The Elemental, Physical, and Prophetic Expositions

On Three Particular and Little-Used Expositions of Divine Scripture

After those four kinds of sacred exposition — the most excellent, and most usual among all expositors — already described by us, there are found also three particular explanations of divine Scripture, ¹ namely the Elemental, the Physical, and the Prophetic: of which, although the use among the divine interpreters is rare, and they seem in some way to be contained under the aforesaid common kinds, nevertheless, lest we leave untouched anything pertaining to the present purpose, we shall explain them as not unworthy to be known, beginning first from the Elemental exposition itself.

On the Elemental Exposition

The Elemental explanation — from which the elemental expositors are so named ² — is that which is concerned with the signification of the simple elements, or letters. But since letters signify chiefly two things, that is, the individual parts of syllables, and the marks that indicate numbers (especially among the Greeks and Hebrews, who represent every kind of number by letters), ³ this explanation is necessarily divided into two modes of explaining.

On the First Mode of the Elemental Exposition

The First Mode — that is, the one which, from the resolution of the elements of each word, and again from a new and different connection of those same elements, deduces manifold senses, both historical and mystical, from the sacred Scriptures — this mode is cut into two parts, that is, the Resolutory and the Composing. Now the former part, in which single letters signify single words, and single [words] are expounded through single [letters], is on that account called Resolutory, ⁴ because it consists wholly in the resolution of the elements: for it tears apart and separates the letters of any given word, one from another, and from each single letter draws out certain words beginning with that same letter — which lay bare the mysteries hidden in the whole marrow of that word. The latter part, which treats of composition, ⁵ transposes those same elements of the same word — before scattered and disjoined — again in a new order, and, placing one in the room of another with position changed, connects them, and composes from them new syllables, words, [and] parts of speech,

[continuing from p155] …[composes from them new syllables, words, and] parts [of speech], and formulas of discourse, by whose aid the understandings of the diverse senses, and the most secret mysteries, are laid open. The Hebrews claim for themselves the intention of this explanation, asserting it to be a part of the Cabala ⁶ — that is, of their more secret and Anagogical, or Allegorical, wisdom — which their Fathers received, handed down from hand to hand from their elders a little after the times of Moses. Which indeed is not sufficiently ascertained to me, since I find that the same skill of expounding existed also among the most ancient Greeks — not only in Plato, in the Cratylus, where he treats of a not dissimilar discipline concerning the etymology of names, but also in Aesop the Phrygian, ⁷ who is believed to have flourished long before the times of the Trojan war, in the same age as Orpheus and Linus. For he, as is read in his Life, when together with his master Xanthus he was surveying the ruins of certain old buildings, chanced upon a certain marble column on which seven Greek letters were engraved, indicating a treasure buried in that place, not far from the column. And when Xanthus was anxiously inquiring into their meaning, Aesop — having found words which began with those same characters — illustrated that writing by applying three [different] expositions. ⁸ The letters were of this sort: A, B, Δ, O, E, Θ, X; which Aesop, disclosing to his master the place of the treasure that the letters designated, first expounded thus:

A — ἀπόβαθι (ascend); B — βήματα (steps); Δ — τέσσαρα (four); O — ὀρύξας (digging); E — εὑρήσεις (thou wilt find); Θ — θησαυρόν (treasure); X — χρυσίον (golden): that is, “Ascending four steps [and] digging, thou wilt find a golden treasure.”

And so, when Xanthus had dug up the treasure and would assign no part of the gold to Aesop, Aesop modestly admonished him to obey the precept engraved on the column — [namely] what those letters contained — in this way:

A — ἀνελόμενοι (taking [it] up); B — βαδίσαντες (go); Δ — διέλεσθε (divide); O — ὃν (which); E — εὕρετε (ye have found); Θ — θησαυρόν (treasure); X — χρυσίον (golden): that is, “Taking [it] up, go, divide the golden treasure which ye have found.”

But when Xanthus disdained to do this, and wished to possess the gold alone, Aesop, indignant, threatened that, unless he received a part, he would carry out yet another command of the same writing, the letters prescribing thus:

A — ἀπόδος (render); B — βασιλεῖ (to the king); Δ — Διονυσίῳ (to Dionysius); O — ὃν (which); E — εὗρες (thou hast found); Θ — θησαυρόν (treasure); X — χρυσίον (golden): that is, “Render to King Dionysius the golden treasure which thou hast found.”

But however the matter may stand — whether the Greeks or the Hebrews first devised this manner of expounding — there are, as we have already said, two parts of it. Of the former, or Resolutory part, in which single letters denote single words, not a few examples exist among the ancient Fathers. Among these, Jerome, in the Questions on the third book of Kings, examining those words of the dying David to Solomon ⁹ — Thou hast also with thee Shimei, the son of Gera, the son of Jemini, of Bahurim, who cursed me with a most grievous curse — explains the force of that word of execrable cursing, showing the reproaches which Shimei heaped upon David [to be drawn] from the letters which are in that word, GRIEVOUS — which in Hebrew is written נמרצת (nimretzeth), and consists of these five letters: נ nun, מ mem, ר resh, צ tsade, ת tav. ¹⁰

In נ nun is signified נאף (naaph), that is, Adulterer and ravisher of another’s wife — because he had defiled himself with adultery of Uriah’s wife.

In מ mem is signified Moabite — by which word Shimei reproached him with the ignobility of his own stock, that he was descended from the ignoble and unbelieving seed of the Moabites.

In ר resh is denoted רצח (rotseach), that is, Homicide and slayer — who took off innocent Uriah by evil guile, and slaughtered the whole royal line of Saul.

In צ tsade is signified צרוע (tsarua), that is, Leper — because he would be cast out from all men from his kingdom, after the likeness of a leprous man, whom the law commanded to be driven from the cities and from the company of men.

In ת tav is signified תועבה (to’evah), that is, Abominated — not only by men, but by God, who had utterly cast him off as an impious man.

But Augustine, in the ninth tractate on John — and before him Cyprian, in the treatise on Sinai and Sion, and after both Bede, in his commentaries on John — declaring the etymology of the name Adam, ¹¹ think the first man was so called because that earth from which he was formed was taken by God from the four cardinal points of the world, which are comprehended in the four letters of that same name. For A [signifies] ἀνατολήν (Anatolē), that is, the East; D, δύσιν (Dysis), that is, the West; the other A, ἄρκτον (Arktos), that is, the North; and M, μεσημβρίαν (Mesēmbria), that is, the South. This interpretation of the name the Sibyl had expressed many ages before, in the second book of the Oracles, in these verses — whose sense is this:

Truly it is God who fashioned four-lettered Adam, who was first formed, and who fills up by his name the Rising [East] and the Setting [West], the South and the vigorous North.

To this part of the Resolutory exposition can also be referred the interpretation of those words of which single ones signify single whole sentences — such as those three words which (as is had in the fifth chapter of Daniel) that prodigious hand wrote on the wall before the king of Babylon, ¹² namely מנא MENE, תקל TEKEL, ופרסין PHARESIN, that is, NUMBERED, WEIGHED, DIVIDED. Daniel, expounding these by three whole sentences, interpreted thus: NUMBERED signifies, “Numbered is thy kingdom by God, and completed”; WEIGHED signifies, “Weighed in the balance, and found wanting”; DIVIDED signifies, “Divided is thy kingdom, and given to the Medes and the Persian.”

There follows the latter part of this exposition, pertaining to composition, which is made by the commutation and transposition of letters. ¹³

[continuing from p156] …[the latter part, pertaining to composition, which is made by the commutation and transposition] of letters. That this was in use among the most ancient Hebrews, ¹⁴ an argument is Jeremiah’s prophecy against the king of Babylon, written in the 25th chapter of his prophecies. In which place the prophet, lest he should openly provoke the king himself against himself, artfully transformed the name BABEL, by commuting its elements, into SESAC, saying: ¹⁵ And Sesac shall drink the cup of the wrath of God after them — hinting that, by the word Sesac, according to the rule of this explanation, the name Babel must be understood. Now the rule of explaining this name is, as Jerome there reports, that just as we read the Greek alphabet from A to Ω in order, and again, to exercise the memory of boys, we are wont to reverse the order of reading and to mix the last with the first — joining A with Ω, and B with Ψ — so the Hebrews proceed from א (aleph) through ב (beth) and ג (gimel), in the straight order, up to the last ת (tav), whose penultimate is ש (shin); and then, joining together at once א and ת, ב and ש, until they reach the middle of the alphabet, where the letter ל (lamed) meets כ (kaph). Whence it comes about that, just as running through the alphabet in the straight order we read BABEL, so with the order permuted we read SESAC. (For the vowel-letters between the ל, ב, and ב of the name BABEL, and between the ך, ש, and ש of the name SESAC, are, according to the idiom of the Hebrew tongue, not written.)

John Pico [della Mirandola], in his Heptaplus, brings a most brilliant example of this explanation, expounding that first word of Genesis, IN THE BEGINNING. In which place he writes these words:

That word is written among the Hebrews in this way: בראשית (Bereshith). From this word, therefore: if we join the third letter to the first, the word אב (ab) is made; if, the first being doubled, we add the second, bebar is made; if we read all but the first, ראשית (reshith) is made; if we connect the fourth to the first and last, שבת (shabbath) is made; if we set the three first in the order in which they lie, ברא (bara) is made; if the first be omitted [and] the three following [taken], ראש (rosh) is made; if, the first and second being omitted, [we take] the two following, אש (esh) is made; if, the three first being omitted, we join the fourth to the last, שת (Seth) is made; again, if [we join] the second to the first, רב (rab); if after the third [we set] the fifth, then the fourth, איש (ish) is made; if we join the first two to the two last, ברית (berith) is made; if [we put] the last for the first, the last word is made, which is טוב (tob), the ת (tav) being turned into the element ט (teth) — a change most frequent among the Hebrews.

Let us see, therefore, first what these signify in Latin, then what mysteries about all nature may be revealed by them to those not unversed in philosophy. Ab signifies “father”; bebar, “in the Son and through the Son” (for the preposition be- signified both); Reshith, “beginning”; Shabbath, “rest” and “end”; Bara, “he created”; Rosh, “head”; Esh, “fire”; Seth, “foundation”; Rab, “of the great”; Ish, “of man”; Ber [berith], “by a covenant”; Tob, “good.” And if we weave the whole into a sentence in consequent order, it will be of this sort: “The Father, in the Son and through the Son — the beginning and the end, or the rest — created the head, the fire, and the foundation of the great man, by a good covenant.” This whole sentence leaps forth from the resolution and composition of that first word. How lofty, how full of all learning its sense is, cannot be plain to all. But as some of the things signified to us by these words are at once open to all, so certain [others] are obscure. For it is known to all Christians what it is that the Father created in the Son and through the Son, and likewise what it is that the Son is the beginning and the end of all things — for he is alpha and omega, as John writes, and he himself called himself the beginning, and we have shown the end of all things to be that they be restored to their beginning. The rest is somewhat more obscure: namely, what those [words] mean — the Head, the fire, and the foundation of the great man; what that covenant is, and by what reasoning it is called good. For it cannot be seen at once and readily by all that there is here explained the whole reason, kinship, and also the felicity of the four worlds, of which we have treated and about which we finally disputed. First, then, it must be noted that the world is called by Moses a great man. ¹⁶ For if man is a little world, surely the world is a great man. Taking occasion hence, he most aptly figures the three worlds — the intellectual, the celestial, and the corruptible — by the three parts of man, ¹⁷ at the same time indicating by this figure not only that all the worlds are contained in man, but also briefly declaring which part of man answers to which world. Let us therefore consider in man three parts: the highest, the head; then that which reaches from the neck to the navel; the third, that which extends from the navel to the feet — for these too, in man’s figure, are divided and separated by a certain variety. But it is wonderful how beautifully, how exactly, by most precise reasoning, they correspond in proportion to the three parts of the world. In the head is the brain, the fount of knowledge; in the breast is the heart, the fount of motion, life, and heat; in the last part are the genital members, the beginning of generation. Likewise also in the world: the highest part, which is the angelic or intellectual world, is the fount of knowledge, because that nature was made for understanding; the middle part, which is heaven, [is] the beginning of life, motion, and heat, in which the Sun, like the heart in the breast, holds dominion; below the Moon (as is known to all) is the beginning of generation and corruption. You see how aptly all these parts of the world and of man mutually agree. Now Moses designated the first [part] by its proper name, namely the head; the second he called fire — both because by this name heaven is reckoned by many, and because in us this portion is the beginning of heat; the third he called foundation, because by it, as is known to all, the whole body of man is founded and sustained. He added, moreover, that he created these by a good covenant, because among them a covenant of peace and friendship has been sanctioned — out of the kinship of natures and by mutual consent — through the law of God’s wisdom. Which covenant is therefore good, because it is so directed and ordered toward God, who is the good itself, that, just as the whole world is one among itself, so at last it may be one with its author. Let us too imitate the most holy covenant of the world, that by mutual charity we also may be one with each other, and all together, through the true love of God, may happily become one with Him. Thus Pico.

But if these [examples] seem few to you, and you desire to see an example of both parts joined together at once, you have St. Jerome, in the epistle to Paula of Rome, and in the preface of his commentaries on the Lamentations: ¹⁸ in which places, delivering certain things as, so to speak, the first rudiments of this art, he first of all interprets separately the individual elements of the Hebrew Alphabet, then shows what Mysteries are contained in the several combinations of them. His words — that I may indulge you, friendly reader — I will not be loath to subjoin here. They are these: But now what you asked is fulfilled: that the interpretation annexed may signify the sense of each element. Aleph is interpreted “doctrine”; Beth, “house”; Gimel, “fullness”; Daleth, “of tablets”; He, “this”; Vau, “and”; Zain, “these”; Heth, “life”; Teth, “good”; Iod, “beginning”; Caph…

[continuing from p157] …[Aleph, “doctrine”; Beth, “house”; Gimel, “fullness”; Daleth, “of tablets”; He, “this”; Vau, “and”; Zain, “these”; Heth, “life”; Teth, “good”; Iod, “beginning”;] Caph, “hand”; Lamed, “discipline,” or “of the heart”; Mem, “from them”; Nun, “everlasting”; Samech, “help”; Ayin, “fount,” or “eye”; Phe, “mouth” (understand it said from “mouth” [os, oris], not from “bone” [os, ossis], lest you be deceived by the ambiguity of the letters); Tsade, “justice”; Coph, “calling”; Resh, “of the head”; Shin, “of teeth”; Thau, “signs.” After the interpretation of the elements, the order of their meaning must be told; for out of these letters there are seven connexions [groups].

Of which the first is Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth — “doctrine, house, fullness, of tablets”: namely, that the doctrine of the Church, which is the house of God, may be found in the fullness of the divine books. ¹⁹

The second connexion is He, Vau, Zain, Heth — “this, and, these, life”: for what other life can there be without the knowledge of the Scriptures? — through which also Christ himself is recognized, who is the life of believers. ²⁰

The third connexion has Teth, Iod — “good beginning”: because, although we now know all things that are written, yet we know in part, and we prophesy in part, and now we see through a glass in a riddle; but when we shall have merited to be with Christ, and shall be like the angels, then the doctrine of books shall cease, ²¹ and then we shall see, face to face, the good beginning as it is.

The fourth connexion is Caph, Lamed — “hand, discipline (or, of the heart)”: hands are understood in [outward] work, heart and discipline in the understanding — because we can do nothing unless we first know what is to be done.

The fifth connexion is Mem, Nun, Samech — “from them, everlasting help”: this needs no explanation, but is clearer than all light — [namely] that from the Scriptures eternal helps are ministered.

The sixth connexion has Ayin, Phe, Tsade — “fount (or eye) of the mouth of justice”; according to that which we expounded in the fourth number.

The seventh connexion (which is also the last, because in this very seven-fold number too there is a mystical understanding) is Coph, Resh, Shin, Thau — “calling of the head, signs of the teeth”: through the teeth the articulate voice is uttered, and by these signs one comes to the head of all, who is Christ, through whom one comes to the everlasting kingdom. Thus Jerome.

There are also among the Greeks, as Isidore relates, five mystical letters, ²² namely Y, Θ, T, A, Ω. Of which the first, Y, signifies human life: ²³ this Pythagoras of Samos first shaped after the example of human life; its lower stem shows the first age — uncertain, indeed, and which has not yet given itself either to vices or to virtues. But the fork that remains begins from adolescence: whose right part is steep, yet tending toward the blessed life; the left, easier, but leading down to ruin and destruction. Concerning which letter a certain most ancient poet, as Lactantius testifies in book VI, chapter 3, wrote thus:

The letter of Pythagoras, cleft by its two-horned division, seems to present the likeness of human life. For the way of virtue, steep, seeks the right-hand path, and offers a difficult approach, at first, to those who look on, but gives rest to the weary at the topmost peak. The broad road displays a soft journey; but the final goal hurls down the captured, and rolls them over steep rocks. For whoever, out of love of virtue, has conquered hard misfortunes, he shall win for himself praise and honor; but he who will follow idle sloth and luxury, while, with incautious mind, he flees the labors set against him, base and needy at once, shall pass a wretched age.

The second [letter] is Θ theta, which signifies death: ²⁴ for the judges used to append this same letter to the names of those whom they punished with execution. And it is called θ theta, ἀπὸ τοῦ θανάτου, that is, “from death”; ²⁵ whence also it has through its middle a dart — that is, the sign of death — of which a certain poet says thus: “O letter Theta, unhappy far beyond the others.”

The third, T, shows the figure of the Lord’s cross: ²⁶ whence in Hebrew it is interpreted “Sign.” Of which it is said in Ezekiel: Mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that mourn and grieve. ²⁷ But the remaining two, α and ω, Christ claims for himself — the highest and the last — for he is the beginning and the end, saying: I am α and ω. ²⁸ For, these two letters running together into one another, [the series] rolls down from α all the way to ω, and again ω is folded back to α — that the Lord might show in himself both the running-down of the beginning to the end, and the running-back of the end to the beginning. To these letters Justin the Philosopher and Martyr adds also X, whose form he affirms — in the second Apology to Antoninus Pius — to contain the mystery of the most sacred cross of Christ, ²⁹ calling Plato as witness of the matter; who, in the Timaeus, discoursing of the Son of God, says that God placed his Son in the world in the likeness of the letter X. I pass over, for brevity’s sake, that Marcus Tullius [Cicero] calls A the salutary letter, because it was the mark of acquittal, ³⁰ but C the unlucky one, because it was the sign of condemnation. ³¹

There are those who explode this whole kind of exposition as a ludicrous and fortuitous thing; and again others who admire it superstitiously and extol it to heaven. Not approving the extremes of these opinions, I judge, first, that an invention of this kind is not altogether to be despised — both because this view has great authors, as I have already shown, and because there are many things in the sacred letters which cannot be mystically explained without it: such as certain Sacred poems, which are therefore called Alphabetary, because they are arranged according to the order of the alphabetic elements ³² — like David’s seven Psalms, the maternal Instruction of King Lemuel [Prov. 31], and the Threni [Lamentations] of Jeremiah — which indeed Jerome judges to have been digested into this order of letters not in vain, nor without immense mysteries and sacraments of the Church. Besides these, there are certain other things concerning some particular letters, both Hebrew and Greek — such as, in Ezekiel, the Hebrew letter ת Thau, marked on the foreheads of those to be preserved, and, concerning A alpha and Ω omega, the Greek characters in the Apocalypse of John.

But, as I do not condemn those who moderately and aptly accommodate these things in their places from time to time, so neither do I praise those who pursue the same too anxiously, and with useless and utterly empty labor — since it does not escape me that from this fount emanated the prodigious madness of the Valentinians and Gnostics, ³³ who, as both Irenaeus and Epiphanius show in the first book against the heresies, examining all divine Scripture according to this dissection of the elements, divulged unheard-of monsters of new heresies. And let these things be said sufficiently concerning the first mode of this explanation.

On the [second mode…]

## On the Second Mode of the Elemental Exposition

The second mode of the elemental explanation — which we may call the Arithmetical ³⁴ — labors in investigating the significations of the numbers which the letters, placed in words and syllables, represent. Which mode, as it is almost unknown among us, so among the Greeks and among the Hebrews was used chiefly for this reason: that their individual letters signify some number. ³⁵ For among the Hebrews א Aleph signifies one, ב beth two, ג ghimel three, ד daleth four, and so on in succession, the individual elements of the Hebrew alphabet indicate some number. Among the Greeks too, α represents one, β two, γ three, δ four, and the rest that follow. But among the Latins it is not so: they have only seven letters as indices of numbers, ³⁶ that is, I, V, X, L, C, D, M — of which I signifies unity, V the number five, X ten, L fifty, C a hundred, D five hundred, M a thousand. And therefore the Latins neglect this mode of explanation as unfit for Latin letters — [a mode] which certain widespread expositions of both peoples show to have once been usual among the Jews and Greeks.

Of their number, among the Greeks, was that explication of Appion the Grammarian of Alexandria, who was called by Tiberius Augustus “the Cymbal of the World.” ³⁷ He, when he expounded that first word of the Homeric Iliad, Μῆνιν [Mēnin, “wrath”], used to say that Homer had artfully begun his book with the syllable μη, namely so that by these two letters he might comprehend the whole number forty-eight — [the number] of the volumes by which the whole body of the Iliad and the Odyssey published by him is completed. For the Greeks designate the number forty-eight by μ [40] and η [8].

There are also among the Hebrews innumerable explanations of this kind, proceeding from the kabbalistic discipline, by which many hidden mysteries in the sacred words are opened. As, for example, in that name of God which among them is ineffable, and is written with these four letters, יהוה IEHOVA, they say that three numbers are contained: that is, Ten in the letter Iod, Six in the letter Vau, and a double Five in the two ה He. By which numbers also, they say, is signified the infinite and admirable abundance of the divine powers — because Ten by its own nature designates the fullness of all knowledge and wisdom, and Six the power that is the procreatrix of all things and of all good — just as Philo the Jew shows learnedly enough in his explanations of the Hexaemeron and of the Decalogue, whose words I omit for brevity’s sake.

Peter Brutus, bishop of Catania, also brings a signal example of this exposition, in his volume against the Jews. In the fourth chapter of it, expounding that prophecy of Isaiah concerning the Messiah, His empire shall be multiplied, ³⁸ he asks why the letter ם Mem — placed in the middle of the word למרבה (Lemarbe, that is, “shall be multiplied”) — is closed [in its final form], contrary to its nature, since nowhere in all divine Scripture is it found closed in the middle of a word, but always open. ³⁹ And he answers, following the opinion of Rabbi Hammai in the book Sanhedrin, that Isaiah wished by this closed letter ם Mem to signify — by a certain hidden device of computation — the number of the years from his own time up to the time of the Messiah. Which computation the same Rabbi Hammai, in the place just cited, set forth thus, saying: If anyone wishes to know the time of the Messiah, let him take the number of the letter Thau, which is 400; then let him take the individual numbers of the individual letters from א aleph up to ם closed mem, whose sum is 185; and let him join it with the number 400: you will have 585 years — which, according to the computation of the Hebrews, complete the space of the whole time, from the days of Isaiah up to the coming of the Messiah, our Savior. Which words become clearer when the significations of each Hebrew letter are considered, which are these: Aleph signifies 1, Beth 2, Ghimel 3, Daleth 4, He 5, Vau 6, Zain 7, Cheth 8, Teth 9, Iod 10, Caph 20, Lamed 30, Mem open 40, Mem closed 40, and so on; but Thau signifies 400.

To this also pertains what Augustine, in the tenth tractate on John, expounding that [saying] from the gospel of John, Forty and six years was this temple in building, said: that the number of the forty-six years of the temple’s building signifies the building of the bodily temple which Christ built for himself out of the flesh of Adam — whose name, ΑΔΑΜ, among the Greeks is composed of letters comprehending the number forty-six, ⁴⁰ since Α signifies 1, Δ 4, Α 1, Μ 40, which numbers joined together make forty-six; ⁴¹ for in so many days was the body of Christ completed in the womb of Mary.

But it seems to me that this form of explanation is not altogether to be despised, on account of certain places of divine Scripture which cannot be conveniently explained without a certain observation of the numeral elements. Among these, most notable is the place from the 13th chapter of the Apocalypse, whose arithmetical letters the Holy Spirit bids us diligently consider and compute, in these words: ⁴² Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man, and his number is six hundred sixty-six. By which words the Holy Spirit warns that the name by which that wicked Antichrist will call himself is composed of numeral letters signifying the number 666. Concerning which arithmetical letters, and the name resulting from them, various things have been said by the Fathers — more for the exercise of wit than for the stability of assertion — of which it pleases [me] to subjoin some here.

[continues p160: In…]

[continuing from p159] The name of Antichrist, according to Irenaeus and Hippolytus, is ΤΕΙΤΑΝ [Teitan], that is, “Giant”; ⁴³ and the numeral marks from which this name is deduced are these:

Τ 300, Ε 5, Ι 10, Τ 300, Α 1, Ν 50 — Sum: 666.

According to Arethas, his name is ΛΑΤΕΙΝΟΣ [Lateinos], that is, “the Latin”; and the numeral letters are these:

Λ 30, Α 1, Τ 300, Ε 5, Ι 10, Ν 50, Ο 70, Σ 200 — Sum: 666.

According to Tyconius, his name is ΛΑΜΠΕΤΙΣ [Lampetis], that is, “illustrious”; and the numeral letters are these:

Λ 30, Α 1, Μ 40, Π 80, Ε 5, Τ 300, Ι 10, Σ 200 — Sum: 666.

According to Primasius, it is ΑΝΤΕΜΟΣ [Antemos]; and the elements of the numbers are these:

Α 1, Ν 50, Τ 300, Ε 5, Μ 40, Ο 70, Σ 200 — Sum: 666.

And these things concerning the elemental explanation we have recounted perhaps more at length than was needful, that we might more fully explain a matter unusual and known to few.

On the Physical Exposition

The Physical, that is, Natural exposition ⁴⁴ is that which transfers the mystical discourses of divine Scripture to the universe, or to the powers and works of all nature — that is, to the matter, form, and parts of this sensible world — inquiring, in the divine oracles, into the motion, order, and adornment of the celestial spheres, the qualities of the elements, the properties of metals, the virtues of plants, and the habits of living creatures. This way of expounding certain notable expositors of Exodus and Leviticus especially entered upon among the Hebrews, who explained the natures of almost all things in the interpretation of these volumes, showing how Moses — according to the correspondence of the threefold world and the universal nature of things — ordered the ark, the tabernacle, the vessels, the vestments, the rites, the sacrifices, and the other mysteries as an image of these things, for placating God and the heavenly powers and for the expiation of man. An example of this explanation, gathered from Philo, Josephus, Clement of Alexandria, and Jerome, upon the tabernacle of Moses, is this:

An Example of the Physical Exposition, in the Tabernacle described by Moses (Exodus, chapters 26 and 27)

If anyone contemplates the structure of the Mosaic tabernacle, and the things which are in it, and considers each not idly but prudently, he will find that Moses, that divine man, represented in all these things, in a certain manner, the nature of the whole universe. ⁴⁵ For it was fitting that he who had determined to build for God, the author of the whole world, a tabernacle made by hand, should take a likeness of those things out of which the world was founded by God. First of all, therefore, for this cause, he divided the admirable structure of his tabernacle into three parts ⁴⁶ — namely, into the vestibule, the Hall, and the inner shrine (or, into the Court, the Hall, and the innermost sanctuary) — which might represent to us the totality of the divine workmanship, distinguished into three parts, or into three worlds: ⁴⁷ that is, into this sublunar world which we inhabit; into the one next to it, the celestial world; and into the highest of all, the ultramundane world — which the Theologians call angelic, the Philosophers intellectual, and which “by no one,” as Plato says, “has been sufficiently extolled according to its dignity.”

The first part of the tabernacle, therefore, called the Court and Vestibule, bore the image of this sublunar world; ⁴⁸ to whose likeness it was placed under the open sky, defended by no roof or shade, but ever exposed to rains, to the Sun, to heat and cold. And there were engaged in it, promiscuously, not only men clean and unclean, sacred and profane, but also animals of every kind; and there was in it — on account of the sacrifices and continual immolations — a perpetual vicissitude of life and death.

The second part, or the Hall, which was called the Holy [Place], occupying the middle place between the vestibule and the inner shrine, and shining with the whole splendor of gold, figured the celestial world, ⁴⁹ set between the supercelestial and the subcelestial world. For there was, in its southern region, a golden candelabrum distinguished with seven burning lamps, ⁵⁰ which seven signify the motions of the wandering luminaries; for the Sun and the Moon, with the other planets, deflecting far from the northern regions, are more observed in the southern parts of the world. And among these lamps, the one which holds the middle summit of the candelabrum — having three lamps on either side — bears the likeness of the solar star. [continues p161: re-]fert…

[continuing from p160] …[the middle lamp] bears the likeness of the solar star. For the Sun — possessing the fourth orb equally from the highest and the lowest heaven, and shining in the midst among the other six wandering stars — tempers that musical and truly divine instrument of the celestial spheres.

But the third part of the tabernacle — most sacred and most secret of all, which was called the Penetrale, the Adytum, and the Holy of Holies — expressed the figure of the supercelestial and angelic world, ⁵¹ which is the habitation of the Angels and of God, the best [of beings]. For just as that secret adytum of the Mosaic tabernacle was invisible and inaccessible to mortals, and no one could enter into it except the High Priest, who bore on his forehead that ineffable name, the Tetragrammaton IEHOVA: so into that supercelestial and divine world it is lawful for no one to enter, nor to look into and exactly comprehend with the mind the things which in it are invisible and incomprehensible — save for Him alone whom the highest prelate of sacred things foreshadowed, bearing on his forehead the unspeakable name IEHOVA, which is expounded, “Who is, and who shall be, and who makes to be.” ⁵² And this is the supreme governor of all things, God — He alone bearing the ineffable name IEHOVA, that is, “Ever-existing, and bestowing on the rest the power of being” — and He alone embracing the incomprehensible things of the supercelestial world with that same wisdom by which He comprehends Himself.

The Ark, too, which was hidden in the innermost recesses of the tabernacle, signified the divine providence and governance toward the world. ⁵³ For as the ark had been appointed for keeping the tablets of the divine law, and the rod of Aaron, and the manna, so in the storehouses of divine providence are contained all the laws of wisdom by which the whole totality of creatures is governed; the rod, and the scepter of ruling power, by which it is ruled; and the manna of most bountiful liberality, by which it is vivified and fed. And the Cherubim, encompassing the ark with the bendings of their wings, denote those celestial minds and blessed spirits who surround and attend the divine majesty with the obedience of most ready swiftness, as with a winged and swift ministry. ⁵⁴

On the Prophetic Exposition

The Prophetic exposition is that which — devised by no human wit, but revealed only by the inbreathing of the divine Spirit — turns the holy Scriptures to the prediction of future things with a certain and immovable truth, ⁵⁵ referring the oracles, prophecies, visions, prophesyings, and typical actions of the Prophets which are contained in the sacred letters to future changes of the times and revolutions of the ages, to the vicissitudes of kingdoms, to the adversities of nations, peoples, and cities — wars, disasters, ruins, victories, restorations, felicities, and other things like these — which the divine providence (whether the merits of mortals so demanding it, or by its hidden but nevertheless just judgment) has decreed shall come to pass hereafter.

Now there is a twofold mode of this exposition: ⁵⁶ of which the one refers to certain not-yet-fulfilled, or not-yet-understood, prophecies of the ancient Prophets (the divine light illuminating them), showing — and, as it were, most certainly pointing out with the finger — the places, persons, and times in which oracles long ago foretold, but not yet understood, are being fulfilled. The other mode announces that the ancient predictions of the seers — already fulfilled and recognized for many ages — are to be fulfilled again in future times. For there are in the divine letters many Prophecies which have various and manifold senses, both historical and typical, ⁵⁷ yet one more eminent than the rest, and primary, and more properly their own — namely, that to which the mind of the one prophesying was borne at first glance, and to which the Prophet especially directed the keenness of his mind. Since, therefore, some of these prophecies have been fulfilled according to their primary sense, certain divine expositors have handed down that the same are to be fulfilled again according to other, secondary senses — whether historical or typical — bringing as an example that oracle from the second book of Kings which God promised He would fulfill in Solomon: I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son — ⁵⁸ which Paul, writing to the Hebrews, affirms was consummated anew in Christ. And likewise that prophecy of Jeremiah: A voice was heard in Rama: much weeping and wailing; Rachel bewailing her sons, and she would not be comforted, because they are not ⁵⁹ — which, when the Prophet had uttered it concerning the sons of Israel about to be led away into the Babylonian captivity, Matthew — according to the truth of another understanding — transferred to the slaughter of the little ones; ⁶⁰ and likewise others, again, according to yet another sense, said the fulfillment of the same prophecy took place in the final destruction of the holy city, when, by the road on which Rachel is buried near Bethlehem, infinite thousands of captive Jews were sent off to Rome.

In both parts of this explanation there excelled Melito of Sardis, Methodius the Martyr, Proclus Archbishop of Constantinople, Joachim Abbot of Fiore, and others; of whom, in the first part, especially eminent was Proclus, who — as Socrates testifies in the seventh [book] of his history — when the Scythians, under their leader Rugas, had taken up arms against the Roman empire, delivered before Theodosius Augustus and his army a Prophetic oration, in which, expounding that prophecy from the book of Ezekiel, Son of man, prophesy against Gog and Magog, ⁶¹ he so bent the Prophet’s words to the occasion of the imminent war that he foretold all the punishments described by Ezekiel to be hanging over the Barbarians. To which prediction God, a little afterward, gave a happy issue: fire being sent down from heaven, and the chief of the Barbarians consumed by the burning. The other part of this exposition, not far from our own times, Jerome Savonarola professed — a man of most ardent spirit ⁶² — in his public exposition of the Prophets, especially Amos, Zechariah, and Ezekiel, whose already-fulfilled prophecies he foretold would be fulfilled again in his own times. How much he availed in this part, let others judge; he himself [being] another’s servant, and, according to [the word] of Paul… [continues p162]

[continuing from p161] …[he himself another’s servant, and, according to] the opinion of Paul, standing to his own master — I would not rashly dare to judge [him]. Thus far let it be said concerning the kinds of the sacred expositions, both universal and particular, pertaining to the first part of this art; now we must pass over to the second part of the same art.