Chap. iii.—Why
the inspired books are twenty-two in
number. From the same volume on the 1st
Psalm
As we are dealing with numbers, and every number has among real
existences a certain significance, of which the Creator of the universe made
full use as well in the general scheme as in the arrangement of the details, we
must give good heed, and with the help of the Scriptures trace their meaning,
and the meaning of each of them. Nor must we fail to observe that not without
reason the canonical books are twenty-two, according to the Hebrew tradition,
the same in number as the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. For as the twenty-two
letters may be regarded as an introduction to the wisdom and the Divine
doctrines given to men in those characters, so the twenty-two inspired books
are an alphabet of the wisdom of God and an introduction to the knowledge of
realities. (The Philocalia of Origen [trans. George Lewis; Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1911], 34)
