The foregoing applications of the number seven be- come of great practical importance in connection with the interpretation of some of the prophetical portions of the Bible, and particularly of the Apocalypse. For in this latter book the ever-recurring number seven both serves as the mould which has decided the external form of the work, and also, to a certain degree, pene- trates into the essence of it. We have but to run over the chief subjects of that book — the seven churches, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven vials, the seven angels, the seven sinrits before the throne, the seven horns and seven eyes of the Laml), etc. — in order to see the necessity of deciding whotlier the niunber is to be accepted in a literal or a metaphorical sense — in other words, whether it represents a number or a qual- ity. The decision of this (picstion affects not oidy the number seven, but also the number which stands in a relation of antagonism to seven, viz. the half of seven, which appears under the form of forty-two months, — Si years (Uev. xiii, 5); twelve hundred and sixty days, also=3i years (xi, 8; xii, G); and, again, a time, times, and half a time, =3| years (xii, 14). We find this num- ber fre(juently recurring in the Old Test., as in the forty- two stations of the wilderness (Numb, xxxiii); the three and a half years of the famine in Jilijah's time (Luke
iv, 25); the "time, times, and the dividing of time," during which the persecution of Antiochus Epiphane.s was to last (Dan. vii, 25), a similar period being again described as " the midst of the week," i. e. the half of seven years (ix, 27); "a time, times, and a half" (xii, 7); and again, probably, in the number of days speci- fied in Dan. viii, 14; xii, 11, 12. If the number seven express the notion of completeness, then the number half-seven = incompleteness and the secondary ideas of suffering and disaster: if the one represent divine agen- cy, the other we may expect to represent human agency. Mere numerical calculations would thus, in regard to unfulfilled prophecy, be either wholly superseded, or, at all events, take a subordinate position to the general idea conveyed. — Smith. See Journal nf Sacred Liter- ature, Oct. 1851, p. 134 sq. ; New- Eii)jlander, No. 1858. See NujiDiiii.
Seven Capital Sins. See Seven Deadly Sixs.
Seven Chief Virtues, The. According to the teaching of the Koman Catholic Church, these virtues are faith, hope, charity, prudence, temperance, chastity, and fortitude.
Seven Days After, the term by which the octave of a festival is described in the Book of Common Prayer. Thus the proper prefaces in the communion service, ex- cept that for Trinity Sunday, are to be said upon certain days, and, likewise, during seven daj's afterwards. — Lee, Glossary of Litnry. Terms, s. v.
Seven Deadly Sins, The, as defined by the Romish Church, are pride, anger, envy, sloth, lust, cov- etousness, and gluttony.
Seven Dolors or the Blessed Yikgin Mary,
Feast of, a modern festival of the Koman Catholic Church, which, although bearing the name of devotion to the Virgin Mary, in reality regards those incidents in the life and passion of Christ with which his mother is most closely associated. 'I'his festival is celebrated on the Friday preceding Palm-Sunday (q. v.). The "Dolors," or sorrows, of the Blessed Virgin, have long been a favorite theme of Roman Catholic devotion, of which the pathetic Stabat Mater Dolorosa is the best- known and most popular expression; and the festival of the Seven Dolors is intended to individualize the incidents of her sorrows, and to present them for medi- tation. The seven incidents referred to under the title of "Dolors" are: 1. The prediction of Simeon (Luke ii, 34) ; 2. The flight into Egypt; 3. Tlie loss of Jesus in Jerusalem ; 4. The sight of Jesus bearing his cross to- wards Calvary; 5. The sight of Jesus upon the cross; 0. The piercing of his side with the lance ; 7. His burial. This festival was instituted by pope Benedict XIII in 172.5. — Chambers's Encyclop. s. v.
Seven Heroes of Thebes. See Thebes, Seven IIeuoes of.
Seven Sacraments. The Council of Trent, session 7, canon i, says, " If an}- one shall say that the sacraments of the new law were not all instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, or that they are more or less than seven — to wit, baptism, confirmation, the eu- charist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matri- mony— or even that any one of these seven is not truly and projierly a sacrament, let him be anathema." See Sackamext.
Seven Sleepers, the heroes of a celebrated leg- end, first related by Gregory of Tours at the close of the Gth century (^L)e Gloria Ma7fyriim, c. 9G) ; but the date of which is assigned to the 3d century and to the persecution of the Cliristians under Decius. According to the narrative, seven Christians of Ephesus took refuge in a cave near the city, where they were discovered by their pursuers, who walled up tlio entrance in order to starve them to death. A miracle, however, was inter- posed in their behalf: they fell into a iircternatural sleep, in which they lay for nearly two hundred years. The concealment is supposed to have taken place in 250 or