Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/255

 Chap. xviii. Of the notes or figures of the Græcians. The Græcians use the Alphabeticall letters for their notes ofnumbers, and that three wayes; first by every Element according to the series of the Alphabet signifying the number of its place. For in the order of which any number doth possesse the place of the Alphabet, it represents the number thereof, as here you may see.

And this is the first order of numbers amongst the Greeks. Secondly, the Greeks divide the whole Alphabet into three Classes, whereof the first beginning from Alpha, is of unites. The second beginning from Iota is of tens. The third begining from Rho is of hundreds; and this order by the latter of the Greeks is instituted after the imitation of the Hebrews. Now because threir Alphabet wants by that rule, three letters, it is necessary to add to them three figures and to interlace them with the letters, by which, viz. they explain the sixt, the ninetieth, and the nine hundreth, as is manifest in the following Classes.

Now if to any of these letters there be subscribed the stroke