This is one of those avenues that becomes really interesting for someone who really doesn't know enough about what he's talking about ... but let me try and make myself intelligible...
'Number' is an intellectual concept that has no existence in material reality – you cannot show me 'two' – you can show me 2 apples, etc, you can show me quantities of things, but take the things away and the numbers alter, and when the last thing is gone, the number has gone too ... so numbers in that sense are abstract ...
So 'number' defines and determines not 'things' but the relationships of things, in the same way that things themselves are defined according to every other thing – thus 'big', 'red', 'heavy', 'thin', 'translucent', 'flexible' etc., are all relative terms ... even the thing itself: 'that is an apple' is defined by virtue of qualities that other fruits do not have, whereas 'that is a red fruit' is indeterminate...
What I'm flailing at here, is its all about relation ... and right relation is justice ... (mercy is allowance when that relation goes out of kilter)... and the Principle of Right Relation is the Logos, the ontological source of all relation ordered according to its own essence and nature ...
Oh, good grief ... an epiphanic moment ...
Anaximander said:
"Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
According to necessity;
For they give to each other justice and
recompense For their injustice
In conformity with the ordinance of Time."
Anaximander spoke of Apeiron (The Boundless) which the Fathers saw as The Father, and the Arche (Principle) whom they see as The Son (and is spoken both in the Septuagint Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1)
So God the Father is the Arche Anarchos (Principle without Principle), whilst the Son is Arche, (Principle), and thus of the same essence as the Father...
"For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
Matthew 5:20
"Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you."
6:33
"That being delivered from the hand of our enemies, we may serve him without fear: In holiness and justice before him, all our days."
Luke 1:74-75
"And of justice: because I go to the Father: and you shall see me no longer."
16:10
"For the justice of God is revealed therein, from faith unto faith, as it is written: The just man liveth by faith."
Romans 1:17
"But now, without the law, the justice of God is made manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets."
3:21
The above verse, along with many others, allude to 'justice' expressing, in Hebraic terms, everything that 'Logos' expresses in Greek.
I've got to go away, pen and paper, work this out ...
... thanks all ... later ...
Thomas