was a mystery language employed by the Gnostic and other schools.
What this language was no scholar has yet been able to tell us, and it
is sufficiently evident that the efforts at decipherment are so far
abortive. The fullest and most precious examples of these names and of
this language are to be found in the papyri brought back by Bruce from
Abyssinia at the latter end of the last century.[114]

Jamblichus tells us that the language of the Mysteries was that of
ancient Egypt and Assyria, which he calls "sacred nations," as follows:

But, you ask, why among our symbolical terms ([Greek: saemantika])
we prefer barbarous (words) to our respective native (tongues)?
There is also for this a mystic reason. For it was the gods who
taught the sacred nations, such as the Egyptians and Assyrians, the
whole of their sacred dialect, wherefore we think that we ought to
make our own dialects resemble the speech cognate with the gods.
Since also the first mode of speech in antiquity was of such a
nature, and especially since they who learnt the first names
concerning the gods, mingled them with their own tongue--as being
suited to such (names) and conformable to them--and handed them
down to us, we therefore keep unchanged the rule of this immemorial
tradition to our own times. For of all things that are suited to
the gods the most akin is manifestly that which is eternal and
immutable.[115]

The existence of this sacred tongue perhaps accounts for the constant
distinction made by Homer between the language of the gods and that of
men.[116] Diodorus Siculus also asserts that the Samothracians used a
very ancient and peculiar dialect in their sacred rites.[117]

These "barbarous names" were regarded as of the greatest efficacy and
sanctity, and it was unlawful to change them. As the Chaldaean Logia say:

Change not the barbarous names, for in all the nations are there
names given by the gods, possessing unspeakable power in the
Mysteries.[118]

And the scholiast[119] adds that they should not be translated into
Greek.

It is, therefore, most probable that Simon used the one, three, five,
and seven syllabled or vowelled names, and that the Greek terms were
substitutes that completely veiled the esoteric meaning from the
uninitiated.

The names of the seven Aeons, as given by the author of the
_Philosophumena_, are as follows: The Image from