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Dear Isobel, The best place to look up explanations of biblical numbers as current in Latin exegetical sources (4th-12th cent.) is the following, which has a very rich article on the number seven and less rich one on the number 12: MEYER/SUNTRUP Heinz Meyer / Rudolf Suntrup, Lexikon der mittelalterlichen Zahlenbedeutungen. Mu"nchen: Fink, 1987 (= Mu"nstersche Mit- telalter-Schriften, 56) Even if you don't enjoy reading German you will find enough Latin quotations to make you happy for a while. If your library does not have the LMZ, it probably has the journal _Fru"hmittelalterliche Studien_ where a first version of the article 'Seven' was published: MEYER/SUNTRUP Heinz Meyer / Rudolf Suntrup, Zum Lexikon der Zahlenbedeu- tungen im Mittelalter. Einführung in die Methode und Probe- Artikel: Die Zahl Sieben. In: FMSt 11 (1977), p.1-73 The LMZ is not such a good place for the sort of 'mystic' or ascetic or other religious literature not directly related to the Bible and where numerical arrangements of virtues, vices, steps of purgation or contemplation, sufferings of Christ and Mary etc. became to be particularly abundant in the somewhat later middle ages. For the number 12 you might look, for instance, at Bonaventure's _Lignum vitae_, Opera omnia, t.VIII (1898), p.68-87, which takes it's issue from the tree(s) of life in heavenly paradise "adferens fructus duodecim / per menses singula reddentia fructum suum" (Apc 22,1) and meditates in 12 x 4 chapters on the virtues and achievements of Christ. Otfried --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Otfried Lieberknecht, Schoeneberger Str. 11, D-12163 Berlin Tel.: ++49 30 8516675 (fax on request), E-mail: [log in to unmask] Homepage for Dante Studies: http://members.aol.com/lieberk/welcome.html ORB Dante Alighieri - A Guide to Online Resources: http://orb.rhodes.edu/encyclop/culture/lit/Italian/Danindex.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%