Josephus[1578] and the Jews in general of Philo’s time were equally devoted to astrology according to Münter, who says: “Only their astrology was subordinated to theism. The one God always appeared as the master of the host of heaven. But they regarded the stars as living divine beings and powers of heaven.”[1579] In the Talmud later we read that the hour of Abraham’s birth was announced by the stars and that he feared from his observations of the constellations that he would go childless. Münter also gives examples of the belief of the rabbis in the influence of the stars upon the destiny of the Jewish people and upon the fate of individual men, and of their belief that a star would announce the coming of the Messiah.[1580] [Sidenote: Perfection of the number seven.] From Philo’s astrology it is an easy step to his frequent reveries concerning the perfection and mystic significance of certain numbers,—a train of thought which was continued by many of the church fathers, and is also found in various pagan writers of the Roman Empire.[1581] Thomas Browne in his enquiry into “Vulgar Errors”[1582] was inclined to hold Philo even more responsible than Pythagoras or Plato for the dissemination of such doctrines. Philo himself recognizes the close connection between astrology and number mysticism, when, after affirming the dependence of all earthly things upon the heavenly bodies, he adds: “It is in heaven, too, that the ratio of the number seven began.”[1583] Philo doubts if it is possible to express adequately the glories of the number seven, but he feels that he ought at least to attempt it and devotes a dozen chapters of his treatise on the creation of the world to it,[1584] to say nothing of other passages. He notes that there are seven planets, seven circles of heaven, four quarters of the moon of seven days each, that such constellations as the Pleiades and Ursa Major consist of seven stars, and that children born at the end of seven months live, while those who see the light in the eighth month die. In diseases the seventh is a critical day. Also there are either seven ages of man’s life, as Hippocrates says, or, in accordance with Solon’s lines, man’s three-score years and ten may be subdivided into ten periods of seven years each. The lyre of seven strings corresponds to the seven planets, and in speech there are seven vowels. There are seven divisions of the head—eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth, seven divisions of the body, seven kinds of motion, seven things seen, and even the senses are seven rather than five if we add the vocal and generative organs.[1585] [Sidenote: And of fifty.]