SEVEN, frequently used as a mystical and symbolical number in the Bible, as well as among the principal nations of antiquity (the Persians, Indians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans. etc.). The reason for the preference of this number for sacred use has been found in its consisting of three—the number of the sides of a triangle—and four—the sides of a square, these being the simplest rectilineal figures;—or in other equally vague circumstances. The real reason, however, seems to be astronomical, or rather astro logical, viz., the observation of the seven planets and the phases of the moon—chang iug every seventh day. (See WEEK.) As instances of the use of this number in the Old Testament, we find the creation completed in seven days, wherefore the seventh day was kept sacred: every seventh year was sabbatical, and the seven times seventh year ushered in the jobel-year. The three regal-int, or pilgrim festivals (passall, festival of weeks, and tabernacles), lasted seven days; and between the first and second of these feasts were counted seven weeks. The first day of the seventh month was a "holy convocation." The Levitical purifications lasted seven days, and the same space of time was allotted to the celebration of weddings and the mourning for the dead. In innumerable instances in the Old Testament and later Jewish writings, the number is used as a kind of round number. In the New Testament we have the churches, candlesticks, stars, trumpets, spirits, all to the number of seven; and the seven horns, and seven eyes of the Lamb. The same number appears again either divided into half (31 years, Rev. xiii. 5, xi. 3, xii. 6, .etc.), or multiplied by tell—seventy
Israelites go to Egypt, the exile lasts seventy years, there are seventy eiders, and at a later period there are supposed to be seventy languages and seventy nations upon earth. To go back to the earlier documents, we find in a similar way the dove sent out the second time seven days after her first mission. Pharaoh's dream shows him twice seven kine, twice seven ears of corn, etc. Among the Greeks the seven was sacred to Apollo and to I)ionysos, who, according to Orphic legends, was torn into seven pieces; and it was particularly sacred in Eubcea, where the number was found to pervade, as it were, almost every sacred, private, or domestic relation. On the many ancient spec ulations which connected the number seven with the human body and the phases of its gradual development and formation, its critical periods of sicknesses—partly still extant as superstitious notions—we cannot here dwell. The Pythagoreans made much of this number, giving it the name of Athene, Hermes, Hephaistos, Heracles, the virain unbe gotten and unbegetting (i.e., not to be obtained by multiplication), etc. The " seven sacraments," the " seven free arts," the " seven wise men," and ninny more instances, prove the importance attached to this number in the eyes not only of ancient but even of our own times. That it played an immense part in the superstitions of the middle ages need hardly be added.