting, is the 'prothesis' or identity; the Scriptures and the Church are the two poles, or the 'thesis' and 'antithesis'; the Preacher in direct line under the Spirit, but likewise the point of junction of the written Word and the Church, being the 'synthesis'. And here is another proof of a principle elsewhere by me asserted and exemplified, that divine truths are ever a 'tetractys', or a triad equal to a 'tetractys': 4=1 or 3=4=1.
But alas! the increasing dimness, ending in the final want of the idea of this all-truths- including truth of the Tetractys eternally manifested in the Triad; this, this is the ground and cause of all the main heresies from Semi-Arianism, recalled by Dr. Samuel Clarke, to the last setting ray of departing faith in the necessitarian Psilanthropism of Dr. Priestley. Ib. p. 41-2, &c.
This figure was called by Pythagoras the tetractys a word equivalent in signification to the tetragrammaton; and it was deemed so sacred that on it the oath of secrecy and fidelity was administered to the aspirants in the Pythagorean rites.
To the number ten extraordinary importance was imputed, since it contains in itself, or arises from the addition of, 1, 2, 3, 4 that is, of even and odd numbers together; hence it received the name of the grand tetractys, because it so contains the first four numbers. Some, however, assert that that designation was imposed on the number thirty-six.
But still in how many pages do I not see reason to regret, that the total idea of the 4=3=1, of the adorable Tetractys, eternally self-manifested in the Triad, Father, Son, and Spirit, was never in its cloudless unity present to him. I affirm a heresy often, but never dare denounce the holder a heretic.
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