332 



SEVASTOPOL 



SEVEN SLEEPERS 



Sevastopol. See SKBASTOPOL. 



symbolical nnnilHT 



was frequently used as a mystical and 



-. J number in the Bible, as well as amonj 



the principal nations of antiquity, the Persians, 

 Indians, Egyptians, (Jreeks, and Romans. Tin 

 origin is doubtless astronomical, or rather astro- 

 logical viz. the olwervation of the seven planets 

 and the phases of the moon, changing every seven! I 

 day (see WEEK). As instances of this numlier in 

 the Old Testament, we find the Creation completed 

 within seven days, whereof the seventh was a day ol 

 rest kept sacred ; every- seventh vear was sabbati- 

 cal, and the seven times seventh year ushered in 

 the jubilee year. The three AMMNB, or pilgrim 

 festivals ( Passover, Festival of Weeks, and Taber- 

 nacles ), lasted seven days ; and between the first 

 and second of these Feasts were counted seven 

 weeks. The first day of the seventli month was a 

 'Holy Convocation.' The Levitical purifications 

 lasted seven days, and the same space of time was 

 allotted to the celebration of weddings and the 

 mourning for the dead. In innumerable instances 

 in the Old Testament and later Jewish writings 

 the number is used as a kind of round numlier. In 

 the Apocalypse we have the churches, candlesticks, 

 seals, stars, trumpets, spirits all to the number of 

 seven, and the seven horns and seven eyes of the 

 Lamb. The same numlier appears again either 

 divided into half (3J years, Rev. xiii. ">, xi. 3, 

 xii. 6, &c.), or multiplied by ten seventy Israelites 

 go to Egypt, the exile lasts seventy years, there 

 are seventy elders, and at a later period there are 

 supposed to lie seventy languages and seventy 

 nations upon earth. To go back to the earlie'r 

 documents, we find in a similar way the dove 

 sent out the second time seven days after her first 

 mission, Pharaoh's dream shows him twice seven 

 kine, twice seven ears of corn, &c. Among the 

 Greeks the seven was sacred to Apollo and to 

 Dionysus, who, according to Orphic legends, was 

 torn into seven pieces -. and it was particularly 

 sacred in EulMi-a, where the numlier was found to 

 pervade, as it were, almost every sacred, private, 

 or domestic relation. On the many ancient specu- 

 lations which connected the number seven witli the 

 human liody and the phases of its gradual develop- 

 ment and formation, its critical periods of sick- 

 nesses partly still extant as superstitious notions 

 we cannot here dwell. The Pythagoreans made 

 much of this number, giving it the name of Athene, 

 ll"i me*. Id -pliai-tos, Heracles, the Virgin unbe- 

 gotten and Unix-getting ( i.e. not to lie obtained by 

 multiplication), Dionysus, Hex, !v:c. Many usages 

 show the importance attached to this number in i he- 

 eyes not only of ancient but even of our own times, 

 and it is hardly necessary to add that the same 

 recurrence is found in tin- folklore of every race. 

 The Seven Champions of ( 'liristendom an- St ( ;,-orge 

 for England, St Andrew for Scotland, St Patrick 

 for Ireland, St David for Wales, St Denis for 

 France, St .lame- for Spain. St Anthony for Italy. 

 The Seven Churches of Kev. i.-iii. are EfhifOM, 

 Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis. Philadelphia, 

 and Laodicea. The Seven Deadly Sins are pride, 

 eo\ ,>t4iiiHness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. 

 The Seven Principal Virtues' are faith, hope, 

 charity, prudence, temiwrance, chastity, ami 

 fortitude. The Seven (;,ft, ,,f t |, ( . Holy (Jhost 

 are wisdom, understanding, counsel, gho-tlv 

 strength or fortitude, knowledge, godliness, and 

 the fear of the Lord. For the Seven Free Arts, 

 see AKTS. 



Seven Itisliops. These were Archbishop 

 Saiicroft of Cantcilinrv, and liisliims Ken of Hath 

 and Wells, Lake of Chichester, White of Peter- 

 borough, Turner of Ely, Lloyd of St Asanh, and 

 Trclawm-y of Bristol, who were tried on the charge of 



pulilishing a seditious libel, but acquitted (June 30, 

 lux; ) ami. I the greatest popular enthusiasm, the very 

 soldier* chei-iing even within hearing of the king. 

 Their M-ditions libel was none other than a petition 

 to James 1 1. against his injunction that the clergy 

 should read hi- Declaration of Indulgence at divine 

 service, in London on the '20th and 27th of Ma\, in 

 other parts of England on the 3d and 10th of j'un. 

 The order was obeyed in but four out of the hun- 

 dred parish churches of London, and by not one in 

 fifty all over England. It is striking' that of the 

 Seven all became Nonjurors with the sole 

 exception of Lloyd of St Asaph and Trelawney. 

 See Miss Strickland's Live* of th, ,s, ,< n Bishovt 

 (1866). 



Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin 

 Mary. PKACT OF, a festival of the liomun Catholic 

 Chnrcli. dating from 1423, nnd since 17-j;, eele- 

 brated on the Friday preceding Palm Sunday. The 

 'dolours' or sorrows of the lilessed Virgin have 

 long l>een a favourite theme of Human Catholic 

 devotion, of which the pathetic hymn Staliat Mater 

 (q.v.) is the best known and most popular expres- 

 sion ; and the festival of the Seven Dolours is 

 intended to individualise the incidents of her 

 sorrows, ami to present them for meditation. The 

 seven incidents referred to under the title of 

 ' dolours ' are ( 1 ) the prediction of Simeon ( Luke 

 ii. 35; of which, indeed, the whole seven are the 

 fulfilment) ; (2) the flight into Egypt ; (3 ) the loss 

 of the child Jesus in Jerusalem ;' (4) the sight of 

 .le-tis bearing the cross; (5) the sight of Jesus 

 upon the cross; (6) the descent from the cross ; 

 (7) the entombment. The festival is now observed 

 as a 'greater double ' (see FESTIVALS). A second 

 one, instituted by Pius VII. in 1814, falls on the 

 third Sunday of Septemlier. 



Sevenoaks. a plea-ant town of Kent, on an 

 eminence 22 miles SK. of London. It has a Per- 

 pendicular church with some interesting monu- 

 ments, the \\.-ilthamstow Hall (1882) for 100 

 daughters of missionaries, and a grammar-school 

 founded in 1432 by Lord Mayor Sir W. Sennocke, 

 incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, and reconstituted 

 a* a first-grade modern school in 1877, at which 

 Crote and Itishops Christopher and Charles Words- 

 worth were educated. Knole, the magnificent seat 

 of Lord Sackville, is close by. It was mainly 

 built between 1460 and 1608 by Archbishop Bouf- 

 chier and Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset, 

 and has a park of 1000 acres, 5 miles in circum- 

 ference. Pop. ( 1861 ) 3171 ; ( 1891 ) 7514. 



Seven Sleepers, the heroes of a celebrated 



legend, which is first related in the West l,y 

 Sregory of Tours in the close of the 6th century 

 \Murwad&nm I.ili, /-, c. 92), but the date of which 

 igned to the 3d century, and to the persecu- 

 tion of the Christians under Decius. According 

 n the story, during the flight of the Christians 

 Tom the persecution, seven Christians of Kphe-u.s 

 :ook refuge in a cave near the city, where they 

 were discovered by their pursuers, who walled up 

 In- entrance in order to starve them to death. 

 They fell instead into a preternatural sleep, in 

 which they lay for nearly 200 years. Thin is 

 supposed to have taken place in 250 or 251; and 

 t was not till the reign of Thcodosius II. (447) that 

 ,hey awoke. They imagined that their sleep had 

 teen but of a single night ; and one of the seven 

 vent secretly into the city to purchase provisions, 

 and he was amazed to see the cross erected on the 

 hnrches and other buildings. Ollering a coin of 

 ~>ecius in a baker's shop he was arrested, his start- 

 ing story not being believed until he guided the 

 iti/ens to the cavern where he had left his 

 omradcs. The emperor heard from llieir lip* 



