There were in Greece two young rakes, who were told by the oracle to beware of the _melampygos_ or _sable posteriors_. One day Hercules took them and tied them by the feet to the end of his club, so that they hung down his back with their heads downward, like a couple of rabbits, having a full view of his person. "Ah!" said they; "the oracle is accomplished; this is the _melampygos_." Hercules fell alaughing, and let them go. Here again it would be rather difficult to divine the moral sense. Among the fathers of mythology there were some who had only imagination; but the greater part of them possessed understandings of no mean order. Not all our academies, not all our makers of devices, not even they who compose the legends for the counters of the royal treasury, will ever invent allegories more true, more pleasing, or more ingenious, than those of the Nine Muses, of Venus, the Graces, the God of Love, and so many others, which will be the delight and instruction of all ages. The ancients, it must be confessed, almost always spoke in allegories. The earlier fathers of the church, the greater part of whom were Platonists, imitated this method of Plato's. They have, indeed, been reproached with having carried this taste for allegories and allusions a little too far. St. Justin, in his "Apology," says that the sign of the cross is marked in the limbs and features of man; that when he extends his arms there is a perfect cross; and that his nose and eyes form a cross upon his face. According to Origen's explanation of Leviticus, the _fat_ of the victims signifies _the Church_, and the _tail_ is a symbol of _perseverance_. St. Augustine, in his sermon on the difference and agreement of the two genealogies of Christ, explains to his auditors why St. Matthew, although he reckons forty-two generations, enumerates only forty-one. It is, says he, because _Jechonias_ must be reckoned twice, Jechonias having gone from Jerusalem to Babylon. This journey is to be considered as the corner-stone; and if the corner-stone is the first of one side of a building, it is also the first of the other side; consequently this stone must be reckoned twice; and therefore Jechonias must be reckoned twice. He adds that, in the forty-two generations, we must dwell on the number _forty_, because that number signifies _life_. The number _ten_ denotes _blessedness_, and _ten_ multiplied by _four_, which represents the four elements and the four seasons, produces _forty_. In his fifty-third sermon, the dimensions of matter have astonishing properties. Breadth _is the dilation of the heart_, length is _long-suffering_, height is _hope_, and depth is _faith_. So that, besides the allegory, we have four dimensions of matter instead of three.