IV.—MYSTIC NUMBERS
The Spanish—as before intimated—are a highly imaginative race and incline to look for a mystical meaning or a symbol in everything. It was probably due to this that the Catholic faith, with its elaborate ceremonial, crowded with symbolism, was so fervently embraced by the nation as a whole. For them every event was fraught with an hidden meaning. The enigma of the future, for example, had been written by the mysterious finger of God in the stars. There was a special mystery, again, shrouding certain numbers, particularly three, seven, and nine. Since there were three clases of sins, venial, criminal, and mortal, the priest, in the ceremony of baptism, was to breathe three times in the face of the candidate, conjuring the Devil to leave the body; three times was he to conjure salt and put it in the mouth of the person; and three times must he immerse the infant who was the recipient of the rite. Again there were nine orders of angels, nine also of the clergy—nine being the square of three.[118] But the greatest and most significant of all numbers was seven. There were seven things needed before a church was complete (Partidas, 1-10-14); seven privileges of the prelates over the clergy (1-5-65); seven punishments for crime (7-31-4); seven virtues a king should possess (2-5-7 and 8). Each official must swear to seven things; there are twice seven, or fourteen, joints in the hand, and therefore twice seven articles of faith, as the articles of faith have the same function in the divine hand as the joints in the human (1-3-3). There are seven notes in the musical scale.[119] But to give a just idea of the true significance of this number I can do no better than to quote from the Prólogo of Las Siete Partidas, pages six and seven.