The art of early medieval number symbolism

Christian number symbolism built upon the strong tradition of Platonic philosophy, Pythagorean lore and Babylonian astronomy. Numbers such as 1, 7, 8, 12, and 40 had magical and talismanic properties and were strongly represented in the Hebrew Scriptures and apocrypha. God was praised: 'you have ordered all things in measure, number and weight' (Wisdom 11:21). In the Christian Scriptures, when John the Divine was perplexed with the events happening around him, he was given a golden reed to measure the temple of God, the altar and those who worshipped within the temple (Revelation 11:1). Understanding would come from the process of measuring. Saint Augustine claimed that 'to ascend the path towards wisdom, we discover that numbers transcend our mind and remain unchangeable in their own'. Numbers had an ethereal existence. Augustine, Ambrose, Macrobius, Marcianus Capella, Isidore, Boethius, Thierry of Chartres, Abelard and many others praised the divine quality of particular numbers at length. Numbers were a model for theology and an analogy of creation. This paper examines the manifestation of this number symbolism in early medieval art, literature and architecture