Etymologiae, Book I, chapters 1-3: De disciplina et arte to De litteris communibus
Chapter I. On discipline and art Disciplina (discipline) takes its name from discere (to learn); hence it can also be called knowledge. For scire (to know) is said from discere, because none of us knows unless he learns. Otherwise discipline is so called because it is learned in full. Ars (art) is so called because it consists of precepts and rules. Others say this word is drawn from the Greek, from aretē, that is, from virtue, which they called knowledge. Between art and discipline Plato and Aristotle wished there to be this difference, saying that art deals with matters that can also be otherwise; discipline, with matters that cannot happen otherwise. For when something is discussed by true disputations, it will be discipline; when something probable and a matter of opinion is treated, it will bear the name of art.
Chapter II. On the seven liberal disciplines The disciplines of the liberal arts are seven. The first is grammar, that is, skill in speaking. The second is rhetoric, which, for the splendour and abundance of its eloquence, is thought especially necessary in civil causes. The third is dialectic, surnamed logic, which by most subtle disputations distinguishes the true from the false. The fourth is arithmetic, which contains the causes and divisions of numbers. The fifth is music, which consists in songs and chants. The sixth is geometry, which embraces the measures and dimensions of the earth. The seventh is astronomy, which contains the law of the stars.
Chapter III. On the common letters The first beginnings of the art of grammar are the common letters, which scribes and reckoners follow. Their discipline is, as it were, the infancy of the art of grammar; hence Varro calls it litteratio. Letters are the indicators of things, the signs of words, and they have such power that they speak to us without voice the sayings of the absent. For they bring words in through the eyes, not through the ears. The use of letters was invented for the memory of things. For lest things flee by forgetfulness, they are bound by letters. In so great a variety of things, not everything could be learned by hearing, nor held in the memory. Letters (litterae) are so called as if legiterae, because they furnish a way (iter) to those who read (legentibus), or because they are repeated (iterentur) in reading. The Latin and Greek letters seem to have sprung from the Hebrews. For among them it was first called aleph, then from a similar pronunciation among the Greeks it was drawn as alpha, and thence among the Latins A. For the translator formed the letter of another language from a similar sound, so that we may know the Hebrew language to be the mother of all languages and letters. But the Hebrews use twenty-two elements of letters, according to the books of the Old Testament; the Greeks, however, twenty-four. The Latins, proceeding between the two languages, have twenty-three elements. The letters of the Hebrews began with the Law through Moses; those of the Syrians and Chaldeans through Abraham. Hence they agree with the Hebrews in number and sound, and differ only in characters. The letters of the Egyptians were found by Queen Isis, daughter of Inachus, when she came from Greece into Egypt, and she handed them on to the Egyptians. Among the Egyptians, moreover, the priests had one set of letters and the common people another; the priestly are called hieratic, the popular demotic.
The use of the Greek letters was first invented by the Phoenicians; hence Lucan says: “The Phoenicians first, if report is to be believed, dared to mark lasting speech with rude figures.” Hence it is that the headings of books are written in Phoenician colour, because letters had their beginning from them. Cadmus, son of Agenor, first brought the Greek letters from Phoenicia into Greece, seventeen in number: A B Γ Δ E Z I K Λ M N O Π P C T Φ. To these Palamedes added three in the Trojan war, H X Ω. After him Simonides the lyric poet added three others.
The letter Y was first formed by Pythagoras of Samos after the pattern of human life; its lower stem signifies the first age, uncertain indeed and not yet given either to vices or to virtues. The fork, however, which remains, begins from adolescence: its right-hand part is steep, but tends toward the blessed life; the left is easier, but leads down to ruin and destruction. Of this Persius speaks thus: “And where the letter that led out the Samian branches showed you the path rising on the right-hand track.” There are, moreover, five mystic letters among the Greeks. The first is Y, which signifies human life, of which we have just spoken. The second is Θ, which signifies death. For the judges used to set the same letter against the names of those whom they condemned to punishment. And it is called theta from thanatos, that is, from death. Hence it also has a dart through the middle, that is, the sign of death. Of this someone says: “O letter theta, unhappy above the rest.” The third is T, displaying the figure of the Lord’s cross, whence it is interpreted in Hebrew as “sign.” Of this it was said in Ezechiel to the angel: “Go through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and mourn.” The remaining two, the first and the last, Christ claims for himself. For he is the beginning, he the end, saying: “I am Alpha and Omega.” For as they run into each other, A rolls down as far as Ω, and again Ω is turned back to A, to show that in himself the Lord is the course of the beginning to the end and of the end to the beginning. All the letters among the Greeks both compose words and make numbers. For the letter Alpha is called among them, in numbers, one.
Where they write Beta, it is called two; where they write Gamma, it is called in their numbers three; where they write Delta, it is called in their numbers four; and so all the letters among them have numbers. The Latins, however, do not reckon numbers by letters, but only compose words, except for the letters I and X, which in shape both signify a cross and in number show ten.