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 admnired, went beyond him. A triumph of his exegesis is
seen in his statement that the Shunamite damsel who was selected to
cherish David in his old age signified heavenly 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
especially as the number of days required for fasting. Forty, he
reminds us, is four times ten. Now, four, he says, 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.
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