Properties of the number 11

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Symbolism

• Symbol of the interior fight, the rebellion and the mislaying which results from it. But it also represents someone who comes out victorious of the tests with the acquired knowledge.

• Represent the transgression of the law because it exceeds of one the number of ten, which is the one of the Decalogue. For this fact, it represents the sin according to saint Augustin. The psalm 11 (Vulgate numbering) asks effectively the punishment of the wicked. The theoretical speculations on this number confirm this symbolism. The sum of numbers 1 to 11 is 66, which multiplying eleven by the number symbol of the evil, the diabolic 6; by the addition of the two digits which compose it as by its reading in Roman number, II, it reminds the 2, number of the division and the corruption.

• Number expressing more than the human sin, it is the sin in general or cosmic, according to R. Allendy.

• According to Peignot, it is the force of witnesses and the Word. Eleven is therefore the number of the martyrdom, the testimony and the prophecy.

• Represent the union of the microcosm and the macrocosm - 5 + 6.

• Number of the knowledge of God, according to Arabs, this one passing by 11 steps.

• Number in relation to the mysteries of the fruitfulness in the African esoteric traditions.

• Number representing the individual initiative but exercising without relationship to the cosmic harmony, consequently of a rather unfavorable nature.

• In China, number representing the way (the Tao) of the sky and the earth. It is the number of the central union of the sky, 6, and of the earth, 5.

• Bad number according to the Hebrews. This is why there would not exist any name having eleven letters in Hebrew.

Bible

• Jesus speaks about workers of the eleventh hour in his parable of labourers. (Mt 20,6)

• The eleven apostles remaining with Jesus Christ following the treason and the suicide of Judas the apostle.

• Jehoiakim and Zedekiah reigned each one eleven years in Jerusalem. (2 K 23,36 and 24,18)

• In the prescriptions given by Yahweh to Moses for the construction of the sanctuary, Moses has to make eleven sheets of goats' hair to form a tent over the Dwelling. (Ex 26,7)

• Joseph, betrayed by his brothers and rescuer of his tribe, is the eleventh son of Jacob.

• Number of planets of our solar system mentioned in the dream of Joseph. (Gn 37,6; Koran, chapter 12)

General

• The Virgin Mary is present in eleven stations on the path of the cross.

• The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church celebrate the Easter on different dates. But every 11 years the two dates of this holyday coincide, the next one will occur in the year 2001.

• According to the "Pistis Sophia", gnostic manuscript, after being resuscitated, Jesus spent eleven years with his disciples to instruct them.

• The Chineses divide the human body into five internal organs dominated by the Yang polarity and six by the Yin polarity, which tends to express a fundamental imbalance, the body being a corruptible and transitory form.

• The Eleven of Athens, these magistrates in charge of the police, the supervision of the prisons and the executions, were in reality 10 plus a clerk.

• For the Indians, the Laws of Manou mention eleven organs senses and eleven Roudras (demigod).

• The blue cord of the mason masters is large of 11 cm.

• Originally, in the beginning of the creation, the Word of God would have created eleven celestial creatures, named "Under-Ray". One of them would have become the rebellious ray. Among the ten others, three are invisible for us, but we know the seven others by the rainbow.

• The eleven groups of kindnesses, in Buddhism, include: a man entered the Way, the two Truths, the three Gates of Delivery, the four Truths of the correct Law, the five faculties, the six Authorities, the seven Members of the Illumination, the eight Members of the Path, the nine Residences of the Being, the ten Forces of the Realized and the eleven Deliverances of the Heart full of love.

• The eleven caves in which were found, by the Bedouin shepherds at the end of years 1940, some 800 manuscripts of the community of Qumran called the writings of the Dead Sea.

• Our solar system would be composed by eleven planets. Initially there would have been twelve of it, but one of them, named Maldek, the impious scientists would have destroyed it with the nuclear arm. It was located between Jupiter and Saturn. Moreover, according to the theory of Plaeton which is based on the law of Bode gives the definition of the relative distances between the Sun and planets (as well as of their respective masses) it must have had, between Mars and Jupiter, a planet at a distance from the Sun equal to 2.8 times of the Earth, with a mass equal to 90 times the mass it this one. But of course the scientists never found anything at this distance of the Sun, except some asteroids and comets which, according to some scientists, could come from the remains of the explosion of a planet.

• A cycle of magnetic activity of the Sun lasts eleven years. A new cycle has begun in 1984.

• Eleven is the number of the regimes which did not last: the First Empire, from 1804 to 1815; the Hitlerite Empire, from 1933 to 1944; the 4th Republic, from 1947 to 1958; the 5th Republic, under Gaule, from 1958 to 1969.

• Anniversary of marriage: weddings of steel.

Occurrence

• The number 11 is used 42 times in the Bible.

• Numbers 32, 250 and 7000 are used 11 times in the Bible.

• There are eleven numbers, let 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 30, 100 and 5000, which are common to the four Gospels, that is to say that each of them is used at least once in the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Also, in the Pentateuch of the OT, corresponding to the five first books of the Bible, we find eleven numbers which are common for all: 1 to 4, 6, 7, 10, 12, 30, 50 and 100.

• The number 11 is used only once in the Koran. (Koran XII, 4)

• The words source and Judas are used 11 times in the NT and the word creation is used 11 times in the OT and 11 times in the NT. The Koran designates eleven times the Christ as the Messiah.

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Last modification: December 19, 1998

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