page_title: Marcosians
section_title: Tetrad
hierarchical_section_title: Marcosians / System / Tetrad
context_page_description: The Marcosians were a Gnostic sect founded by Marcus, active in Lyon, France and southern Europe from the second to the 4th century. Women held special status in the Marcosian communities; they were regarded as prophetesses and participated in administering the Eucharistic rites. Irenaeus accuses Marcus of seducing his followers, and scornfully writes that the whole sect was an affair of "silly women."
  The Marcosian system was a variation of that of Valentinus. It retained the 30 Aeons, but called them "Greatnesses" and gave them numerical values. It kept the myth of the fall of Sophia but called it a "Divine Deficiency". Unique to it was the adaptation of the Pythagorean number theory to Gnosticism.
context_section_description: Marcus pushes into further details his designation of the Aeons as letters of the alphabet. There are twenty-four letters in the alphabet, and twenty-four is the sum of the letters of the names of the first tetrad: 
  The Unspeakable (ἄῤῥητος)
  Silence (σειγή)
  Father (πατήρ)
  Truth (ἀλήθεια)
  Followed by those of the second tetrad:
  Word (λόγος)
  Life (ζωή)
  Man (ἄνθρωπος)
  Church (ἐκκλησία)
  These form the Ogdoad. Again, the Greek alphabet consists of nine mutes, eight semivowels, and seven vowels. The mutes belong to Father and Truth (The Unspeakable, and Silence, of course, do not count); these being mute reveal nothing to man. The semivowels belong to Word and Life, but the vowels to Man and Church, since it was a voice coming through Man which gave power to all.
  For the seven heavens, we are told, utter each its own vowel sound, the first A and so on; and it was the sound of their united doxology borne to the earth, which gave generation to all things on the earth. By the descent of Him who was with the Father from the nine into the seven, the groups of Aeons were equalized and perfect harmony produced.
caption: The Pythagorean Tetrad.[1]