RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Seven Dolors
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
(vi. 9-13), the seven parables (Matt, xiii.), and the seven woes (Matt, xxiii). The apostolic epistles contain the following noteworthy heptads: seven afflictions and seven gifts (Rom. viii. 35, xii. 6-8); seven qualities of heavenly wisdom (James iii. 17) ; and seven virtues proceeding from faith (II Pet. i. 5-8). The Apocalypse is especially rich in heptads, not only latent (e.g., v. 12, vi. 15, vii. 12, xix. 18, xxi. 8), but explicit, as seven churches (ii.-iii.), seven seals (v. 1 sqq.), seven trumpets (viii. 2 sqq.), seven thunders (x. 3-4), seven angels (xv. 1 sqq.), and seven vials of wrath (xvi. 1 sqq.) ; the apocalyptic beast has seven heads and seven diadems (xii. 3, xiii. 1, xvii. 7 sqq.); there are seven spirits before the throne of God (i. 4, iii. 1, iv. 5, v. 6).
The Church Fathers dealt largely with the number seven, basing their theories largely on Judeo- Christian and Neo-Platonic writers. Many of them regarded seven simply as the symbol of 4. In Chris- perfection and of cosmic completion tian Theol- (Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory ology and the Great, and Chrysostom). Others Liturgies, sought more esoteric meaning and exegesis, as Cyprian (De exhortatione martyrii, xi.), who regarded seven as composed of three, to symbolize the creative Trinity, plus four, to typify the four elements of creation; or Gregory the Great (M or alia, xxx. 16), who, in Philonic fashion, made the microcosm man a heptad consisting of three spiritual and four corporeal qualities. To the heptads thus evolved the Middle Ages added, drawing especially from the latent heptads of the Old and New Testaments, and from the explicit heptads of the Apocalypse. The heptad of the seven mortal sins was definitely formulated by Gregory the Great and Isidore of Seville. Analogies were formed after the eleventh century in the seven cardinal virtues (first definitely fixed by Hugo of St. Victor and Peter the Lombard), the seven gifts of the Spirit (on the basis of Isa. xi. 2), the seven beatitudes (instead of the eight of Matt. v. 3 sqq.), the seven words on the cross, the seven sacraments, the seven joys and the seven dolors of the Virgin, the seven works of bodily mercy (based on Matt. xxv. 31 sqq.), and the seven works of spiritual mercy. Liturgies also developed heptads, especially as the ritual of the Old Testament furnished an abundance of precedents and motives. At an early date the seven canonical hours were introduced on the basis of Psalms cxix. 164, combined with Psalms lv. 17 and Dan. vi. 10; and the sevenfold orders of the clergy are ancient. Here, too, belong the seven salutations of the people by the priest at the mass, the reckoning of the Sundays in Lent as seven, the seven deacons at pontifical mass, and the like. A number of groups of seven saints in the calendar are medieval in origin, but some go back to an early date, as the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (q.v.), and probably the twice seven "Helpers in Need" (q.v.). Speculative philosophy long continued to operate with the number seven, especially in the realm of natural philosophy, borrowing much from the Talmud and the Cabala (qq.v.) as late as the seventeenth century. Here belong the names of Agrippa of Nettesheim, Paracelsus, V. Weigel, Jakob Bohme, and von Helmont, as in the seven " elemental spirits "
of Paracelsus: elementary body, Archeus or Mumia siderial man or Evestrum, animal spirit, intelligent soul, spirit-ocean, and man of the New Olympus. Similar juggling with heptads is not uncommon in modern theosophical treatises with their frequent dependence on the concepts of the Cabala.
(O. ZoCKLERf.) Bibliography: On the ethnic use of the number note: R. von Ihering, Evolution of the Aryan, p. 113, London, 1897; F. von Andrian, in Mitteilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, xxxi (1901), pp. 225-274; W. H. Roscher, in Philologus, 1901, pp. 260-273 (on the number among the Greeks); idem, in the Abhandlungen of the Saxon Academy, xxi. no. 4, and xxiv. For the Biblical usage consult in general the commentaries on the passages, as the works on Biblical theology; also: K. C. W. F. Bahr, Symbolik des mosaischen Cultus, i. 119-208, Heidelberg, 1837; C. Auber, Hist, et theorie du symbolisme religieux, i. 97-155, Paris, 1870; J. A. Martigny, Dictionnaire des antiquites chretiennes, pp. 503-504, Paris, 1877; R. Samuel, Seven, the Sacred Number, London, 1887 (not reliable); H. Gunkel, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verstiindniss des N. T.'s, Gottingen, 1903; T. K. Cheyne, Bible Problems and the New Material for their Solution, pp. 57 sqq., London, 1904; E. Schurer, in ZNTW, 1905, pp. 1-66; DB, iii. 562-563, 565; EB, iii. 3436-37; JE, ix. 349; Vigouroux, Dictionnaire, fasc. xxviii., cols. 1677-97. On the number in post-Christian times consult: G. M. Dursch, Der symbolische Charakter des christlichen Religion, ii. 536, Schaffhausen, 1859; R. Cruel, Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter, pp. 522 sqq., Detmold, 1879; C. Kiesewetter, Geschichte der neueren Occultismus, ii. 16 sqq., 59 sqq., Leipsic, 1891; J. Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchengebaudes, pp. 61—78, Freiburg, 1902; O. Zockler, Die Tugendlehre des Christentums, pp. 99 sqq., 243 sqq., Giitersloh, 1904; and the literature under Numbers, Sacred.
SEVEN SLEEPERS OF EPHESUS, ef 'e-sus : According to Gregory of Tours (De gloria martyrum, xciv.), whose account is based upon an old Syrian version of the legend, seven Christian youths at Ephesus, during the persecution under Decius (250), took refuge in a cave just outside the city. At the emperor's command the heathen sealed up the cave. Instead, however, of perishing the youths fell into a sleep, from which they awakened nearly two hundred years later, when some of the stones happened to be removed from the entrance. In the presence of Theodosius II. and Bishop Maximus they reaffirmed their Christian faith and then expired, to sleep till the end of the world.
In its details the legend varies considerably. The supposed duration of the sleep ranges from 175 to 197 years, while the date of the miracle is given as Aug. 4, or Oct. 22, by the Greeks, and June 27, or July 27, by the Latins. Also the names of the sleepers differ in the Greek, Latin, and Ethiopic versions, and some accounts make the number of sleepers eight. According to occidental tradition their names were, Maximianus, Malchus, Martinianus, Dionysius, Johannes, Serapion, and Constantinus. Recent attempts to trace the legend to its source have not led to any consensus of opinion. It has been regarded (1) as purely Christian in its origin (Baronius, Cuypers, Stadler); (2) as developed from a pre-Christian and heathen nucleus, modified by the death of certain Christians in a cave during the Decian persecution (Koch, Bernoulli) ; (3) as a modification of the Hellenic myth of Endymion, united with an original Syrian legend (Clermont- Ganneau) ; (4) as pre-Christian, but purely Jewish, in its origin (Cassel). (O. ZocKLERf.)
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