NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 151 



Old Testament, they had appeared at times in the New ; in the 

 work of the early fathers they bloomed forth luxuriantly. 



Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria vigorously extended 

 them. Typical of Justin's method is his finding, in a very simple 

 reference by Isaiah to Damascus, Samaria, and Assyria, a clear 

 prophecy of the three wise men of the east who brought gifts to 

 the infant Saviour, and in the bells on the priest's robe a prefig- 

 uration of the twelve apostles. Any difficulty arising from the 

 fact that the number of bells is not specified in Scripture, Justin 

 overcame by insisting that David referred to this prefiguration in 

 the nineteenth Psalm : " Their sound is gone forth through all the 

 earth and their words to the end of the world." 



Working in this vein, Clement of Alexandria found in the 

 form, dimensions, and color of the Jewish tabernacle a whole 

 wealth of interpretation the altar of incense representing the 

 earth placed at the center of the universe, the high priest's robe 

 the visible world, the jewels on the priest's robe the zodiac, and 

 Abraham'^ three days' journey to Mount Moriah the three stages 

 of the soul in its progress toward the knowledge of God. Inter- 

 preting the New Testament, he lessened any difficulties involved 

 in the miracle of the barley loaves and fishes by suggesting that 

 what this really means is that Jesus gave mankind a preparatory 

 training for the gospel by means of the law and philosophy, be- 

 cause, as he says, barley, like the law, ripens sooner than wheat, 

 which represents the gospel, and because, just as fishes grow in 

 the waves of the ocean, so philosophy grew in the waves of the 

 Gentile world. 



Out of reasonings like these, those who followed, especially 

 Cosmas, developed, as we have seen, a complete theological science 

 of geography and astronomy.* 



But the instrument in exegesis which was used with most 

 cogent force was the occult significance of certain numbers. The 

 Chaldean and Egyptian researches of our own time have revealed 

 the great source of this line of thought ; the speculations of Plato 

 upon it are well known ; but among the Jews and in the early 

 Church it grew into something far beyond the wildest imaginings 

 of the priests of Memphis and Babylon. 



Philo had found for the elucidation of Scripture especially 

 deep meanings in the numbers 4, 6, and 7 ; but other interpreters 



* For Justin, see the Dialogue with Trypho, chaps, xlii, Ixxvi, and lxxxiii. For Clement 

 of Alexandria, see his Miscellanies, Book V, chaps, vi and xi, and Book VII, chap, xvi, and 

 especially Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, as above, pp. 76, 77. 



As to the loose views of the canon held by these two fathers and others of their time 

 see Ladd, Doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures, vol. ii, pp. 86, 88 ; also Diestel, Geschichte des 

 alten Testaments. 



