Table Of ContentMEDIEVAL NUMBER
SYMBOLISM
Its Sources, Meaning, and Influence
on Thought and Expression
BY
VINCENT FOSTER HOPPER
Assistant Professor of Literature, New York University
School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance
New York : Morningside Heights
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1938
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH
AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
NUMBER 132
MEDIEVAL NUMBER SYMBOLISM
COPYRIGHT 1938
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK
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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
In Memory of
ABRAM WHITTAKER HOPPER
and to
ISABEL JAYNE HOPPER
with Gratitude and Affection
PREFACE
HE symbolic nature of medieval thought and expression
has been subjected to a number of thoughtful scrutinies
with much consequent illumination of dark places. An im-
portant result of these studies has been to reveal in the
medieval mind a weblike structure of abstract ideas and
concrete realities so closely interwoven and interdependent
that no serious gap was felt to exist between them. In con-
sequence, what appears to the modern mind as a conscious
and often artificial and strained divagation from simplicity
and sincerity was more often than not an entirely natural
mode of expression. To put it another way, what the modern
mind denominates with some impatience as “symbol” was
often in the medieval mind the result of an inevitable asso-
ciation of ideas. Most of these symbols, moreover, being con-
nected with Scripture, were believed to have been of God’s
own implanting. A reasonably extended acquaintance with
medieval writings is all that is needed to put one in a frame
of mind to accept this “symbolism,” much as one accepts
metaphor or simile or any kind of imagery, whether ancient
or modern. Images change from generation to generation,
but the impulse which produces them is universal and famil-
lar.
The recognized value of figurative utterance lies in its
ability to clarify or intensify ideas or emotions through appeal
to sense experience. By symbolism, the abstract may be
brought into the realm of the concrete, where it is immedi-
ately recognizable and meaningful. By symbolism, the ab-
stract beauty and loving-kindness of the Deity were humanly
realized in the person of the Virgin. The concept of the
Virgin was, in turn, brought even closer to sense experience
Vill PREFACE
through the artistic media of sculpture and painting. Thus
does image transmit idea. On a more elementary level, the
light and glory and life-giving properties of the sun won for
that planet almost universal veneration as an image of God-
head.
What, then, is to be said in explanation of the number
symbol where the symbol, far from providing a concrete
image, is itself very nearly the limit of abstraction? In all
seriousness, does the author of the Vita Nuova expect to cap-
ture the reader’s admiration and regard for Beatrice by
describing her as a nine? The simple answer is ‘tyes’ — and
the prominence of numbers in the sacred and the profane
writings of the Middle Ages, in cathedral architecture, in the
ritual of the mass, is sufficient indication of their contempor-
ary effectiveness.
Commentators have been at some pains to explain isolated
number symbols, with a considerable degree of success. But the
explanations have tended to clarify the text without illumi-
nating the soul of the author or warming the imagination of
the reader. The lack of a frame of reference, together with a
failure to comprehend the philosophic as well as the symbolic
implications of number, has resulted in a general tendency to
regard number symbols as a pleasant variety of anagrams.
It is the purpose of this study to reveal how deeply rooted in
medieval thought was the consciousness of numbers, not as
mathematical tools, nor yet as the counters in a game, but as
fundamental realities, alive with memories and eloquent with
meaning. The fact that 3 disciples were present at the trans-
figuration was, in the Middle Ages, a circumstance not to be
lightly passed over. For in the Sacred Text was known to be
enshrined the mystery of Trinity, and the sanctity of the
number 3 hovered like a halo about the figure of Christ and
all Godly things. And the especial sanctity of this integer,
which had been recognized by man from the earliest times,
PREFACE ix
endowed every repetition of the number 3 with a richness
of meaning which can be but dimly grasped by the modern
reader.
As a result of the derivative and eclectic nature of medieval
science and philosophy, it is next to impossible to arrive at a
clear statement of either without considerable digging at the
individual roots from which these hybrid plants developed.
By the same token, medieval number philosophy, which often
appears as sheer nonsense or at best as the product of extra-
ordinarily confused thinking, is explicable only by reference
to its origins. For apart from certain minor influences, medie-
val number philosophy may be said to be a combination of
three distinct modes of thought, and the number symbols
themselves supplied from three major ‘sources. The first of
these, which I have labeled “elementary,” is basic in all num-
ber symbolism, being derived from man’s original struggles
to enumerate and his identification of certain immediately
observable and fixed natural groups with their corresponding
numbers; for instance, a hand is 5; 20 (10 fingers + 10 toes)
is a man. The second and most prolific source of significant
numbers, which is really an elaboration of the first, is the
ancient Babylonian science of astrology. Numbers derived
from constellations, planets, and stellar revolutions were held
in awe as being divinely ordained. Each number was given its
own sacred or baleful connotations. Most important, the
astrological axiom of the relationship of macrocosm and
microcosm was to provide for the relationship of all fixed
aggregates defined by the same number. Thus the 7 days
of the week were named from the 7 planets. The Middle
Ages inherited this theory by virtue of the stubborn vitality
of astrology itself, but the sanctity and incorruptibility of the
astrological numbers was made unquestionable by their pres-
ence in page after page of Holy Writ, there to be pondered
over and expounded by generations of Churchmen. The third
x PREFACE
and best-known number theory is the Pythagorean, which
fixed the relationship of the numbers to one another and,
accordingly, the places of the astrological aggregates in the
Cosmic Order.
My first three chapters, therefore, concern themselves with
the fundamentals of each of these theories, without which no
medieval number symbol is more than superficially compre-
hensible. In my fourth chapter I deal with the elaborate com-
bination of these theories by the Gnostics, who, together with
the Neo-Pythagoreans, were most influential in the formation
of Christian number theory. In my fifth chapter I discuss the
adoption and elaboration of number philosophy by the early
Church Fathers (up to and including Augustine), with the
intention of stating as clearly as possible the fundamentals
of medieval Christian number symbolism. My sixth chapter
is devoted to a résumé of the diversified appearances and
usages of number symbols in the Middle Ages in the attempt
to evoke, as clearly as I can, the medieval attitude toward
number. Dante’s use of number symbolism and the effect of
number on Dante’s philosophy are considered in my seventh
chapter.
A great deal of scholarly work has already been done on
the primitive, astrological, and Pythagorean symbolism to
which my early chapters are devoted. Without pretending to
make any contribution whatever to these fields, I have never-
theless deemed it necessary to summarize the results of these
investigations, in order to explain the medieval complex made
up of these factors. In doing this I have made use of recog-
nized authorities (such as Farbridge, Cumont, Webster,
Conant, Jastrow, Rogers, McLean, Thompson, Lenormant,
Karpinski) who have integrated the results of many special
studies with their own investigations and conclusions. When-
ever possible, I have verified these conclusions by reference
to the documents in which the original number symbols
occurred.
