five senses.'" In another passage, Keble deals with an even more recondite question. He quotes the teaching of St. Barnabas that "Abraham, who first gave men circumcision, did thereby perform a spiritual and typical action, looking forward to the Son." St. Barnabas's argument is as follows: Abraham circumcised of his house men to the number of 318. Why 318? Observe first the 18, then the 300. Of the two letters which stand for 18, 10 is represented by I, 8 by H. "Thou hast here," says St. Barnabas, "the word of Jesus." As for the 300, "the Cross is represented by Tau, and the letter Tau represents that number." Unfortunately, however, St. Barnabas's premise was of doubtful validity, as the Rev. Mr. Maitland pointed out, in a pamphlet impugning the conclusions of the Tract. "The simple fact is," he wrote, "that when Abraham pursued Chedorlaomer 'he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen.' When, more than thirteen (according to the common chronology, fifteen) years after, he circumcised 'all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger,' and, in fact, every male who was as much as eight days old, we are not told what the number amounted to. Shall we suppose (just for the sake of the interpretation) that Abraham's family had so dwindled in the interval as that now all the males of his household, trained men, slaves, and children, equalled only and exactly the number of his warriors 15 years before?" The question seems difficult to answer, but Keble had, as a matter of fact, forestalled the argument in the following passage, which had apparently escaped the notice of the Rev. Mr. Maitland. "Now whether the facts were really so or not (if it were, it was surely by special providence), that Abraham's household at the time of the circumcision was exactly the same number as before; still the argument of St. Barnabas will stand. As thus: circumcision had from the beginning a reference to our Saviour, as in other respects, so in this; that the mystical number, which is
