Chapter 4: What numbers signify

1. The science of number must not be despised. For in many passages of the holy scriptures it is manifest what great mystery they contain. For it is not said in vain in the praises of God: “Omnia in mensura et numero et pondere fecisti.” For the senarius, which is perfect in respect to its parts,[243] declares the perfection of the universe by a certain meaning of its number. In like manner, too, the forty days which Moses and Elias and the Lord himself fasted, are not understood without an understanding of number.

[243] Six was regarded as a perfect number, because it is equal
to the sum of all its factors.

3. So, too, other numbers appear in the holy scriptures whose natures none but experts in this art can wisely declare the meaning of. It is granted to us, too, to depend in some part upon the science of numbers, since we learn the hours by means of it, reckon the course of the months, and learn the time of the returning year. Through number, indeed, we are instructed in order not to be confounded. Take number from all things and all things perish. Take calculation from the world and all is enveloped in dark ignorance, nor can he who does not know the way to reckon be distinguished from the rest of the animals.