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

according to the word of the Prophet, and he was cleansed," etc. It is also established (much more wondrous to say) that the septenary number, without the intervention of any woman, was accustomed to cure a child's swellings, that is, scrofula, by the force (as I think) of the septenary number; and I myself know for certain that this was done. Behold what so long wearied the surgeon: what could not be cured by medicine: what could not be consumed by burning iron: to which no medicine was of any use, was cured and healed by the sole power of the septenary number. Behold what lacks sense: what lacks life: what lacks matter: what lacks juice or any quality, yet it is full of medical power: full of hidden energy: full of wonders. The octonary is joined to the septenary, which the Pythagoreans call the number of justice and plenitude (so to speak), because it is divided into even numbers, that is, into four; it is called of plenitude because it embraces the context of bodily solidity. The nonary is sacred to the Muses, and peculiar to the orders of the celestial spheres: for there are said to be nine mobile spheres, according to which nine Muses are assigned, as Macrobius says: nine orders of angels, and many things of that kind, which, sparing more profuse words, I omit. The denary is called the universal number: for it is not numbered from it except by replication: for it implies all numbers. In this number, Joshua is said to have subdued thirty-one kings: David, Goliath: Daniel to have escaped the dangers of the lions. The duodenary is not without power, for the twelve signs of the zodiac are usually called by it, and many things of that kind. It is collected, therefore, according to the opinion of Jerome, as well as Origen, Augustine, Hilary, Basil, and Rabanus, that numbers have no small power: for Hilary, in the Psalms, testifies that the seventy elders, according to the significance of numbers, reduced them so for their energy. For how much hidden virtue such numbers have, one can conjecture from the figure of herbs, their leaf being ordered to a number: for the herb which the Greeks call Pentaphyllon, that is, Five-leaf: for by the force of the quinary number it is said to be opposed to poisons, and to drive away demons, and to be useful for expiation, the leaf of which, if taken twice a day in wine, cures the fever