[27] The notion that the Bible is to be explained in this fourfold manner was also propounded by the Jewish doctors generally, long before the existence of the Kabbalah (Comp. Ginsburg, Historical and Critical Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Longman, 1861, p. 30), and has been adopted by some of the fathers and schoolmen. Origen, although only advocating a threefold sense, viz.:—σωματικὸς, ψυχικὸς, πνευματικὸς, to correspond to the Platonic notion of the component parts of man, viz.:—σῶμα, ψυχὴ, πνεῦμα, almost uses the same words as the Kabbalah. “The sentiments of Holy Scriptures must be imprinted upon each one’s soul in a threefold manner, that the more simple may be built up by the flesh (or body) of Scripture, so to speak, by which we mean the obvious explanation; that he who has advanced to a higher state may be edified by the soul of Scripture as it were; but he that is perfect, and like to the individuals spoken of by the Apostle (1 Cor. ii, 6, 7), must be edified by the spiritual law, having a shadow of good things to come. περὶ ἀρχῶν, lib. iv, cap. ii. Comp. Davidson, Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 97. Whilst Nicholas de Lyra, the celebrated commentator and forerunner of the Reformation (born about 1270, died October 23, 1340), distinctly espouses the Jewish four modes of interpretation, which he describes in the following couplet— “Littera gesta docet, quid credas Allegoria, Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.” Comp. Alexander’s edition of Kitto’s Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, s. v. Lyra. [28] The above-mentioned exegetical canons, however, are not peculiar to the Kabbalah. They have been in vogue among the Jews from time immemorial. Thus the difficult passage in Isa. xxi, 8, ‏ויקרא אריה‎ which is rendered in the Authorised Version, and he cried, A lion! or ‘as a lion,’ as the margin has it, is explained by the ancient Jewish tradition as a prophecy respecting Habakkuk, who, as Isaiah foresaw, would in coming days use the very words here predicted. (Comp. Isa. xxi, 8, 9, with Hab. ii, 1); and this interpretation is obtained by rule i; inasmuch as ‏אריה‎ lion and ‏חבקוק‎ Habakkuk are numerically the same, viz.:— ‏ה‎ ‏י‎ ‏ר‎ ‏א‎ and ‏ק‎ ‏ו‎ ‏ק‎ ‏ב‎ ‏ח‎ 5 + 10 + 200 + 1 = 216 and 100 + 6 + 100 + 2 + 8 = 216