Interpreting the New
Testament, he lessened any difficulties involved in the miracle of
the barley loaves and fishes by suggesting that what it really
means is that Jesus gave mankind a preparatory training for the
gospel by means of the law and philosophy; because, 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.[[296]]
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 main
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.
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