[228] Was it not for this reason that Abraham also, at the time of the destruction of Sodom, began at fifty and ended at ten? [160] Therefore, propitiating and supplicating God, entreat him that if there could not be found among his creatures a complete remission so as to give them liberty, of which the sacred number of fifty is a symbol, at least the intermediate instruction which is equal in number to the decade, might be accepted for the sake of the deliverance of the soul which was about to be condemned.