Seven

Seven is a 'special', mystical number, the history of which goes way, way back.

In the 6th century Pope Gregory the Great defined a set of seven negative attributes that must be avoided. He instructed the best way to avoid these sins was to adopt seven positive attributes. The three Theological Virtues defined by St. Paul (faith, hope and love) added to the four Cardinal Virtues (prudence, temperance, courage and justice) give us the Seven Heavenly Virtues

(Click image to enlarge)
'The Seven Deadly Sins' by Hieronymus Bosch, 1485
See Seven in Christianity

For the Seven Deadly Sins, there are Seven Contrary Virtues. There are also medieval instructions for helping others, giving us the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy.

There are lots of other sevens too. Initially there were seven Stations of the Cross and there are Seven Sacraments. Seven appears in the Bible much more frequently than other numbers. For example, many times people asked Jesus who He was, and in reply, Jesus compared Himself to different things to help us understand. The Gospel of John records seven of these: the Seven I ams

More details can be seen on our page: Seven in the Church.

The answer is simple:

Paganism

Islam

Hinduism and Buddhism

Seven Samurai

Others

Nature

But that's about as far as it goes. Seven, in fact, is no more a 'natural' number than any other. Numerologists might make similar claims about other numbers, such as:

Two

Three

Four

Five

5 elements:

• Earth or stone (yellow, reserved for royalty)
• Fire (red, marriage and birth rituals)
• Wood (blue)
• Water (black)
• Metal (white, for mourning; hence Chinese wedding dresses are red, not white).

Five wounds Jesus received on the cross.

The five musical notes of the pentatonic scale are also considered the most pleasing to the human ear.

Then there are the five basic 'colours': yellow, red, blue, black and white. The ancient Chinese understood the universe to be based on these five colours (which changed over the years) and they associated 'elements' with these.

(By the way; If one's lonely, two's company, and three's a crowd, then what is four and five? Answer at the bottom of the page³)

Six

Eight

And so on.

Similar claims have been made about other numbers, especially double or triple numbers.

Eleven

Six hundred and sixty six

Of course, seven is not always lucky:

• Many people think there are seven nail holes in a horseshoe - itself a lucky symbol - but actually there are usually eight. Anyway, the hundreds of horseshoes in place for Lt. Colonel Custer's last stand against the Cheyenne in the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn were not lucky for him. His regiment was the Seventh Cavalry. ('Seventh' 7 letters, 'Cavalry' 7 letters)
• In Tenerife at 17.06 on March 27, 1977, a KLM 747 crashed into a PanAm 747 flight number 1736 killing 583 people making this the worst ever plane disaster. On the other hand, since its maiden flight in 1994 the Boeing 777 has had no fatal accidents to date (15th February 2008)
• And whilst talking about flight, here's an old English rhyme about crows and magpies, linking seven with Satan:
  One means anger
  Two means mirth
  Three, a wedding
  Four, a birth
  Five is heaven
  Six is hell
  But seven's the very devil himself.
• One superstition says that if you break a mirror then you will have seven years of bad luck. Unless you bury the broken pieces of course, which will prevent bad luck from striking you. (The bad luck will transfer to whoever accidentally digs up the broken pieces, cuts their hands, and contracts tetanus.)

Whilst seven is not really naturally or supernaturally special, our culture has made it special. Even in corporate culture, the number is popular. 'Seven Principles of Good Practice' frequently pops up in Mission Statements and Harrods staff in London are required to perform 'Seven Steps of Exceptional Service'. (Even on this site, we've identified Seven steps for fixing problems with awkward relatives and friends who insist on 'helping' at your wedding, and Seven steps for dealing with procrastination)

The common misconception that seven is 'lucky' has not escaped the attention of marketing people. Take for example the prominent Seven in the badge of the Seven-Eleven convenience store founded in 1927. See Seven in Commerce for seven other famous brand names, all of which have been hugely successful.

The number seven is popular in literature:

• 'Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils'
• Akira Kurosawa's Shichi-nin no Samurai ('Seven Samurai') and the American copy 'The Magnificent Seven'
• 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'
• 'The Seven Year Itch'
• 'The Seven Deadly Sins'
• Edward Lear's The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple. Each family had seven children but since all the children are treated as one group, there is no reason for there to be seven — other than to capitalise on the popularity of the number.
• Enid Blyton's 'The Secret Seven'

and a few others. (We also wanted to mention Grimms' Fairy Tales 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', 'The Seven Swabians', 'Seven Ravens', but decided to limit the above list to seven titles.)

A quick analysis of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, since those stories are riddled with numbers, reveals that seven is more common than neighbouring numbers:

Seven is also a significant number in Christian literature, Jewish literature and the literature of many other religions. And seven does appear in the Bible much more frequently than adjacent numbers:

(See Seven in the Bible)

1. Click on the image above and do the quick puzzle
2. When you've finished, consider why the puzzle's designer chose seven for the final frame

Yes, the average person may fall asleep in seven minutes and sleep for around seven hours, but we must be cautious in saying this is 'natural'. Primitive man had a completely different lifestyle to ours today and no doubt he had a different sleep pattern.

'Seven' may be the smallest positive integer requiring two syllables in English yet English, as we all know, is full of quirks.

And the opposite sides of a six-sided die always totalling seven might be mildly interesting but it doesn't contribute much to life, unless you are a gambler. Seven is the most common combined number of two rolled dice because of statistical probability; there is nothing supernatural about it.

Courtesy of United States Geological Survey (USGS)

Seven continents, yes, but only in recent history. The planet's land mass above sea level is constantly shifting, merging and splitting, rising and sinking. In the Permian Period (about 250 million years ago) there was effectively just one continent (a pretty big one) and one ocean (even bigger).

Seven seas? Open an atlas and start counting; you will soon find more than seven seas in the world.

There are more than seven celestial bodies. Had there been eight planets visible to the naked eye, no doubt we would have eight days in the week, have an eighth 'Sea' and an extra Wonder⁴. If we take even a cursory look at nature, we see there are an infinite number of wonders.

The moon does change phase every seven days but that is just earth's moon. Countless other planets have moons, each with their own particular behaviour.

Yogis will agree that man has more than seven 'aspects', and these overlap. There are not seven colours in the rainbow; there are six main colour bands and an infinite number of hues. And there are not seven musical notes of the scale in all cultures. Seven was chosen to grade and measure such things, because seven is a number we have become comfortable with.

They don't. Christians value the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for mankind. Seven isn't even worth thinking about.

When Pope Gregory and others introduced seven attributes and sacraments, the important things are the attributes and sacraments, not the number.

Similarly, there is nothing magical about seven in the Bible - it's common sense to speak in familiar terms to the reader. If there were eight days in the week, then the eighth would be the day of rest. The important point is not seven, or eight, or any other number - the point is that we should observe some time for God. We should keep a regular time in our lives to reflect, worship, or whatever our religion requires to prevent us from becoming self-centred.