[2] GREEK HEBREW AND ARABIC LETTER-NUMERALS
The Greeks developed another system of keeping count. Not too long after 1000 b.c.e., they decided to use letters of the alphabet as number symbols. The Greeks had got the idea writing and letters from Phoenician traders who had got it from Semitic nations living near the seaboard of the eastern Mediterranean. Now, the Phoenician traders took the idea of using letters as numerals in the opposite direction, and taught it to the Semitic tribes. >>
It mentions 1000 b.c.e. when the Phoenecians gave the idea to the Greek. So it appears to me that numerology was known and used much earlier than suggested by Vernon.