references to the 7 evil spirits (Mt 12^', Mk 16^^^, Lk 8- 11-'') ; in the question of the Sadducees about the 7 brothers (Mt 22^5 etc. ) ; and in the pas.sages alluded to in the Book of Jubilees. — (6) Seven often expressed the idea of roiu^deteness. So in 7 churches, 7 parables of the Kingdom, the 7 Beati- tudes above mentioned, perhaps in the 7 loaves and the 7 disciples, and some of the passages referred to in the Books of Enoch. This use of 7 in the ancient East is directly attested by some cuneiform texts which explain a sign consisting of 7 wedges as mean- ing 'totality',' 'whole' (Zimmern in Bussjisal/nen, p. 73). — (c) Seven was for the Jews and all their neighbours from early times a sacred number. In our Lord's day tliere were manj' features of Jewish religious life which kept the sacredness of 7 con- tinuall}^ before the mind : the observance of the 7th day and the 7th year ; the 7 days of unleavened bread and of the Feast of Tabernacles ; the 7 sprinklings of the leper (Lv 14") ; the 7 sprinklings of the blood of the bullock in the Holj' of Holies on the Day of Atonement (Lv 16'^) ; the 7 he- lambs prescribed as an ofi'ering for several im- portant occasions (Nu 28ii- 1"- 2' 29^) ; the 7 days of seclusion for uncleanness or suspected uncleanness (Lv 13^-«-^6 149 15i»- 19- 24- -8, Nu 121^-15 etc.); the sevenfold march round the altar on the 7th day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Mishna, Sukkah iv. 4) ; and the seven-branched candlestick in the Temple (Jos. Ant. III. vi. 7, the Arch of Titus). For all classes of Jewish society in the period of our Lord's ministry the number 7 was inseparably associated with the most solemn seasons and the most im- portant acts of worship. There is no direct illus- tration of this sacredness of 7 in the Gospels, but it can be confidently traced in Apocalyptic imagery : in the 7 candlesticks (Rev V^- 2" 2') which evidently allude to the seven-branched candlestick in the Temple, and in the 7 horns of the Lamb, and the 7 eyes which are the 7 spirits of God sent out into all tlie earth ( Rev 5^, cf . 4^). In non-canonical litera- ture it is found in the 7 heavens and the 7 angels, and in the remarkable description in the so-called Fourth Book of Maccabees of the 7 brothers put to death by Antiochus Epiphanes as a most holy 7 (7ra>'a7ia av/j-cpibviov ad€\<pu)v e^do/nds), who circled round piety in choral dance like the 7 days of creation round the number 7 (14^^-, according to the emended text followed by Deissmann in Kautzsch's Pseudepigraphen, p. 169). The rise and development of these shades of meaning, which to some extent melt into one another (for the use of 7 as the number of completeness was probably connected with its sacred use, and its employment as a round number may have been facilitated by the other uses), are questions which hardly come within the range of this article, as the process must have been completed millenniums before the Chris- tian era. Seven is distinctly a sacred number in the inscriptions of Gudea the ruler of Lagash some centuries before the time of Abraham {RP, new series, ii. 83, 94 li'. ). Whatever the primary impulse, whether the observation of the phases of the moon, or of the 7 planets, or of the 7 brightest stars of the Pleiades, or of the 7 stars of Arcturus, or of the 7 stars of the Great Bear, which all attracted the attention of early star-gazers, the Jews of our Lord's age (with a few exceptions) will have used the number simply as their fathers had used it for many generations, as they found it in ritual, in proverbial lore (Pr 6i«- ^i 9' 26'«--^ Sir 7^ 2012 35" ^V* 408), in other literature, in history (Jos 6^ Jg 6^ le''- 13, 2 S 24i», 2 K 5'» etc.), and in common life (7 days of the marriage feast, To IP^ . and 7 days of fasting and mourning, 1 S 31^^, Job 2"*, Mded Katon 27''). A few highly educated men associated the number with astral pheno- mena ; the pseudo-Enoch, for example (Slav. Enoch
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30^), and Josephus, who affirms that the 7 lamps of the candlestick imitated the number of the 7 planets {tu>v w\avrtTibv top a.pi.dfxov fiefitfirifjLevoi, Ant. III. vi. 7) ; but most will liave had little or no acquaintance with such speculations.
One use of the number in the Gospels which has been alreadj' brieflj" referred to needs fuller treat- ment. In three or four passages, which are reallj' but two, mention is made of 7 evil s^pirits. Our Lord cast 7 devils or demons out of Maiy Magda- lene (Lk 82, Mk lef'J), and He spoke of an evil spirit which had been cast out as returning with 7 other spirits Avorse than himself (Mt 12^', Lk ll-«). It has been suggested, cautiously by Zimmern (KAT[ZW] 46-2-463), positively by K. C. Thompson of the British Museum {Devils and Evil Sj)irits of Babylonia, i. xliii.), that these 7 are connected in some way with the ca il 7 so often referred to in Babylonian incantations, and identified to some extent witli winds and storms. That the Babj*- lonian belief was widely dift'used in the regions affected bj' Babylonian civilization is probable enough, and that it lingered in one district at any rate into Christian times is attested by a curious Syrian charm cited by Thompson ; but there seems to be no clear allusion to it in the extant Jewish literature of the period inclusive of the time of Christ. The 7 spirits put by Beliar into man, according to the Test, of Reuben (2f.), are mere abstractions. The whole passage seems to be a sort of allegory. And it must be remembered that the Test., as we have it, has been manipulated by a Christian, who would be familiar with the passages in the Gospels under consideration. The use of 7 in the latter can be fully accounted for without any reference to Babylonia.