Victor, see De Sacrementis, lib i, pars
i; also, Annotat, Elucidat in Pentateuchum, cap. v, vi, vii; for St.
Hilary, see De Trinitate, lib. xii; for St. Thomas Aquinas, see his
Summa Theologica, quest lxxxiv, arts. i and ii; the passage in the
Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493, is in fol. iii; for Vousset, see his Discours
sur l'Histoire Universelle; for the sacredness of the number seven among
the Babylonians, see especially Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das
Alte Testament, pp. 21,22; also George Smith et al.; for general ideas
on the occult powers of various numbers, especially the number seven,
and the influence of these ideas on theology and science, see my chapter
on astronomy. As to medieaval ideas on the same subject, see Detzel,
Christliche Ikonographie, Frieburg, 1894, pp. 44 and following.

The early reformers accepted and developed the same view, and Luther
especially showed himself equal to the occasion. With his usual boldness
he declared, first, that Moses "spoke properly and plainly, and neither
allegorically nor figuratively," and that therefore "the world with all
creatures was created in six days." And he then goes on to show how, by
a great miracle, the whole creation was also instantaneous.

Melanchthon also insisted that the universe was created out of nothing
and in a mysterious way, both in an instant and in six days, citing the
text: "He spake, and they were made."

Calvin opposed the idea of an instantaneous creation, and laid especial
stress on the creation in six days: having called attention to the
fact that the biblical chronology shows the world to be not quite
six thousand years old and that it is now near its end, he says that
"creation was extended through six days that it might not be tedious for
us to occupy the whole of life in the consideration of it."

Peter Martyr clinched the matter by declaring: "So important is it to
comprehend the work of creation that we see the creed of the Church take
this as its starting point. Were this article taken away there would be
no original sin, the promise of Christ would become void, and all the
vital force of our religion would be destroyed." The Westminster divines
in drawing up their Confession of Faith specially laid it down as
necessary to believe that all things visible and invisible were created
not only out of nothing but in exactly six days.

Nor were the Roman divines less strenuous than the Protestant reformers
regarding the necessit