Properties of the number 56

Symbolism

According to Claude of Saint-Martin, this number represents "the perverse Being to grips with the principles of the nature and surrendered to his own justice; the Spirit of the Universe ascending to its source".
According to Saint Martin, this one declares that "the law of the number fifty six, terrifying law, dreadful for those which are exposed to it".

On 264 popes, going until John-Paul II, 208 popes were Italian whose 112 Romans and 56 popes were foreigners.
The 56 minor blades in the game of the Tarot.
"The Pythagoreans tell that Typhoon was born exactly to half of the even Number whose each equal part represents 56 - half of 112 is 4 x 28 or 4 lunar months of 28 days. They still suppose that the triangle represents the power of Pluto, Bacchus and March; the square, the power of Rhea, Venus, Ceres, Vesta, Junon; the dodecagon, by Jupiter and the polygon of 56 sides, by Typhoon. Such are, at least, the historical traditions consigned by Eudoxe" - Plutarque: on Isis and Osiris.
Saint Ann, the mother of the Virgin Mary, was 56 years old when she died, according to visions of Mary Agreda.
There exists in Stonehenge an astronomical circle of 56 holes of Aubrey, built by the ancients, which served to count not only the years of the famous Celtic cycle of 56 years - representing 59 lunar years and 118 cycles of eclipses - but also cycles of rising of the sun and the moon, and also the cycles of the Venus planet.

The Sufism leans also on numerical values. The word Sufism is composed of the letter «ēad-wāw-fā-yā-hā» which adds up 56. The word Sufi is composed of the letters «ēad-wāw-fā-yā» which adds up 51. The subtraction of both gives us the number 5 that is the letter «hā» 5th letter of the Arabic alphabet, a letter to which the Sufi attach an enormous importance because it represents for them the divinity, a letter that serves them to the degree of apprentice.

The number 56 is used 1 time in the Bible.
In the first eleven verses of the Gospel of Matthew relating the Ancestry of Jesus until the deportation to Babylon, 56 male names are quoted.
The sum of the occurrences of all numbers of the Bible that are multiple of 22 gives 56.
The words Virgin and curse are used 56 times in the OT and the word injustice, 56 times in the Bible.

Last modification: December 19, 1998