NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 153 



comes an enumeration of sins ; the waterpots of stone, "contain- 

 ing two or three firkins apiece/' at the marriage of Cana, signify 

 the literal, moral, and spiritual sense of Scripture ; the ass upon 

 which the Saviour rode on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem 

 becomes the Old Testament, the foal the New Testament, and the 

 two apostles who went to loose them the moral and mystical 

 senses ; blind Bartimeus, throwing off his coat while hastening to 

 Jesus, opens a whole treasury of oracular meanings. 



The genius and power of Origen made a great impression on 

 the strong thinkers who followed him. St. Jerome called him 

 "the greatest master in the Church since the apostles/' and 

 Athanasius was hardly less emphatic. 



The structure thus begun was continued by leading theologians 

 during the centuries following. St. Hilary of Poitiers "the 

 Athanasius of Gaul " produced some wonderful results of this 

 method ; but St. Jerome, inspired by the example of the man 

 whom he so greatly admired, went beyond him. A triumph of 

 his exegesis is seen in his statement that the Shunamite woman, 

 who was selected to cherish David in his old age, signified heav- 

 enly wisdom. 



The great mind of St. Augustine was drawn largely into this 

 kind of creation, and nothing marks more clearly the vast change 

 which had come over the world than the fact that this greatest 

 of the early Christian thinkers turned from the broader paths 

 opened by Plato and Aristotle into that opened by Clement of 

 Alexandria. 



In the mystic power of numbers to reveal the sense of Scripture 

 Augustine found especial delight. He tells us that there is deep 

 meaning in sundry scriptural uses of the number forty, and espe- 

 cially as the number of days required for fasting. Forty, he re- 

 minds us, is four times ten. Now, four is the number especially 

 representing time, the day and the year being each divided into 

 four parts ; while ten, being made up of three and seven, represents 

 knowledge of the Creator and creature, three referring to the 

 three persons in the triune Creator, and seven referring to the 

 three elements, heart, soul, and mind, taken in connection with 

 the four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, which go to make up 

 the creature. Therefore this number ten, representing knowledge, 

 being multiplied by four, representing time, admonishes us to live 

 during time according to knowledge that is, to fast for forty 

 days. 



Referring to such misty methods as these, which lead the 

 reader to ask himself whether he is sleeping or waking, St. Augus- 

 tine remarks that "ignorance of numbers prevents us from under- 

 standing such things in Scripture." But perhaps the most amazing 

 example is to be seen in his notes on the hundred and fifty and 



