ABSTRACT
The exalted ideas which ancient thinkers entertained concerning the symbolic and mystic properties of numbers may be estimated from the uses to which they were made subservient. One is therefore tempted to suggest that, particularly in the case of much-used numbers, some symbolical meaning must lay hidden. A reference to some of the numbers used in Semitic literatures will show how often these are used in a loose sense, without attempting exactitude. Thus, in Hebrew “two” is used for a few. The widow of Zarephath, when Elijah asks her for bread, tells him she is “gathering two sticks” that she may cook the meal for herself and her son (1 Kings xvii, 12). “Five” is also used in this way. In Lev. xxvi, 8, the Israelites are told that “five of them shall chase a hundred”. When we come to Babylonia, we find that speculation upon the value of numbers held a very important place in their religious philosophy. The gods were designated by whole numbers, and the various kinds of inferior spirits by fractions.
