368 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 155. 



Another curious illustration of this idea may be 

 found in the Commentarius in MatthcEum, cap. xvii., 

 of St. Hilary. Alluding to the first verse of the 

 seventeenth chapter he writes : 



" Et in hoc quidem facti genero, servatur et ratio et 

 Humerus et exemplum. Nam post dies sex, glorias 

 dominicte habitus ostenditur : sex millium scilicit 

 annorum temporibus evolutis, regni coelestis honor 

 praefigurantur." 



In the Cabbala, the number six was considered 

 to be one of potent mystical properties. The 

 rabbinical writers assert that the manna, when 

 it was found, was marked with the letter ) (vau), 

 the equivalent of the number six ; and as the world 

 was created in six days ; as a servant had to serve 

 six years (Ex. xxi. 2.) ; as the soil was tilled for 

 six years (Ex. xxiii. 10.) ; as Job endured six 

 tribulations ; so this fiumber was typical of labour 

 and suffering. Consequently it was impressed on 

 the manna not only to show the Israelites that it 

 fell but on six days, but also to warn them of the 

 miseries they would undergo, if they dared to de- 

 secrate the Sabbath day. 



The primitive Christians, also, attached consi- 

 derable importance to the same number. For the 

 sixth chapter of John proves that the manna was 

 a type of the Saviour, the Man of Sorrows, who 

 was born in the sixth age of the world * ; was 

 announced on the sixth month (Luke i. 26.) ; 

 went to Bethany six days before the Passover 

 (John xii. 1.). Moreover, it was about the sixth 

 hour of the sixth day of the week, when the grand 

 sacrifice was consummated, when, in the simple 

 yet sublime words of the apostle, "there was 

 darkness over all the earth." It was also " about 

 the sixth hour " that Jesus " being wearied" 

 (John iv. 6.) sat on the well of Jacob. St. Au- 

 gustine, De Trinitate, in reference to this verse, 

 writes : 



«« Jam incipiunt mysteria : nan enim frustra : hora 

 sexta sedet : quare hora sexta ? quia aetata secula 

 sexta." 



This, however, has not been the only theory 

 respecting the duration of the earth. The almost 

 numberless speculations that have been broached 

 on the subject would fill volumes. Some curious 

 matter referring thereto may be found in Secreti 

 Astrologice Celeste et Terrestri : Veneti, 1681, 

 written by Maccarius : he modestly declines to fix 

 the precise year, but as confidently states that the 

 great event will occur on a Sunday morning on 

 the 25th day of March ! 



In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this 

 question gave rise to much discussion, and nu- 

 merous predictions. As the mode of reasoning 

 adopted by those prophets, and believed in by 



* See St. Augustine, De Trinitate, lib. iv. chap. vii. 

 for an amount of curious reading on this subject. 



their dupes, may amuse the reader, I cull the 

 following sample out of many similar ones. The 

 year 1645 was predicted to be the last, because 

 the words Adventus Domini chronogrammatically 

 expressed the number 2012; from which if 517, 

 the similar equivalent of Dies abbreviuntur, were 

 subtracted, the remainder would be 1495 ; to> 

 which if 150, represented by Propter electos, were 

 added, the number of the fatal year would be com- 

 pleted, according to the following formula : 

 AB VentVs »o M 1 n 1 

 500 + 5 + 5 + 500+1000 + 1 + 1= 2012 



X> les abbreV I VntVr 

 500+1 + 5+1 + 5+5= 517 



Propter ele Ctos 

 50 + 100= 



1495 



150 



1645 



Speculations on this subject are hazarded, even 

 at the present day, though we are told by Him 

 " who spake as never man spake," that " of that 

 day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels 

 of heaven." W. Pinkeeton- 



Ham. 



Perhaps Napier, the inventor of logarithms, was 

 the first to promulgate this doctrine in Britain. 

 He introduces it with " it is thought by the most 

 learned." See his revised and enlarged edition of 

 A Plaine Discovery of the whole Revelation of St. 

 John: London, 1611, 4to., p. 23. M. 



SIMILE or THE SOUL AND THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE- 



(Vol. vi., pp. 127. 207.) 

 That most sweet writer and Christian platonist, 

 Norris of Bemerton, employs this simile in " The- 

 Aspiration:" 



" How cold this clime ! and yet my sense 



Perceives even here Thy influence. 

 Even here Thy strong magnetic charms I feeU 

 And pant and tremble like the amorous steel. 

 To lower good, and beauties less divine, 

 Sometimes my erroneous needle does decline ; 

 But yet (so strong the sympathy) 

 It turns, and points again to Thee." — P. 91, 



Again, in his " Contemplation and Love : " 



" The most ponderous body that is has its centre, 

 towards which it always presses, and in which it settles 

 with full acquiescence. Now since there is something 

 in spiritual beings which corresponds to weight in bodies 

 (according to St. Austin, ' Amor tuus est pondus 

 tuum'), the analogy of the thing persuades me to think 

 that there is also something which shall be to them in 

 the nature of a centre . . . Man is not as a body, 

 for ever rolling on in an infinite vacuity : or as a 

 needle continually tremhling for an embrace : but he has^ 

 his proper end and centre, to which 'tis possible for binat 



