gems exhibit the most monstrous perversions of symbolical representations: the medals of Dioclesian bear a lying symbol of a crushed and expiring Christianity. Later still, new symbols were adopted: mosaics, illuminations, ornaments, all bore some holy emblems. The monogram _ihs_ found in every church in Western Christendom: the corresponding symbol stamps the Eucharistic wafers of the East. [Footnote 15] [Footnote 15: See on this subject the Cambridge Camden Society's 'Argument for the Greek Origin of the Monogram IHS.'] {xxxix} The symbols of the Evangelists were also of very early date, though not, in all cases, appropriated as now: for the angel and the lion fluctuated between S. Matthew and S. Mark. Numbers, too, were fruitful of allegorical meaning; and the most ingenious combinations were used to elicit an esoteric meaning from them. By _one_, the Unity of the Deity was understood: by _two_, the divine and human Natures of the Saviour: by _three_, of course, the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity: by _four_, the doctrine of the Four Evangelists: by _six_, the Attributes of the Deity: _seven_ represented the sevenfold graces of the Holy Spirit: _eight_ (for a reason hereafter to be noticed), Regeneration: _twelve_, the glorious company, the Apostles, and, tropologically, the whole Church. And when a straightforward reference to any of these failed, they were added or combined, till the required meaning was obtained. A single instance may suffice:--S. Augustine, writing on that passage of S. Paul's, 'What? know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?' after explaining (_Expos. super Psalm_. lxxxvi) the twelve thrones, which our Saviour mentions, of the whole Church, as founded by and represented in the Apostles, finds a further meaning. 'The parts of the world be four; the east, the west, the north, and the south:' and (adds the Father) 'they are constantly named in Holy Writ. From these four winds, saith the Lord in the Gospel, shall the elect be gathered together: whence the Church is called from these four parts. Called, and how? By the Trinity. It is not called, except by Baptism, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. So four, multiplied by three, make twelve.' In accidental numbers, too, a meaning was often found. No wonder that some beheld, in the three hundred and eighteen trained servants wherewith Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, routed the combined kings, a type of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers of Nicaea, by whom the Faithful rose triumphant over the Arian heresy. {xl}