nd in the works of the early fathers
they bloomed forth luxuriantly.

Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria vigorously extended them.
Typical of Justin's method is his finding, in a very simple reference by
Isaiah to Damascus, Samaria, and Assyria, a clear prophecy of the three
wise men of the East who brought gifts to the infant Saviour; and in the
bells on the priest's robe a prefiguration of the twelve apostles.
Any difficulty arising from the fact that the number of bells is not
specified in Scripture, Justin overcame by insisting that David referred
to this prefiguration in the nineteenth Psalm: "Their sound is gone out
through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world."

Working in this vein, Clement of Alexandria found in the form,
dimensions, and colour of the Jewish tabernacle a whole wealth of
interpretation--the altar of incense representing the earth placed at
the centre of the universe; the high priest's robe the visible world;
the jewels on the priest's robe the zodiac; and Abraham's three days'
journey to Mount Moriah the three stages of the soul in its progress
toward the knowledge of God. Interpreting the New Testament, he lessened
any difficulties involved in the miracle of the barley loaves and fishes
by suggesting that what it really means is that Jesus gave mankind a
preparatory training for the gospel by means of the law and philosophy;
because, as he says, barley, like the law, ripens sooner than wheat,
which represents the gospel; and because, just as fishes grow in the
waves of the ocean, so philosophy grew in the waves of the Gentile
world.

Out of reasonings like these, those who followed, especially Cosmas,
developed, as we have seen, a complete theological science of geography
and astronomy.(464)

(464) For Justin, see the Dialogue with Trypho, chaps. xlii, lxxvi, and
lxxxiii. For Clement of Alexandria, see his Miscellanies, book v,
chaps. vi and xi, and book vii, chap. xvi, and especially Hatch, Hibbert
Lectures, as above, pp. 76, 77. As to the loose views of the canon held
by these two fathers and others of their time, see Ladd, Doctrine of
the Sacred Scriptures, vol. ii, pp. 86, 88; also Diestel, Geschichte des
alten Testaments.

But the instrument in exegesis which was used with most cogent force was
the occult significance of certain numbers. The Chaldean and Egyptian
researches of our own time have revealed the main source of this line of
thought; the spec