Commentary on the First and Second Chapters of the Thirtieth Book of the Natural History of Gaius Plinius Secundus

of letters. Thus the Greeks, Arabs, and Mages signify the name of God with four letters. Furthermore, there are species of divine fury, and they flow down from four, that is, from Dionysus, the Muses, Apollo, and Venus. The Egyptians also were accustomed to depict the supreme Jupiter with four ears: on account of this, a man who has read, heard, retained, and done many things is usually called in Greek a Tetraoos literally "four-eared," meaning well-informed. The quinary number consists of the first odd and even, just as female and male: hence arithmeticians are accustomed to call the former the father, and the latter the mother, and because of this they maintain it has much energy. For this is the most just half of the universal number, that is, the denary: therefore the Mages call it the number of marriage. They also say it is called by some the number of grace and happiness, because the man who is called Noah is said to have found grace before the Lord in the quinary number. In this number, Abraham, a centenarian, is said to have begotten a son from a sterile wife of ninety years. In the time of nature, the name of God, Shaddai, was invoked: but in the time of the law, the Tetragrammaton, divine and ineffable, in place of which the Hebrews express Adonai: in the time of grace, the Pannagrammaton. These things being compared, it is certain that by the power of numbers many and even miraculous things can be effected, the effects of which the Arab and Persian philosophers especially prove, and which they call the Kabbalah: for that magic, which we call the famous part of natural philosophy, is the Kabbalah, if you weigh everything more attentively. The senary number follows, certainly more named for perfection: for in the whole context of numbers, from the monad up to the denary, it alone is perfect, so that by the comparison of its parts the same results, lacking nothing. For the sacred scriptures testify that the creation of the world was completed on the 6th day: for on the sixth day God saw all that He had made, etc. But as for the septenary, how much power it has can be seen in Macrobius, Aulus Gellius, and Varro: I omit the critical days celebrated more often in the schools of physicians: I omit that the 7th day is called the Sabbath among the Mosaic law: for Apuleius left it written that this day is suitable for purifications, when he says: "And immediately with the desire of being purified, I committed myself to the sea bath seven times": and the prophet Elisha, as is read in 4 Kings, says to the one afflicted with leprosy: "Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will receive health": and a little later, "He washed himself seven times in the Jordan