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10. Scripture again witnesses that the space of those three days
themselves was not whole and entire, but the first day is counted as a
whole from its last part, and the third day is itself also counted as a
whole from its first part; but the intervening day, i.e. the second
day, was absolutely a whole with its twenty-four hours, twelve of the
day and twelve of the night. For He was crucified first by the voices
of the Jews in the third hour, when it was the sixth day of the week.
Then He hung on the cross itself at the sixth hour, and yielded up
His spirit at the ninth hour. But He was buried, "now when the
even was come," as the words of the evangelist express it; which
means, at the end of the day. Wheresoever then you begin, even if
some other explanation can be given, so as not to contradict the
Gospel of John, but to understand that He was suspended on the cross
at the third hour, still you cannot make the first day an entire day.
It will be reckoned then an entire day from its last part, as the
third from its first part. For the night up to the dawn, when the
resurrection of the Lord was made known, belongs to the third day;
because God (who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, that
through the grace of the New Testament and the partaking of the
resurrection of Christ the words might be spoken to us "For ye were
sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord" ) intimates to
us in some way that the day takes its beginning from the night. For as
the first days of all were reckoned from light to night, on account of
the future fall of man; so these on account of the restoration of man,
are reckoned from darkness to light. From the hour, then, of His
death to the dawn of the resurrection are forty hours, counting in also
the ninth hour itself. And with this number agrees also His life upon
earth of forty days after His resurrection. And this number is most
frequently used in Scripture to express the mystery of perfection in
the fourfold world. For the number ten has a certain perfection, and
that multiplied by four makes forty. But from the evening of the
burial to the dawn of the resurrection are thirty-six hours which is
six squared. And this is referred to that ratio of the single to the
double wherein there is the greatest consonance of co-adaptation. For
twelve added to twenty-four suits the ratio of single added to double
and makes thirty-six: namely a whole night with a whole day and a
whole night, and this not without the mystery which I have noticed
above. For not unfitly do we liken the spirit to the day and the body
to the night. For the body of the Lord in His death and resurrection
was a figure of our spirit and a type of our body. In this way,
then, also that ratio of the single to the double is apparent in the
thirty-six hours, when twelve are added to twenty-four. As to the
reasons, indeed, why these numbers are so put in the Holy
Scriptures, other people may trace out other reasons, either such
that those which I have given are to be preferred to them, or such as
are equally probable with mine, or even more probable than they are;
but there is no one surely so foolish or so absurd as to contend that
they are so put in the Scriptures for no purpose at all, and that
there are no mystical reasons why those numbers are there mentioned.
But those reasons which I have here given, I have either gathered
from the authority of the church, according to the tradition of our
forefathers, or from the testimony of the divine Scriptures, or from
the nature itself of numbers and of similitudes. No sober person will
decide against reason, no Christian against the Scriptures, no
peaceable person against the church.
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