על בריאת העולם ל״דOn the Account of the World's Creation 34
א׳
1[101] In the region, then, of things discerned by the intellect only, 7 exhibits that which is exempt from movement and from passion; but in that of sensible things a most essential force [in the movements of the planets] from which all earthly things derive advantage, and in the circuits of the moon. How this is we must consider. Begin at 1 and add each number up to 7 and it produces 28. This is a perfect number and equal to the sum of its own factors. And the number produced is the number which brings the moon back to her original form, as she retraces her course by lessening till she reaches the shape from which she began to make perceptible increase; for she increases from her first shining as a crescent till she becomes a half-moon in seven days, then in as many more she becomes full-moon, and again returns the same way like a runner in the double race-course, from the full to the half-moon in seven days as before, then from the half to the crescent in an equal number of days: these four sets of days complete the aforesaid number.
ב׳
2[102] Now by those who are in the habit of giving words their proper force seven is called also “perfection-bringing,” because by this all things in the material universe are brought to perfection. Proof of this may be derived from the circumstance that every organic body has three dimensions, length, breadth, and depth, and four limits, point, line, surface, and solid; by adding which together we get seven. It would have been impossible that bodies should be measured by seven in accordance with their formation out of the three dimensions and the four limits, had it not been that the forms of the first numbers (1, 2, 3, and 4), the foundation of 10, already contained the nature of 7, for the numbers named have three intervals, that from 1 to 2, that from 2 to 3, and that from 3 to 4; and the four limits between which these intervals lie, 1, 2, 3, and 4.