Luke 6:13

13. Chose twelve The successive stages of apostolic induction are, first, the admitting to a more intimate association of one and another as disciples, John 1:35-51; second, a choice of one or several at a time to be strictly his intimate followers in order to be his future preachers, Luke 5:1-11; third, the formation of the whole into an organism of twelve, under the title of apostles, as specified in the present verse; fourth, a sending of them forth upon a trial mission, Matthew 10:1-42; fifth, their endowment with the apostolic keys, Matthew 16:13-20; sixth, their qualification for the exercise of their inspired and miraculous apostolic authority by the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit. Acts 2:4. Under these officers the apostolic Church was formed, the inspired Gospels and Epistles were written, and the canon of the New Testament was selected and fixed for the Church of the future.

Whom also he named apostles They had before been friends and disciples; now he appropriates for their wearing the new and illustrious church-title, APOSTLES. It is to be noted that in the following catalogue their names are given by couples, doubtless to indicate how they were assorted in sending them forth two by two. First, then, were the two brothers of Bethsaida, Simon and Andrew; next the second pair of Bethsaidan brothers, cousins to Jesus, James and John; then Philip and Nathaniel surnamed Bartholomew.

See SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE below.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE TO Luke 6:13 .

The Sacred Numbers.

The choosing of the Twelve suggests the subject of the Sacred Numbers apparent in Scripture. (See Stuart on the Apocalypse, vol. ii, p. 409.)

The decimal numbers, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc., are obviously founded on the practical ease and beauty of these numbers, which have rendered them the basis of arithmetic the world over. Assuming the unit as the seed of numbers, then the unit added to THREE makes the sacred FOUR, (3+1=4;) THREE added to FOUR makes the SEVEN, (3+4=7;) and THREE into FOUR makes TWELVE, (3x4=12.)

NUMBER THREE.

Three is emphatically the divine number, as indicative of the Creator, or original being God. The divine substance, being pure, original, simple, spiritual substance, is unit. This God incommunicable the dim background of Deity, generates a Revealer or manifested self, and thence a third all-pervading Effluence. In this and other modes, perhaps all the great primary religions of the world, from the eastern verge of China to the western shore of Ireland, nay, including the continent of America, are more or less clearly TRINITARIAN.

In the Hindoo theology Para-Brama is the background, who developes into Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu, the Preserver, and Shiva, the Destroyer and Renewer. Among the Buddhists, we have the Trine Buddhas, the Revealer, Dharmas, the Revealed, and Sanghas, the hosts who obey revelation. In the Chaldee oracles, it is said, “Unity hath produced a second, which dwells in it and shines in intellectual light; from this proceeds a third, which shines through the whole world.” The Phenician theology assigns to the universe a triplet principium Jupiter, that is, the heavens, the earth, and love, which unites the two. Among the Chinese, the name of deity is Tao; that is, the Three-one. The celebrated Tao-Tsee says that “Tao [the original godhead] is by his nature one; but the first has produced a second; the second a third; and these three have created all things.” Among the Persians, from Zervane Akerene, or the Uncreated Time, was generated Oromasd, the good, and Ahriman, the evil. They also had Mithras as mediator-god between the good and evil, to whom they assigned the triangle as a symbol. Among the Egyptians, from Athor, or the original Night, were the three, Kneph, Phthas, and Osiris; which, in the natural world, are symbolized by light, fire, and sun; and in the ideal world by omnipotence, wisdom, and goodness.

Among the Greeks and Romans the number three often appears in sacred things. Virgil (Eclog. 8:73) says: “These three threads, diversified by three different colours, I bind around; three times I carry the effigy around these altars; the god delights in this uneven number.” This Servius, the ancient commentator, identifies with “the threefold number that [the Romans] assigned to the supreme god, from whom is the beginning, middle, and end.” Plutarch, (de Isid., c. 46:) the greatest and divinest nature consists of three. And Plato (de Leg. 4:716) says: “God, according to the ancient saying, contains the beginning, the end, and the middle of all things.”

Among the Hebrews no mere impersonal god, or abstract divine substance, appears. Nor does the Old Testament distinctly and explicitly reveal a trinity, as such. Still an occult plurality in the Godhead seems implied in various ways. The ordinary term for deity is Elohim, which is a plural noun. Says Simon Ben Joachi, an ancient rabbi, as quoted by Dr. Clark on Genesis 1:1: “Come, see the mystery of the word Elohim; there are three degrees, and each degree by itself alone; and yet they are all one, and joined together in one, and not divided from each other.” In view of this fact, and the plural name, Elohim, we cannot but recognize a reference to this occult divine plurality in the phrases in Genesis: Let US make man, Let US go down, Become like one of US. The trine benediction in Numbers 6:24-26 illustrates the triple nature of this plurality, to which we may parallel as a beautiful interpretation the Christian benediction, so properly used in dismissing our congregations, 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” etc.; as well as the formula of baptism, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The trisagion or thrice-holy of Isaiah, Holy, Holy, Holy, (chap. Luke 6:3,) repeated Revelation 4:8, have the same occult reference, and in this last passage the trine description of eternity, which is, and was, and is to come, being an expansion of the meaning of the word Jehovah, develops an occult trinity even in that incommunicable name.

The triangle, as symbolical of Deity, is a most expressive image of the trine nature. It is in use among the Hindoos. A triangle, with its point upward, is the symbol of Shiva; with the point downward, of Vishnu. Among the Chinese the same symbol is used for the divinities. A tripod they call spirit, from its symbolical signification. This visible and tangible emblem conveys to us a very vivid impression of the general faith of the religious world in a trinity of the divine nature.

THE SACRED NUMBER FOUR.

As the number three indicated God, so the number four indicated the creation. For four contains and depends upon three for its existence, and yet requires a unit to be added to make it different from three. As three represents the divine, so four represents the created or mundane. The followers of that most ancient of Greek theosophists, Pythagoras, paid mystic regard to the number four; invented for it a peculiar name, the Tetraktys, by which they swore. The tetraktys they held to be an emblem of the kosmos, or the universal order or creation. This is a most obvious idea; for the square is the most orderly of figures. A surface of squares, unlike a surface of circular figures, will adjust or square to each other, without interspace or discrepancy. Besides, all solids were conceived to have the four dimensions length, breadth, height, and depth. And the most perfect of all solids and the most perfect emblem of the kosmos, the CUBE, “consists of fours throughout.”

This relation between the four and the kosmos being once the starting-point, we might expect that four would be detected in various arrangements of the world. Four are the elements earth, air, fire, and water. Four are the cardinal points whose lines intersect the globe. Four are the seasons that sweep over its face. The biblical use of the number four is not as plentiful and decided as of some other numbers. Four quarters or points are assigned to the heavens and to the earth Ezekiel 7:2; Zechariah 1:18-21; Revelation 7:1; Revelation 20:8. The heavens are divided into four great constellations Job 9:9; Job 38:31. In the vision of Ezekiel, chap. 1, as well as in Revelation, there appears the clearest reference to the four of creation. The four living creatures, which seem in fact to be symbols of the creation, and several other fours embraced in this vision, receive much elucidation from our discussion.

THE SACRED NUMBER SEVEN.

Commentators have been in the habit of saying, without exactly knowing the meaning of their own words, certainly without knowing their full meaning, that the number seven is “a number of completeness and perfection.” How it is any more a number of completeness and perfection than six, eight, or ten, they have not proceeded to show. But from the views here presented, a meaning comes into their words. Seven is (3+4=7) the sum of three and four, and thus embraces in its comprehension the entire sum of existence, both God and creation Theos and kosmos. This is, therefore, most truly a number of completeness and perfection.

The act of the creation shows God and kosmos in combination. It is the Great Three involving the Great Four, and thus running through the Great Seven. The great week of creation, Genesis ii, then, is simply the great periods in which the seven is coming into complete expansion.

“The mystical square of the Hindoos, which is used as an amulet.” says Stuart, “is designed to represent the world. It contains three rows of squares (a union of three and four) joined together and marked with unit numbers, so that if read in any direction the sum of them is fifteen. The form [embracing the nine digits] is thus:

The number five thus occupies the middle station and designates the soul of the world; the other numbers designate the world; the even ones the earthly elements; the uneven ones the heavenly elements. Man, as an image of the world, a real μικροκοσμος , [ microcosm or little world, ] is drawn by the Hindoos upon this magic square with his hands and feet extended to the four corners.”

And it is through the creative week that we develop the almost uniform use to which we see the number seven applied, namely, as a measure of the time of any completed sacred performance. The order of ideas, as we should trace it, is as follows: First. Seven, as the sacred 3+4, is the measure of the accomplishment of the 3+4 in creation. Second. It becomes, thence, in a reduced pattern, the measure of the ordinary week; and thence, Third. It becomes the measure of other holy seasons or rounds of sacred performance. Hence it became a ritual number. Seven days was the feast of the passover kept. After a lapse of seven days circumcision was performed. Purification from touch of a corpse lasted seven days. These are but a small part of the instituted performance of seven -day duties. On the seventh month was the holy convocation at the feast of trumpets. (Numbers 29:1.) Seven weeks after the wave offering Pentecost commenced. After seven times seven years was the jubilee. The blood of propitiation was sprinkled seven times. So that there was not only the seven or week of days, but the week of months and the week of years. And there was not only the week of times but the week of things.

The week being thus an established measure, its number of seven becomes a measure of anything of a sacred character within a fair proportion. The seventh year gave Jacob his wife, and the seventh year emancipated any Hebrew servant. Wedding feasts were seven days. Seven years was Solomon building the temple. Jericho was taken with a storm of sevens. Cain was to have a sevenfold vengeance, and Lamech seventy sevens. God will chasten seven times, Leviticus 26:28; and Israel shall flee seven ways, Deuteronomy 28:7; Deuteronomy 28:25. Pharaoh’s dreams abounded in sevens. Sevens of clean animals entered the ark seven days before the flood commenced. The same number out of the circle of Hebraisms is sacredly used by Balaam. (Numbers 23:1.) It was used in the times and land of Job. (Job 5:19.) It is even a sacred number with regal Babylon. (Daniel 3:19; Daniel 4:16.)

From this train of thought we have a clear illustration of the original establishment, the patriarchal retention, the wide diffusion of the week -division, and the consequent perpetual obligation of the sabbath or weekly sacred rest. Perhaps the change from the Jewish to the Christian week might herefrom be also shown to be an easy idea. Other suggestions arise which we must here omit.

In the New Testament, besides Mark 8:8, and Luke 8:2, and Luke 11:26, the Apocalypse is profuse of symbolic sevens. Seven are the Churches of Asia, the spirits before the throne, the golden candlesticks, the stars, the eyes which are the spirits of God, the horns and eyes of the lamb, the uttering thunders, the seals, the trumpets, the vials, the heads and crowns of the dragon, the heads of the beast, the hills and kings of Rome. The clearest chronological prophecy of the Messiah in the entire Old Testament, that of Daniel 9:25, embraces a period of seventy sevens.

The half of seven appears in several of the numbers which figure largely in prophetic expositions. Half-seven years are the three years and six months of Luke 4:25; James 5:17; the forty-two months of Revelation 11:2; Revelation 13:5; the time, times, and half time of Daniel 7:25; Daniel 12:7; Revelation 12:14; and the 1260 days of Revelation 11:13; Revelation 12:6. Twice seven appears thrice in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus; a clear indication of its constructive character. See note on Matthew 1:17.

THE SACRED NUMBER TWELVE.

As three added to four is so eminent a sacred number, so three multiplying four (3x4=12) is bound to be, at least in some degree, sacred. But the distinctive nature of these different sacred figures has hardly been clearly noted. As unit is primary, unwrought, simple substance, so three is the divine number, four the mundane number, seven the ritual number, and twelve the governmental number. This product of the 3x4 found a happy coincidence for itself, first, in the twelve signs of the zodiac, within which the sun’s course is circumscribed, and the twelve annual moon-changes or months; and, perhaps, derives thence something of its governmental character. Its next coincidence is found with the twelve sons of Jacob, and thence the twelve tribes of Israel. In this its governmental character was completed. But many of the ancient governmental conformities to this number were clearly to be derived from the Israelite twelvedom of tribes. And we see that an anxious respect was paid to this number when the generational basis in some measure failed. The tribe of Levi had no allotment of territory, and Joseph’s two sons were called in to make up the complement of the twelve states. So in Revelation 7:0, where the idolatrous tribe of Dan is expunged and Levi counted, the deficit is supplied in the same way.

Twelve were the Arabian tribes descended from Ishmael, and twelve the Saracen tribes, even to the time of Mohammed. Twelve were the most ancient Egyptian dynasties. Twelve states formed the Ionian confederacy. Twelve were the associations of Achaians in Peloponnesus; twelve the towns founded by Cecrops in Attica; twelve were the tables of Roman law; by twelves the Etrurians classified their magistrates; twelve were the parts of Plato’s Republic; twelve the counsellors of the Phaeacian king, and twelve the ancient members of the court of Areopagus.

“In the Scriptures,” says Professor Stuart, “we might naturally expect to find the number twelve often introduced on account of the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus in Exodus 15:27, twelve. fountains of water at Elim; Exodus 24:4, twelve pillars around the altar; Leviticus 24:5, twelve cakes of showbread; Exodus 28:10; Exodus 28:21, twelve gems in the breastplate of the high priest; Numbers 7:3; Numbers 7:87; Numbers 29:17, offerings of different kinds by twelves; Numbers 7:84-87, various vessels to be made for the temple by twelves; Numbers 13:3, seq., twelve spies to the land of Canaan; Joshua 4:3, twelve stones from the Jordan, carried by twelve men and thrown into a monumental heap; 1 Kings 4:7; 1 Kings 4:26, twelve prefects of Solomon’s household, and twelve thousand horsemen; 1 Kings 7:25, twelve brazen oxen supporting the laver; 1 Kings 10:20, twelve brazen lions near the throne; Ezekiel 43:16, the altar twelve cubits long and broad; not to mention many other twelves. In the New Testament the twelve apostles take the lead. In the Apocalypse we have twelve thousand in each of the twelve tribes, who are sealed in the forehead as the servants of God. (Revelation 7:4, seq.) In Revelation 21:12, seq., we have an account of the New Jerusalem with twelve gates, (comp. Ezekiel 48:31, seq.,) and twelve angels to keep them, and the names of the twelve tribes are written on them; there are also twelve rows of stones in the foundation of the walls, on which the names of the twelve apostles are inscribed. Besides all this the city measures twelve thousand furlongs, and its walls are twelve times twelve cubits high.”

That our Saviour intended the number of his twelve apostles to symbolize with the twelve patriarchs, is, we think, clear, from the symbolical promise, that they should “sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Matthew 19:28. The same care for the preservation of the duodecimal number of patriarchal tribes reappears in the preservation of the apostolic number, by the election of Matthias in the place of Judas. That there is a divine idea in this, is evident from the symbolical usages in the Apocalypse. In Revelation 12:1, the woman that symbolizes the Church has upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And the tree of life, emblem of Gospel grace, has twelve manner of fruits; that is, a monthly harvest, thus combining therein a Mosaical and apostolic allusion.