Androgynous numbers

Peter J. Leithart, March 21, 2007

Why did God create the world in six days? Philo said that 6 is the perfect number, both the sum and the product of its factors, which happen to be the first three integers (1, 2, 3).

But there's more: "We may say that [6] is in its nature both male and female, and is a result of the distinctive power of either. For among things that are, it is the odd that is male and the even female. Now of odd numbers 3 is the starting-point, and of even numbers 2, and the product of these two is 6."