The Greek hekaton is the number one hundred. Jesus uses it in three parable contexts: the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:4 β 'Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep'), the hundredfold return of the sown word (Mark 4:8), and the parable of the unforgiving servant who owed a fellow servant a hundred denarii (Matthew 18:28). In Acts 1:15, the number of believers gathered after the Ascension was about 120 β drawn from the hundred and twenty.
The parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:4-7) hinges on hekaton. The shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to find the one. From a mathematical standpoint this is irrational β risk the hundred to recover the one? But that is precisely Jesus' theology of the Father: the value of the one is not diminished by the number of the ninety-nine. Every hekaton is made up of hekastos β every hundred is made up of individuals, each of infinite worth to the Shepherd. The hundredfold return (Mark 4:8) speaks to the inexhaustible generosity of the kingdom: what God receives, he returns at inconceivable multiplication.