Teaching Christianity (continued)
on a new lease of life; how well it chimes in with imitating this cunning of the serpent by putting off the old self, as the apostle says, in order to put on the new;[54] and with putting it off by squeezing through narrow places, as the Lord says, Enter by the narrow gate (Mt 7:13)!
So just as knowledge of the nature of serpents throws light on many comparisons which scripture habitually made with this animal, in the same way ignorance of several other animals which it mentions no less frequently by way of comparison will be a very common hindrance to true understanding. So too with ignorance of stones, of herbs, or anything held in place by roots. Thus on the one hand knowledge of rubies, which shine in the dark, throws light on many obscure passages in the books which mention them for comparison; and ignorance of beryls and diamonds frequently closes the door to understanding. And the only reason it is easy to understand that perpetual peace is signified by the olive twig which the dove brought back to the ark on its return[55] is that we know that the soothing touch of oil is not easily spoiled by other harsher liquids, and that that tree is in leaf all the year round. Many people, on the other hand, because they are ignorant about hyssop, and do not know what virtue it has, either for clearing the lungs, or for splitting rocks with its roots even though it is such a small and lowly plant, are quite unable to discover why it says, You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall become clean (Ps 51:7).
25. Unfamiliarity with numbers is also the cause of one's not understanding many things which are put down metaphorically and mystically in scripture.[56] One's native wit, surely— if I may so put it[57]—cannot help wondering what it could mean, that both Moses and Elijah and the Lord himself fasted for forty days.[58] The knotty symbolism of this kind of action cannot be unraveled except by knowledge and consideration of this number. It contains, you see, four times ten, which is as much as to say knowledge of all things woven into the times. It is in terms of the number four, after all, that both the daily and the annual cycles run their course; the daily one through the morning, midday, evening and nocturnal hours; the annual one through the months of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Now we should be fasting and abstaining from the delights of the times while we are living in time, for the sake of the eternity in which we wish to live although the very course of time should be driving home to us how wise the teaching is that we should make light of temporal things and set our hearts upon those of eternity.
Furthermore, the number ten signifies knowledge of creator and of creature; there is, after all, the trinity of the creator, while the number seven indicates the creature, because of its life and body: because in its life there are three things, which is why God is to be loved with one's whole heart, one's whole soul, one's whole mind (Mt 22:37), while in the body the number four is as evident as could be, in the elements of which it consists.[59] So by this number ten, as it is being proposed to us in the context of time—being multiplied by four, that is—we are being advised to live in chaste abstinence from the delights of time, that is to fast for forty days. This is the advice of the law, represented by Moses, the advice of the prophets, represented by Elijah, the advice of the Lord himself. This is why, as if being vouched for by the law and the prophets, he appeared in glory on the mountain between those two, with the three disciples as astonished witnesses.[60]
Next one may ask in the same sort of way how from the number forty there arises the number fifty, which in our religion has no mean sacred significance because of Pentecost, and how being multiplied by three because of the three ages, before the law, under the law, under grace, and[61] because of the name of the Father and of the Son and of the