Therefore this number ten,
representing knowledge, being multiplied by four, representing
time, admonishes us to live during time according to knowledge--that
is, to fast for forty days.
Referring to such misty methods as these, which lead the reader to
ask himself whether he is sleeping or waking, St. Augustine remarks
that "ignorance of numbers prevents us from understanding such
things in Scripture." But perhaps the most amazing example is to be
seen in his notes on the hundred and fifty and three fishes which,
according to St. John's Gospel, were caught by St. Peter and the
other apostles. Some points in his long development of this subject
may be selected to show what the older theological method could be
made to do for a great mind. He tells us that the hundred and fifty
and three fishes embody a mystery; that the number ten, evidently
as the number of the commandments, indicates the law; but, as the
law without the spirit only kills, we must add the seven gifts of
the spirit, and we thus have the number seventeen, which signifies
the old and new dispensations; then, if we add together every
several number which seventeen contains from one to seventeen
inclusive, the result is a hundred and fifty and three--the number
of the fishes.
Pages:
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244