xix. The hundred and nineteenth Psalm abounds with praises of the lively

oracles, the word of the living God; it abounds with the warmest expressions of love to it, of delight in it, and the most fervent petitions for divine illumination in the knowledge of it. Such was the esteem and veneration which the faithful entertained for the lively oracles under the former dispensation, when they had only Moses and the prophets; how, then, ought they to be prized by Christians, who have also Christ and his Apostles!

Among the Heathen the term _oracle_ is usually taken to signify an answer, generally couched in very dark and ambiguous terms, supposed to be given by demons of old, either by the mouths of their idols, or by those of their priests, to the people, who consulted them on things to come. _Oracle_ is also used for the demon who gave the answer, and the place where it was given. Seneca defines oracles to be enunciations by the mouths of men of the will of the gods; and Cicero simply calls them, _deorum oratio_, the language of the gods. Among the Pagans they were held in high estimation; and they were consulted on a variety of occasions pertaining to national enterprises and private life. When they made peace or war, enacted laws, reformed states, or changed the constitution, they had in all these cases recourse to the oracle by public authority. Also, in private life, if a man wished to marry, if he proposed to take a journey, or to engage in any business of importance, he repaired to the oracle for counsel. Mankind have had always a propensity to explore futurity; and conceiving that future events were known to their gods, who possessed the gift of prophecy, they sought information and advice from the oracles, which, in their opinion, were supernatural and divine communications. The institution of oracles seemed to gratify the prevalent curiosity of mankind, and proved a source of immense wealth, as well as authority and influence, to those who had the command of them. Accordingly, every nation, in which idolatry has subsisted, had its oracles, by means of which imposture practised on superstition and credulity. The principal oracles of antiquity are, that of Abæ, mentioned by Herodotus; that of Amphiaraus, at Oropus in Macedonia; that of the Branchidæ at Didymeum; that of the camps at Lacedæmon; that of Dodona; that of Jupiter Ammon; that of Nabarca in the country of the Anariaci, near the Caspian Sea; that of Trophonius, mentioned by Herodotus; that of Chrysopolis; that of Claros, in Ionia; that of Amphilochus at Mallos; that of Petarea; that of Pella in Macedonia; that of Phaselides in Cilicia; that of Sinope in Paphlagonia; that of Orpheus’s head at Lesbos, mentioned by Philostratus. But of all oracles, the oracle of Apollo Pythius at Delphi was the most celebrated; this was consulted in the dernier resort by most of the princes of those ages.

Most of the Pagan deities had their appropriate oracles. Apollo had the greatest number: such as those of Claros, of the Branchidæ, of the suburbs of Daphne at Antioch, of Delos, of Argos, of Troas, Æolis, &c, of Baiæ in Italy, and others in Cilicia, in Egypt, in the Alps, in Thrace, at Corinth, in Arcadia, in Laconia, and in many other places enumerated by Van Dale. Jupiter, beside that of Dodona and some others, the honour of which he shared with Apollo, had one in Bœotia under the name of Jupiter the Thunderer, and another in Elis, one at Thebes and at Meroe, one near Antioch, and several others. Æsculapius was consulted in Cilicia, at Apollonia, in the isle of Cos, at Epidaurus, Pergamos, Rome, and elsewhere. Mercury had oracles at Patras, upon Hæmon, and in other places; Mars, in Thrace, Egypt, and elsewhere; Hercules, at Cadiz, Athens, in Egypt, at Tivoli, in Mesopotamia, where he issued his oracles by dreams, whence he was called Somnialis. Isis, Osiris, and Serapis delivered in like manner their oracles by dreams, as we learn from Pausanias, Tacitus, Arrian, and other writers; that of Amphilochus was also delivered by dreams; the ox Apis had also his oracle in Egypt. The gods, called Cabiri, had their oracle in Bœotia. Diana, the sister of Apollo, had several oracles in Egypt, Cilicia, Ephesus, &c. Those of fortune at Præneste, and of the lots at Antium are well known. The fountains also delivered oracles, for to each of them a divinity was ascribed: such was the fountain of Castalia at Delphi, another of the same name in the suburbs of Antioch, and the prophetic fountain near the temple of Ceres in Achaia. Juno had several oracles: one near Corinth, one at Nysa, and others at different places. Latona had one at Butis in Egypt; Leucothea had one in Colchis; Memnon in Egypt; Machaon at Gerania in Laconia; Minerva had one in Egypt, in Spain, upon mount Ætna, at Mycenæ and Colchis, and in other places. Those of Neptune were at Delphos, at Calauria, near Neocesarea, and elsewhere. The nymphs had theirs in the cave of Corycia. Pan had several, the most famous of which was that in Arcadia. That of the Palici was in Sicily. Pluto had one at Nysa. Saturn had oracles in several places, but the most famous were those of Cumæ in Italy, and of Alexandria in Egypt. Those of Venus were dispersed in several places, at Gaza, upon Mount Libanus, at Paphos, in Cyprus, &c. Serapis had one at Alexandria, consulted by Vespasian. Venus Aphacite had one at Aphaca between Heliopolis and Byblus. Geryon, the three-headed monster slain by Hercules, had an oracle in Italy near Padua, consulted by Tiberius; that of Hercules was at Tivoli, and was given by lots, like those of Præneste and Antium. The demi-gods and heroes had likewise their oracles, such were those of Castor and Pollux at Lacedæmon, of Amphiaraus, of Mopsus in Cilicia, of Ulysses, Amphilochus, Sarpedon in Troas, Hermione in Macedonia, Pasiphäe in Laconia, Chalcas in Italy, Aristæus in Bœotia, Autolycus at Sinope, Phryxus among the Colchi, Zamolxis among the Getæ, Hephæstion the minion of Alexander, and Antinous, &c.

The responses of oracles were delivered in a variety of ways: at Delphi, they interpreted and put into verse what the priestess pronounced in the time of her furor. Mr. Bayle observes that at first this oracle gave its answers in verse; and that it fell at length to prose, upon the people’s beginning to laugh at the poorness of its versification. The Epicureans made this the subject of their jests, and said, in raillery, it was surprising enough, that Apollo, the god of poetry, should be a much worse poet than Homer, whom he himself had inspired. By the railleries of these philosophers, and particularly by those of the Cynics and Peripatetics, the priests were at length obliged to desist from the practice of versifying the responses of the Pythia, which, according to Plutarch, was one of the principal causes of the declension of the oracle of Delphos. At the oracle of Ammon, the priests pronounced the response of their god; at Dodona, the response was issued from the hollow of an oak; at the cave of Trophonius, the oracle was inferred from what the suppliant said before he recovered his senses; at Memphis, they drew a good or bad omen, according as the ox Apis received or rejected what was presented to him, which was also the case with the fishes of the fountain of Limyra. The suppliants, who consulted the oracles, were not allowed to enter the sanctuaries where they were given; and, accordingly, care was taken that neither the Epicureans nor Christians should come near them. In several places, the oracles were given by letters sealed up, as in that of Mopsus, and at Mallus in Cilicia. Oracles were frequently given by lot, the mode of doing which was as follows: the lots were a kind of dice, on which were engraven certain characters or words, whose explanations they were to seek on tables made for the purpose. The way of using these dice for knowing futurity, was different, according to the places where they were used. In some temples, the person threw them himself; in others, they were dropped from a box; whence came the proverbial expression, The lot is fallen.” This playing with dice was always preceded by sacrifices and other customary ceremonies. The ambiguity of the oracles in their responses, and their double meaning, contributed to their support.

Ablancourt observes, that the study or research of the meaning of oracles was but a fruitless thing; and that they were never understood till after their accomplishment. Historians relate, that Crœsus was tricked by the ambiguity and equivocation of the oracle:

Κροισος Ἁλυν διαβας μεγαλην αρχην καταλυσει.

Thus rendered in Latin:

_Crœsus Halym superans magnam pervertet opum vim._”

[If Crœsus cross the Halys he will overthrow a great empire.]

Thus, if the Lydian monarch had conquered Cyrus, he overthrew the Assyrian empire; if he himself was routed, he overturned his own. That delivered to Pyrrhus, which is comprised in this Latin verse,

_Credo equidem Æacidas Romanos vincere posse_,”

[I believe indeed that the sons of Æacus the Romans will conquer,]

had the same advantage; for, according to the rules of syntax, either of the two accusatives may be governed by the verb, and the verse be explained, either by saying the Romans shall conquer the Æacidæ, of whom Pyrrhus was descended, or those shall conquer the Romans. When Alexander fell sick at Babylon, some of his courtiers who happened to be in Egypt, or who went thither on purpose, passed the night in the temple of Serapis, to inquire if it would not be proper to bring Alexander to be cured by him. The god answered, it was better that Alexander should remain where he was. This in all events was a very prudent and safe answer. If the king recovered his health, what glory must Serapis have gained by saving him the fatigue of the journey! If he died, it was but saying he died in a favourable juncture after so many conquests; which, had he lived, he could neither have enlarged nor preserved. This is actually the construction they put upon the response; whereas had Alexander undertaken the journey, and died in the temple, or by the way, nothing could have been said in favour of Serapis. When Trajan had formed the design of his expedition against the Parthians, he was advised to consult the oracle of Heliopolis, to which he had no more to do but send a note under a seal. That prince, who had no great faith in oracles, sent thither a blank note; and they returned him another of the same kind. By this Trajan was convinced of the divinity of the oracle. He sent back a second note to the god, in which he inquired whether he should return to Rome after finishing the war he had in view. The god, as Macrobius tells the story, ordered a vine, which was among the offerings of his temple, to be divided into pieces, and brought to Trajan. The event justified the oracle; for the emperor dying in that war, his bones were carried to Rome, which had been represented by that broken vine. As the priests of that oracle knew Trajan’s design, which was no secret, they happily devised that response, which, in all events, was capable of a favourable interpretation, whether he routed and cut the Parthians in pieces, or if his army met with the same fate. Sometimes the responses of the oracles were mere banter, as in the case of the man who wished to know by what means he might become rich, and who received for answer from the god, that he had only to make himself master of all that lay between Sicyon and Corinth. Another, wanting a cure for the gout, was answered by the oracle, that he was to drink nothing but cold water.

There are two points in dispute on the subject of oracles; namely, whether they were human, or diabolical machines; and whether or not they ceased upon the publication or preaching of the Gospel. Most of the fathers of the church supposed that the devil issued oracles; and looked on it as a pleasure he took to give dubious and equivocal answers, in order to have a handle to laugh at them. Vossius allows that it was the devil who spoke in oracles; but thinks that the obscurity of his answers was owing to his ignorance as to the precise circumstances of events. That artful and studied obscurity in which the answers were couched, says he, showed the embarrassment the devil was under; as those double meanings they usually bore provided for their accomplishment. Where the thing foretold did not happen accordingly, the oracle, forsooth, was misunderstood. Eusebius has preserved some fragments of a philosopher, called Œnomaus; who, out of resentment for his having been so often fooled by the oracles, wrote an ample confutation of all their impertinencies: When we come to consult thee,” says he to Apollo, “if thou seest what is in futurity, why dost thou use expressions that will not be understood? Dost thou not know, that they will not be understood? If thou dost, thou takest pleasure in abusing us; if thou dost not, be informed of us, and learn to speak more clearly. I tell thee, that if thou intendest an equivoque, the Greek word whereby thou affirmedst that Crœsus should overthrow a great empire was ill chosen; and that it could signify nothing but Crœsus’s conquering Cyrus. If things must necessarily come to pass, why dost thou amuse us with thy ambiguities? What doest thou, wretch as thou art, at Delphi? employed in muttering idle prophecies!” But Œnomaus is still more out of humour with the oracle, for the answer which Apollo gave the Athenians, when Xerxes was about to attack Greece with all the strength of Asia. The Pythian declared, that Minerva, the protectress of Athens, had endeavoured in vain to appease the wrath of Jupiter; yet that Jupiter, in complaisance to his daughter, was willing the Athenians should save themselves within wooden walls; and that Salamis should behold the loss of a great many children, dear to their mothers, either when Ceres was spread abroad, or gathered together. Here Œnomaus loses all patience with the god of Delphi. This contest,” says he, “between father and daughter is very becoming the deities! It is excellent, that there should be contrary inclinations and interests in heaven. Poor wizard, thou art ignorant whose the children are that Salamis shall see perish; whether Greeks or Persians. It is certain they must be either one or the other; but thou needest not to have told so openly, that thou knewest not which. Thou concealest the time of the battle under those fine poetical expressions, ‘either when Ceres is spread abroad, or gathered together;’ and wouldest thou cajole us with such pompous language? Who knows not, that if there be a sea fight, it must either be in seed time or harvest? It is certain it cannot be in winter. Let things go how they will, thou wilt secure thyself by this Jupiter, whom Minerva is endeavouring to appease. If the Greeks lose the battle, Jupiter proved inexorable to the last; if they gain it, why then Minerva at length prevailed.”

It is a very general opinion among the more learned, that oracles were all mere cheats and impostures; either calculated to serve the avaricious ends of the Heathen priests, or the political views of the princes. Bayle says positively, they were mere human artificers, in which the devil had no hand. He was strongly supported by Van Dale and Fontenelle, who have written expressly on the subject. Father Balthus, a Jesuit, wrote a treatise in defence of the fathers with regard to the origin of oracles; but without denying the imposture of the priests, often blended with the oracles. He maintains the intervention of the devil in some predictions, which could not be ascribed to the cheats of the priests alone. The Abbé Banier espouses the same side of the question, and objects that oracles would not have lasted so long, and supported themselves with so much splendour and reputation, if they had been merely owing to the forgeries of the priests. Bishop Sherlock, in his Discourses concerning the Use and Intent of Prophecy,” expresses his opinion, that it is impious to disbelieve the Heathen oracles, and to deny them to have been given out by the devil; to which assertion, Dr. Middleton, in his Examination,” &c, replies, that he is guilty of this impiety, and that he thinks himself warranted to pronounce from the authority of the best and wisest of the Heathens themselves, and the evidence of plain facts, which are recorded of those oracles, as well as from the nature of the thing itself, that they were all mere imposture, wholly invented and supported by human craft, without any supernatural aid or interposition whatsoever. He alleges, that Cicero, speaking of the Delphic oracle, the most revered of any in the Heathen world, declares, that nothing was become more contemptible, not only in his days, but long before him; that Demosthenes, who lived about three hundred years earlier, affirmed of the same oracle, in a public speech to the people of Athens, that it was gained to the interests of King Philip, an enemy to that city; that the Greek historians tell us, how, on several other occasions, it had been corrupted by money, to serve the views of particular persons and parties, and the prophetess sometimes had been deposed for bribery and lewdness; that there were some great sects of philosophers, who, on principle, disavowed the authority of all oracles; agreeably to all which Strabo tells us, that divination in general and oracles had been in high credit among the ancients, but in his days were treated with much contempt; lastly, that Eusebius also, the great historian of the primitive church, declares, that there were six hundred writers among the Heathens themselves who had publicly written against the reality of them. Plutarch has a treatise on the ceasing of some oracles; and Van Dale, a Dutch physician, has a volume to prove they did not cease at the coming of Christ; but that many of them ceased long before, and that others held till the fall of Paganism, under the empire of Theodosius the Great, when Paganism being dissipated, these institutions could no longer subsist. Van Dale was answered by a German, one Mœbius, professor of theology at Leipsic, in 1685. Fontenelle espoused Van Dale’s system, and improved upon it in his History of Oracles;” and showed the weakness of the argument used by many writers in behalf of Christianity, drawn from the ceasing of oracles. Cicero says, the oracles became dumb in proportion as people, growing less credulous, began to suspect them for cheats. Plutarch alleges two reasons for the ceasing of oracles: the one was Apollo’s chagrin; who, it seems, took it in dudgeon to be interrogated about so many trifles. The other was, that in proportion as the genii, or demons, who had the management of the oracles, died, and became extinct, the oracles must necessarily cease. He adds a third and more natural cause for the ceasing of oracles; namely, the forlorn state of Greece, ruined and desolated by wars; for, hence, the smallness of the gains let the priests sink into a poverty and contempt too bare to cover the fraud. That the oracles were silenced about or soon after the time of our Saviour’s advent, may be proved, says Dr. Leland, in the first volume of his learned work on The Necessity and Advantage of Revelation,” &c, from express testimonies, not only of Christian but of Heathen authors. Lucan, who wrote his Pharsalia” in the reign of Nero, scarcely thirty years after our Lord’s crucifixion, laments it as one of the greatest misfortunes of that age, that the Delphian oracle, which he represents as one of the choicest gifts of the gods, was become silent.

_Non ullo sæcula dono Nostra carent majore Deum, quam Delphica sedes Quod sileat._ _Pharsal._ lib. v, 111.

Of all the wants with which the age is curst, The Delphic silence surely is the worst.” ROWE.

In like manner, Juvenal says,

_Delphis oracula cessant, Et genus humanum damnat caligo futuri._ _Sat._ vi, 554.

Since Delphi now, if we may credit fame, Gives no responses, and a long dark night Conceals the future hour from mortal sight.” GIFFORD.

Lucian says, that when he was at Delphi, the oracle gave no answer, nor was the priestess inspired. This likewise appears from Plutarch’s treatise, why the oracles cease to give answers, already cited; whence it is also manifest, that the most learned Heathens were very much at a loss how to give a tolerable account of it. Porphyry, in a passage cited from him by Eusebius, says, The city of Rome was overrun with sickness, Æsculapius and the rest of the gods having withdrawn their converse with men; because since Jesus began to be worshipped, no man had received any public help or benefit from the gods.” With respect to the origin of oracles, they were probably imitations, first, of the answers given to the holy patriarchs from the divine presence or Shechinah, and secondly, of the responses to the Jewish high priest from the mercy seat: for all Paganism is a parody of the true religion.

ORDINATION, the act of conferring holy orders, or of initiating a person into the ministry of the Gospel, by prayer and with or without the laying on of hands. In the church of England, ordination has always been esteemed the principal prerogative of bishops; and bishops still retain the function as a mark of their spiritual sovereignty in their diocess. Without ordination no person can receive any benefice, parsonage, vicarage, &c. A person must be twenty-three years of age, or near it, before he can be ordained deacon, or have any share in the ministry; and full twenty-four before he can be ordained priest, and by that means be permitted to administer the holy communion. A bishop, on the ordination of clergymen, is to examine them in the presence of the ministers, who in the ordination of priests, but not of deacons, assist him at the imposition of hands; but this is only done as a mark of assent, not because it is thought necessary. In case any crime, as drunkenness, perjury, forgery, &c, is alleged against any one that is to be ordained, either priest or deacon, the bishop ought to desist from ordaining him. The person to be ordained is to bring a testimonial of his life and doctrine to the bishop, and to give an account of his faith in Latin; and both priests and deacons are obliged to subscribe to the thirty-nine articles. In the ancient discipline there was no such thing as a vague and absolute ordination; but every one was to have a church, whereof he was to be ordained clerk or priest. In the twelfth century the bishops grew more remiss, and ordained without any title or benefice. The council of Trent, however, restored the ancient discipline, and appointed that none should be ordained but those who were provided with a benefice; which practice still obtains in the church of England.

The reformed held the call of the people the only thing essential to the validity of the ministry; and teach, that ordination is only a ceremony, which renders the call more august and authentic. Accordingly the Protestant churches of Scotland, France, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, &c, have no episcopal ordination. For Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Melancthon, &c, and all the first reformers and founders of these churches, who ordained ministers among them, were themselves presbyters, and no other. And though in some of these churches there are ministers called superintendents, or bishops, yet these are only _primi inter pares_, the first among equals; not pretending to any superiority of orders. Having themselves no other orders than what either presbyters gave them, or what was given them as presbyters, they can convey no other to those they ordain. On this ground the Protestant Dissenters plead that their ordination, though not episcopal, is the same with that of all the illustrious Protestant churches abroad; and object, that a priest ordained by a popish bishop should be received into the church of England as a valid minister, rightfully ordained; while the orders of another, ordained by the most learned religious presbyter, which any foreign country can boast, are pronounced not valid, and he is required to submit to be ordained afresh. In opposition to episcopal ordination, they urge that Timothy was ordained by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, 1 Tim. iv, 14; that Paul and Barnabas were ordained by certain prophets and teachers in the church of Antioch, and not by any bishop presiding in that city, Acts xiii, 1–3; and that it is a well known fact, that presbyters in the church of Alexandria ordained even their own bishops for more than two hundred years in the earliest ages of Christianity. They farther argue, that bishops and presbyters are in Scripture the same, and not denominations of distinct orders or offices in the church, referring to Phil. i, 1; Titus i, 5, 7; Acts xx, 27, 28; 1 Peter v, 1, 2. To the same purpose they maintain, that the superiority of bishops to presbyters is not pretended to be of divine, but of human, institution; not grounded on Scripture, but only upon the custom or ordinances of this realm, by the first reformers and founders of the church of England; nor by many of its most learned and eminent doctors since. See Stillingfleet’s _Irenicum_, in which the learned author affirms and shows this to be the sentiment of Cranmer, and other chief reformers both in Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth’s reign, of Archbishop Whitgift, Bishop Bridges, Lee, Hooker, Sutcliff, Hales, Chillingworth, &c. Moreover, the book entitled, the Institution of a Christian Man,” subscribed by the clergy in convocation, and confirmed by parliament, owns bishops and presbyters by Scripture to be the same. Beside, the Protestant Dissenters allege, that if episcopal ordination be really necessary to constitute a valid minister, it does not seem to be enjoined by the constitution of the church of England; because the power of ordination which the bishops exercise in this kingdom, is derived entirely and only from the civil magistrate; and he authoritatively prescribes how, and to whom ordination is to be given: that if an ordination should be conducted in other manner and form than that prescribed by him, such ordination would be illegal, and of no authority in the church. Accordingly the bishop at the ordination of the candidate asks, Are you called according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the due order of this realm?” The constitution and law of England seem to know nothing of uninterrupted lineal descent, but considers the king vested, by act of parliament, or the suffrage of the people, with a fulness of all power ecclesiastical in these realms, as empowering and authorizing bishops to ordain: and this power of ordination was once delegated to Cromwell, a layman, as vicegerent to the king. They farther think it strange, that the validity of orders and ministrations should be derived, as some have contended, from a succession of popish bishops; bishops of a church, which, by the definition of the nineteenth article of the church, can be no part of the true visible church of Christ, and bishops, likewise, who consider the Protestant clergy, although ordained by Protestant bishops, as mere common unconsecrated laymen.

On reviewing the whole of this controversy, says Dr. Watts, that since there are some texts in the New Testament, wherein single persons, either Apostles, as Paul and Barnabas, ordained ministers in the churches, or evangelists, as Timothy and Titus; and since other missions or ordinations are intimated to be performed by several persons, namely, prophets, teachers, elders, or a presbytery, Acts xiii, 1; 1 Timothy iv, 14; since there is sometimes mention made of the imposition of hands in the mission of a minister, and sometimes no mention is made of it; and since it is evident that in some cases popular ordinations are and must be valid without any bishop or elder,--I think none of these differences should be made a matter of violent contest among Christians; nor ought any words to be pronounced against each other by those of the episcopal, presbyterian, or independent way. Surely all may agree thus far, that various forms or modes, seeming to be used in the mission or ordination of ministers in primitive times, may give a reasonable occasion or colour for sincere and honest searchers after truth to follow different opinions on this head, and do therefore demand our candid and charitable sentiments concerning those who differ from us. Among the Wesleyan Methodists, the ordination of their ministers is in the annual conference, with a president at its head, and is by prayer without imposition of hands. The latter they hold to be a circumstance of ordination, not an essential. They sometimes therefore use it, and at others omit it. The missionaries sent out by that body, if not previously ordained by the conference, are set apart by a few senior ministers; and ordinarily in this case, the service of the church of England, with some alterations, is used, with imposition of the hands of the ministers present.

OSSIFRAGE, פרס, Lev. xi, 13; Deut. xiv, 12. Interpreters are not agreed on this bird; some read vulture,” others the black eagle,” others the falcon.” The name _peres_, by which it is called in Hebrew, denotes to crush, to break;” and this name agrees with our version, which implies the bone-breaker,” which name is given to a kind of eagle, from the circumstance of its habit of breaking the bones of its prey, after it has eaten the flesh: some say also, that he even swallows the bones thus broken. Onkelos uses a word which signifies naked,” and leads us to the vulture: indeed, if we were to take the classes of birds in any thing like a natural order in the passages here referred to, the vulture should follow the eagle as an unclean bird. The Septuagint interpreter also renders vulture; and so do Munster, Schindler, and the Zurick versions.

OSTRICH, יענה; in Arabic _neamah_; in Greek ϛρȣθοκάμηλος, _the camel bird_; and still in the east, says Niebuhr, it is called _thar edsjammel_, the camel bird,” Lev. xi, 16; Deut. xiv, 15; Job xxx, 29; Isaiah xiii, 21; xxxiv, 13; xliii, 20; Jer. 1, 39; Lam. iv, 3; Micah i, 8; רננים, Job xxxix, 13. The first name in the places above quoted is, by our own translators, generally rendered owls.” “Now it should be recollected,” says the author of Scripture Illustrated,” “that the owl is not a desert bird, but rather resides in places not far from habitations, and that it is not the companion of serpents; whereas, in several of these passages, the _joneh_ is associated with deserts, dry, extensive, thirsty deserts, and with serpents, which are their natural inhabitants. Our ignorance of the natural history of the countries which the ostrich inhabits has undoubtedly perverted the import of the above passages; but let any one peruse them afresh, and exchange the owl for the ostrich, and he will immediately discover a vigour of description, and an imagery much beyond what he had formerly perceived.” The Hebrew phrase בת היענה, means the daughter בת היענה of vociferation,” and is understood to be the female ostrich, probably so called from the noise which this bird makes. It is affirmed by travellers of good credit, that ostriches make a fearful, screeching, lamentable noise.

Ostriches are inhabitants of the deserts of Arabia, where they live chiefly upon vegetables; lead a social and inoffensive life, the male assorting with the female with connubial fidelity. Their eggs are very large, some of them measuring above five inches in diameter, and weighing twelve or fifteen pounds. These birds are very prolific, laying forty or fifty eggs at a clutch. They will devour leather, grass, hair, stones, metals, or any thing that is given to them; but those substances which the coats of the stomach cannot act upon pass whole. It is so unclean an animal as to eat its own ordure as soon as it voids it. This is a sufficient reason, were others wanting, why such a fowl should be reputed unclean, and its use as an article of diet prohibited. The ostrich,” says M. Buffon, was known in the remotest ages, and mentioned in the most ancient books. How indeed could an animal so remarkably large, and so wonderfully prolific, and peculiarly suited to the climate as is the ostrich, remain unknown in Africa, and part of Asia, countries peopled from the earliest ages, full of deserts indeed, but where there is not a spot which has not been traversed by the foot of man? The family of the ostrich, therefore, is of great antiquity. Nor in the course of ages has it varied or degenerated from its native purity. It has always remained on its paternal estate; and its lustre has been transmitted unsullied by foreign intercourse. In short, it is among the birds what the elephant is among the quadrupeds, a distinct race, widely separated from all the others by characters as striking as they are invariable.” “On the least noise,” says Dr. Shaw, “or trivial occasion, she forsakes her eggs, or her young ones; to which perhaps she never returns; or if she does, it may be too late either to restore life to the one, or to preserve the lives of the others. Agreeably to this account the Arabs meet sometimes with whole nests of these eggs undisturbed: some of them are sweet and good, others are addle and corrupted; others again have their young ones of different growth, according to the time, it may be presumed, they have been forsaken of the dam. The Arabs often meet with a few of the little ones no bigger than well grown pullets, half starved, straggling and moaning about like so many distressed orphans for their mother. In this manner the ostrich may be said to be hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers; her labour, in hatching and attending them so far, being vain, without fear, or the least concern of what becomes of them afterward. This want of affection is also recorded, Lam. iv, 3, ‘the daughter of my people is become cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness;’ that is, by apparently deserting their own, and receiving others in return.” Natural affection and sagacious instinct are the grand instruments by which providence continues the race of other animals: but no limits can be set to the wisdom and power of God. He preserveth the breed of the ostrich without those means, and even in a penury of all the necessaries of life. Notwithstanding the stupidity of this animal, its Creator hath amply provided for its safety, by endowing it with extraordinary swiftness, and a surprising apparatus for escaping from its enemy. They, when they raise themselves up for flight, laugh at the horse and his rider.” They afford him an opportunity only of admiring at a distance the extraordinary agility and the stateliness likewise of their motions, the richness of their plumage, and the great propriety there was in ascribing to them an expanded quivering wing. Nothing certainly can be more entertaining than such a sight, the wings, by their rapid but unwearied vibrations, equally serving them for sails and oars; while their feet, no less assisting in conveying them out of sight, seem to be insensible of fatigue.

OWL. There are several varieties of this species, all too well known to need a particular description. They are nocturnal birds of prey, and have their eyes better adapted for discerning objects in the evening or twilight than in the glare of day. 1. כוס, Lev. xi, 17; Deut. xiv, 16; Psalm cii, 6, is in our version rendered the little owl.” Aquila, Theodotion, Jerom, Kimchi, and most of the older interpreters, are quoted to justify this rendering. Michaëlis, at some length, supports the opinion that it is the horned owl. Bochart, though with some hesitation, suspected it to be the _onocrotalus_, a kind of pelican, because the Hebrew name signifies _cup_, and the pelican is remarkable for a pouch or bag under the lower jaw; but there are good reasons for supposing that bird to be the קאת of the next verse. Dr. Geddes thinks this bird the cormorant; and as it begins the list of water fowl, and is mentioned always in the same contexts with קאת, confessedly a water bird, his opinion may be adopted. 2. קאת, Lev. xi, 17; Deut. xiv, 16; Isaiah xxxiv, 11. In the two first places our translators render this the great owl,” which is strangely placed after the little owl, and among water birds. Our translators,” says the author of Scripture Illustrated,” “seem to have thought the owl a convenient bird, as we have three owls in two verses.” Some critics think it means a species of night bird, because the word may be derived from נשף, which signifies _the twilight_, the time when owls fly about. But this interpretation, says Parkhurst, seems very forced; and since it is mentioned among water fowls, and the LXX. have, in the first and last of those texts, rendered it by ἴβις, _the ibis_, we are disposed to adopt it here, and think the evidence strengthened by this, that in a Coptic version of Lev. xi, 17, it is called _ip_ or _hip_, which, with a Greek termination, would very easily make ιβις. 3. קפון, which occurs only in Isaiah xxxiv, 15, is in our version rendered the great owl.” 4. לילית, Isa. xxxiv, 14, in our version the screech owl.” The root signifies _night_; and as undoubtedly a bird frequenting dark places and ruins is referred to, we must admit some kind of owl.

A place of lonely desolation, where The screeching tribe and pelicans abide, And the dun ravens croak mid ruins drear, And moaning owls from man the farthest hide.

OX, בקר, in Arabic _bœkerre_ and _bykar_, the male of horned cattle of the beeve kind, at full age, when fit for the plough. Younger ones are called bullocks. Michaëlis, in his elaborate work on the laws of Moses, has proved that castration was never practised. The rural economy of the Israelites led them to value the ox as by far the most important of domestic animals, from the consideration of his great use in all the operations of farming. In the patriarchal ages, the ox constituted no inconsiderable portion of their wealth. Thus Abraham is said to be very rich in cattle, Gen. xxiv, 35. Men of every age and country have been much indebted to the labours of this animal. So early as in the days of Job, who was probably contemporary with Isaac, the oxen were ploughing, and the asses were feeding beside them,” when the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away. In times long posterior, when Elijah was commissioned to anoint Elisha, the son of Shaphat, prophet in his stead, he found him ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, 1 Kings xix, 19. For many ages the hopes of oriental husbandmen depended entirely on their labours. This was so much the case in the time of Solomon, that he observes, in one of his proverbs, Where no oxen are, the crib is clean,” or rather empty; but much increase is by the strength of the ox,” Prov. xiv, 4. The ass, in the course of ages was compelled to bend his stubborn neck to the yoke, and share the labours of the ox; but still the preparation of the ground in the time of spring depended chiefly on the more powerful exertions of the latter. When this animal was employed in bringing home the produce of the harvest, he was regaled with a mixture of chaff, chopped straw, and various kinds of grain, moistened with acidulated water. But among the Jews, the ox was best fed when employed in treading out the corn; for the divine law, in many of whose precepts the benevolence of the Deity conspicuously shines, forbad to muzzle him, and, by consequence, to prevent him from eating what he would of the grain he was employed to separate from the husks. The ox was also compelled to the labour of dragging the cart or wagon. The number of oxen commonly yoked to one cart appears to have been two, Num. vii, 3, 7, 8; 1 Sam. vi, 7; 2 Sam. vi, 3, 6.

The _wild ox_, תאן, Deut. xiv, 5, is supposed to be the oryx of the Greeks, which is a species of large stag.

PADAN-ARAM, called also Sedan-Aram in Hosea; both names denoting _Aram_ or _Syria the fruitful_, or _cultivated_, and apply to the northern part of Mesopotamia, in which Haran or Charran was situated. See MESOPOTAMIA.

PAGANS, Heathens, and particularly those who worship idols. The term came into use after the establishment of Christianity, the cities and great towns affording the first converts. The Heathens were called Pagans, from _pagus_, a village,” because they were then found chiefly in remote country places; but we use the term commonly for all who do not receive the Jewish, Christian, or Mohammedan religions.

PAINTING THE FACE, 2 Kings ix, 30. See EYES.

PALESTINE, taken in a limited sense, denotes the country of the Philistines or Palestines, including that part of the land of promise which extended along the Mediterranean Sea, from Gaza south to Lydda north. The LXX. were of opinion that the word _Philistiim_, which they generally translate _Allophyli_, signified strangers,” or men of another tribe. Palestine, taken in a more general sense, signifies the whole country of Canaan, the whole land of promise, as well beyond as on this side Jordan, though pretty frequently it is restrained to the country on this side that river; so that in later times the words Judea and Palestine were synonymous. We find, also, the name of Syria Palestina given to the land of promise, and even sometimes this province is comprehended in Cœlo-Syria, or the Lower Syria. Herodotus is the most ancient writer we know that speaks of Syria Palestina. He places it between Phenicia and Egypt. See CANAAN.

PALM TREE, תמר, Exodus xv, 27, &c. This tree, sometimes called the date tree, grows plentifully in the east. It rises to a great height. The stalks are generally full of rugged knots, which are the vestiges of the decayed leaves; for the trunk of this tree is not solid, like other trees, but its centre is filled with pith, round which is a tough bark full of strong fibres when young, which, as the tree grows old, hardens and becomes ligneous. To this bark the leaves are closely joined, which in the centre rise erect; but, after they are advanced above the vagina which surrounds them, they expand very wide on every side the stem; and, as the older leaves decay, the stalk advances in height. The leaves, when the tree has grown to a size for bearing fruit, are six or eight feet long, are very broad when spread out, and are used for covering the tops of houses, &c. The fruit, which is called date, grows below the leaves in clusters and is of a sweet and agreeable taste. The learned Kæmpfer, as a botanist, an antiquary, and a traveller, has exhausted the whole subject of palm trees. The diligent natives,” says Mr. Gibbon, celebrated, either in verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were skilfully applied.” “The extensive importance of the date tree,” says Dr. E. D. Clarke, is one of the most curious subjects to which a traveller can direct his attention. A considerable part of the inhabitants of Egypt, of Arabia, and Persia, subsist almost entirely upon its fruit. They boast also of its medicinal virtues. Their camels feed upon the date stone. From the leaves they make couches, baskets, bags, mats, and brushes; from the branches, cages for their poultry, and fences for their gardens; from the fibres of the boughs, thread, ropes, and rigging; from the sap is prepared a spirituous liquor; and the body of the tree furnishes fuel. It is even said that from one variety of the palm tree, the _phœnix farinifera_, meal has been extracted, which is found among the fibres of the trunk, and has been used for food.”

In the temple of Solomon were pilasters made in the form of palm trees, 1 Kings vi, 29. It was under a tree of this kind that Deborah dwelt between Ramah and Bethel, Judges iv, 5. To the fair, flourishing, and fruitful condition of this tree, the psalmist very aptly compares the votary of virtue, Psalm xcii, 12, 13, 14:--

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. Those that are planted in the house of Jehovah, In the courts of our God, shall flourish; In old age they shall still put forth buds, They shall be full of sap and vigorous.

The palm tree is crowned at its top with a large tuft of spiring leaves about four feet long, which never fall off, but always continue in the same flourishing verdure. The tree, as Dr. Shaw was informed, is in its greatest vigour about thirty years after it is planted, and continues in full vigour seventy years longer; bearing all this while, every year, about three or four hundred pounds’ weight of dates. The trunk of the tree is remarkably straight and lofty. Jeremiah, speaking of the idols that were carried in procession, says they were upright as the palm tree, Jer. x, 5. And for erect stature and slenderness of form, the spouse, in Canticles vii, 7, is compared to this tree:--

How framed, O my love, for delights! Lo, thy stature is like a palm tree, And thy bosom like clusters of dates.

On this passage Mr. Good observes, that “the very word _tamar_, here used for the palm tree, and whose radical meaning is ‘straight,’ or ‘upright,’ (whence it was afterward applied to pillars or columns, as well as to the palm,) was also a general name among the ladies of Palestine, and unquestionably adopted in honour of the stature they had already acquired, or gave a fair promise of attaining.”

A branch of palm was a signal of victory, and was carried before conquerors in the triumphs. To this, allusion is made, Rev. vii, 9: and for this purpose were they borne before Christ in his way to Jerusalem, John xii, 13. From the inspissated sap of the tree, a kind of honey, or dispse, as it is called, is produced, little inferior to that of bees. The same juice, after fermentation, makes a sort of wine much used in the east. It is once mentioned as wine, Num. xxviii, 7; Exodus xxix, 40; and by it is intended the strong drink, Isaiah v, 11; xxiv, 9. Theodoret and Chrysostom, on these places, both Syrians, and unexceptionable witnesses in what belongs to their own country, confirm this declaration. This liquor,” says Dr. Shaw, which has a more luscious sweetness than honey, is of the consistence of a thin syrup, but quickly grows tart and ropy, acquiring an intoxicating quality, and giving by distillation an agreeable spirit, or _arâky_, according to the general name of these people for all hot liquors, extracted by the alembic.” Its Hebrew name is שכר, the σικερα of the Greeks; and from its sweetness, probably, the _saccharum_ of the Romans. Jerom informs us that in Hebrew any inebriating liquor is called _sicera_, whether made of grain, the juice of apples, honey, dates, or any other fruit.”

This tree was formerly of great value and esteem among the Israelites, and so very much cultivated in Judea, that, in after times, it became the emblem of that country, as may be seen in a medal of the Emperor Vespasian upon the conquest of Judea. It represents a captive woman sitting under a palm tree, with this inscription, _Judea capta_;” [Judea captivated;] and upon a Greek coin, likewise, of his son Titus, struck upon the like occasion, we see a shield suspended upon a palm tree, with a Victory writing upon it. Pliny also calls Judea _palmis inclyta_, renowned for palms.” Jericho, in particular, was called the city of palms,” Deut. xxxiv, 3; 2 Chron. xxviii, 15; because, as Josephus, Strabo, and Pliny, have remarked, it anciently abounded in palm trees. And so Dr. Shaw remarks, that, though these trees are not now either plentiful or fruitful in other parts of the holy land, yet there are several of them at Jericho, where there is the conveniency they require of being often watered; where, likewise, the climate is warm, and the soil sandy, such as they thrive and delight in. Tamar, a city built in the desert by Solomon, 1 Kings ix, 18; Ezekiel xlvii, 19; xlviii, 28, was probably so named from the palm trees growing about it; as it was afterward by the Romans called Palmyra, or rather Palmira, on the same account, from _palma_, a palm tree.”

PALMER WORM, גום, Joel i, 4; Amos iv, 9. Bochart says that it is a kind of locust, furnished with very sharp teeth, with which it gnaws off grass, corn, leaves of trees, and even their bark. The Jews support this idea by deriving the word from גוז or גזן, _to cut_, _to shear_, or _mince_. Notwithstanding the unanimous sentiments of the Jews that this is a locust, yet the LXX. read κάμπη, and the Vulgate _eruca_, a caterpillar;” which rendering is supported by Fuller. Michaëlis agrees with this opinion, and thinks that the sharp cutting teeth of the caterpillar, which, like a sickle, clear away all before them, might give name to this insect. Caterpillars also begin their ravages before the locust, which seems to coincide with the nature of the creature here intended.

PALSY. See DISEASES.

PAMPHYLIA, a province of Asia Minor which gives name to that part of the Mediterranean Sea which washes its coast, Acts xxvii, 5. To the south it is bounded by the Mediterranean, and to the north by Pisidia; having Lycia to the west, and Cilicia to the east. Paul and Barnabas preached at Perga, in Pamphylia, Acts xiii, 13; xiv, 24.

PANTHEISM, a doctrine into which some of the sages of antiquity fell by revolting at the monstrous absurdities of Polytheism. Not knowing the true God as an infinite and personal subsistence, a cause above and distinct from all effects, they believed that God was every thing, and every thing God. This monstrous, and in its effects immoral, notion, is still held by the Brahmins of India.

PAPER REED, גמא, Exod. ii, 3; Job viii, 11; Isaiah xviii, 2; xxxv, 7. When the outer skin, or bark, is taken off, there are several films, or inner pellicles, one within another. These, when separated from the stalk, were laid on a table artfully matched and flatted together, and moistened with the water of the Nile, which, dissolving the glutinous juices of the plant, caused them to adhere closely together. They were afterward pressed, and then dried in the sun, and thus were prepared sheets or leaves for writing upon in characters marked by a coloured liquid passing through a hollow reed. The best papyrus was called ἱερατικὴ, or paper of the priests. On this the sacred documents of Egypt were written. Ancient books were written on papyrus, and those of the New Testament among the rest. In the fourth century however these sacred writings are found on skins. This was preferred for durability; and many decayed copies of the New Testament, belonging to libraries, were early transferred to parchment. Finally came paper, the name of which was taken from the Egyptian reed; but the materials of which it was fabricated were cotton and linen. See BULRUSH and BOOK.

PAPHOS, a celebrated city of Cyprus, lying on the western coast of the island, where Venus (who from hence took the name of Paphia) had her most ancient and most famous temple; and here the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, resided, whom St. Paul converted to Christianity, Acts xiii, 6.

PARABLE, ϖαραβολή, formed from ϖαραβάλλειν, _to oppose_ or _compare_, an allegorical instruction, founded on something real or apparent in nature or history, from which a moral is drawn, by comparing it with some other thing in which the people are more immediately concerned. (See _Allegory_.) Aristotle defines parable, a similitude drawn from form to form. Cicero calls it a collation; others, a simile. F. de Colonia calls it a rational fable; but it may be founded on real occurrences, as many parables of our Saviour were. The Hebrews call it משל, from a word which signifies either _to predominate_ or _to assimilate_; the Proverbs of Solomon are by them also called >משלים, _parables_, or _proverbs_.

Parable, according to the eminently learned Bishop Lowth, is that kind of allegory which consists of a continued narration of a fictitious or accommodated event, applied to the illustration of some important truth. The Greeks call these αἶνοι, _allegories_, or _apologues_; the Latins, _fabulæ_, or fables;” and the writings of the Phrygian sage, or those composed in imitation of him, have acquired the greatest celebrity. Nor has our Saviour himself disdained to adopt the same method of instruction; of whose parables it is doubtful whether they excel most in wisdom and utility, or in sweetness, elegance, and perspicuity. As the appellation of parable has been applied to his discourses of this kind, the term is now restricted from its former extensive signification to a more confined sense. But this species of composition occurs very frequently in the prophetic poetry, and particularly in that of Ezekiel. If to us they should sometimes appear obscure, we must remember, that, in those early times when the prophetical writings were indited, it was universally the mode throughout all the eastern nations to convey sacred truths under mysterious figures and representations. In order to our forming a more certain judgment upon this subject, Dr. Lowth has briefly explained some of the primary qualities of the poetic parables; so that, by considering the general nature of them, we may decide more accurately on the merits of particular examples.

It is the first excellence of a parable to turn upon an image well known and applicable to the subject, the meaning of which is clear and definite; for this circumstance will give it perspicuity, which is essential to every species of allegory. If the parables of the sacred prophets are examined by this rule, they will not be found deficient. They are in general founded upon such imagery as is frequently used, and similarly applied by way of metaphor and comparison in the Hebrew poetry. Examples of this kind occur in the parable of the deceitful vineyard, Isaiah v, 1–7, and of the useless vine, Ezek. xv; xix, 10–14; for under this imagery the ungrateful people of God are more than once described; Ezek. xix, 1–9; xxxi; xvi; xxiii. Moreover, the image must not only be apt and familiar, but it must be also elegant and beautiful in itself; since it is the purpose of a poetic parable, not only to explain more perfectly some proposition, but frequently to give it some animation and splendour. As the imagery from natural objects is in this respect superior to all others, the parables of the sacred poets consist chiefly of this kind of imagery. It is also essential to the elegance of a parable, that the imagery should not only be apt and beautiful, but that all its parts and appendages should be perspicuous and pertinent. Of all these excellencies, there cannot be more perfect examples than the parables that have been just specified; to which we may add the well known parable of Nathan, 2 Sam. xii, 1–4, although written in prose, as well as that of Jotham, Judges ix, 7–15, which appears to be the most ancient extant, and approaches somewhat nearer to the poetical form. It is also the criterion of a parable, that it be consistent throughout, and that the literal be never confounded with the figurative sense; and in this respect it materially differs from that species of allegory, called the continued metaphor, Isaiah v, 1–7. It should be considered, that the continued metaphor and the parable have a very different view. The sole intention of the former is to embellish a subject, to represent it more magnificently, or at the most to illustrate it, that, by describing it in more elevated language, it may strike the mind more forcibly; but the intent of the latter is to withdraw the truth for a moment from our sight, in order to conceal whatever it may contain ungrateful or reproving, and to enable it secretly to insinuate itself, and obtain an ascendency as it were by stealth. There is, however, a species of parable, the intent of which is only to illustrate the subject; such is that remarkable one of the cedar of Lebanon, Ezek. xxxi; than which, if we consider the imagery itself, none was ever more apt or more beautiful; or the description and colouring, none was ever more elegant or splendid; in which, however, the poet has occasionally allowed himself to blend the figurative with the literal description, verses 11, 14–17; whether he has done this because the peculiar nature of this kind of parable required it, or whether his own fervid imagination alone, which disdained the stricter rules of composition, was his guide, our learned author can scarcely presume to determine.

In the New Testament, the word parable is used variously: in Luke iv, 23, for a proverb, or adage; in Matt. xv, 15, for a thing darkly and figuratively expressed; in Heb. ix, 9, &c, for a type; in Luke xiv, 7, &c, for a special instruction; in Matt. xxiv, 32, for a similitude or comparison.

PARADISE, according to the original meaning of the term, whether it be of Hebrew, Chaldee, or Persian derivation, signifies, a place enclosed for pleasure and delight.” The LXX., or Greek translators of the Old Testament, make use of the word paradise, when they speak of the garden of Eden, which Jehovah planted at the creation, and in which he placed our first parents. There are three places in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament where this word is found, namely, Neh. ii, 8; Cant. iv, 13; Eccles. ii, 5. The term paradise is obviously used in the New Testament, as another word for heaven; by our Lord, Luke xxiii, 43; by the Apostle Paul, 2 Cor. xii, 4; and in the Apocalypse, ii, 7. See EDEN.

PARAN, DESERT OF, a great and terrible wilderness” which the children of Israel entered after leaving Mount Sinai, Num. x, 12; Deut. i, 19; and in which thirty-eight of their forty years of wandering were spent. It extended from Mount Sinai on the south, to the southern border of the land of Canaan on the north; having the desert of Shur, with its subdivisions, the deserts of Etham and Sin, on the west, and the eastern branch of the Red Sea, the desert of Zin and Mount Seir, on the east. Burckhardt represents this desert, which he entered from that of Zin, or valley of El Araba, about the parallel of Suez, as a dreary expanse of calcareous soil, covered with black flints.

PARTRIDGE, קדא, 1 Samuel xxvi, 20; Jer. xvii, 11; ϖέρδιξ, Ecclus. xi, 30. In the first of these places David says, The king of Israel is come out to hunt a partridge on the mountains;” and in the second, The partridge sitteth,” on eggs, and produceth,” or hatcheth, not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be contemptible.” This passage does not necessarily imply that the partridge hatches the eggs of a stranger, but only that she often fails in her attempts to bring forth her young. To such disappointments she is greatly exposed from the position of her nest on the ground, where her eggs are often spoiled by the wet, or crushed by the foot. So he that broods over his ill-gotten gains will often find them unproductive; or, if he leaves them, as a bird occasionally driven from her nest, may be despoiled of their possession. As to the hunting of the partridge, which, Dr. Shaw observes, is the greater, or red-legged kind, the traveller says: The Arabs have another, though a more laborious, method of catching these birds; for, observing that they become languid and fatigued after they have been hastily put up twice or thrice, they immediately run in upon them, and knock them down with their _zerwattys_, or bludgeons as we should call them.” Precisely in this manner Saul hunted David, coming hastily upon him, putting him up incessantly, in hopes that at length his strength and resources would fail, and he would become an easy prey to his pursuer. Forskal mentions a partridge whose name in Arabic is _kurr_; and Latham says, that, in the province of Andalusia in Spain, the name of the partridge is _churr_; both taken, no doubt, like the Hebrew, from its note.

PASSOVER, פסח, signifies _leap_, _passage_. The passover was a solemn festival of the Jews, instituted in commemoration of their coming out of Egypt; because the night before their departure the destroying angel that slew the first-born of the Egyptians passed over the houses of the Hebrews without entering them, because they were marked with the blood of the lamb, which, for this reason, was called the paschal lamb. The following is what God ordained concerning the passover: the month of the coming out of Egypt was after this to be the first month of the sacred or ecclesiastical year; and the fourteenth day of this month, between the two evenings, that is, between the sun’s decline and its setting, or rather, according to our reckoning, between three o’clock in the afternoon and six in the evening, at the equinox, they were to kill the paschal lamb, and to abstain from leavened bread. The day following, being the fifteenth, reckoned from six o’clock of the preceding evening, was the grand feast of the passover, which continued seven days; but only the first and seventh days were peculiarly solemn. The slain lamb was to be without defect, a male, and of that year. If no lamb could be found, they might take a kid. They killed a lamb or a kid in each family; and if the number of the family was not sufficient to eat the lamb, they might associate two families together. With the blood of the lamb they sprinkled the door posts and lintel of every house, that the destroying angel at the sight of the blood might pass over them. They were to eat the lamb the same night, roasted, with unleavened bread, and a sallad of wild lettuces, or bitter herbs. It was forbid to eat any part of it raw, or boiled; nor were they to break a bone; but it was to be eaten entire, even with the head, the feet, and the bowels. If any thing remained to the day following it was thrown into the fire, Exod. xii, 46; Num. ix, 12; John xix, 36. They who ate it were to be in the posture of travellers, having their reins girt, shoes on their feet, staves in their hands, and eating in a hurry. This last part of the ceremony was but little observed; at least, it was of no obligation after that night when they came out of Egypt. During the whole eight days of the passover no leavened bread was to be used. They kept the first and last day of the feast; yet it was allowed to dress victuals, which was forbidden on the Sabbath day. The obligation of keeping the passover was so strict, that whoever should neglect it was condemned to death, Num. ix, 13. But those who had any lawful impediment, as a journey, sickness, or uncleanness, voluntary or involuntary, for example, those who had been present at a funeral, &c, were to defer the celebration of the passover till the second month of the ecclesiastical year, the fourteenth day of the month Jair, which answers to April and May. We see an example of this postponed passover under Hezekiah, 2 Chron. xxx, 2, 3, &c.

The modern Jews observe in general the ceremonies practised by their ancestors in the celebration of the passover. While the temple was in existence, the Jews brought their lambs thither, and there sacrificed them; and they offered their blood to the priest, who poured it out at the foot of the altar. The paschal lamb was an illustrious type of Christ, who became a sacrifice for the redemption of a lost world from sin and misery; but resemblances between the type and antitype have been strained by many writers into a great number of fanciful particulars. It is enough for us to be assured, that as Christ is called our passover;” and the Lamb of God,” without spot,” by the sprinkling of whose blood” we are delivered from guilt and punishment; and as faith in him is represented to us as eating the flesh of Christ,” with evident allusion to the eating of the paschal sacrifice; so, in these leading particulars, the mystery of our redemption was set forth. The paschal lamb therefore prefigured the offering of the spotless Son of God, the appointed propitiation for the sins of the whole world; by virtue of which, when received by faith, we are delivered from the bondage of guilt and misery; and nourished with strength for our heavenly journey to that land of rest, of which Canaan, as early as the days of Abraham, became the divinely instituted figure.

PATMOS, a small rocky island in the Ægean Sea, about eighteen miles in circumference; which, on account of its dreary and desolate character, was used by the Roman emperors as a place of confinement for criminals. To this island St. John was banished by the Emperor Domitian; and here he had his revelation, recorded in the Apocalypse.

PATRIARCHS. This name is given to the ancient fathers, chiefly those who lived before Moses, as Adam, Lamech, Noah, Shem, &c, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the sons of Jacob, and heads of the tribes. The Hebrews call them princes of the tribes, or heads of the fathers. The name patriarch is derived from the Greek _patriarcha_, head of a family.”

PAUL was born at Tarsus, the principal city of Cilicia, and was by birth both a Jew and a citizen of Rome, Acts xxi, 39; xxii, 25. He was of the tribe of Benjamin, and of the sect of the Pharisees, Phil. iii, 5. In his youth he appears to have been taught the art of tent making, Acts xviii, 3; but we must remember that among the Jews of those days a liberal education was often accompanied by instruction in some mechanical trade. It is probable that St. Paul laid the foundation of those literary attainments, for which he was so eminent in the future part of his life, at his native city of Tarsus; and he afterward studied the law of Moses, and the traditions of the elders, at Jerusalem, under Gamaliel, a celebrated rabbi, Acts xxii, 4. St. Paul is not mentioned in the Gospels; nor is it known whether he ever heard our Saviour preach, or saw him perform any miracle. His name first occurs in the account given in the Acts of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, A. D. 34, to which he is said to have consented, Acts viii, 1: he is upon that occasion called a young man; but we are no where informed what was then his precise age. The death of St. Stephen was followed by a severe persecution of the church at Jerusalem, and St. Paul became distinguished among its enemies by his activity and violence, Acts viii, 3. Not contented with displaying his hatred to the Gospel in Judea, he obtained authority from the high priest to go to Damascus, and to bring back with him bound any Christians whom he might find in that city. As he was upon his journey thither, A. D. 35, his miraculous conversion took place, the circumstances of which are recorded in Acts ix, and are frequently alluded to in his epistles, 1 Cor. xv, 9; Gal. i, 13; 1 Tim. i, 12, 13.

Soon after St. Paul was baptized at Damascus, he went into Arabia; but we are not informed how long he remained there. He returned to Damascus; and being supernaturally qualified to be a preacher of the Gospel, he immediately entered upon his ministry in that city. The boldness and success with which he enforced the truths of Christianity so irritated the unbelieving Jews, that they resolved to put him to death, Acts ix, 23; but, this design being known, the disciples conveyed him privately out of Damascus, and he went to Jerusalem, A. D. 38. The Christians of Jerusalem, remembering St. Paul’s former hostility to the Gospel, and having no authentic account of any change in his sentiments or conduct, at first refused to receive him; but being assured by Barnabas of St. Paul’s real conversion, and of his exertions at Damascus, they acknowledged him as a disciple, Acts ix, 27. He remained only fifteen days among them, Gal. i, 18; and he saw none of the Apostles except St. Peter and St. James. It is probable that the other Apostles were at this time absent from Jerusalem, exercising their ministry at different places. The zeal with which St. Paul preached at Jerusalem had the same effect as at Damascus: he became so obnoxious to the Hellenistic Jews, that they began to consider how they might kill him, Acts ix, 29; which when the brethren knew, they thought it right that he should leave the city. They accompanied him to Cæsarea, and thence he went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, where he preached the faith which once he destroyed, Gal. i, 21, 23.

Hitherto the preaching of St. Paul, as well as of the other Apostles and teachers, had been confined to the Jews; but the conversion of Cornelius, the first Gentile convert, A. D. 40, having convinced all the Apostles that to the Gentiles, also, God had granted repentance unto life,” St. Paul was soon after conducted by Barnabas from Tarsus, which had probably been the principal place of his residence since he left Jerusalem, and they both began to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles at Antioch, A. D. 42, Acts xi, 25. Their preaching was attended with great success. The first Gentile church was now established at Antioch; and in that city, and at this time, the disciples were first called Christians, Acts xi, 26. When these two Apostles had been thus employed about a year, a prophet called Agabus predicted an approaching famine, which would affect the whole land of Judea. Upon the prospect of this calamity, the Christians of Antioch made a contribution for their brethren in Judea, and sent the money to the elders at Jerusalem by St. Paul and Barnabas, A. D. 44, Acts xi, 28, &c. This famine happened soon after, in the fourth or fifth year of the Emperor Claudius. It is supposed that St. Paul had the vision, mentioned in Acts xxii, 17, while he was now at Jerusalem this second time after his conversion.

St. Paul and Barnabas, having executed their commission, returned to Antioch; and soon after their arrival in that city they were separated, by the express direction of the Holy Ghost, from the other Christian teachers and prophets, for the purpose of carrying the glad tidings of the Gospel to the Gentiles of various countries, Acts xiii, 1. Thus divinely appointed to this important office, they set out from Antioch, A. D. 45, and preached the Gospel successively at Salamis and Paphos, two cities of the isle of Cyprus, at Perga in Pamphylia, Antioch in Pisidia, and at Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, three cities of Lycaonia. They returned to Antioch in Syria, A. D. 47, nearly by the same route. This first apostolical journey of St. Paul, in which he was accompanied and assisted by Barnabas, is supposed to have occupied about two years; and in the course of it many, both Jews and Gentiles, were converted to the Gospel.

Paul and Barnabas continued at Antioch a considerable time; and while they were there, a dispute arose between them and some Jewish Christians of Judea. These men asserted, that the Gentile converts could not obtain salvation through the Gospel, unless they were circumcised; Paul and Barnabas maintained the contrary opinion, Acts xv, 1, 2. This dispute was carried on for some time with great earnestness; and it being a question in which not only the present but all future Gentile converts were concerned, it was thought right that St. Paul and Barnabas, with some others, should go up to Jerusalem to consult the Apostles and elders concerning it. They passed through Phenicia and Samaria, and upon their arrival at Jerusalem, A. D. 49, a council was assembled for the purpose of discussing this important point, Gal. ii, 1. St. Peter and St. James the less were present, and delivered their sentiments, which coincided with those of St. Paul and Barnabas; and after much deliberation it was agreed, that neither circumcision, nor conformity to any part of the ritual law of Moses, was necessary in Gentile converts; but that it should be recommended to them to abstain from certain specified things prohibited by that law, lest their indulgence in them should give offence to their brethren of the circumcision, who were still very zealous for the observance of the ceremonial part of their ancient religion. This decision which was declared to have the sanction of the Holy Ghost, was communicated to the Gentile Christians of Syria and Cilicia by a letter written in the name of the Apostles, elders, and whole church at Jerusalem, and conveyed by Judas and Silas, who accompanied St. Paul and Barnabas to Antioch for that purpose.

St. Paul, having preached a short time at Antioch, proposed to Barnabas that they should visit the churches which they had founded in different cities, Acts xv, 36. Barnabas readily consented; but while they were preparing for the journey, there arose a disagreement between them, which ended in their separation. In consequence of this dispute with Barnabas, St. Paul chose Silas for his companion, and they set out together from Antioch, A. D. 50. They travelled through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches, and then came to Derbe and Lystra, Acts xvi. Thence they went through Phrygia and Galatia; and, being desirous of going into Asia Propria, or the Proconsular Asia, they were forbidden by the Holy Ghost. They therefore went into Mysia; and, not being permitted by the Holy Ghost to go into Bithynia as they had intended, they went to Troas. While St. Paul was there, a vision appeared to him in the night: There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” St. Paul knew this vision to be a command from Heaven, and in obedience to it immediately sailed from Troas to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis, a city of Thrace; and thence he went to Philippi, the principal city of that part of Macedonia. St. Paul remained some time at Philippi, preaching the Gospel; and several occurrences which took place in that city, are recorded in Acts xvii. Thence he went through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, Acts xvii, where he preached in the synagogues of the Jews on three successive Sabbath days. Some of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles of both sexes, embraced the Gospel; but the unbelieving Jews, moved with envy and indignation at the success of St. Paul’s preaching, excited a great disturbance in the city, and irritated the populace so much against him, that the brethren, anxious for his safety, thought it prudent to send him to Berea, where he met with a better reception than he had experienced at Thessalonica. The Bereans heard his instructions with attention and candour, and having compared his doctrines with the ancient Scriptures, and being satisfied that Jesus, whom he preached, was the promised Messiah, they embraced the Gospel; but his enemies at Thessalonica, being informed of his success at Berea, came thither, and, by their endeavours to stir up the people against him, compelled him to leave that city also. He went thence to Athens, where he delivered that discourse recorded in Acts xvii. From Athens, Paul went to Corinth, Acts xviii, A. D. 51, and lived in the house of Aquila and Priscilla, two Jews, who, being compelled to leave Rome in consequence of Claudius’s edict against the Jews, had lately settled at Corinth. St. Paul was induced to take up his residence with them, because, like himself, they were tent makers. At first he preached to the Jews in their synagogue; but upon their violently opposing his doctrine, he declared that from that time he would preach to the Gentiles only; and, accordingly, he afterward delivered his instructions in the house of one Justus, who lived near the synagogue. Among the few Jews who embraced the Gospel, were Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, and his family; and many of the Gentile Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.” St. Paul was encouraged in a vision to persevere in his exertions to convert the inhabitants of Corinth; and although he met with great opposition and disturbance from the unbelieving Jews, and was accused by them before Gallio, the Roman governor of Achaia, he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God.” During this time he supported himself by working at his trade of tent making, that he might not be burdensome to the disciples. From Corinth St. Paul sailed into Syria, and thence he went to Ephesus: thence to Cæsarea; and is supposed to have arrived at Jerusalem just before the feast of pentecost. After the feast he went to Antioch, A. D. 53; and this was the conclusion of his second apostolical journey, in which he was accompanied by Silas; and in part of it, Luke and Timothy were also with him.

Having made a short stay at Antioch, St. Paul set out upon his third apostolical journey. He passed through Galatia, and Phrygia, A. D. 54, confirming the Christians of those countries; and thence, according to his promise, he went to Ephesus, Acts xix. He found there some disciples, who had only been baptized with John’s baptism: he directed that they should be baptized in the name of Jesus, and then he communicated to them the Holy Ghost. He preached for the space of three months in the synagogue; but the Jews being hardened beyond conviction, and speaking reproachfully of the Christian religion before the multitude, he left them; and from that time he delivered his instructions in the school of a person called Tyrannus, who was probably a Gentile. St. Paul continued to preach in this place about two years, so that all the inhabitants of that part of Asia Minor heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.” He also performed many miracles at Ephesus; and not only great numbers of people were converted to Christianity, but many also of those who in this superstitious city used incantations and magical arts, professed their belief in the Gospel, and renounced their former practices by publicly burning their books. Previous to the disturbance raised by Demetrius, Paul had intended to continue at Ephesus till Titus should return, whom he had sent to inquire into the state of the church at Corinth, 2 Cor. xii, 18. He now thought it prudent to go from Ephesus immediately, Acts xx, A. D. 56; and having taken an affectionate leave of the disciples, he set out for Troas, 2 Cor. ii, 12, 13, where he expected to meet Titus. Titus, however, from some cause which is not known, did not come to Troas; and Paul was encouraged to pass over into Macedonia, with the hope of making converts. St. Paul, after preaching in Macedonia, receiving from the Christians of that country liberal contributions for their poor brethren in Judea, 2 Cor. viii, 1, went to Corinth, A. D. 57, and remained there about three months. The Christians also of Corinth, and of the rest of Achaia, contributed to the relief of their brethren in Judea. St. Paul’s intention was to have sailed from Corinth into Syria; but being informed that some unbelieving Jews, who had discovered his intention, lay in wait for him, he changed his plan, passed through Macedonia, and sailed from Philippi to Troas in five days, A. D. 58. He stayed at Troas seven days, and preached to the Christians on the first day of the week, the day on which they were accustomed to meet for the purpose of religious worship. From Troas he went by land to Assos; and thence he sailed to Mitylene; and from Mitylene to Miletus. Being desirous of reaching Jerusalem before the feast of pentecost, he would not allow time to go to Ephesus, and therefore he sent for the elders of the Ephesian church to Miletus, and gave them instructions, and prayed with them. He told them that he should see them no more, which impressed them with the deepest sorrow. From Miletus he sailed by Cos, Rhodes, and Patara in Lycia, to Tyre, Acts xxi. Finding some disciples at Tyre, he stayed with them several days, and then went to Ptolemais, and thence to Cæsarea. While St. Paul was at Cæsarea, the Prophet Agabus foretold by the Holy Ghost, that St. Paul, if he went to Jerusalem, would suffer much from the Jews. This prediction caused great uneasiness to St. Paul’s friends, and they endeavoured to dissuade him from his intention of going thither. St. Paul, however, would not listen to their entreaties, but declared that he was ready to die at Jerusalem, if it were necessary, for the name of the Lord Jesus. Seeing him thus resolute, they desisted from their importunities, and accompanied him to Jerusalem, where he is supposed to have arrived just before the feast of pentecost, A. D. 58. This may be considered as the end of St. Paul’s third apostolical journey.

St. Paul was received by the Apostles and other Christians at Jerusalem with great joy and affection; and his account of the success of his ministry, and of the collections which he had made among the Christians of Macedonia and Achaia, for the relief of their brethren in Judea, afforded them much satisfaction; but not long after his arrival at Jerusalem, some Jews of Asia, who had probably in their own country witnessed St. Paul’s zeal in spreading Christianity among the Gentiles, seeing him one day in the temple, endeavoured to excite a tumult, by crying out that he was the man who was aiming to destroy all distinction between Jew and Gentile; who taught things contrary to the law of Moses; and who had polluted the holy temple, by bringing into it uncircumcised Heathens. This representation did not fail to enrage the multitude against St. Paul; they seized him, dragged him out of the temple, beat him, and were upon the point of putting him to death, when he was rescued out of their hands by Lysias, a Roman tribune, and the principal military officer then at Jerusalem. What followed,--his defence before Felix and Agrippa,--his long detention at Cæsarea, and his appeal to the emperor, which occasioned his voyage to Rome, are all circumstantially stated in the latter chapters of the Acts. Upon his arrival at Rome, St. Paul was committed to the care of the captain of the guard, A. D. 61. The Scriptures do not inform us whether he was ever tried before Nero, who was at this time emperor of Rome; and the learned are much divided in their opinion upon that point. St. Luke only says, Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.” During his confinement he converted some Jews resident at Rome, and many Gentiles, and, among the rest, several persons belonging to the emperor’s household, Phil. iv, 22.

The Scripture history ends with the release of St. Paul from his two years’ imprisonment at Rome, A. D. 63; and no ancient author has left us any particulars of the remaining part of this Apostle’s life. It seems probable, that, immediately after he recovered his liberty, he went to Jerusalem; and that afterward he travelled through Asia Minor, Crete, Macedonia, and Greece, confirming his converts, and regulating the affairs of the different churches which he had planted in those countries. Whether at this time he also preached the Gospel in Spain, as some have imagined, is very uncertain. It was the unanimous tradition of the church, that St. Paul returned to Rome, that he underwent a second imprisonment there, and at last was put to death by the Emperor Nero. Tacitus and Suetonius have mentioned a dreadful fire which happened at Rome in the time of Nero. It was believed, though probably without any reason, that the emperor himself was the author of that fire; but to remove the odium from himself, he chose to attribute it to the Christians; and, to give some colour to that unjust imputation, he persecuted them with the utmost cruelty. In this persecution St. Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom, probably, A. D. 65; and if we may credit Sulpitius Severus, a writer of the fifth century, the former was crucified, and the latter beheaded.

St. Paul was a person of great natural abilities, of quick apprehension, strong feelings, firm resolution, and irreproachable life. He was conversant with Grecian and Jewish literature; and gave early proofs of an active and zealous disposition. If we may be allowed to consider his character independent of his supernatural endowments, we may pronounce that he was well qualified to have risen to distinction and eminence, and that he was by nature peculiarly adapted to the high office to which it pleased God to call him. As a minister of the Gospel, he displayed the most unwearied perseverance and undaunted courage. He was deterred by no difficulty or danger, and endured a great variety of persecutions with patience and cheerfulness. He gloried in being thought worthy of suffering for the name of Jesus, and continued with unabated zeal to maintain the truth of Christianity against its bitterest and most powerful enemies. He was the principal instrument under Providence of spreading the Gospel among the Gentiles; and we have seen that his labours lasted through many years, and reached over a considerable extent of country. Though emphatically styled the great Apostle of the Gentiles, he began his ministry, in almost every city, by preaching in the synagogue of the Jews; and though he owed by far the greater part of his persecutions to the opposition and malice of that proud and obstinate people, whose resentment he particularly incurred by maintaining that the Gentiles were to be admitted to an indiscriminate participation of the benefits of the new dispensation, yet it rarely happened in any place, that some of the Jews did not yield to his arguments, and embrace the Gospel. He watched with paternal care over the churches which he had founded; and was always ready to strengthen the faith, and regulate the conduct of his converts, by such directions and advice as their circumstances might require.

The exertions of St. Paul in the cause of Christianity were not confined to personal instruction: he also wrote fourteen epistles to individuals or churches which are now extant, and form a part of our canon. These letters furnish evidence of the soundness and sobriety of his judgment. His caution in distinguishing between the occasional suggestions of inspiration, and the ordinary exertions of his natural understanding, is without example in the history of enthusiasm. His morality is every where calm, pure, and rational; adapted to the condition, the activity, and the business of social life, and of its various relations; free from the overscrupulousness and austerities of superstition, and from, what was more perhaps to be apprehended, the abstractions of quietism, and the soarings or extravagancies of fanaticism. His judgment concerning a hesitating conscience, his opinion of the moral indifferency of many actions, yet of the prudence and even the duty of compliance, where non-compliance would produce evil effects upon the minds of the persons who observed it, are all in proof of the calm and discriminating character of his mind; and the universal applicability of his precepts affords strong presumption of his inspiration. What Lord Lyttleton has remarked of the preference ascribed by St. Paul to rectitude of principle above every other religious accomplishment, is weighty: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal,” &c, 1 Cor. xiii, 1–3. Did ever enthusiast prefer that universal benevolence, meant by charity here, (which, we may add, is attainable by every man,) to faith, and to miracles, to those religious opinions which he had embraced, and to those supernatural graces and gifts which he imagined he had acquired, nay, even to the merit of martyrdom? Is it not the genius of enthusiasm to set moral virtues infinitely below the merit of faith; and of all moral virtues to value that least which is most particularly enforced by St. Paul, a spirit of candour, moderation, and peace? Certainly, neither the temper nor the opinions of a man subject to fanatic delusions are to be found in this passage. His letters, indeed, every where discover great zeal and earnestness in the cause in which he was engaged; that is to say, he was convinced of the truth of what he taught; he was deeply impressed, but not more so than the occasion merited, with a sense of its importance. This produces a corresponding animation and solicitude in the exercise of his ministry. But would not these considerations, supposing them to have been well founded, have holden the same place, and produced the same effect, in a mind the strongest and the most sedate? Here, then, we have a man of liberal attainments, and in other respects of sound judgment, who had addicted his life to the service of the Gospel. We see him in the prosecution of his purpose, travelling from country to country, enduring every species of hardship, encountering every extremity of danger, assaulted by the populace, punished by the magistrates, scourged, beaten, stoned, left for dead; expecting, wherever he came, a renewal of the same treatment, and the same dangers; yet, when driven from one city, preaching in the next; spending his whole time in the employment; sacrificing to it his pleasures, his ease, his safety; persisting in this course to old age, unaltered by the experience of perverseness, ingratitude, prejudice, desertion; unsubdued by anxiety, want, labour, persecutions; unwearied by long confinement; undismayed by the prospect of death. Such was St. Paul; and such were the proofs of Apostleship found in him.”

The following remarks of Hug on the character of this Apostle are equally just and eloquent: This most violent man, having such terrible propensities, whose turbulent impulses rendered him of a most enterprising character, would have become nothing better than a John of Gishala, a blood-intoxicated zealot, εμπνεων απειλης και φονου, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, Acts ix, 1, had not his whole soul been changed. The harsh tone of his mind inclined him to the principles of Pharisaism, which had all the appearance of severity, and was the predominant party among the Jews. Nature had not withholden from him the external endowments of eloquence, although he afterward spoke very modestly of them. At Lystra he was deemed the tutelar god of eloquence. This character, qualified for great things, but, not master of himself from excess of internal power, was an extreme of human dispositions, and, according to the natural course, was prone to absolute extremities. His religion was a destructive zeal, his anger was fierceness, his fury required victims. A ferocity so boisterous did not psychologically qualify him for a Christian nor a philanthropist; but, least of all, for a quietly enduring man. He, nevertheless, became all this on his conversion to Christianity, and each bursting emotion of his mind subsided directly into a well regulated and noble character. Formerly hasty and irritable, now only spirited and resolved; formerly violent, now full of energy and enterprising: once ungovernably refractory against every thing which obstructed him, now only persevering; once fanatical and morose, now only serious; once cruel, now only firm; once a harsh zealot, now fearing God; formerly unrelenting, deaf to sympathy and commiseration, now himself acquainted with tears, which he had seen without effect in others. Formerly the friend of none, now the brother of mankind, benevolent, compassionate, sympathizing; yet never weak, always great; in the midst of sadness and sorrow manly and noble; so he showed himself at his deeply moving departure from Miletus, Acts xx: it is like the departure of Moses, like the resignation of Samuel, sincere and heart-felt, full of self-recollection, and in the midst of pain full of dignity. His writings are a true expression of this character, with regard to the tone predominant in them. Severity, manly seriousness, and sentiments which ennoble the heart, are interchanged with mildness, affability, and sympathy: and their transitions are such as nature begets in the heart of a man penetrated by his subject, noble and discerning. He exhorts, reproaches, and consoles again; he attacks with energy, urges with impetuosity, then again he speaks kindly to the soul; he displays his finer feelings for the welfare of others, his forbearance and his fear of afflicting any body: all as the subject, time, opposite dispositions, and circumstances require. There prevails throughout in them an importuning language, an earnest and lively communication. Rom. i, 26–32, is a comprehensive and vigorous description of morals. His antithesis, Rom. ii, 21–24; 2 Cor. iv, 8–12; vi, 9–11; ix, 22–30; his enumerations, 1 Cor. xiii, 4–10; 2 Cor. vi, 4–7; 2 Tim. iii, 1–5; Eph. iv, 4–7; v, 3–6; his gradations, Romans viii, 29, 30; Titus iii, 3, 4; the interrogations, exclamations, and comparisons, sometimes animate his language even so as to give a visible existence to it. That, however, which we principally perceive in Paul, and from which his whole actions and operations become intelligible, is the peculiar impression which the idea of a universal religion has wrought upon his mind. This idea of establishing a religion for the world had not so profoundly engrossed any soul, no where kindled so much vigour, and projected it into such a constant energy. In this he was no man’s scholar; this he had immediately received from the Spirit of his Master; it was a spark of the divine light which enkindled him. It was this which never allowed him to remain in Palestine and in Syria, which so powerfully impelled him to foreign parts. The portion of some others was Judea and its environs: but his mission was directed to the nations, and his allotment was the whole of the Heathen world. Thus he began his career among the different nations of Asia Minor, and when this limit also became too confined for him, he went with equal confidence to Europe, among other nations, ordinances, sciences, and customs; and here likewise he finally with the same indefatigable spirit circulated his plans, even to the pillars of Hercules. In this manner Paul prepared the overthrow of two religions, that of his ancestors, and that of the Heathens.

PEACOCK, תוכיים, 1 Kings x, 22; 2 Chron. ix, 21; a bird distinguished by the length of its tail, and the brilliant spots with which it is adorned; which displays all that dazzles in the sparkling lustre of gems, and all that astonishes in the rainbow. The peacock is a bird originally of India; thence brought into Persia and Media. Aristophanes mentions Persian peacocks; and Suidas calls the peacock the Median bird. From Persia it was gradually dispersed into Judea, Egypt, Greece, and Europe. If the fleet of Solomon visited India, they might easily procure this bird, whether from India itself, or from Persia; and certainly the bird by its beauty was likely to attract attention, and to be brought among other rarities of natural history by Solomon’s servants, who would be instructed to collect every curiosity in the countries they visited.

PEARL, a hard, white, shining body, usually roundish, found in a shell fish resembling an oyster. The oriental pearls have a fine polished gloss, and are tinged with an elegant blush of red. They are esteemed in the east beyond all other jewels.

PELAGIANS, a sect that arose in the fifth century. Pelagius was a British monk, of some rank, and very exalted reputation. He, with his friend Celestius, travelled to Rome, where they resided very early in the fifth century, and opposed with warmth certain received notions respecting original sin, and the necessity of divine grace. What reception their doctrines met with at Rome does not appear; but their virtue excited general approbation. On the approach of the Goths, they retired to Africa, where Celestius remained, with a view of gaining admittance as a presbyter into the church of Carthage. Pelagius proceeded to Palestine, where he enjoyed the favour and protection of John, bishop of Jerusalem. But his friend and his opinions met with a very different reception from St. Augustine, the celebrated bishop of Hippo. Whatever parts were visited by these unorthodox friends, they still asserted their peculiar opinions; and they were gradually engaged in a warm contest, in the course of which they were probably led to advance more than had originally occurred to them. In contending for the truth of their doctrines, they are said to have asserted, that mankind derived no injury from the sin of Adam; that we are now as capable of obedience to the will of God as he was; that, otherwise, it would have been cruel and absurd to propose to mankind the performance of certain duties, with the sanction of rewards, and the denunciation of punishments; and that, consequently, men are born without vice, as well as without virtue.” Pelagius is charged also with having maintained, that it is possible for men, provided they fully employ the powers and faculties with which they are endued, to live without sin;” and though he did not deny that external grace, or the doctrines and motives of the Gospel, are necessary, yet he is said to have rejected the necessity of internal grace, or the aids of the divine Spirit. He acknowledged, that the power we possess of obeying the will of God, is a divine gift;” but asserted, that the direction of this power depends upon ourselves; that natural death is not a consequence of the sin of Adam, but of the frame of man; and that Adam would have died, though he had not sinned.” Isidore, Chrysostom, and Augustine strenuously opposed these opinions; and the latter procured their condemnation in a synod held at Carthage in 412. They were, however, favourably received at Rome, and Pope Zozimus was at the head of the Pelagian party: but his decision against the African bishops, who had opposed Pelagianism, was disregarded by them, and the pontiff yielded at length to their reasonings and remonstrances, and condemned the men whom he had before honoured with his approbation. The council of Ephesus likewise condemned the opinions of Pelagius and Celestius; and the Emperor Honorius, in 418, published an edict, which ordained that the leaders of the sect should be expelled from Rome, and their followers exiled. Some of the Pelagians taught that Christ was a mere man, and that men might lead sinless lives, because Christ did so; that Jesus became Christ after his baptism, and God after his resurrection; the one arising from his unction, the other from the merit of his passion. The Pelagian controversy, which began with the doctrines of grace and original sin, was extended to predestination, and excited continual discord and division in the church. It must however be recollected, that we are acquainted with the sentiments of Pelagius only through the medium of his opponents; and that it is probable that they were much misrepresented. See AUGUSTINE.

The followers of the truly evangelical Arminius, or those who hold the tenet of general redemption with its concomitants, have often been greatly traduced, by the ignorant among their doctrinal opponents, as Pelagians, or at least as Semi-Pelagians. It may therefore serve the cause of truth to exhibit the appropriate reply which the Dutch Arminians gave to this charge when urged against them at the synod of Dort, and which they verified and maintained by arguments and authorities that were unanswerable. In their concluding observations they say, “From all these remarks a judgment may easily be formed at what an immense distance our sentiments stand from the dogmatical assertions of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians _on the grace of God in the conversion of man_. Pelagius, in the first instance, attributed all things to nature: but we acknowledge nothing but grace. When Pelagius was blamed for not acknowledging grace, he began indeed to speak of it, but it is evident that by _grace_ he understood the power of nature as created by God, that is, _the rational will_: but by grace we understand _a supernatural gift_. Pelagius, when afterward pressed with passages of Scripture, also admitted this supernatural grace; but he placed it solely in the external teaching of the law: though we affirm that God offers his word to men, yet we likewise affirm that he inwardly causes the understanding to believe. Subsequently Pelagius joined to this external grace _that by which sins are pardoned_: we acknowledge not only the grace by which sins are forgiven, but also that by which men are assisted to refrain from the commission of sin. In addition to his previous concessions Pelagius granted, that _the grace of Christ_ was requisite beside the two kinds which he had enumerated; but he attributed it entirely to the doctrine and example of Christ that we are aided in our endeavours not to commit sin: we likewise admit that the doctrine and example of Christ afford us some aid in refraining from sin, but in addition to their influence we also place the gift of the Holy Spirit with which God endues us, and which enlightens our understandings, and confers strength and power upon our will to abstain from sinning. When Pelagius afterward owned the assistance of divine power inwardly working in man by the Holy Spirit, he placed it solely in the enlightening of the understanding: but we believe, that it is not only necessary for us to know or understand what we ought to do, but that it is also requisite for us to implore the aid of the Holy Spirit that we may be rendered capable of performing, and may delight in the performance of, that which it is our duty to do. Pelagius admitted grace,--but it has been a question with some whether he meant only illumination, or, beside this, a power communicated to the will;--he admitted grace, but he did this only to show that by means of it man can _with greater ease_ act aright: we, on the contrary, affirm that grace is bestowed, not that we may be able with greater ease to act aright, (which is as though we can do this even without grace,) but that grace is absolutely necessary to enable us to act at all aright. Pelagius asserted, that man, so far from requiring the aid of grace for the performance of good actions, is, through the powers implanted in him at the time of his creation, capable of fulfilling the whole law, of loving God, and of overcoming all temptations: we, on the contrary, assert that the grace of God is required for the performance of every act of piety. Pelagius declared, that by the works of nature man renders himself worthy of grace: but we, in common with the church universal, condemn this dogma. When Pelagius afterward himself condemned this tenet, he understood by _grace_, partly natural grace, which is antecedent to all merit, and partly remission of sins, which he acknowledged to be gratuitous; but he added, that through works performed by the powers of nature alone, at least through the desire of good and the imperfect longing after it, men merit that spiritual grace by which they are assisted in good works: but we declare, that men will that which is good on account of God’s prevenience or going before them by his grace, and exciting within them a longing after good; otherwise grace would no longer be grace, because it would not be _gratuitously_ bestowed, but only _on account of the merit of man_.” That many who have held some tenets in common with the true Arminians have been, in different degrees, followers of Pelagius is well known; but the original Arminians were in truth as far from Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian errors, granting the opinions of Pelagius to be fairly reported by his adversaries, as the Calvinists themselves. This is also the case with the whole body of Wesleyan Methodists, and of the cognate societies to which they have given rise, both in Great Britain and America.

PELICAN, קאת, Lev. xi, 18; Deut. xiv, 17; Psa. cii, 7; Isa. xxxiv, 11; Zeph. ii, 14; a very remarkable aquatic bird, of the size of a large goose. Its colour is a grayish white, except that the neck looks a little yellowish, and the middle of the back feathers are blackish. The bill is long, and hooked at the end, and has under it a lax membrane, extended to the throat, which makes a bag or sack, capable of holding a very large quantity. Feeding her young from this bag has so much the appearance of feeding them with her own blood, that it caused this fabulous opinion to be propagated, and made the pelican an emblem of paternal, as the stork had been before chosen, more justly, of filial affection. The voice of this bird is harsh and dissonant, which some say resembles that of a man grievously complaining. David compares his groaning to it, Psalm cii, 7.

PENTATEUCH. This word, which is derived from the Greek Πεντάτευχος, from ϖέντε, _five_, and τεῦχος, _a volume_, signifies the collection of the five books of Moses, which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That the Jews have acknowledged the authenticity of the Pentateuch, from the present time back to the era of their return from the Babylonish captivity, a period of more than two thousand three hundred years, admits not a possibility of doubt. The five books of Moses have been during that period constantly placed at the head of the Jewish sacred volume, and divided into fixed portions, one of which was read and explained in their synagogues, not only every Sabbath with the other Scriptures, but in many places twice a week, and not unfrequently every evening, when they alone were read. They have been received as divinely inspired by every Jewish sect, even by the Sadducees, who questioned the divinity of the remaining works of the Old Testament. In truth, the veneration of the Jews for their Scriptures, and above all for the Pentateuch, seems to have risen almost to a superstitious reverence. Extracts from the Mosaic law were written on pieces of parchment, and placed on the borders of their garments, or round their wrists and foreheads: nay, they at a later period counted, with the minutest exactness, not only the chapters and paragraphs, but the words and letters, which each book of their Scriptures contains. Thus also the translation, first of the Pentateuch, and afterward of the remaining works of the Old Testament, into Greek, for the use of the Alexandrian Jews, disseminated this sacred volume over a great part of the civilized world, in the language most universally understood, and rendered it accessible to the learned and inquisitive in every country; so as to preclude all suspicion that it could be materially altered by either Jews or Christians, to support their respective opinions as to the person and character of the Messiah; the substance of the text being, by this translation, fixed and authenticated at least two hundred and seventy years before the appearance of our Lord.

But, long previous to the captivity, two particular examples, deserving peculiar attention, occur in the Jewish history, of the public and solemn homage paid to the sacredness of the Mosaic law as promulgated in the Pentateuch; and which, by consequence, afford the fullest testimony to the authenticity of the Pentateuch itself: the one in the reign of Hezekiah, while the separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel still subsisted; and the other in the reign of his great grandson Josiah, subsequent to the captivity of Israel. In the former we see the pious monarch of Judah assembling the priests and Levites and the rulers of the people; to deplore with him the trespasses of their fathers against the divine law, to acknowledge the justice of those chastisements which, according to the prophetic warnings of that law, had been inflicted upon them; to open the house of God which his father had impiously shut, and restore the true worship therein according to the Mosaic ritual, 2 Kings xviii; 2 Chron. xxix; xxx; with the minutest particulars of which he complied, in the sin-offerings and the peace-offerings which, in conjunction with his people, he offered for the kingdom and the sanctuary and the people, to make atonement to God for them and for all Israel; restoring the service of God as it had been performed in the purest times. And Hezekiah,” says the sacred narrative, rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people; for the thing was done suddenly,” 2 Chron. xxix, 36; immediately on the king’s accession to the throne, on the first declaration of his pious resolution. How clear a proof does this exhibit of the previous existence and clearly acknowledged authority of those laws which the Pentateuch contains!

But a yet more remarkable part of this transaction still remains. At this time Hoshea was king of Israel, and so far disposed to countenance the worship of the true God, that he appears to have made no opposition to the pious zeal of Hezekiah; who, with the concurrence of the whole congregation which he had assembled, sent out letters and made a proclamation, not only to his own people of Judah, 2 Chron. xxx, 1, but to Ephraim and Manasseh and all Israel, from Beersheba even unto Dan, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel; saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he will return to the remnant of you who are escaped out of the hands of the kings of Assyria; and be not ye like your fathers and your brethren, which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation as ye see. Now be ye not stiff-necked, as your fathers were; but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into his sanctuary which he hath sanctified for ever, and serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you. So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun,” 2 Chron. xxx, 6, &c.

Now, can we conceive that such an attempt as this could have been made, if the Pentateuch containing the Mosaic code had not been as certainly recognized through the ten tribes of Israel as in the kingdom of Judah? The success was exactly such as we might reasonably expect if it were so acknowledged; for, though many of the ten tribes laughed to scorn and mocked the messengers of Hezekiah, who invited them to the solemnity of the passover, from the impious contempt which through long disuse they had conceived for it; Nevertheless,” says the sacred narrative, divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem; and there assembled at Jerusalem much people, to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great congregation; and they killed the passover, and the priests and Levites stood in their places after their manner, according to the law of Moses, the man of God. So there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like at Jerusalem: and when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all,” 2 Chronicles xxx, 11; xxxi. Can any clearer proof than this be desired of the constant and universal acknowledgment of the divine authority of the Pentateuch throughout the entire nation of the Jews, notwithstanding the idolatries and corruptions which so often prevented its receiving such obedience as that acknowledgment ought to have produced? The argument from this certain antiquity of the Pentateuch, a copy of which existed in the old Samaritan character as well as in the modern Hebrew, is most conclusive as to the numerous prophecies of Christ, and the future and present condition of the Jews which it contains. These are proved to have been delivered many ages before they were accomplished; they could be only the result of divine prescience, and the uttering of them by Moses proves therefore the inspiration and the authority of his writings. See LAW and MOSES.

PENTECOST, Πεντεκοϛὴ, a solemn festival of the Jews; so called, because it was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the sixteenth of Nisan, which was the second day of the passover. The Hebrews call it the feast of weeks, because it was kept seven weeks after the passover. They then offered the first fruits of the wheat harvest, which was then completed; beside which, they presented at the temple seven lambs of that year, one calf, and two rams for a burnt-offering; two lambs for a peace-offering; and a goat for a sin-offering, Lev. xxiii, 15, 16; Exod. xxxiv, 22; Deut. xvi, 9, 10. The feast of pentecost was instituted among the Israelites, first, to oblige them to repair to the temple of the Lord, there to acknowledge his absolute dominion over the whole country, by offering him the first fruits of the harvest; and, secondly, to commemorate and give thanks to God for the law which he had given them from Sinai, on the fiftieth day after their coming out of Egypt. The modern Jews celebrate the pentecost for two days. They deck the synagogues, where the law is read, and their own houses, with garlands of flowers. They hear an oration in praise of the law, and read from the Pentateuch and prophets lessons which have a relation to this festival, and accommodate their prayers to the same occasion. It was on the feast of pentecost that the Holy Ghost descended in the miraculous manner related, Acts ii.

PERGAMUS, a city of Troas, very considerable in the time of John the evangelist, Rev. ii, 12, 13. This city was, for the space of one hundred and fifty years, the capital of a kingdom of the same name founded by Philetærus, B. C. 283; who treacherously made use of the treasures committed to his care by Lysimachus after the battle of Ipsus, and, seizing on Pergamus, established an independent kingdom. After Philetærus were five kings of the same race; the last of whom, Attalus Philopater, left his kingdom, which comprehended Mysia, Æolis, Ionia, Lydia, and Caria, to the Roman empire; to which it belonged when the first Christian church was established there. This church early became corrupted by the Nicolaitans, for which it was reproved by St. John, and charged quickly to repent, Rev. ii, 14–16. Pergamus, now called Bergamo, like most other places which have been cursed by the presence of the Turks, is reduced to comparative decay, containing a poor population, who are too indolent or too oppressed to profit by the richness of their soil and the beauty of the climate. The number of inhabitants, however, is still said to amount to thirty thousand, of whom three thousand are Greek Christians. Many remains of former magnificence are still to be found; among which are those of several Christian churches. It is about sixty miles north of Smyrna. The celebrated physician Galen was a native of this place.

PERIZZITES. The ancient inhabitants of Palestine, mingled with the Canaanites. There is also a great probability that they themselves were Canaanites, but, having no fixed habitations, were wandering about here and there, and scattered over all the country. Thus, in the time of Abraham and Lot, the Canaanite and Perizzite were in the land, Gen. xiii, 7; Josh. xvii, 15. Solomon subdued the remains of the Canaanites and Perizzites, which the children of Israel had not rooted out, and made them tributary to him, 1 Kings ix, 20, 21; 2 Chron. viii, 7. There still remained some of this people as late as the time of Ezra, ix, 1.

PERSECUTION is any pain or affliction which a person designedly inflicts upon another; and, in a more restrained sense, the sufferings of Christians on account of their religion. The establishment of Christianity was opposed by the powers of the world, and occasioned several severe persecutions against Christians, during the reigns of several Roman emperors. Though the absurdities of polytheism were openly derided and exposed by the Apostles and their successors, yet it does not appear that any public laws were enacted against Christianity till the reign of Nero, A. D. 64, by which time it had acquired considerable stability and extent. As far the greater number of the first converts to Christianity were of the Jewish nation, one secondary cause for their being so long preserved from persecution may probably be deduced from their appearing to the Roman governors only as a sect of Jews, who had seceded from the rest of their brethren on account of some opinion, trifling in its importance, and perhaps difficult to be understood. Nor, when their brethren were fully discovered to have cast off the religion of the synagogue, did the Jews find it easy to infuse into the breasts of the Roman magistrates that rancour and malice which they themselves experienced. But the steady and uniform opposition made by the Christians to Heathen superstition could not long pass unnoticed. Their open attacks upon Paganism made them extremely obnoxious to the populace, by whom they were represented as a society of atheists, who, by attacking the religious constitution of the empire, merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate. Horrid tales of their abominations were circulated throughout the empire; and the minds of the Pagans were, from all these circumstances, prepared to regard with pleasure or indifference every cruelty which could be inflicted upon this despised sect. Historians usually reckon ten general persecutions.

_First general persecution._--Nero selected the Christians as a grateful sacrifice to the Roman people, and endeavoured to transfer to this hated sect the guilt of which he was strongly suspected; that of having caused and enjoyed the fire which had nearly desolated the city. (See _Nero_.) This persecution was not confined to Rome: the emperor issued edicts against the Christians throughout most of the provinces of the empire. He was far, however, from obtaining the object of his hopes and expectations; and the virtues of the Christians, their zeal for the truth, and their constancy in suffering, must have considerably contributed to make their tenets more generally known.

_Second general persecution._--From the death of Nero to the reign of Domitian, the Christians remained unmolested and daily increasing; but toward the close of the first century, they were again involved in all the horrors of persecution. In this persecution many eminent Christians suffered; but the death of Domitian soon delivered them from this calamity.

_Third general persecution._--This persecution began in the third year of the Emperor Trajan, A. D. 100. Many things contributed toward it; as the laws of the empire, the emperor’s zeal for his religion, and aversion to Christianity, and the prejudices of the Pagans, supported by falsehoods and calumnies against the Christians. Under the plausible pretence of their holding illegal meetings and societies, they were severely persecuted by the governors and other officers; in which persecution great numbers fell by the rage of popular tumult, as well as by laws and processes. This persecution continued several years, with different degrees of severity in many parts of the empire; and was so much the more afflicting, because the Christians generally suffered under the notion of malefactors and traitors, and under an emperor famed for his singular justice and moderation. The most noted martyr in this persecution was Clement, bishop of Rome. After some time the fury of this persecution was abated, but did not cease during the whole reign of Trajan. In the eighth year of his successor Adrian, it broke out with new rage. This is by some called the fourth general persecution; but is more commonly considered as a revival or continuance of the third.

_Fourth general persecution._--This took place under Antoninus the philosopher; and at different places, with several intermissions, and different degrees of severity, it continued the greater part of his reign. Antoninus himself has been much excused as to this persecution. As the character of the virtuous Trajan, however, is sullied by the martyrdom of Ignatius, so the reign of the philosophic Marcus is for ever disgraced by the sacrifice of the venerable Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, the friend and companion of St. John. A few days previous to his death, he is said to have dreamed that his pillow was on fire. When urged by the proconsul to renounce Christ, he replied, Fourscore and six years have I served him, and he has never done me an injury: can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” Several miracles are reported to have happened at his death. The flames, as if unwilling to injure his sacred person, are said to have arched over his head; and it is added, that at length, being despatched with a sword, a dove flew out of the wound; and that from the pile proceeded a most fragrant smell. It is obvious that the arching of the flames might be an accidental effect, which the enthusiastic veneration of his disciples might convert into a miracle; and as to the story of the dove, &c, Eusebius himself apparently did not credit it; since he has omitted it in his narrative of the transaction. Among many other victims of persecution in this philosophic reign, we must also record that of the excellent and learned Justin. But it was at Lyons and Vienne in Gaul, that the most shocking scenes were acted. Among many nameless sufferers, history has preserved from oblivion Pothinus, the respectable bishop of Lyons, who was then more than ninety years of age; Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne; Attalus, a native of Pergamus; Maturus, and Alexander; some of whom were devoured by wild beasts, and some of them tortured in an iron chair made red hot. Some females, also, and particularly Biblias and Blandina, reflected honour both upon their sex and religion by their constancy and courage.

_Fifth general persecution._--A considerable part of the reign of Severus proved so far favourable to the Christians, that no additions were made to the severe edicts already in force against them. For this lenity they were probably indebted to Proculus, a Christian, who, in a very extraordinary manner, cured the emperor of a dangerous distemper by the application of oil. But this degree of peace, precarious as it was, and frequently interrupted by the partial execution of severe laws, was terminated by an edict, A. D. 197, which prohibited every subject of the empire, under severe penalties, from embracing the Jewish or Christian faith. This law appears, upon a first view, designed merely to impede the farther progress of Christianity; but it incited the magistracy to enforce the laws of former emperors, which were still existing, against the Christians; and during seven years they were exposed to a rigorous persecution in Palestine, Egypt, the rest of Africa, Italy, Gaul, and other parts. In this persecution Leonidas, the father of Origen, and Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, suffered martyrdom. On this occasion Tertullian composed his Apology.” The violence of Pagan intolerance was most severely felt in Egypt, and particularly at Alexandria.

_Sixth general persecution._--This persecution began with the reign of the Emperor Maximinus, A. D. 235, and seems to have arisen from that prince’s hatred to his predecessor, Alexander, in whose family many Christians had found shelter and patronage. Though this persecution was very severe in some places, yet we have the names of only a few martyrs. Origen at this time was very industrious in supporting the Christians under these fiery trials.

_Seventh general persecution._--This was the most dreadful persecution that ever had been known in the church. During the short reign of Decius, the Christians were exposed to greater calamities than any they had hitherto suffered. It has been said, and with some probability, that the Christians were involved in this persecution by their attachment to the family of the Emperor Philip. Considerable numbers were publicly destroyed; several purchased safety by bribes, or secured it by flight; and many deserted from the faith, and willingly consented to burn incense on the altars of the gods. The city of Alexandria, the great theatre of persecution, had even anticipated the edicts of the emperor, and had put to death a number of innocent persons, among whom were some women. The imperial edict for persecuting the Christians was published A. D. 249; and shortly after, Fabianus, bishop of Rome, with a number of his followers, was put to death. The venerable bishops of Jerusalem and Antioch died in prison, the most cruel tortures were employed, and the numbers that perished are by all parties confessed to have been very considerable.

_Eighth general persecution._--The Emperor Valerian, in the fourth year of his reign, A. D. 257, listening to the suggestions of Macrinus, a magician of Egypt, was prevailed upon to persecute the Christians, on pretence that by their wicked and execrable charms they hindered the prosperity of the emperor. Macrinus advised him to perform many impious rites, sacrifices, and incantations; to cut the throats of infants, &c; and edicts were published in all places against the Christians, who were exposed without protection to the common rage. We have the names of several martyrs, among whom were the famous St. Laurence, archdeacon of Rome, and the great St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage.

_Ninth general persecution._--This persecution took place under the Emperor Aurelian, A. D. 274; but it was so small and inconsiderable, that it gave little interruption to the peace of the church.

_Tenth general persecution._--The tenth and last general persecution of the Christians began in the nineteenth year of the Emperor Diocletian, A. D. 303. The most violent promoters of it were Hierocles the philosopher, who wrote against the Christian religion, and Galerius, whom Diocletian had declared Cæsar. This latter was excited not only by his own cruelty and superstition, but likewise by his mother, who was a zealous Pagan. Diocletian, contrary to his inclination, was prevailed upon to authorize the persecution by his edicts. Accordingly, it began in the city of Nicomedia, whence it spread into other cities and provinces, and became at last universal. Great numbers of Christians suffered the severest tortures in this persecution, though the accounts given of it by succeeding historians are probably exaggerated. There is, however, sufficient of well authenticated facts to assure us amply of the cruel and intolerant disposition of the professors of Pagan philosophy. The human imagination was, indeed, almost exhausted in inventing a variety of tortures. Some were impaled alive; some had their limbs broken, and in that condition were left to expire. Some were roasted by slow fires; and some suspended by their feet with their heads downward, and, a fire being placed under them, were suffocated by the smoke. Some had melted lead poured down their throats, and the flesh of some was torn off with shells, and others had splinters of reeds thrust under the nails of their fingers and toes. The few who were not capitally punished had their limbs and their features mutilated. It would be endless to enumerate the victims of superstition. The bishops of Nicomedia, of Tyre, of Sidon, of Emesa, several matrons and virgins of the purest character, and a nameless number of plebians, arrived at immortality through the flames of martyrdom. At last it pleased God that the Emperor Constantine, who himself afterward became a Christian, openly declared for the Christians, and published the first law in favour of them. The death of Maximin, emperor of the east, soon after put a period to all their troubles; and this was the great epoch when Christianity triumphantly got possession of the thrones of princes.

The guilt of persecution has, however, been attached to professing Christians. Had men been guided solely by the spirit and the precepts of the Gospel, the conduct of its blessed Author, and the writings and example of his immediate disciples, we might have boldly affirmed that among Christians there could be no tendency to encroach upon freedom of discussion, and no approach to persecution. The Gospel, in every page of it, inculcates tenderness and mercy; it exhibits the most unwearied indulgence to the frailties and errors of men; and it represents charity as the badge of those who in sincerity profess it. In St. Paul’s inimitable description of this grace he has drawn a picture of mutual forbearance and kindness and toleration, upon which it is scarcely possible to dwell, without being raised superior to every contracted sentiment, and glowing with the most diffusive benevolence. In the churches which he planted he had often to counteract the efforts of teachers who had laboured to subvert the foundation which he had laid, to misrepresent his motives, and to inculcate doctrines which, through the inspiration that was imparted to him, he discerned to proceed from the most perverted views, and to be inconsistent with the great designs of the Gospel. These teachers he strenuously and conscientiously opposed; he endeavoured to show the great importance of those to whom he wrote being on their guard against them; and he evinced the most ardent zeal in resisting their insidious purposes: but he never, in the most distant manner, insinuated that they should be persecuted, adhering always to the maxim which he had laid down, that the weapons of a Christian’s warfare are not carnal but spiritual. He does, indeed, sometimes speak of heretics; and he even exhorts that, after expostulation with him, a heretic should be rejected, and not acknowledged to be a member of the church to which he had once belonged. But that precept of the Apostle has no reference to the persecution which it has sometimes been conceived to sanction, and which has been generally directed against men quite sincere in their belief, however erroneous that belief may be esteemed.

Upon a subject thus enforced by precept and example, it is not to be supposed that the first converts, deriving their notions of Christianity immediately from our Lord or his Apostles, could have any opinion different in theory, at least, from that which has been now established. Accordingly, we find that the primitive fathers, although, in many respects, they erred, unequivocally express themselves in favour of the most ample liberty as to religious sentiment, and highly disapprove of every attempt to control it. Passages from many of these writers might be quoted to establish that this was almost the universal sentiment till the age of Constantine. Lactantius in particular has, with great force and beauty, delivered his opinion against persecution: There is no need of compulsion and violence, because religion cannot be forced; and men must be made willing, not by stripes, but by arguments. Slaughter and piety are quite opposite to each other; nor can truth consist with violence, or justice with cruelty. They are convinced that nothing is more excellent than religion, and therefore think that it ought to be defended with force; but they are mistaken, both in the nature of religion, and in proper methods to support it; for religion is to be defended, not by murder, but by persuasion; not by cruelty, but by patience; not by wickedness, but by faith. If you attempt to defend religion by blood, and torments, and evil, this is not to defend, but to violate and pollute it; for there is nothing that should be more free than the choice of religion, in which, if consent be wanting, it becomes entirely void and ineffectual.”

The general conduct of Christians during the first three centuries was in conformity with the admirable maxims now quoted. Eusebius has recorded that Polycarp, after in vain endeavouring to persuade Anicetus, who was bishop of Rome, to embrace his opinion as to some point with respect to which they differed, gave him, notwithstanding, the kiss of peace, while Anicetus communicated with the martyr; and Irenæus mentions that although Polycarp was much offended with the Gnostic heretics, who abounded in his days, he converted numbers of them, not by the application of constraint or violence, but by the facts and arguments which he calmly submitted for their consideration. It must be admitted, however, that even during the second century some traces of persecution are to be found. Victor, one of the early pontiffs, because the Asiatic bishops differed from him about the rule for the observation of Easter, excommunicated them as guilty of heresy; and he acted in the same manner toward a person who held what he considered as erroneous notions respecting the trinity. This stretch of authority was, indeed, reprobated by the generality of Christians, and remonstrances against it were accordingly presented. There was, however, in this proceeding of Victor, too clear a proof that the church was beginning to deviate from the perfect charity by which it had been adorned, and too sure an indication that the example of one who held so high an office, when it was in harmony with the corruption or with the worst passions of our nature, would be extensively followed. But still there was, in the excommunication rashly pronounced by the pope, merely an exertion of ecclesiastical power, not interfering with the personal security, with the property, or with the lives of those against whom it was directed; and we may, notwithstanding this slight exception, consider the first three centuries as marked by the candour and the benevolence implied in the charity which judgeth not, and thinketh no evil.

It was after Christianity had been established as the religion of the empire, and after wealth and honour had been conferred on its ministers, that the monstrous evil of persecution acquired gigantic strength, and threw its blasting influence over the religion of the Gospel. The causes of this are apparent. Men exalted in the scale of society were eager to extend the power which had been intrusted to them; and they sought to do so by exacting from the people acquiescence in the peculiar interpretations of tenets and doctrines which they chose to publish as articles of faith. The moment that this was attempted, the foundation was laid for the most inflexible intolerance; because reluctance to submit was no longer regarded solely as a matter of conscience, but as interfering with the interest and the dominion of the ruling party. It was therefore proceeded against with all the eagerness which men so unequivocally display when the temporal blessings that gratify their ambition or add to their comfort are attempted to be wrested from them. To other dictates than those of the word of God the members of the church now listened; and opinions were viewed, not in reference to that word, but to the effect which they might produce upon the worldly advancement or prosperity of those by whom they were avowed. From the era, then, of the conversion of Constantine we may date, if not altogether the introduction, at least the decisive influence of persecution.

PERSIA, an ancient kingdom of Asia, bounded on the north by Media, on the west by Susiana, on the east by Carmania, and on the south by the Persian Gulf. The Persians became very famous from the time of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy. Their ancient name was Elamites, and in the time of the Roman emperors they went by the name of Parthians; but now Persians. See CYRUS; and for the religion of the ancient Persians, MAGI.

PESTILENCE, or plague, generally is used by the Hebrews for all epidemic or contagious diseases. The prophets usually connect together sword, pestilence, and famine, being three of the most grievous inflictions of the Almighty upon a guilty people. See DISEASES.

PETER, the great Apostle of the circumcision, was the son of Jona, and born at Bethsaida, a town situated on the western shore of the lake of Gennesareth, but in what particular year we are not informed, John i, 42, 43. His original name was Simon or Simeon, which his divine Master, when he called him to the Apostleship, changed for that of Cephas, a Syriac word signifying _a stone_ or _rock_; in Latin, _petra_, from whence is derived the term Peter. He was a married man, and had his house, his mother-in-law, and his wife, at Capernaum, on the lake of Gennesareth, Matt. viii, 14; Mark i, 29; Luke iv, 38. He had also a brother of the name of Andrew, who had been a disciple of John the Baptist, and was called to the knowledge of the Saviour prior to himself. Andrew was present when the venerable Baptist pointed his disciples to Jesus, and added, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world;” and, meeting Simon shortly afterward, said, We have found the Messiah,” and then brought him to Jesus, John i, 41. When the two brothers had passed one day with the Lord Jesus, they took their leave of him, and returned to their ordinary occupation of fishing. This appears to have taken place in the thirtieth year of the Christian era. Toward the end of the same year, as Jesus was one morning standing on the shore of the lake of Gennesareth, he saw Andrew and Peter engaged about their employment. They had been fishing during the whole night, but without the smallest success; and, after this fruitless expedition, were in the act of washing their nets, Luke v, 1–3. Jesus entered into their boat, and bade Peter throw out his net into the sea, which he did; and now, to his astonishment, the multitude of fishes was so immense that their own vessel, and that of the sons of Zebedee, were filled with them. Peter evidently saw there was something supernatural in this, and, throwing himself at the feet of Jesus, he exclaimed, Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.” The miracle was no doubt intended for a sign to the four disciples of what success should afterward follow their ministry in preaching the doctrine of his kingdom; and therefore Jesus said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men;” on which they quitted their boats and nets, and thenceforth became the constant associates of the Saviour, during the whole of his public ministry, Luke xviii, 28.

From the instant of his entering upon the apostolic office, we find St. Peter on almost every occasion evincing the strength of his faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and the most extraordinary zeal in his service, of which many examples are extant in the Gospels. When Jesus in private asked his disciples, first, what opinion the people entertained of him; next, what was their own opinion: Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Matt. xvi, 16. Having received this answer, Jesus declared Peter blessed on account of his faith; and in allusion to the signification of his name, added, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth,” &c. Many think these things were spoken to St. Peter alone, for the purpose of conferring on him privileges and powers not granted to the rest of the Apostles. But others, with more reason, suppose that, though Jesus directed his discourse to St. Peter, it was intended for them all; and that the honours and powers granted to St. Peter by name were conferred on them all equally. For no one will say that Christ’s church was built upon St. Peter singly: it was built on the foundation of all the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone. As little can any one say that the power of binding and loosing was confined to St. Peter, seeing it was declared afterward to belong to all the Apostles, Matt. xviii, 18; John xx, 23. To these things add this, that as St. Peter made his confession in answer to a question which Jesus put to all the Apostles, that confession was certainly made in the name of the whole; and, therefore, what Jesus said to him in reply was designed for the whole without distinction; excepting this, which was peculiar to him, that he was to be the first who, after the descent of the Holy Ghost, should preach the Gospel to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles: an honour which was conferred on St. Peter in the expression, I will give thee the keys,” &c.

St. Peter was one of the three Apostles whom Jesus admitted to witness the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter, and before whom he was transfigured, and with whom he retired to pray in the garden the night before he suffered. He was the person who in the fervour of his zeal for his Master cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave, when the armed band came to apprehend him. Yet this same Peter, a few hours after that, denied his Master three different times in the high priest’s palace, and that with oaths. In the awful defection of the Apostle on this occasion we have melancholy proof of the power of human depravity even in regenerate men, and of the weakness of human resolutions when left to ourselves. St. Peter was fully warned by his divine Master of his approaching danger; but confident in his own strength, he declared himself ready to accompany his Lord to prison and even to judgment. After the third denial Jesus turned and looked upon Peter;” that look pierced him to the heart; and, stung with deep remorse, he went out, and wept bitterly.” St. Peter, however, obtained forgiveness; and, when Jesus had risen from the dead, he ordered the glad tidings of his resurrection to be conveyed to St. Peter by name: Go tell my disciples and Peter,” Mark xvi, 8. He afterward received repeated assurances of his Saviour’s love, and from that time uniformly showed the greatest zeal and fortitude in his Master’s service.

Soon after our Lord’s ascension, in a numerous assembly of the Apostles and brethren, St. Peter gave it as his opinion, that one should be chosen to be an Apostle in the room of Judas. To this they all agreed; and, by lot, chose Matthias, whom on that occasion they numbered with the eleven Apostles. On the day of pentecost following, when the Holy Spirit fell on the Apostles and disciples, St. Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice; that is, St. Peter, rising up, spake with a loud voice, in the name of the Apostles, as he had done on various occasions in his Master’s lifetime, and gave the multitude an account of that great miracle, Acts ii, 14. St. Peter now began to experience the fulfilment of Christ’s promise to make him a fisher of men, and also that he would give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven. His sermon on this occasion produced an abundant harvest of converts to Christ. Three thousand of his audience were pricked to the heart, and cried out, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” St. Peter proclaimed to them the riches of pardoning mercy through the divine blood of the Son of God; and they that gladly received his doctrine were baptized and added to the church, Acts ii, 37–43. The effects produced on the mind of this great Apostle of the circumcision by the resurrection of his divine Master, and the consequent effusion of the Holy Spirit, were evidently of the most extraordinary kind, and such as it is impossible to account for upon natural principles. He was raised superior to all considerations of personal danger and the fear of man. And though all the Apostles could now say, God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind;” yet an attentive reader of the Acts of the Apostles cannot fail to perceive that upon almost every occasion of difficulty St. Peter is exhibited to our view as standing foremost in the rank of Apostles. When St. Peter and John were brought before the council to be examined concerning the miracle wrought on the impotent man, St. Peter spake. It was St. Peter who questioned Ananias and Sapphira about the price of their lands; and, for their lying in that matter, punished them miraculously with death. It is remarkable, also, that although by the hands of the Apostles many signs and wonders were wrought, it was by St. Peter’s shadow alone that the sick, who were laid in the streets of Jerusalem, were healed as he passed by. Lastly: It was St. Peter who replied to the council in the name of the Apostles, not obeying their command to preach no more in the name of Jesus.

St. Peter’s fame was now become so great, that the brethren of Joppa, hearing of his being in Lydda, and of his having cured Eneas miraculously of a palsy, sent, desiring him to come and restore a disciple to life, named Tabitha, which he did. During his abode in Joppa, the Roman centurion, Cornelius, directed by an angel, sent for him to come and preach to him. On that occasion the Holy Ghost fell on Cornelius and his company, while St. Peter spake. St. Peter, by his zeal and success in preaching the Gospel, having attracted the notice of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Herod Agrippa, who, to please the Jews, had killed St. James, the brother of St. John, still farther to gratify them, cast St. Peter into prison. But an angel brought him out; after which he concealed himself in the city, or in some neighbouring town, till Herod’s death, which happened about the end of the year. Some learned men think St. Peter at that time went to Antioch or to Rome. But if he had gone to any celebrated city, St. Luke, as L’Enfant observes, would probably have mentioned it. Beside, we find him in the council of Jerusalem, which met not long after this to determine the famous question concerning the circumcision of the Gentiles. The council being ended, St. Peter went to Antioch, where he gave great offence, by refusing to eat with the converted Gentiles. But St. Paul withstood him to the face, rebuking him before the whole church for his pusillanimity and hypocrisy, Gal. ii, 11–21.

In the Acts of the Apostles, no mention is made of St. Peter after the council of Jerusalem. But from Gal. ii, 11, it appears that after that council he was with St. Paul at Antioch. He is likewise mentioned by St. Paul, 1 Cor. i, 12; iii, 22. It is generally supposed that after St. Peter was at Antioch with St. Paul, he returned to Jerusalem. What happened to him after that is not told in the Scriptures. But Eusebius informs us that Origen wrote to this purpose: St. Peter is supposed to have preached to the Jews of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia; and at length, coming to Rome, was crucified with his head downward.

We are indebted to this Apostle for two epistles, which constitute a valuable part of the inspired writings. The first epistle of St. Peter has always been considered as canonical; and in proof of its genuineness we may observe that it is referred to by Clement of Rome, Hermas, and Polycarp; that, we are assured by Eusebius, that it was quoted by Papias; and that it is expressly mentioned by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and most of the later fathers. The authority of the second epistle of St. Peter was for some time disputed, as we learn from Origen, Eusebius, and Jerom; but since the fourth century it has been universally received, except by the Syriac Christians. It is addressed to the same persons as the former epistle, and the design of it was to encourage them to adhere to the genuine faith and practice of the Gospel.

PETHOR, a city of Mesopotamia, of which the Prophet Balaam was a native. The Hebrews call this city Pethura. Ptolemy calls it Pachora; and Eusebius, Pathara. He places it in the Upper Mesopotamia.

PHARAOH, a common name of the kings of Egypt. We meet with it as early as Gen. xii, 15. Josephus says, that all the kings of Egypt, from Minæus, the founder of Memphis, who lived several ages before Abraham, always had the name of Pharaoh, down to the time of Solomon, for more than three thousand three hundred years. He adds, that, in the Egyptian language, the word Pharaoh means _king_, and that these princes did not assume the name until they ascended the throne, at which time they quitted their former name.

PHARISEES, a sect of the Jews. The earliest mention of them is by Josephus, who tells us that they were a sect of considerable weight when John Hyrcanus was high priest, B. C. 108. They were the most numerous, distinguished, and popular sect among the Jews. The time when they first appeared is not known, but it is supposed to have been not long after the institution of the Sadducees, if, indeed the two sects did not gradually spring up together. They derived their name from the Hebrew word _pharash_, which signifies separated,” or set apart;” because they separated themselves from the rest of the Jews to superior strictness in religious observances. They boasted that, from their accurate knowledge of religion, they were the favourites of Heaven; and thus, trusting in themselves that they were righteous, despised others, Luke xi, 52; xviii, 9, 11. Among the tenets inculcated by this sect, we may enumerate the following: namely, they ascribed all things to fate or providence; yet not so absolutely as to take away the free will of man; for fate does not coöperate in every action, Acts v, 38, 39. They also believed in the existence of angels and spirits, and in the resurrection of the dead; Acts xxiii, 8. Lastly: the Pharisees contended that God stood engaged to bless the Jews, to make them all partakers of the terrestrial kingdom of the Messiah, to justify them, and make them eternally happy. The cause of their justification they derived from the merits of Abraham, from their knowledge of God, from their practising the rite of circumcision, and from the sacrifices they offered. And as they conceived works to be meritorious, they had invented a great number of supererogatory ones, to which they attached greater merit than to the observance of the law itself. To this notion St. Paul has some allusions in those parts of his Epistle to the Romans, in which be combats the erroneous suppositions of the Jews, Rom. i-xi.

The Pharisees were the strictest of the three principal sects that divided the Jewish nation, Acts xxvi, 5, and affected a singular probity of manners according to their system; which, however, was, for the most part, both lax and corrupt. Thus many things which Moses had tolerated in civil life, in order to avoid a greater evil, the Pharisees determined to be morally right: for instance, the law of divorce from a wife for any cause, Matt. v, 31, &c; xix, 3–12. (See _Divorce_.) Farther: they interpreted certain of the Mosaic laws most literally, and distorted their meaning so as to favour their own selfish system. Thus, the law of loving their neighbour, they expounded solely of the love of their friends, that is, of the whole Jewish race; all other persons being considered by them as natural enemies, whom they were in no respect bound to assist, Matt. v, 43; Luke x, 31–33. They also trifled with oaths. Dr. Lightfoot has cited a striking illustration of this from Maimonides. An oath, in which the name of God was not distinctly specified, they taught was not binding, Matt. v, 33; maintaining that a man might even swear with his lips, and at the same time annul it in his heart! And yet so rigorously did they understand the command of observing the Sabbath day, that they accounted it unlawful to pluck ears of corn, and heal the sick, &c, Matt. xii; Luke vi, 6, &c; xiv. Many moral rules they accounted inferior to the ceremonial laws, to the total neglect of mercy and fidelity, Matt. v, 19; xv, 4; xxiii, 23. Hence they accounted causeless anger and impure desires as trifles of no moment, Matt. v, 21, 22, 27–30; they compassed sea and land to make proselytes to the Jewish religion from among the Gentiles, that they might rule over their consciences and wealth; and these proselytes, through the influence of their own scandalous examples and characters, they soon rendered more profligate and abandoned than ever they were before their conversion, Matt. xxiii, 15. Esteeming temporal happiness and riches as the highest good, they scrupled not to accumulate wealth by every means, legal or illegal, Matt. v, 1–12; xxiii, 5; Luke xvi, 14; James ii, 1–8; vain and ambitious of popular applause, they offered up long prayers in public places, but not without self-complacency in their own holiness, Matt. vi, 2–5; Luke xviii, 11; under a sanctimonious appearance of respect for the memories of the prophets whom their ancestors had slain, they repaired and beautified their sepulchres, Matt. xxiii, 29; and such was their idea of their own sanctity, that they thought themselves defiled if they but touched or conversed with sinners, that is, with publicans or tax-gatherers, and persons of loose and irregular lives, Luke vii, 39; xv, 1.

But, above all their other tenets, the Pharisees were conspicuous for their reverential observance of the traditions or decrees of the elders: these traditions, they pretended, had been handed down from Moses through every generation, but were not committed to writing; and they were not merely considered as of equal authority with the divine law, but even preferable to it. The words of the scribes,” said they, are lovely above the words of the law; for the words of the law are weighty and light, but the words of the scribes are _all_ weighty.” Among the traditions thus sanctimoniously observed by the Pharisees, we may briefly notice the following: the washing of hands up to the wrist before and after meat, Matthew xv, 2; Mark vii, 3; which they accounted not merely a religious duty, but considered its omission as a crime equal to fornication, and punishable by excommunication: the purification of the cups, vessels, and couches used at their meals by ablutions or washings, Mark vii, 4; for which purpose the six large water pots mentioned by St. John, ii, 6, were destined: their fasting twice a week with great appearance of austerity, Luke xviii, 12; Matt. vi, 16; thus converting that exercise into religion which is only a help toward the performance of its hallowed duties: their punctilious payment of tithes, (temple-offerings,) even of the most trifling things, Luke xviii, 12; Matt. xxiii, 23. And their wearing broader phylacteries and larger fringes to their garments than the rest of the Jews, Matt. xxiii, 5. See PHYLACTERIES.

With all their pretensions to piety, the Pharisees entertained the most sovereign contempt for the people; whom, being ignorant of the law, they pronounced to be accursed, John vii, 49. Yet such was the esteem and veneration in which they were held by the populace, that they may almost be said to have given what direction they pleased to public affairs; and hence the great men dreaded their power and authority. It is unquestionable, as Mosheim has well remarked, that the religion of the Pharisees was, for the most part, founded in consummate hypocrisy; and that, at the bottom, they were generally the slaves of every vicious appetite, proud, arrogant, and avaricious, consulting only the gratification of their lusts, even at the very moment when they professed themselves to be engaged in the service of their Maker. These odious features in the character of the Pharisees caused them to be reprehended by our Saviour with the utmost severity, even more so than the Sadducees; who, although they had departed widely from the genuine principles of religion, yet did not impose on mankind by a pretended sanctity, or devote themselves with insatiate greediness to the acquisition of honours and riches. A few, and a few only of the sect of the Pharisees in those times, might be of better character,--men who, though self-righteous and deluded and bigoted, were not like the rest, hypocritical. Of this number was Saul of Tarsus; but as a body their attachment to traditions; their passionate expectation of deliverance from the Roman yoke by the Messiah, and the splendour of his civil reign, their pride, and above all their vices, sufficiently account for that unconquerable unbelief which had possessed their minds as to the claims of Christ, and their resistance to the evidence of his miracles. The sect of the Pharisees was not extinguished by the ruin of the Jewish commonwealth. The greater part of the Jews are still Pharisees, being as much devoted to traditions, or the oral law, as their ancestors were.

PHARPAR. See ABANA.

PHEBE, a deaconess of the port of Corinth, called Cenchrea. St. Paul had a particular esteem for this holy woman; and Theodoret thinks the Apostle lodged at her house for some time, while he continued in or near Corinth. It is thought she carried the epistle to Rome, which he wrote to the church of that city, in which she is so highly commended, Rom. xvi, 1, 2. It is thought that, in quality of deaconess, she was employed by the church in some ministrations suitable to her sex and condition; as to visit and instruct the Christian women, and attend them in their sickness, and distribute alms to them in their necessities.

PHENICIA, a province of Syria, the limits of which have been differently represented. Sometimes it has been defined as extending from north to south, from Orthosia as far as Pelusium. At other times its southern limit is said to have been Mount Carmel and Ptolemais. It is certain that, from the conquest of Palestine by the Hebrews, its limits were narrow, containing no part of the country of the Philistines, which occupied all the coast from Mount Carmel along the Mediterranean, as far as the borders of Egypt. It had also very little extent on the land side, because the Israelites, who possessed all Galilee, confined it to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The chief cities of Phenicia were Sidon, Tyre, Ptolemais, Ecdippe, Sarepta, Berythe, Biblos, Tripoli, Orthosia, Simira, Aradus. They formerly had possession of some cities in Libanus: and sometimes the Greek authors comprehend all Judea under the name of Phenicia. Phenicia may be considered as the birthplace of commerce, if not also of letters and the arts. It was a Phenician who introduced into Greece the knowledge and the use of letters. Phenician workmen built the temple of Solomon; Phenician sailors navigated his ships; Phenician pilots directed them; and before other nations had ventured to lose sight of their own shores, colonies of Phenicians were established in the most distant parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. These early advantages were owing, doubtless, in part to their own enterprising character, and in part also to their central situation, which enabled them to draw into their own narrow territory all the commerce between the east and the west. Bochart has laboured to show that they sent colonies to almost all the isles and coasts of the Mediterranean Sea; but the most famous of all their colonies was that of Carthage.

PHILADELPHIA, a city of Lydia, in Asia Minor, and one of the seven churches of Asia. It derived its name from Attalus Philadelphus, its founder; and was seated on a branch of Mount Tmolus, about twenty-five miles south-east of Sardis, and seventy, in nearly the same direction, from Smyrna. It suffered greatly, in common with all this part of Asia, in the terrible earthquake during the reign of Tiberius, and in the seventeenth year of the Christian era. It has, however, retained a better fate than most of its neighbours; for under the name of Alahsher, or the city of God, it is still a place of some repute, chiefly supported by trade, it being in the route of the caravans to Smyrna. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia,” says Gibbon, Philadelphia is still erect, a column in a scene of ruins.” Although this city is now in the possession of the Turks, it has about a thousand Christian inhabitants, chiefly Greeks; who have five churches with a resident bishop, and inferior clergy.

PHILEMON was an inhabitant of Colosse; and from the manner in which he is addressed by St. Paul in his epistle to him, it is probable that he was a person of some consideration in that city. St. Paul seems to have been the means of converting him to the belief of the Gospel, Philemon 19. He calls him his fellow-labourer; and from that expression some have thought that he was bishop or deacon of the church at Colosse; but others have been of opinion, that he was only a private Christian, who had shown a zealous and active disposition in the cause of Christianity, without holding any ecclesiastical office. We learn from this epistle itself, that it was written when St. Paul was a prisoner, and when he had hope of soon recovering his liberty, Philemon 1, 22; and thence we conclude that it was written toward the end of his first confinement at Rome. This epistle has always been deservedly admired for the delicacy and address with which it is written; and it places St. Paul’s character in a very amiable point of view. He had converted a fugitive slave to the Christian faith; and he here intercedes with his master in the most earnest and affectionate manner for his pardon; he speaks of Onesimus in terms calculated to soften Philemon’s resentment, engages to make full compensation for any injury which he might have sustained from him, and conjures him to reconciliation and forgiveness by the now endearing connection of Christian brotherhood. See ONESIMUS.

PHILIP, the Apostle, was a native of Bethsaida in Galilee. Jesus Christ having seen him, said to him, Follow me,” John i, 43, 44. Philip followed him; he was present at the marriage of Cana in Galilee. Philip was called at the beginning of our Saviour’s mission. He is mentioned, Luke vi, 13; Matt. x, 3; John vi, 5–7. Some Gentiles having a curiosity to see Jesus, a little before his passion, addressed themselves to Philip, John xii, 21, 22, who mentioned it to Andrew, and these two to Christ. At the last supper Philip desired the Saviour to show them the Father, John xiv, 8–10. This is all that we find concerning Philip in the Gospel.

2. PHILIP, the second of the seven deacons, Acts vi, 5, was, some say, of Cæsarea in Palestine. It is certain his daughters lived in that city, Acts xxi, 8, 9. After the death of Stephen all the Christians, except the Apostles, having left Jerusalem, and being dispersed in several places, Philip went to preach at Sebaste or Samaria, where he performed several miracles, and converted many persons, Acts viii, 1–3, &c. He baptized them; but informed the Apostles at Jerusalem that Samaria had received the word of God, that they might come and communicate the Holy Ghost to them. Peter and John came thither for that purpose. Philip was, probably, at Samaria, when an angel commanded him to go on the road that leads from Jerusalem to old Gaza. Philip obeyed, and there met with an Ethiopian eunuch, belonging to Candace, queen of Ethiopia, whom he converted and baptized, Acts viii, 26. Being come out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more.

PHILIPPI, one of the chief cities of Macedonia, lying on the north-west of Neapolis, and formerly called Datum or Datos, but afterward taking its name from Philip, the celebrated king of Macedon, by whom it was repaired and beautified. In process of time, it became a Roman colony. It was the first place at which St. Paul preached the Gospel upon the continent of Europe, A. D. 51. He made many converts there, who soon afterward gave strong proofs of their attachment to him, Phil. iv, 15. He was at Philippi a second time, but nothing which then occurred is recorded. The Philippian Christians having heard of St. Paul’s imprisonment at Rome, with their accustomed zeal, sent Epaphroditus to assure him of the continuance of their regard, and to offer him a supply of money. His epistle was written in consequence of that act of kindness; and it is remarkable for its strong expressions of affection. As the Apostle tells the Philippians that he hoped to see them shortly, Phil. ii, 24, and there are plain intimations in this epistle of his having been some time at Rome, Phil. i, 12; ii, 26, it is probable that it was written A. D. 62, toward the end of his confinement.

It is a strong proof,” says Chrysostom, of the virtuous conduct of the Philippians, that they did not afford the Apostle a single subject of complaint; for, in the whole epistle which he wrote to them, there is nothing but exhortation and encouragement, without the mixture of any censure whatever.”

PHILISTIM, or PHILISTINES, a people who are commonly said to have descended from Casluhim, the son of Mizraim or Mizr, who peopled Egypt. The Philistines, it is probable, continued with their progenitors in Egypt until they were sufficiently numerous and powerful to stretch themselves along the coast of Canaan; doubtless by driving out that portion of the family of Ham. It is certain that, in the time of Abraham, the Canaanites were in possession of the rest of the land, to which they gave their name: but the extreme south of Philistia, or Palestine, was even then possessed by the Philistines, whose king, Abimelech, reigned at Gerar. After this, in the time of Joshua, we find their country divided into five lordships or principalities; namely, Gaza, Askelon, Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron; giving sometimes also, as it appears, the title of king to their respective rulers; Achish being termed king of Gath, I Sam. xxi, 10. The time of their coming to Palestine is unknown; but they had been long in Canaan when Abraham came thither, in the year of the world 2083. The name Philistine is not Hebrew. The Septuagint generally translate it Ἀλλόφυλοι, _strangers_. The Pelethites and Cherethites were also Philistines; and the Septuagint sometimes translate _Cherethim_, Κρῆται, _Cretes_. They were not of the cursed seed of Canaan. However, Joshua did not forbear to give their land to the Hebrews, and to attack them by command from the Lord, because they possessed a country promised to Israel. But these conquests of Joshua must have been ill maintained, since, under the Judges, under Saul, and at the beginning of the reign of King David, the Philistines had their kings, and their lords, whom they called Sazenim; since their state was divided into five little kingdoms, or satrapies; and since they oppressed the Israelites during the government of the high priest Eli, and of Samuel, and during the reign of Saul, for about a hundred and twenty years, from A. M. 2848 to A. M. 2960. True it is, that Shamgar, Samson, Samuel, and Saul, opposed them, and killed some of their people, but did not reduce their power. They continued independent till the time of David, who subdued them, 2 Sam. v, 17; viii, 1, 2, &c.

They continued in subjection to the kings of Judah down to the reign of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, about two hundred and forty-six years, when they revolted from Jehoram, 2 Chron. xxi, 16. Jehoram made war against them, and probably reduced them to his obedience again; because it is observed in Scripture, that they revolted again from Uzziah, who kept them to their duty during his whole reign, 2 Chron. xxvi, 6, 7. Uzziah began to reign A. M. 3194. During the unfortunate reign of Ahaz, the Philistines made great havoc in the territory of Judah; but his son and successor Hezekiah subdued them again, 2 Chron. xxviii, 18; 2 Kings xviii, 8. Lastly, they regained their full liberty under the later kings of Judah; and we may see, by the menaces made against them by the Prophets Isaiah, Amos, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, that they brought a thousand hardships and calamities on the children of Israel, for which God threatened to punish them with great misfortunes.

Esar-haddon, successor to Sennacherib, besieged Ashdod, or Azoth, and took it by the arms of his general, Thasthan, or Tartan. Psammetichus, king of Egypt, took the same city after a siege of twenty-nine years, according to Herodotus. During the siege of Tyre, which held out thirteen years, Nebuchadnezzar used part of his army to subdue the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and other nations bordering on the Jews. There is great probability that the Philistines could not withstand him, but were reduced to his obedience, as well as the other people of Syria, Phenicia, and Palestine. Afterward they fell under the dominion of the Persians; then under that of Alexander the Great, who destroyed the city of Gaza, the only city of the Phenicians that dared to oppose him. After the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Asmoneans took by degrees several cities from the country of the Philistines, which they subjected. Tryphon, regent of the kingdom of Syria, gave to Jonathan, the Asmonean, the government of the whole coast of the Mediterranean, from Tyre to Egypt; consequently, all the country of the Philistines.

The land of the Philistines bordered on the west and south-west of Judea, and lies on the south-east point of the Mediterranean Sea. The country to the north of Gaza is very fertile; and, long after the Christian era, it possessed a very numerous population, and strongly fortified cities. No human probability, says Keith, could have existed, in the time of the prophets, or at a much more recent date, of its eventual desolation. But it has belied, for many ages, every promise which the fertility of its soil, and the excellence both of its climate and situation, gave for many preceding centuries of its permanency as a rich and well cultivated region. And the voice of prophecy, which was not silent respecting it, proclaimed the fate that awaited it, in terms as contradictory, at the time, to every natural suggestion, as they are descriptive of what Philistia now actually is. I will stretch out my hand upon the Philistines, and destroy the remnant of the sea coasts,” Ezek. xxv, 16. Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is cut off with the remnant of their valley,” Jer. xlvii, 5. Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof. I will send a fire upon the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof. And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon; and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God,” Amos i, 6, 7, 8. For Ashkelon shall be a desolation;” it shall be cut off with the remnant of the valley; and Ekron shall be rooted up.--O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant; and the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks,” Zeph. ii, 4, 5, 6. The king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited,” Zech. ix, 5.

The land of the Philistines was to be destroyed. It partakes of the general desolation common to it with Judea and other neighbouring states. While ruins are to be found in all Syria, they are particularly abundant along the sea coast, which formed, on the south, the realm of the Philistines. But its aspect presents some existing peculiarities, which travellers fail not to particularize, and which, in reference both to the state of the country and the fate of its different cities, the prophets failed not to discriminate as justly as if their description had been drawn both with all the accuracy which ocular observation, and all the certainty which authenticated history, could give. Volney, (though, like one who in ancient times was instrumental to the fulfilment of a special prediction, he meant not so, neither did his heart think so,”) from the manner in which he generalizes his observations, and marks the peculiar features of the different districts of Syria, with greater acuteness and perspicuity than any other traveller whatever, is the ever ready purveyor of evidence in all the cases which came within the range of his topographical description of the wide field of prophecy: while, at the same time, from his known, open, and zealous hostility to the Christian cause, his testimony is alike decisive and unquestionable: and the vindication of the truth of the following predictions may safely be committed to this redoubted champion of infidelity. In the plain between Ramla and Gaza,” the very plain of the Philistines along the sea coast, we met with a number of villages badly built, of dried mud, and which, like the inhabitants, exhibit every mark of poverty and wretchedness. The houses, on a nearer view, are only so many huts, (cottages,) sometimes detached, at others ranged in the form of cells, around a court yard, enclosed by a mud wall. In winter, they and their cattle may be said to live together; the part of the dwelling allotted to themselves being only raised two feet above that in which they lodge their beasts:”--“dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks.”--“Except the environs of these villages, all the rest of the country is a desert, and abandoned to the Bedouin Arabs, who feed their flocks on it.”--Thus accomplishing the words of prophecy, The remnant shall perish; the land of the Philistines shall be destroyed, that there shall be no inhabitant; and the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks.” “The ruins of white marble, sometimes found at Gaza, prove that it was formerly the abode of luxury and opulence. It has shared in the general destruction; and, notwithstanding its proud title of the capital of Palestine, it is now no more than a defenceless village,” (baldness has come upon it,) peopled by, at most, only two thousand inhabitants.”--“It is forsaken,” says the prophet, and bereaved of its king.” “The sea coast, by which it was formerly washed, is every day removing farther from the deserted ruins of Ashkelon.” Amidst the various successive ruins, those of Edzoud,” Ashdod, so powerful under the Philistines, are now remarkable for their scorpions.”--Here again we are reminded of the words of inspiration: The inhabitants shall be cut off from Ashdod.”

Thus Volney becomes an unconscious commentator upon prophecy. But let us hear a Christian traveller. Ashkelon,” says Richardson, “was one of the proudest satrapies of the lords of the Philistines: now there is not an inhabitant within its walls; and the prophecy of Zechariah is fulfilled: ‘The king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited.’ When the prophecy was uttered, both cities were in an equally flourishing condition; and nothing but the prescience of Heaven could pronounce on which of the two, and in what manner, the vial of its wrath should be poured out. Gaza is truly without a king. The lofty towers of Ashkelon lie scattered on the ground, and the ruins within its walls do not shelter a human being. How is the wrath of man made to praise his Creator! Hath he not said, and shall he not do it? The oracle was delivered by the mouth of the prophet more than five hundred years before the Christian era, and we beheld its accomplishment eighteen hundred years after that event.” There is yet another city which was noted by the prophets, the very want of any information respecting which, and the absence of its name from several modern maps of Palestine, while the sites of other ruined cities are marked, are really the best confirmation of the truth of the prophecy that could possibly be given. Ekron shall be rooted up.” It is rooted up. It was one of the chief cities of the Philistines; but, though Gaza still subsists, and while Ashkelon and Ashdod retain their names in their ruins, the very name of Ekron is missing.

PHILOSOPHY, in general, is defined, the knowledge and study of nature and morality, founded on reason and experience.” Philosophy owes its name to the modesty of Pythagoras, who refused the high title of σοφός, _wise_, given to his predecessors, Thales, Pherecydes, &c, as too assuming; and contented himself with the simple appellation of φιλόσοφος, _quasi_ φίλος τῆς σοφίας, _a friend_ or _lover of wisdom_: but Chauvin rather chooses to derive the name from φιλία, _desire to study_, and σοφία, _studium sapientiæ_; and says that Pythagoras, conceiving that the application of the human mind ought rather to be called study than science, set aside the appellation of wise, and, in lieu thereof, took that of philosopher.

A knowledge of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, or the science of natural history, was always an object of interest. We are informed that Solomon himself had given a description of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, 1 Kings iv, 33. Traces of philosophy, strictly so called, that is, the system of prevailing moral opinions, may be found in the book of Job, in the thirty-seventh, thirty-ninth, and seventy-third Psalms; also in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, but chiefly in the apocryphal book of Wisdom, and the writings of the son of Sirach. During the captivity, the Jews acquired many new notions, particularly from the Mahestani, and appropriated them, as occasion offered, to their own purposes. They at length became acquainted with the philosophy of the Greeks, which makes its appearance abundantly in the book of Wisdom. After the captivity, the language in which the sacred books were written was no longer vernacular. Hence arose the need of an interpreter on the sabbatic year, a time when the whole law was read, and also on the Sabbath in the synagogues, which some think had been recently erected, in order to make the people understand what was read. These interpreters learned the Hebrew language at the schools. The teachers of these schools, who, for the two generations preceding the time of Christ, had maintained some acquaintance with the Greek philosophy, were not satisfied with a simple interpretation of the Hebrew idiom, as it stood, but shaped the interpretation so as to render it conformable to their philosophy. Thus arose contentions, which gave occasion for the various sects of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. In the time of our Saviour, divisions had arisen among the Pharisees themselves. No less than eighteen nice questions, if we may believe the Jewish rabbins, were contested at that period between the schools of Hillel and Shammai; one of which questions was an inquiry, what cause was sufficient for a bill of divorce. If the Shammai and Hillel of the Talmud are the same with the learned men mentioned in Josephus, namely, Sameas and Pollio, who flourished thirty-four years before Christ, then Shammai or Sameas is undoubtedly the same with the Simeon who is mentioned, Luke ii, 25–35; and his son Gamaliel, so celebrated in the Talmud, is the same with the Gamaliel mentioned, Acts v, 34; xxii, 3.

Anciently, learned men were denominated among the Hebrews חכמים, as among the Greeks they were called σοφοὶ, _wise men_. In the time of Christ, the common appellative for men of that description was γραμματεὺς, in the Hebrew סופר, _a scribe_. They were addressed by the honorary title of _rabbi_, רבי, great,” or master.” The Jews, in imitation of the Greeks, had their seven wise men, who were called _rabboni_. Gamaliel was one of the number. They called themselves the children of wisdom; expressions which correspond very nearly to the Greek φιλόσοφος, Matthew xi, 19; Luke vii, 35. The heads of sects were called fathers;” the disciples were denominated sons,” or children,” Matt. xii, 27; xxiii, 1–9. The Jewish teachers, at least some of them, had private lecture rooms; but they also taught and disputed in synagogues, in temples, and, in fact, wherever they could find an audience. The method of these teachers was the same with that which prevailed among the Greeks. Any disciple who chose might propose questions, upon which it was the duty of the teachers to remark and give their opinions, Luke ii, 46. The teachers were not invested with their functions by any formal act of the church, or of the civil authority: they were self-constituted. They received no other salary than some voluntary present from the disciples, which was called an honorary,” τιμὴ, _honorarium_, 1 Tim. v, 17. They acquired a subsistence, in the main, by the exercise of some art or handicraft. That they took a higher seat than their auditors, although it was probably the case, does not follow, as is sometimes supposed, from Luke ii, 46. According to the Talmudists, they were bound to hold no conversation with women, and to refuse to sit at table with the lower class of people, Matt. ix, 11; John iv, 27. The subjects on which they taught were numerous, commonly intricate, and of no great consequence; of which there are abundant examples in the Talmud.

St. Paul bids the Colossians beware lest any man should spoil them through philosophy and vain deceit;” that is, a vain and deceitful philosophy, such as was popular in that day, and had been compounded out of all preceding systems, Grecian and oriental. An explanation of this philosophy is given under GNOSTICS, and CABBALA.

On these ancient systems of pretended wisdom, Dr. Burton justly remarks: “Philosophy is indeed the noblest stretch of intellect which God has vouchsafed to man; and it is only when man forgets that he received his reasoning powers from God, that he is in danger of losing himself in darkness when he sought for light. To measure that which is infinite, is as impossible in metaphysics as in physics. If it had not been for revelation, we should have known no more of the Deity than the Heathen philosophers knew before: and to what did their knowledge amount? They felt the necessity of a First Cause, and they saw that that Cause must be intrinsically good; but when they came to systems, they never went farther than the point from which they first set out, that evil is not good, and good is not evil. The Gnostics thought to secure the triumph of their scheme by veiling its weaker points in mystery, and by borrowing a part from almost every system. But popular, and even successful, as this attempt may have been, we may say with truth, that the scheme which flattered the vanity of human wisdom, and which strove to conciliate all opinions, has died away, and is forgotten; while the Gospel, the unpresuming, the uncompromising doctrine of the Gospel, aided by no human wisdom, and addressing itself not merely to the head, but to the heart, has triumphed over all systems and all philosophers; and still leads its followers to that true knowledge which some have endeavoured to teach ‘after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.’”

PHINEHAS, son of Eleazar, and grandson of Aaron, third high priest of the Jews, A. M. 2571 to about A. M. 2590, B. C. 1414. He is particularly commended in Scripture for zeal in vindicating the glory of God, when the Midianites had sent their daughters into the camp of Israel, to tempt the Hebrews to fornication and idolatry, Num. xxv, 7. On this account the Lord promised the priesthood to Phinehas by perpetual covenant; evidently including this tacit condition, that his children should continue faithful and obedient: for we know the priesthood passed out of the family of Eleazar and Phinehas to that of Ithamar, and that it returned not to the posterity of Eleazar until after about a hundred and fifty years.

PHUT or PUT, the posterity of Phut, the son of Ham, Gen. x, 6. Calmet is of opinion that Phut, the third son of Ham, peopled either the canton of Phtemphu, Phtemphti, Phtembuti, of Pliny and Ptolemy, whose capital was Thara, in Lower Egypt, inclining toward Libya; or the canton called Phtenotes, of which Buthas was the capital. The prophets often speak of Phut. In the time of Jeremiah, xlvi, 9, Phut was under the obedience of Necho, king of Egypt. Nahum, iii, 9, reckons this people in the number of those who ought to come to the assistance of No-Ammon, or Diospolis.

PHYLACTERIES, called by the Jews תפלין, are little scrolls of parchment, in which are written certain sentences of the law, enclosed in leather cases, and bound with thongs on the forehead and on the left arm. They are called in Greek φυλακτήρια, from φυλάττω, _custodio_, either because they were supposed to preserve the law in memory, or rather because they were looked upon as a kind of amulets or charms to keep them from danger. The making and wearing these phylacteries, as the Jews still do in their private devotions, is owing to a misinterpretation of those texts, on which they ground the practice, namely, God’s commanding them to bind the law for a sign on their hands, and to let it be as frontlets between their eyes,” &c, Deut. vi, 8. The command ought doubtless to be understood metaphorically, as a charge to remember it, to meditate upon it, to have it as it were continually before their eyes, and to conduct their lives by it; as when Solomon says, concerning the commandments of God in general, Bind them about thy neck, write them upon the table of thy heart,” Prov. iii, 1, 3; vi, 21. However, the Jews understanding the precept literally, wrote out the several passages wherever it occurs, and to which it seems to refer, and bound them upon their foreheads and upon their arms. It seems the Pharisees used to make broad their phylacteries.” This some understand of the knots of the thongs by which they were fastened, which were tied very artificially in the form of Hebrew letters; and that the pride of the Pharisees induced them to have these knots larger than ordinary, as a peculiar ornament. The Pharisees are farther said to enlarge the borders of their garments,” τὰ κράσπεδα τῶν ἱματίων, Matt. xxiii, 5. These κράσπεδα were the ציצית, the fringes which the Jews are commanded to wear upon the borders of their garments, Num. xv, 38, 39. The Targum of Onkelos calls them כרספדין, which has so near an affinity with the Greek word κράσπεδον, that there is no doubt but it signifies the same thing; which is, therefore, an evidence that the κράσπεδα were the ציצית. These were worn by our Saviour, as appears from the following passage: Behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment,” κράσπεδον του ἱματιου, Matt. ix, 20. Again: the inhabitants of Gennesaret are said to have brought unto him their diseased, and to have besought him, that they might only touch the hem of his garment,” κρασπεδον τοῦ ἱματίου, Matt. xiv, 36. Κράσπεδον τοῦ ἱματίου is, in both these passages, very improperly translated the hem of his garment.” It should have been rendered the fringe.” The Pharisees are censured by our Saviour for enlarging these fringes of their garments, which we may suppose they did partly from pride, and partly from hypocrisy, as pretending thereby an extraordinary regard for the precepts of the law. It is reported by Jerom, as quoted by Godwin, that they used to have fringes extravagantly long; sticking thorns in them, that, by pricking their legs as they walked, they might put them in mind of the law. See FRONTLETS.

PIETISTS, PROTESTANT, a denomination in the seventeenth century, which owed its origin to the pious and learned Spener,” as Dr. Mosheim calls him, who formed private devotional societies at Frankfort, in order to cultivate vital and practical religion; and published a book entitled Pious Desires,” which greatly promoted this object. His followers laid it down as an essential maxim, that none should be admitted into the ministry but those who not only had received a proper education, but were also distinguished by their wisdom and sanctity of manners, and had hearts filled with divine love. Hence they proposed an alteration in the schools of divinity, which embraced the following points: 1. That the scholastic theology, which reigned in the academies, and was composed of intricate and disputable doctrines, and obscure and unusual forms of expression, should be totally abolished. 2. That polemical divinity, which comprehended the controversies subsisting between Christians of different communions, should be less eagerly studied, and less frequently treated, though not entirely neglected. 3. That all mixture of philosophy and human science with divine wisdom, was to be most carefully avoided; that is, that Pagan philosophy and classical learning should be kept distinct from, and by no means supersede, Biblical theology. But, 4. That, on the contrary, all those students, who were designed for the ministry, should be accustomed from their early youth to the perusal and study of the Holy Scriptures, and be taught a plain system of theology, drawn from these unerring sources of truth. 5. That the whole course of their education was to be so directed as to render them useful in life, by the practical power of their doctrine, and the commanding influence of their example. Such, in substance, is Mosheim’s account of the meditated reforms in the public schools. But it was not intended to confine these reforms to students and the clergy. Religious persons of every class and rank were encouraged to meet in what were called Biblical colleges, or colleges of piety, (we might call them prayer meetings,) where some exercised in reading the Scriptures, singing, and prayer, and others engaged in the exposition of the Scriptures; not in a dry and critical way, but in a strain of practical and experimental piety, by which they mutually edified each other. This practice, which always more or less obtains where religion flourishes, as, for instance, at the Reformation, raised the same sort of outcry as at the rise of Methodism; and those who entered not into the spirit of the design, were eager to catch at every instance of weakness or imprudence, to bring disgrace on that which, in fact, brought disgrace upon themselves, as lukewarm and formal Christians. In so saying, Master, thou reproachest us also.” This work began about 1670. In 1691 Dr. Spener removed from Dresden to Berlin, where he propagated the same principles, which widely spread, and were well supported in many parts of Germany by the excellent Professor Francke and others, until the general decline of religion which has unhappily prevailed in Germany for the last half century. See NEOLOGY.

PI-HAHIROTH. The Hebrew _pi_ answers to the modern Arabic word _fum_, signifying mouth;” and is generally applied to the passes in the mountains. In the English and Septuagint versions, Hahiroth is taken as a proper name; and the whole word would imply the mouth or pass of Hahiroth or Hiroth, whatever particular origin or signification may belong to that word. The name, however, sufficiently explains the situation of the children of Israel; who were hemmed in at this place, between the sea in front, and a narrow mountain pass behind; which no doubt encouraged Pharaoh to make his attack upon them in so disadvantageous a position; thinking that they must inevitably fall an easy prey into his hands, or be cut to pieces: when their deliverance, and his own destruction, were unexpectedly wrought by the parting of the waters of the sea. The place where this miracle is supposed to have happened, is still called Bahral-Kolsum, or the Sea of Destruction; and just opposite to the situation which answers to the opening called Pi-hahiroth, is a bay, where the north cape is called Ras Musa, or the Cape of Moses. That part of the western or Heroopolitan branch of the Red Sea where, from these coincidences, the passage most probably took place, is described by Bruce as about three leagues over, with fourteen fathoms of water in the channel, nine at the sides, and good anchorage every where. The farther side is also represented as a low sandy coast, and an easy landing place. See RED SEA.

PILATE. It is not known of what country or family Pontius Pilate was, but it is believed that he was of Rome, or, at least, of Italy. He was sent to govern Judea in the room of Gratus, A. D. 26, or 27. He presided over this province for ten years, from the twelfth or thirteenth year of Tiberius, to the twenty-second of the same emperor. He is represented, both by Philo and Josephus, as a man of an impetuous and obstinate temper, and, as a judge, one who used to sell justice, and, for money, to pronounce any sentence that was desired. The same authors make mention of his rapines, his injuries, his murders, the torments that he inflicted upon the innocent, and the persons he put to death without any form of process. Philo, in particular, describes him as a man that exercised an excessive cruelty during the whole time of his government; who disturbed the repose of Judea; and was the occasion of the troubles and revolt that followed. St. Luke acquaints us, that Pilate had mingled the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices; and that the matter, having been related to Jesus Christ, he introduced the subject into his discourse, Luke xiii. The reason why Pilate treated them in this manner, while sacrificing in the temple, is not known. At the time of our Saviour’s passion, Pilate made some attempts to deliver him out of the hands of the Jews. He knew the reasons of their enmity against him, Matthew xxvii, 18. His wife, also, having had a dream that alarmed her, requested he would not stain his hands with the blood of that just person, verse 19. He therefore attempted to appease the wrath of the Jews by scourging Jesus, John xix, 1; Matt. xxvii, 26; and also tried to take him out of their hands by proposing to deliver him or Barabbas on the day of the passover. Lastly, be thought to discharge himself from pronouncing judgment against him, by sending him to Herod, king of Galilee, Luke xxiii, 7, 8. When he saw all this would not satisfy the Jews, and that they even threatened him in some manner, saying, he could be no friend to the emperor if he suffered Jesus to be set at liberty, John xix, 12–15, he caused water to be brought, and washed his hands before all the people, and publicly declared himself innocent of the blood of that just person, Matthew xxvii, 23, 24. Yet at the same time he delivered him to his soldiers that they might crucify him. This was enough to justify Jesus Christ, as Calmet observes, and to prove that he held him as innocent; but it was not enough to vindicate the conscience and integrity of a judge, whose duty it was as well to assert the cause of oppressed innocence, as to punish the guilty. He ordered the inscription to be placed over the head of our Saviour, John xix, 19; and when requested by the Jews to alter it, peremptorily refused. He also gave leave for the removal of our Lord’s body, and to place a guard over the sepulchre, Matthew xxvii, 65. These are all the particulars that we learn concerning Pilate from the writers of the Gospels.

The extreme reluctance of Pilate to condemn Christ, considering his merciless character, is signally remarkable, and still more his repeated protestations of the innocence of his prisoner; although, on occasions of massacre, he made no scruple of confounding the innocent with the guilty. But he was unquestionably influenced by the overruling providence of God, to make the righteousness of his Son appear as clear as the noon day, even when condemned and executed as a malefactor, by the fullest, the most authentic, and the most public evidence: 1. By the testimony even of his judges, Pilate and Herod, after examination of evidence. 2. By the message of Pilate’s wife, delivered to him on the tribunal. 3. By the testimony of the traitor Judas, who hanged himself in despair, for betraying the innocent blood. 4. By the testimony of the Roman centurion and guard, at his crucifixion, to his divinity and righteousness. And, 5. Of his fellow sufferer on the cross. Never was innocence so attested as his innocence.

Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Eusebius, and after them several others, both ancient and modern, assure us that it was formerly the custom for Roman magistrates to prepare copies of all verbal processes and judical acts, which they passed in their several provinces, and to send them to the emperor. And Pilate, in compliance with the custom, having sent word to Tiberius of what had passed relating to Jesus Christ, the emperor wrote an account of it to the senate, in a manner that gave reason to judge that he thought favourably of the religion of Jesus Christ, and showed that he should be willing for them to confer divine honours upon him; but the senate was not of the same opinion, and so the matter dropped. It appears by what Justin says of these acts, that the miracles of Christ were mentioned there, and even that the soldiers had divided his garments among them. Eusebius insinuates that they spoke of his resurrection and ascension. Tertullian and Justin refer to these acts with so much confidence, as would make one believe they had read and handled them. However, neither Eusebius nor Jerom, who were both inquisitive and understanding persons, nor any other author who wrote afterward, seems to have seen them, at least not the true and original acts. For as to what we have now in great number, they are not authentic, being neither ancient nor uniform. There are also some pretended letters of Pilate to Tiberius, giving a history of our Saviour; but they are universally allowed to be spurious. Pilate being a man who, by his excessive cruelties and rapine, had disturbed the repose of Judea, during the whole time of his government, was at length deposed by Vitellius, the proconsul of Syria, A. D. 36, and sent to Rome to give an account of his conduct to the emperor. But, though Tiberius died before Pilate arrived at Rome, yet his successor Caligula banished him to Vienne in Gaul, where he was reduced to such extremity that he laid violent hands upon himself. The evangelists call him governor, though in reality he was nothing more than procurator of Judea, not only because governor was a name of general use, but because Pilate, in effect, acted as one, by taking upon him to judge in criminal matters, as his predecessors had done, and as other procurators in the small provinces of the empire, where there was no proconsul, constantly did.

PILLAR properly means a column raised to support a building; but in Scripture the term mostly occurs in a metaphorical or figurative sense. Thus we have a pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire, a pillar of smoke, &c; signifying a cloud, a fire, a smoke raised up toward heaven in the form or shape of a pillar, Exod. xiii, 21; Judges xx, 40. Job speaks of the pillars of heaven and the pillars of the earth, Job ix, 6; xxvi, 11; which are strong metaphorical expressions, that suppose the heavens and the earth to be an edifice raised by the hand of the almighty Creator, and founded upon its basis. St. Paul speaks of the Christian church under the similitude of a pillar or column on which the truth, or doctrine of the glorious Gospel is inscribed, 1 Tim. iii, 15.

PILLOWS. The prophet speaks of sewing pillows to arm holes.” There is here, probably, an allusion to the easy indulgence of the great. To this day in the east they cover the floors of their houses with carpets: and along the sides of the wall or floor, a range of narrow beds or mattresses is often placed upon these carpets; and, for their farther ease and convenience, several velvet or damask bolsters are placed upon these carpets or mattresses,--indulgences that seem to be alluded to by the stretching of themselves upon couches, and by the sewing of pillows to arm holes,” Ezekiel xiii, 18; Amos vi, 4.

PINE TREE. The pine appears in our translation three times, Neh. viii, 15; Isaiah xli, 19; lx, 13. Nehemiah, viii, 15, giving directions for observing the feast of tabernacles, says, “Fetch olive branches, pine branches, myrtle branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths.” The Hebrew phrase שמן, means literally _“branches of oily_ or _gummy plants_.” The LXX. say _cypress_. Scheuchzer says the Turks call the cypress _zemin_. The author of Scripture Illustrated” says, I should prefer the whole species called jasmin, on account of its verdure, its fragrance, and its flowers, which are highly esteemed. The word _jasmin_ and _jasemin_ of the Turks, resembles strongly the _shemen_ of the Hebrew original here. The Persians also name this plant _semen_ and _simsyk_.” The authority, however, of the Septuagint must prevail. In Isa. xli, 19; lx, 13, the Hebrew word is תדהר; a tree, says Parkhurst, so called from the springiness or elasticity of its wood. Luther thought it the elm, which is a lofty and spreading tree; and Dr. Stock renders it the ash. After all, it may be thought advisable to retain the pine. La Roche, describing, a valley near to Mount Lebanon, has this observation: “_La continuelle verdure des pins et des chênes verds fait toujours sa beauté_.” [The perpetual verdure of the pines and the live oaks makes it ever beautiful.]

PISGAH, a part of Mount Nebo, so called, being, in all probability, a distinct, and most likely the highest, summit of that mountain. Here Moses climbed to view the land of Canaan; and here he died.

PISIDIA, a province of Asia Minor, having Lycaonia to the north, Pamphylia to the south, Cilicia and Cappadocia to the east, and the province of Asia to the west. St. Paul preached at Antioch in Pisidia, Acts xiii, 14; xiv, 24.

PITCH, ופת, Exod. ii, 3; Isaiah xxxiv, 9; Septuagint ἄσφαλτος; a fat, combustible, oily matter, sometimes called asphaltos, from the lake Asphaltites, or Dead Sea, in Judea, on the surface of which it rises in the nature of liquid pitch, and floats like other oleaginous bodies; but is condensed by degrees, through the heat of the sun, and grows dry and hard. The word which our translators have rendered _pitch_ in Gen. vi, 14, and חמר, _slime_, Gen. xi, 3; xiv, 10, is generally supposed to be bitumen. In the first of these places it is mentioned as used for smearing the ark, and closing its interstices. It was peculiarly adapted to this purpose. Being at first soft, viscous, and pliable, it might be thrust into every chasm and crevice with the greatest ease; but would soon acquire a tenacity and hardness superior to those of our pitch. A coat of it spread over both the inside and outside of the ark would make it perfectly water proof. The longer it was kept in the water, the harder and stronger it would grow. The Arabs still use it for careening their vessels. In the second passage it is described as applied for cement in building the tower of Babel. It was much used in ancient buildings in that region; and, in the ruins of Babylon, large masses of brick work cemented with it are discovered. It is known that the plain of Shinar did abound with it, both in its liquid and solid state; that there was there a cave and fountain which was continually casting it out; and that the famous tower and no less famous walls of Babylon were built by this kind of cement, is confirmed by the testimony of several ancient authors. The slime pits of Siddim, Gen. xiv, 10, were holes out of which issued this liquid bitumen, or _naphtha_. Bitumen was formerly much used by the Egyptians and Jews in embalming the bodies of their dead.

PITHOM, one of the cities that the Israelites built for Pharaoh in Egypt, during the time of their servitude, Exod. i, 11.

PLAGUES OF EGYPT. The design of these visitations, growing more awful and tremendous in their progress, was to make Pharaoh know, and confess, that the God of the Hebrews was the supreme Lord, and to exhibit his power and his justice in the strongest light to all the nations of the earth, Exod. ix, 16; 1 Sam. iv, 8, &c; to execute judgment upon the Egyptians and upon all their gods, inanimate and bestial, for their cruelty to the Israelites, and for their grovelling polytheism and idolatry, Exod. vii, 14–17; xii, 12. The Nile was the principal divinity of the Egyptians. According to Heliodorus, they paid divine honours to this river, and revered it as the first of their gods. They declared him to be the rival of heaven, since he watered the country without the aid of the clouds and rain. His principal festival was at the summer solstice, when the inundation commenced; at which season, in the dog days, by a cruel idolatrous rite, they sacrificed red-haired persons, principally foreigners, to Typhon, or the power that presided over tempests, at Busiris, Heliopolis, &c, by burning them alive, and scattering their ashes in the air, for the good of the people, as we learn from Plutarch. Hence Bryant infers the probability, that these victims were chosen from among the Israelites, during their residence in Egypt. The judgment then inflicted upon the river, and all the waters of Egypt, in the presence of Pharaoh and of his servants, as foretold,--when, as soon as Aaron had smitten the waters of the river, they were turned into blood, and continued in that state for seven days, so that all the fish died, and the Egyptians could not drink of the waters of the river, in which they delighted as the most wholesome of all waters, but were forced to dig wells for pure water to drink--was a significant sign of God’s displeasure for their senseless idolatry in worshipping the river and its fish, and also a manifest reproof of that bloody edict whereby the infants were slain,” Wisdom xi, 7.

In the plague of frogs, their sacred river itself was made an active instrument of their punishment, together with another of their gods. The frog was one of their sacred animals, consecrated to the sun, and considered as an emblem of divine inspiration in its inflations.

The plague of lice, which was produced without any previous intimation to Pharaoh, was peculiarly offensive to a people so superstitiously nice and cleanly as the Egyptians; and, above all, to their priests, who used to shave their whole body every third day, that neither louse, nor any other vermin, might be found upon them while they were employed in serving their gods, as we learn from Herodotus; and Plutarch informs us, that they never wore woollen garments, but linen only, because linen is least apt to produce lice. This plague, therefore, was particularly disgraceful to the magicians themselves; and when they tried to imitate it, but failed, on account of the minuteness of the objects, (not like serpents, water, or frogs, of a sensible bulk that could be handled,) they were forced to confess that this was no human feat of legerdemain, but rather the finger of God.” Thus were the illusions of their magic put down, and their vaunting in wisdom reproved with disgrace,” Wisdom xvii, 7. Their folly was manifest unto all men,” in absurdly and wickedly attempting at first to place the feats of human art on a level with the stupendous operations of divine power, in the first two plagues; and being foiled in the third, by shamefully miscarrying, they exposed themselves to the contempt of their admirers. Philo, the Jew, has a fine observation on the plagues of Egypt: Some, perhaps, may inquire, Why did God punish the country by such minute and contemptible animals as frogs, lice, flies, rather than by bears, lions, leopards, or other kinds of savage beasts which prey on human flesh? Or, if not by these, why not by the Egyptian asp, whose bite is instant death? But let him learn, if he be ignorant, first, that God chose rather to correct than to destroy the inhabitants; for, if he desired to annihilate them utterly, he had no need to have made use of animals as his auxiliaries, but of the divinely inflicted evils of famine and pestilence. Next, let him farther learn that lesson so necessary for every state of life, namely, that men, when they war, seek the most powerful aid to supply their own weakness; but God, the highest and the greatest power, who stands in need of nothing, if at any time he chooses to employ instruments, as it were, to inflict chastisement, chooses not the strongest and greatest, disregarding their strength, but rather the mean and the minute, whom he endues with invincible and irresistible power to chastise offenders.” The first three plagues were common to the Egyptians and the Israelites, to convince both that “there was none like the Lord;” and to wean the latter from their Egyptian idolatries, and induce them to return to the Lord their God. And when this end was answered, the Israelites were exempted from the ensuing plagues; for the Lord severed the land of Goshen from the rest of Egypt; whence the ensuing plagues, confined to the latter, more plainly appeared to have been inflicted by the God of the Hebrews, Exodus viii, 20–23, to convince both more clearly of “the goodness and severity of God,” Rom. xi, 22; that great plagues remain for the ungodly, but mercy embraceth the righteous on every side,” Psalm xxxii, 10.

The visitation of flies, of the gad fly, or hornet, was more intolerable than any of the preceding. By this, his minute, but mighty army, God afterward drove out some of the devoted nations of Canaan before Joshua, Exod. xxiii, 28; Deut. vii, 20; Josh. xxiv, 12. This insect was worshipped in Palestine and elsewhere under the title of Baal-zebub, lord of the gad fly,” 2 Kings i, 1, 2. Egypt, we learn from Herodotus, abounded with prodigious swarms of flies, or gnats; but this was in the heat of summer, during the dog days; whence this fly is called by the Septuagint κυνόμνια, _the dog fly_. But the appointed time of this plague was in the middle of winter; and, accordingly, this plague extorted Pharaoh’s partial consent, Go ye, sacrifice to your God, but in the land;” and when Moses and Aaron objected the offence they would give to the Egyptians, who would stone them for sacrificing the abomination of the Egyptians,” namely, animal sacrifices, he reluctantly consented, only ye shall not go very far away;” for he was apprehensive of their flight, like his predecessor, who first enslaved the Israelites, Exod. i, 10; and he again desired them to entreat for him.” But he again dealt deceitfully; and after the flies were removed so effectually that not one was left, when Moses entreated the Lord, Pharaoh hardened his heart this fifth time also, neither would he let the people go.”

This second breach of promise on the part of Pharaoh drew down a plague of a more deadly description than the preceding. The fifth plague of murrain destroyed all the cattle of Egypt, but of the cattle of the Israelites died not one.” It was immediately inflicted by God himself, after previous notification, and without the agency of Moses and Aaron, to manifest the divine indignation at Pharaoh’s falsehood. And though the king sent and found that not one of the Israelites was dead, yet his heart was hardened this sixth time also, and he would not let the people go, Exod. ix, 1–7.

At length, after Pharaoh had repeatedly abused the gracious respites and warnings vouchsafed to him and his servants, a sorer set of plagues, affecting themselves, began to be inflicted; and Moses now, for the first time, appears as the executioner of divine vengeance; for in the presence of Pharaoh, by the divine command, he sprinkled ashes of the furnace toward heaven, and it became a boil, breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast. And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boil, which affected them and all the Egyptians, Exod. ix, 8–11. This was a very significant plague: the furnace from which the ashes were taken aptly represented the iron furnace” of Egyptian bondage, Deut. iv, 20, and the scattering of the ashes in the air might have referred to the usage of the Egyptians in their Typhonian sacrifices of human victims; while it converted another of the elements, and of their gods, the air, or ether, into an instrument of their chastisement. And now the Lord,” for the first time, hardened the heart of Pharaoh,” after he had so repeatedly hardened it himself, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had foretold unto Moses,” Exod. ix, 12. Though Pharaoh probably felt, the scourge of the boil, as well as his people, it did not soften nor humble his heart; and when he wilfully and obstinately turned away from the light, and shut his eyes against the luminous evidences vouchsafed to him of the supremacy of the God of the Hebrews, and had twice broken his promise when he was indulged with a respite, and dealt deceitfully, he became a just object of punishment; and God now began to increase the hardness or obduracy of his heart. And such is the usual and the righteous course of his providence; when nations or individuals despise the warnings of Heaven, abuse their best gifts, and resist the means of grace, God then delivers them over to a reprobate” or undiscerning mind, to work all uncleanness with greediness,” Rom. i, 28.

In the tremendous plague of hail, the united elements of air, water, and fire, were employed to terrify and punish the Egyptians by their principal divinities. This plague was formally announced to Pharaoh and his people: I will at this season send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. For now I could stretch out my hand, and smite thee and thy people with pestilence,” or destroy thee at once, like thy cattle with the murrain, and thou shouldest be cut off from the earth; but, in truth, for this cause have I sustained thee, that I might manifest in thee my power, and that my name might be declared throughout the whole earth,” Exod. ix, 13–16. This rendering of the passage is more conformable to the context, the Chaldee paraphrase, and to Philo, than the received translation, For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence;” for surely Pharaoh and his people were not smitten with pestilence; and they were preserved” or kept from immediate destruction, according to the Septuagint, διετηρήθης, to manifest the divine power,” by the number and variety of their plagues. Still, however, in the midst of judgment, God remembered mercy; he gave a gracious warning to the Egyptians, to avoid, if they chose, the threatened calamity: Send, therefore, now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field; every man and beast that shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die.” And this warning had some effect: He that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh, made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses; and he that regarded not the word of the Lord, left his servants and his cattle in the field,” Exod. ix, 17–21. But it may be asked, If all the cattle of the Egyptians were destroyed by the foregoing plague of murrain, as asserted Exod. ix, 6, how came there to be any cattle left? Surely the Egyptians might have recruited their stock from the land of Goshen, where not one of the cattle of the Israelites died.” And this justifies the supposition, that there was some respite, or interval, between the several plagues, and confirms the conjecture of the duration of the whole, about a quarter of a year. And that the warning, in this case, was respected by many of the Egyptians, we may infer from the number of chariots and horsemen that went in pursuit of the Israelites afterward. This was foretold to be a very grievous hail, such as had not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof: and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along the ground; and the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail.” Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time; the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked: entreat the Lord,” for it is enough, that there might be no more mighty thunderings and hail; and I will let you go, and ye shall stay no longer.” But when there was respite, Pharaoh sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants; neither would he let the people go,” Exod. ix, 27–35. In this instance, there is a remarkable suspension of the judicial infatuation. Pharaoh had humbled himself, and acknowledged his own and his people’s guilt, and the justice of the divine plague: the Lord, therefore, forbore this time to harden his heart. But he abused the long sufferance of God, and this additional respite; he sinned yet more, because he now sinned wilfully, after he had received information of the truth; he relapsed, and hardened his own heart a seventh time. He became, therefore, a vessel of wrath, fitted to destruction,” Heb. x, 26; Rom. ix, 22.

The design of the eighth and the ensuing plagues, was to confirm the faith of the Israelites: “That thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son, what I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the Lord.” This plague of locusts, inflicted on the now devoted Egyptians and their king, completed the havoc begun by the hail; by this the wheat and rye were destroyed, and every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any verdure in the trees, nor in the herbs of the field, throughout the land of Egypt. Very grievous were they; before them were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall there be such,” Exod. x, 3–15.

The awful plague of darkness over all the land of Egypt, for three days, a thick darkness which might be felt,” in the emphatic language of Scripture, was inflicted on the Egyptians, and their chief god, the sun; and was, indeed, a most significant sign of the divine displeasure, and of that mental darkness under which they now laboured. Their consternation thereat is strongly represented by their total inaction; neither rose any from his place for three days, petrified, as they were, with horror. They were also scared with strange apparitions and visions, while a heavy night was spread over them, an image of that darkness which should afterward receive them. But yet, they were unto themselves more grievous than that darkness,” Wisdom xvii, 3–21; Psalm lxxviii, 49. This terrific and horrible plague compelled Pharaoh to relax; he offered to let the men and their families go; but he wished to keep the flocks and herds as security for their return; but Moses peremptorily declared, that not a hoof should be left behind. Again “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let them go,” Exod. x, 21–27. And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh; and the Lord” ultimately “hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land,” Exod. xi, 9, 10. This passage forms the conclusion to the nine plagues, and should properly follow the preceding; for the result of the tenth and last plague was foretold, that Pharaoh should not only let them go, but surely thrust them out altogether, Exod. xi, 1.

The tenth plague was announced to Pharaoh with much solemnity: Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt, and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even to the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of cattle. And there shall be a great cry throughout the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be any more. But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast; that ye may know, how that the Lord doth make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee. And after that I will go out,” Exod. xi, 4–8. Such a threat, delivered in so high a tone, both in the name of the God of Israel and of Moses, did not fail to exasperate the infatuated Pharaoh, and he said, Get thee from me; take heed to thyself; see my face no more: for in the day thou seest my face thou shalt die. And Moses said, Be it so as thou hast spoken; I will see thy face again no more. And he went out from Pharaoh in great anger,” Exod. x, 28, 29; xi, 8. And at midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house in which there was not one dead,” Exod. xii, 1–30. This last tremendous judgment is described with much sublimity in the book of Wisdom, xviii, 14–18.

For when all things were wrapt in still silence, And night, in her proper speed, holding her mid course, Thy all powerful oracle leapt down from heaven, Out of the royal throne, a fierce warrior, Into the midst of the land of destruction, Wielding a sharp sword, thine unfeigned command, And standing up, he filled the whole with death, He touched the heavens, indeed, but trod upon the earth!”

And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and he called for,” or sent to, Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as ye said; take also your flocks and your herds, and be gone; and bless me also. And the Egyptians also were urgent upon the people, to send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We shall all be dead.” It is evident from the extreme urgency of the occasion, when all the Egyptians apprehended total destruction, if the departure of the Israelites was delayed any longer, that Pharaoh had no personal interview with Moses and Aaron, which would have wasted time, and was quite unnecessary; he only sent them a peremptory mandate to be gone on their own terms. And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they asked of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment. And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they freely gave what they required, and they spoiled the Egyptians,” Exod. xii, 31–36, as originally foretold to Abraham, Gen. xv, 14; and to Moses before the plagues began. This was an act of perfect retributive justice, to make the Egyptians pay for the long and laborious services of the Israelites, whom they had unjustly enslaved, in violation of their charter.

The Israelites were thrust out of Egypt on the fifteenth day of the first month, about six hundred thousand men on foot, beside women and children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks and herds, even very much cattle,” Exod. xii, 37–38; Num. xi, 4; xxxiii, 3. And they went out with a high hand; for the Lord went before them by day, in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people,” Exod. xiii, 22; Num. ix, 15–23. And the motion or rest of this divine guide regulated their marches, and their stations or encampments during the whole of their route, Num. x, 33–36. See RED SEA.

PLATONISTS. The Platonic philosophy is denominated from Plato, who was born about B. C. 426. He founded the old academy on the opinions of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Socrates; and by adding the information he had acquired to their discoveries, he established a sect of philosophers, who were esteemed more perfect than any who had before appeared in the world. The outlines of Plato’s philosophical system were as follows:--that there is one God, eternal, immutable, and immaterial; perfect in wisdom and goodness, omniscient, and omnipresent: that this all-perfect Being formed the universe out of a mass of eternally preëxisting matter, to which he gave form and arrangement: that there is in matter a necessary, but blind and refractory force, which resists the will of the supreme Artificer, so that he cannot perfectly execute his designs; and this is the cause of the mixture of good and evil which is found in the material world: that the soul of man was derived by emanation from God; but that this emanation was not immediate, but through the intervention of the soul of the world, which was itself debased by some material admixture: that the relation which the human soul, in its original constitution, bears to matter, is the source of moral evil; that when God formed the universe, he separated from the soul of the world inferior souls, equal in number to the stars, and assigned to each its proper celestial abode: that these souls were sent down to earth to be imprisoned in mortal bodies; hence arose the depravity and misery to which human nature is liable: that the soul is immortal; and by disengaging itself from all animal passions, and rising above sensible objects to the contemplation of the world of intelligence, it may be prepared to return to its original habitation: that matter never suffers annihilation, but that the world will remain for ever; and that by the action of its animating principle it accomplishes certain periods, within which every thing returns to its ancient place and state. This periodical revolution of nature is called the Platonic, or great year.

The Platonic system makes the perfection of morality to consist in living in conformity to the will of God, the only standard of truth, and teaches that our highest good consists in the contemplation and knowledge of the supreme Being. In this divine Being Plato admitted a sort of trinity of _three hypostases_. The first he considered as self-existent, calling him, by way of eminence, τὸ hὸν, the Being, or τὸ hὲν, the One. The only attribute which he acknowledged in this person was goodness; and therefore he frequently styles him, τὸ ἀγαθὸν, the _good_. The second he considered as, νοῦς, the _mind_, or, λογὸς, the _wisdom_ or _reason_ of the former, and the δημιȣργὸς, _maker of the world_. The third he always speaks of as, ψυχὴ, the _soul_ of the world. He taught that the second is a necessary emanation from the first, and the third from the second, or perhaps from both; comparing these emanations to those of light and heat from the sun. From the above use of _Logos_ for the second person of the Platonic trinity, it has been thought that St. John borrowed the term from Plato; but it is not likely that this Apostle was conversant with his writings, and therefore both Le Clerc and Dr. Campbell think it more probable that he took it from the Old Testament. The end of all knowledge, or philosophy, according to Plato, was to make us resemble the Deity as much as is compatible with human nature. This likeness consists in the possession and practice of all the moral virtues. After the death of Plato, many of his disciples deviated from his doctrines. His school was then divided into the old, the middle, and the new academy. The old academy strictly adhered to his tenets. The middle academy partially receded from his system, without entirely deserting it. The new academy almost entirely relinquished the original doctrines of Plato, and verged toward the skeptical philosophy. An infusion of Platonism, though in a perverted form, is seen in the philosophy most prevalent in the times of the Apostles. It was Judaized by the contemplative Hellenists, and, through them, their native Judaism was Platonized. The eclectic philosophy added other ingredients to the compound, from the oriental systems. All however issued in pride, and the domination of bewildering and monstrous imaginations.

PLOUGH. The Syrian plough, which was probably used in all the regions around, is a very simple frame, and commonly so light, that a man of moderate strength might carry it in one hand. Volney states that in Syria it is often nothing else than the branch of a tree cut below a bifurcation, and used without wheels. It is drawn by asses and cows, seldom by oxen. And Dr. Russel informs us, the ploughing of Syria is performed often by a little cow, at most with two, and sometimes only by an ass. In Persia it is for the most part drawn by one ox only, and not unfrequently even by an ass, although it is more ponderous than in Palestine. With such an imperfect instrument, the Syrian husbandman can do little more than scratch the surface of his field, or clear away the stones or weeds that encumber it, and prevent the seed from reaching the soil. The ploughshare is a piece of iron, broad, but not large, which tips the end of the shaft.” So much does it resemble the short sword used by the ancient warriors, that it may with very little trouble, be converted into that deadly weapon; and when the work of destruction is over, reduced again into its former shape, and applied to the purposes of agriculture. In allusion to the first operation, the Prophet Joel summons the nations to leave their peaceful employments in the cultivated field, and buckle on their armour: Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears,” Joel iii, 10. This beautiful image the Prophet Isaiah has reversed, and applied to the establishment of that profound and lasting peace which is to bless the church of Christ in the latter days: And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,” Isaiah ii, 4. The plough used in Syria is so light and simple in its construction, that the husbandman is under the necessity of guiding it with great care, bending over it, and loading it with his own weight, else the share would glide along the surface without making any incision. His mind should be wholly intent on his work, at once to press the plough into the ground, and direct it in a straight line. Let the ploughman,” said Hesiod, attend to his charge, and look before him; not turn aside to look on his associates, but make straight furrows, and have his mind attentive to his work.” And Pliny: Unless the ploughman stoop forward,” to press his plough into the soil, and conduct it properly, he will turn it aside.” To such careful and incessant exertion, our Lord alludes in that declaration, No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven,” Luke ix, 62.

POETRY OF THE HEBREWS. Among the books of the Old Testament, says Bishop Lowth, there is such an apparent diversity in style, as sufficiently discovers which of them are to be considered as poetical, and which as prose. While the historical books and legislative writings of Moses are evidently prosaic compositions, the book of Job, the Psalms of David, the Song of Solomon, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, a great part of the prophetical writings, and several passages scattered occasionally through the historical books, carry the most plain and distinguishing marks of poetical writing. There is not the least reason for doubting that originally these were written in verse, or some kind of measured numbers; though, as the ancient pronunciation of the Hebrew language is now lost, we are not able to ascertain the nature of the Hebrew verse, or at most can ascertain it but imperfectly. Let any person read the historical introduction to the book of Job, contained in the first and second chapters, and then go on to Job’s speech in the beginning of the third chapter, and he cannot avoid being sensible that he passes all at once from the region of prose to that of poetry. From the earliest times music and poetry were cultivated among the Hebrews. In the days of the judges mention is made of the schools or colleges of the prophets, where one part of the employment of the persons trained in such schools was to sing the praises of God, accompanied with various instruments. But in the days of King David music and poetry were carried to the greatest height. In 1 Chron. xxv, an account is given of David’s institutions relating to the sacred music and poetry, which were certainly more costly, more splendid and magnificent, than ever obtained in the public service of any other nation. See PSALMS.

The general construction of the Hebrew poetry is of a singular nature, and peculiar to itself. It consists in dividing every period into correspondent, for the most part into equal, members, which answer to one another both in sense and sound. In the first member of the period a sentiment is expressed; and in the second member the same sentiment is amplified, or is repeated in different terms, or sometimes contrasted with its opposite; but in such a manner, that the same structure, and nearly the same number of words, is preserved. This is the general strain of all the Hebrew poetry. Instances of it occur every where on opening the Old Testament. Thus, in Psalm xcvi:--

Sing unto the Lord a new song. Sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, and bless his name. Show forth his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the Heathen, His wonders among all the people. For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all the gods. Honour and majesty are before him; Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.”

It is owing in a great measure to this form of composition, that our version, though in prose, retains so much of a poetical cast: for, the version being strictly word for word after the original, the form and order of the original sentence are preserved; which, by this artificial structure, this regular alternation and correspondence of parts, makes the ear sensible of a departure from the common style and tone of prose. The origin of this form of poetical composition among the Hebrews is clearly to be deduced from the manner in which their sacred hymns were wont to be sung. They were accompanied with music, and they were performed by choirs or bands of singers and musicians, who answered alternately to each other. When, for instance, one band began the hymn thus: The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice;” the chorus, or semi-chorus, took up the corresponding versicle, Let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof.” “Clouds and darkness are round about him,” sung the one; the other replied, Judgment and righteousness are the habitation of his throne.” And in this manner their poetry, when set to music, naturally divided itself into a succession of strophes and antistrophes correspondent to each other; whence it is probable the antiphon, or responsory, in the public religious service of so many Christian churches, derived its origin. The twenty-fourth Psalm, in particular, which is thought to have been composed on the great and solemn occasion of the ark of the covenant being brought back to Mount Zion, must have had a noble effect when performed after this manner, as Dr. Lowth has illustrated it. The whole people are supposed to be attending the procession. The Levites and singers, divided into their several courses, and accompanied with all their musical instruments, led the way. After the introduction to the Psalm, in the two first verses, when the procession begins to ascend the sacred mount, the question is put, as by a semi-chorus, Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place?” The response is made by the full chorus with the greatest dignity: He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.” As the procession approaches to the doors of the tabernacle, the chorus, with all their instruments, join in this exclamation: Lift up your heads, ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.” Here the semi-chorus plainly breaks in, as with a lower voice, Who is this King of glory?” And at the moment when the ark is introduced into the tabernacle, the response is made by the burst of the whole chorus: The Lord, strong and mighty; the Lord, mighty in battle.”

The method of composition which has been explained, by correspondent versicles being universally introduced into the hymns or musical poetry of the Jews, easily spread itself through their other poetical writings, which were not designed to be sung in alternate portions, and which, therefore, did not so much require this mode of composition. But the mode became familiar to their ears, and carried with it a certain solemn majesty of style, particularly suited to sacred subjects. Hence, throughout the prophetical writings, we find it prevailing as much as in the Psalms of David. This form of writing is one of the great characteristics of the ancient Hebrew poetry; very different from, and even opposite to, the style of the Greek and Roman poets. Independently of this peculiar mode of construction, the sacred poetry is distinguished by the highest beauties of strong, concise, bold, and figurative expression. Conciseness and strength are two of its most remarkable characters. One might, indeed, imagine that the practice of the Hebrew poets, of always amplifying the same thought, by repetition or contrast, might tend to enfeeble their style. But they conduct themselves so as not to produce this effect. Their sentences are always short. Few superfluous words are used. The same thought is never dwelt upon long. To their conciseness and sobriety of expression their poetry is indebted for much of its sublimity; and all writers who attempt the sublime might profit much by imitating, in this respect, the style of the Old Testament.

No writings whatever abound so much with the most bold and animated figures as the sacred books. In order to do justice to these, it is necessary that we transport ourselves as much as we can into the land of Judea, and place before our eyes that scenery and those objects with which the Hebrew writers were conversant. Natural objects are in some measure common to them with poets of all ages and countries. Light and darkness, trees and flowers, the forest and the cultivated field, suggest to them many beautiful figures. But, in order to relish their figures of this kind, we must take notice that several of them arise from the particular circumstances of the land of Judea. During the summer months little or no rain falls throughout all that region. While the heats continued, the country was intolerably parched; want of water was a great distress; and a plentiful shower falling, or a rivulet breaking forth, altered the whole face of nature, and introduced much higher ideas of refreshment and pleasure than the like causes can suggest to us. Hence, to represent distress, such frequent allusions among them, to a dry and thirsty land where no water is;” and hence, to describe a change from distress to prosperity, their metaphors are founded on the falling of showers, and the bursting out of springs in the desert. Thus: The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert; and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land, springs of water; in the habitation of dragons there shall be grass, with rushes and reeds,” Isaiah xxxv, 1, 6, 7. Images of this nature are very familiar to Isaiah, and occur in many parts of his book. Again: as Judea was a hilly country, it was, during the rainy months, exposed to frequent inundations by the rushing of torrents, which came down suddenly from the mountains, and carried every thing before them; and Jordan, their only great river, annually overflowed its banks. Hence the frequent allusions to the noise, and to the rushings of many waters;” and hence great calamities so often compared to the overflowing torrent, which, in such a country, must have been images particularly striking: Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me,” Psalm xlii, 7. The two most remarkable mountains of the country were Lebanon and Carmel; the former noted for its height, and the woods of lofty cedars that covered it; the latter, for its beauty and fertility, the richness of its vines and olives. Hence, with the greatest propriety, Lebanon is employed as an image of whatever is great, strong, or magnificent; Carmel, of what is smiling and beautiful. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, and the excellency of Carmel,” Isaiah xxxv, 2. Lebanon is often put metaphorically for the whole state or people of Israel, for the temple, for the king of Assyria; Carmel, for the blessings of peace and prosperity. His countenance is as Lebanon,” says Solomon, speaking of the dignity of a man’s appearance; but when he describes female beauty, Thine head is like Mount Carmel,” Cant. v, 15; vii, 5. It is farther to be remarked under this head, that, in the images of the awful and terrible kind, with which the sacred poets abound, they plainly draw their descriptions from that violence of the elements, and those great concussions of nature, with which their climate rendered them acquainted. Earthquakes were not unfrequent; and the tempests of hail, thunder, and lightning, in Judea and Arabia, accompanied with whirlwinds and darkness, far exceed any thing of that sort which happens in more temperate regions. Isaiah, xxiv, 20, describes, with great majesty, the earth, reeling to and fro like a drunkard, and removed like a cottage.” And in those circumstances of terror, with which an appearance of the Almighty is described, in Psalm xviii, when his pavilion round about him was darkness; when hail stones and coals of fire were his voice; and when, at his rebuke, the channels of the waters are said to be seen, and the foundations of the hills discovered; though there may be some reference, as Dr. Lowth thinks, to the history of God’s descent upon Mount Sinai; yet it seems more probable that the figures were taken directly from those commotions of nature with which the author was acquainted, and which suggested stronger and nobler images than those which now occur to us.

Beside the natural objects of their own country, we find the rites of their religion, and the arts and employments of their common life, frequently employed as grounds of imagery among the Hebrews. Hence flowed, of course, the many allusions to pastoral life, to the green pastures and the still waters,” and to the care and watchfulness of a shepherd over his flock, which carry to this day so much beauty and tenderness in them, in Psalm xxiii, and in many other passages of the poetical writings of Scripture. Hence all the images founded upon rural employments, upon the wine press, the threshing floor, the stubble and the chaff. To disrelish all such images is the effect of false delicacy. Homer is at least as frequent, and much more minute and particular, in his similes, founded on what we now call low life; but, in his management of them, far inferior to the sacred writers, who generally mix with their comparisons of this kind somewhat of dignity and grandeur to ennoble them. What inexpressible grandeur does the following rural image in Isaiah, for instance, receive from the intervention of the Deity!--“The nations shall rush like the rushings of many waters; but God shall rebuke them, and they shall fly far off; and they shall be chased as the chaff of the mountain before the wind, and like the down of the thistle before the whirlwind.” Figurative allusions, too, we frequently find to the rites and ceremonies of their religion, to the legal distinctions of things clean and unclean, to the mode of their temple service, to the dress of their priests, and to the most noted incidents recorded in their sacred history; as, to the destruction of Sodom, the descent of God upon Mount Sinai, and the miraculous passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea. The religion of the Hebrews included the whole of their laws and civil constitution. It was full of splendid external rites, that occupied their senses; it was connected with every part of their national history and establishment; and hence, all ideas founded on religion possessed in this nation a dignity and importance peculiar to themselves, and were uncommonly suited to impress the imagination.

From all this it results that the imagery of the sacred poets is, in a high degree, expressive and natural; it is copied directly from real objects that were before their eyes; it has this advantage, of being more complete within itself, more entirely founded on national ideas and manners, than that of the most of other poets. In reading their works we find ourselves continually in the land of Judea. The palm trees, and the cedars of Lebanon, are ever rising in our view. The face of their territory, the circumstances of their climate, the manners of the people, and the august ceremonies of their religion, constantly pass under different forms before us. The comparisons employed by the sacred poets are generally short, touching on one point only of resemblance, rather than branching out into little episodes. In this respect they have an advantage over the Greek and Roman authors; whose comparisons, by the length to which they are extended, sometimes interrupt the narration too much, and carry too visible marks of study and labour; whereas, in the Hebrew poets, they appear more like the glowings of a lively fancy, just glancing aside to some resembling object, and presently returning to its track. Such is the following fine comparison, introduced to describe the happy influence of good government upon a people, in what are called the last words of David: He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God; and he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining after rain,” 2 Sam. xxiii, 3. This is one of the most regular and formal comparisons in the sacred books.

Allegory, likewise, is a figure frequently found in them. But the poetical figure which, beyond all others, elevates the style of Scripture, and gives it a peculiar boldness and sublimity, is _prosopopœia_, or personification. No personifications employed by any poets are so magnificent and striking as those of the inspired writers. On great occasions they animate every part of nature, especially when any appearance or operation of the Almighty is concerned. Before him went the pestilence.” “The waters saw thee, O God, and were afraid.” The mountains saw thee, and they trembled.” “The overflowing of the water passed by.” The deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.” When inquiry is made about the place of wisdom, Job introduces the deep, saying, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not in me. Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.” That noted sublime passage in the book of Isaiah, which describes the fall of the king of Assyria, is full of personified objects; the fir trees and cedars of Lebanon breaking forth into exultation on the fall of the tyrant; hell from beneath stirring up all the dead to meet him at his coming; and the dead kings introduced as speaking and joining in the triumph. In the same strain are those many lively and passionate apostrophes to cities and countries, to persons and things, with which the prophetical writings every where abound. O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? Put thyself up into the scabbard, rest, and be still. How can it be quiet,” as the reply is instantly made, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Askelon, and the sea shore? there hath he appointed it,” Jer. xlvii, 6. In general, for it would carry us too far to enlarge upon all the instances, the style of the poetical books of the Old Testament is, beyond the style of all other poetical works, fervid, bold, and animated. It is extremely different from that regular correct expression to which our ears are accustomed in modern poetry. It is the burst of inspiration. The scenes are not coolly described, but represented as passing before our eyes. Every object and every person is addressed and spoken to, as if present. The transition is often abrupt; the connection often obscure; the persons are often changed; figures crowded, and heaped upon one another. Bold sublimity, not correct elegance, is its character. We see the spirit of the writer raised beyond himself, and labouring to find vent for ideas too mighty for his utterance.

The several kinds of poetical composition which we find in Scripture are chiefly the didactic, elegiac, pastoral, and lyric. Of the didactic species of poetry, the book of Proverbs is the principal instance. The first nine chapters of that book are highly poetical, adorned with many distinguished graces, and figures of expression. The book of Ecclesiastes comes, likewise, under this head; and some of the Psalms, as the hundred and nineteenth in particular. Of elegiac poetry, many very beautiful specimens occur in Scripture; such as the lamentation of David over his friend Jonathan; several passages in the prophetical books; and several of David’s Psalms, composed on occasions of distress and mourning. The forty-second Psalm, in particular, is, in the highest degree, tender and plaintive. But the most regular and perfect elegiac composition in the Scripture, perhaps in the whole world, is the Lamentations of Jeremiah. As the prophet mourns, in that book, over the destruction of the temple and the holy city, and the overthrow of the whole state, he assembles all the affecting images which a subject so melancholy could suggest. The Song of Solomon affords us a high exemplification of pastoral poetry. Considered with respect to its spiritual meaning, it is undoubtedly a mystical allegory; in its form it is a dramatic pastoral, or a perpetual dialogue between personages in the character of shepherds; and, suitably to that form, it is full of rural and pastoral images from beginning to end. Of lyric poetry, or that which is intended to be accompanied with music, the Old Testament is full. Beside a great number of hymns and songs, which we find scattered in the historical and prophetical books, such as the song of Moses, the song of Deborah, and many others of like nature, the whole book of Psalms is to be considered as a collection of sacred odes. In these we find the ode exhibited in all the varieties of its form, and supported with the highest spirit of lyric poetry; sometimes sprightly, cheerful, and triumphant; sometimes solemn and magnificent; sometimes tender and soft. From these instances it clearly appears, that there are contained in the Holy Scriptures full exemplifications of several of the chief kinds of poetical writing.

POLLUX, a tutelar deity of mariners in ancient times, Acts xxviii, 11, whose image was placed either at the prow or stern of the ship.

POMEGRANATE, רמון, Numbers xiii, 23; xx, 5; 1 Sam. xiv, 2, &c, a low tree growing very common in Palestine, and in other parts of the east. Its branches are very thick and bushy; some of them are armed with sharp thorns. They are garnished with narrow spear-shaped leaves. Its flowers are of an elegant red colour, resembling a rose. It is chiefly valued for the fruit, which is as big as a large apple, is quite round, and has the general qualities of other summer fruits, allaying heat and quenching thirst. The high estimation in which it was held by the people of Israel, may be inferred from its being one of the three kinds of fruit brought by the spies from Eshcol to Moses and the congregation in the wilderness, Num. xiii, 23; xx, 5; and from its being specified by that rebellious people as one of the greatest luxuries which they enjoyed in Egypt, the want of which they felt so severely in the sandy desert. The pomegranate, classed by Moses with wheat and barley, vines and figs, oil olive and honey, was, in his account, one principal recommendation of the promised land, Deut. viii, 8. The form of this fruit was so beautiful, as to be honoured with a place at the bottom of the high priest’s robe, Exodus xxviii, 33; Ecclus. xlv, 9; and was the principal ornament of the stately columns of Solomon’s temple. The inside is full of small kernels, replenished with a generous liquor. In short there is scarcely any part of the pomegranate which does not delight and recreate the senses.

PORTERS OF THE TEMPLE. The Levites discharged the office of porters of the temple both day and night, and had the care both of the treasure and offerings. The office of porter was in some sort military; properly speaking, they were the soldiers of the Lord, and the guards of his house, to whose charge the several gates of the courts of the sanctuary were appointed by lot, 1 Chronicles xxvi, 1, 13, 19. They waited at every gate; and were not permitted to depart from their service,” 2 Chron. xxxv, 15; and they attended by turns in their courses, as the other Levites did, 2 Chron. viii, 14. Their proper business was to open and shut the gates, and to attend at them by day, as a sort of peace officers, in order to prevent any tumult among the people; to keep strangers and the excommunicated and unclean persons, from entering into the holy court; and, in short, to prevent whatever might be prejudicial to the safety, peace, and purity of the holy place and service. They also kept guard by night about the temple and its courts; and they are said to have been twenty-four, including three priests, who stood sentry at so many different places. There was a superior officer over the whole guard, called by Maimonides, the man of the mountain of the house;” he walked the round as often as he pleased; when he passed a sentinel that was standing, he said, Peace be unto you;” but if he found one asleep, he struck him, and he had liberty to set fire to his garment. This custom may, perhaps, be alluded to in the following passage: Behold, I come as a thief,” that is, unawares; blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments,” Rev. xvi, 15. Psalm cxxxiv, seems to be addressed to these watchmen of the temple, who by night stand in the house of the Lord;” in which they are exhorted to employ their waking hours in acts of praise and devotion.

POST, a messenger or regulated courier, appointed to carry with expedition the despatches of princes, or the letters of private persons in general, Job ix, 25; Jer. li, 31; 2 Chron. xxx, 6; Esther iii, 13, &c. It is thought that the use of posts is derived from the Persians. Diodorus Siculus observes, that the kings of Persia, in order to have intelligence of what was passed through all the provinces of their vast dominions, placed centinels at eminences, at convenient distances, where towers were built. These centinels gave notice of public occurrences from one to another, with a very loud and shrill voice, by which news was transmitted from one extremity of the kingdom to another with great expedition. But as this could not be practised, except in the case of general news, which it was expedient that the whole nation should be acquainted with, Cyrus, as Xenophon relates, appointed couriers and places for post horses, building on purpose on all the high roads houses for the reception of the couriers, where they were to deliver their packets to the next, and so on. This they did night and day, so that no inclemency of weather was to stop them; and they are represented as moving with astonishing speed. In the judgment of many they went faster than cranes could fly. Herodotus owns, that nothing swifter was known for a journey by land. Xerxes, in his famous expedition against Greece, planted posts from the Ægean Sea to Shushan, or Susa, to send notice thither of what might happen to his army; he placed these messengers from station to station, to convey his packets, at such distances from each other as a horse might easily travel.

POTTER. Frequent mention is made of the potter in Scripture, Jer. xviii, 3; Ecclus. xxxviii, 29, 30. Homer says, that the potter turns his wheel with his hands. But at the present day, the wheel on which the work is formed is turned by another.

POTTER’s FIELD, the land that was bought with the money for which Judas sold our Saviour, Matt. xxvii, 7, 10, and which he returned. See ACELDAMA.

PRAYER has been well defined, the offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name or through the mediation of Jesus Christ, by the help of the Holy Spirit, with a confession of our sins, and a thankful acknowledgment of his mercies. 1. Prayer is in itself a becoming acknowledgment of the all-sufficiency of God, and of our dependence upon him. It is his appointed means for the obtaining of both temporal and spiritual blessings. He could bless his creatures in another way: but he will be inquired of, to do for them those things of which they stand in need, Ezek. xxxvi, 37. It is the act of an indigent creature, seeking relief from the fountain of mercy. A sense of want excites desire, and desire is the very essence of prayer. One thing have I desired of the Lord,” says David: that will I seek after.” Prayer without desire is like an altar without a sacrifice, or without the fire from heaven to consume it. When all our wants are supplied, prayer will be converted into praise; till then Christians must live by prayer, and dwell at the mercy seat. God alone is able to hear and to supply their every want. The revelation which he has given of his goodness lays a foundation for our asking with confidence the blessings we need, and his ability encourages us to hope for their bestowment. O thou that hearest prayer; unto thee shall all flesh come,” Psalm lxv, 2. 2. Prayer is a spiritual exercise, and can only be performed acceptably by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, Rom. viii, 26. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.” The Holy Spirit is the great agent in the world of grace, and without his special influence there is no acceptable prayer. Hence he is called the Spirit of grace and of supplication: for he it is that enables us to draw nigh unto God, filling our mouth with arguments, and teaching us to order our cause before him, Zech. xii, 10. 3. All acceptable prayer must be offered in faith, or a believing frame of mind. If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering--for let not the wavering man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord,” James i, 5–7. He that cometh unto God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,” Heb. xi, 6. It must be offered in the name of Christ, believing in him as revealed in the word of God, placing in him all our hope of acceptance, and exercising unfeigned confidence in his atoning sacrifice and prevalent intercession. 4. Prayer is to be offered for things agreeable to the will of God.” So the Apostle says: This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us; and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him,” 1 John v, 14, 15. Our prayers must therefore be regulated by the revealed will of God, and come within the compass of the promises. These are to be the matter and the ground of our supplications. What God has not particularly promised he may nevertheless possibly bestow; but what he has promised he will assuredly perform. Of the good things promised to Israel of old not one failed, but all came to pass; and in due time the same shall be said of all the rest. 5. All this must be accompanied with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of God’s mercies. These are two necessary ingredients in acceptable prayer. I prayed,” says the Prophet Daniel, and made confession.” Sin is a burden, of which confession unloads the soul. Father,” said the returning prodigal, I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight.” Thanksgiving is also as necessary as confession; by the one we take shame to ourselves; by the other, we give glory to God. By the one, we abase the creature; by the other we exalt the Creator. In petitioning favours from God, we act like dependent creatures; in confession, like sinners; but in thanksgiving, like angels.

The reason on which this great and efficacious duty rests, has been a subject of some debate. On this point, however, we have nothing stated in the Scriptures. From them we learn only, that God has appointed it; that he enjoins it to be offered in faith, that is, faith in Christ, whose atonement is the meritorious and procuring cause of all the blessings to which our desires can be directed; and that prayer so offered is an indispensable condition of our obtaining the blessings for which we ask. As a matter of inference, however, we may discover some glimpses of the reason in the divine Mind on which its appointment rests. That reason has sometimes been said to be the moral preparation and state of fitness produced in the soul for the reception of the divine mercies which the act and, more especially the habit of prayer must induce. Against this stands the strong, and, in a Scriptural view, fatal objection, that an efficiency is thus ascribed to the mere act of a creature to produce those great, and, in many respects, radical changes in the character of man, which we are taught, by inspired authority, to refer to the direct influences of the Holy Spirit. What is it that fits man for forgiveness, but simply repentance? Yet that is expressly said to be the gift” of Christ, and supposes strong operations of the illuminating and convincing Spirit of truth, the Lord and Giver of spiritual life; and if the mere acts and habit of prayer had efficiency enough to produce a Scriptural repentance, then every formalist attending with ordinary seriousness to his devotions must, in consequence, become a penitent. Again: if we pray for spiritual blessings aright, that is, with an earnestness of desire which arises from a due apprehension of their importance, and a preference of them to all earthly good, who does not see that this implies such a deliverance from the earthly and carnal disposition which characterizes our degenerate nature, that an agency far above our own, however we may employ it, must be supposed? or else, if our own prayers could be efficient up to this point, we might, by the continual application of this instrument, complete our regeneration, independent of that grace of God, which, after all, this theory brings in. It may indeed be said, that the grace of God operates by our prayers to produce in us a state of moral fitness to receive the blessings we ask. But this gives up the point contended for, the moral efficiency of prayer; and refers the efficiency to another agent working by our prayers as an instrument. Still, however, it may be affirmed, that the Scriptures no where represent prayer as an instrument for improving our moral state, in any other way than as the means of bringing into the soul new supplies of spiritual life and strength. It is therefore more properly to be considered as a condition of our obtaining that grace by which such effects are wrought, than as the instrument by which it effects them. In fact, all genuine acts of prayer depend upon a grace previously bestowed, and from which alone the disposition and the power to pray proceed. So it was said of Saul of Tarsus, Behold, he prayeth!” He prayed in fact then for the first time; but that was in consequence of the illumination of his mind as to his spiritual danger, effected by the miracle on the way to Damascus, and the grace of God which accompanied the miracle. Nor does the miraculous character of the means by which conviction was produced in his mind, affect the relevancy of this to ordinary cases. By whatever means God may be pleased to fasten the conviction of our spiritual danger upon our minds, and to awaken us out of the long sleep of sin, that conviction must precede real prayer, and comes from the influence of his grace, rendering the means of conviction effectual. Thus it is not the prayer which produces the conviction, but the conviction which gives birth to the prayer; and if we pursue the matter into its subsequent stages, we shall come to the same result. We pray for what we feel we want; that is, for something not in our possession; we obtain this either by impartation from God, to whom we look up as the only Being able to bestow the good for which we ask him; or else we obtain it, according to this theory, by some moral efficiency being given to the exercise of prayer to work it in us. Now, the latter hypothesis is in many cases manifestly absurd. We ask for pardon of sin, for instance; but this is an act of God done _for_ us, quite distinct from any moral change which prayer may be said to produce in us, whatever efficiency we may ascribe to it; for no such change in us can be pardon, since that must proceed from the party offended. We ask for increase of spiritual strength; and prayer is the expression of that want. But if it supply this want by its own moral efficiency, it must supply it in proportion to its intensity and earnestness; which intensity and earnestness can only be called forth by the degree in which the want is felt, so that the case supposed is contradictory and absurd, as it makes the sense of want to be in proportion to the supply which ought to abate or remove it. And if it be urged, that prayer at least produces in us a fitness for the supply of spiritual strength, because it is excited by a sense of our wants, the answer is, that the fitness contended for consists in that sense of want itself which must be produced in us by the _previous_ agency of grace, or we should never pray for supplies. There is, in fact, nothing in prayer simply which appears to have any adaptation, as an _instrument_, to effect a moral change in man, although it should be supposed to be made use of by the influence of the Holy Spirit. The word of God is properly an instrument, because it contains the doctrine which that Spirit explains and applies, and the motives to faith and obedience which he enforces upon the conscience and affections; and although prayer brings these truths and motives before us, prayer cannot properly be said to be an instrument of our regeneration, because that which is thus brought by prayer to bear upon our case is the word of God itself introduced into our prayers, which derive their sole influence in that respect from that circumstance. Prayer simply is the application of an insufficient to a sufficient Being for the good which the former cannot otherwise obtain, and which the latter only can supply; and as that supply is dependent upon prayer, and in the nature of the thing consequent, prayer can in no good sense be said to be the instrument of supplying our wants, or fitting us for their supply, except relatively, as a mere condition appointed by the Donor.

If we must inquire into the reason of the appointment of prayer, and it can scarcely be considered as a purely arbitrary institution, that reason seems to be, the preservation in the minds of men of a solemn and impressive sense of God’s agency in the world, and the dependence of all creatures upon him. Perfectly pure and glorified beings, no longer in a state of probation, and therefore exposed to no temptations, may not need this institution; but men in their fallen state are constantly prone to forget God; to rest in the agency of second causes; and to build upon a sufficiency in themselves. This is at once a denial to God of the glory which he rightly claims, and a destructive delusion to creatures, who, in forsaking God as the object of their constant affiance, trust but in broken reeds, and attempt to drink from broken cisterns which can hold no water.” It is then equally in mercy to us, as in respect to his own honour and acknowledgment, that the divine Being has suspended so many of his blessings, and those of the highest necessity to us, upon the exercise of prayer; an act which acknowledges his uncontrollable agency, and the dependence of all creatures upon him; our insufficiency, and his fulness; and lays the foundation of that habit of gratitude and thanksgiving which is at once so meliorating to our own feelings, and so conducive to a cheerful obedience to the will of God. And if this reason for the injunction of prayer is no where in Scripture stated in so many words, it is a principle uniformly supposed as the foundation of the whole scheme of religion which they have revealed.

To this duty objections have been sometimes offered, at which it may be well at least to glance. One has been grounded upon a supposed predestination of all things which come to pass; and the argument is, that as this established predetermination of all things cannot be altered, prayer, which supposes that God will depart from it, is vain and useless. The answer which a pious predestinarian would give to this objection is, that the argument drawn from the predestination of God lies with the same force against every other human effort, as against prayer; and that as God’s predetermination to give food to man does not render the cultivation of the earth useless and impertinent, so neither does the predestination of things shut out the necessity and efficacy of prayer. It would also be urged, that God has ordained the means as well as the end; and although he is an unchangeable Being, it is a part of the unchangeable system which he has established, that prayer shall be heard and accepted. Those who have not these views of predestination will answer the objection differently; for if the premises of such a predestination as is assumed by the objection, and conceded in the answer, be allowed, the answer is unsatisfactory. The Scriptures represent God, for instance, as purposing to inflict a judgment upon an individual or a nation, which purpose is often changed by prayer. In this case either God’s purpose must be denied, and then his threatenings are reduced to words without meaning; or the purpose must be allowed; in which case either prayer breaks in upon predestination, if understood absolutely, or it is vain and useless. To the objection so drawn out it is clear that no answer is given by saying that the means as well as the end are predestinated, since prayer in such cases is not a means to the end, but an instrument of thwarting it; or is a means to one end in opposition to another end, which, if equally predestinated with the same absoluteness, is a contradiction. The true answer is, that although God has absolutely predetermined some things, there are others which respect his government of free and accountable agents, which he has but conditionally predetermined. The true immutability of God consists, not in his adherence to his purposes, but in his never changing the principles of his administration; and he may therefore, in perfect accordance with his preördination of things, and the immutability of his nature, purpose to do, under certain conditions dependent upon the free agency of man, what he will not do under others; and for this reason, that an immutable adherence to the principles of a wise, just, and gracious government requires it. Prayer is in Scripture made one of these conditions; and if God has established it as one of the principles of his moral government to accept prayer, in every case in which he has given us authority to ask, he has not, we may be assured, entangled his actual government of the world with the bonds of such an eternal predestination of particular events, as either to reduce prayer to a mere form of words, or not to be able himself, consistently with his decrees, to answer it, whenever it is encouraged by his express engagements.

A second objection is, that as God is infinitely wise and good, his wisdom and justice will lead him to bestow whatever is fit for us without praying; and if any thing be not fit for us, we cannot obtain it by praying.” To this Dr. Paley very well replies, that it may be agreeable to perfect wisdom to grant that to our prayers which it would not have been agreeable to the same wisdom to have given us without praying for.” This, independent of the question of the authority of the Scriptures which explicitly enjoin prayer, is the best answer which can be given to the objection; and it is no small confirmation of it, that it is obvious to every reflecting man, that for God to withhold favours till asked for, tends,” as the same writer observes, to encourage devotion among his rational creatures, and to keep up and circulate a knowledge and sense of their dependency upon him.” But it is urged, God will always do what is best from the moral perfection of his nature, whether we pray or not.” This objection, however, supposes that there is but one mode of acting for the best, and that the divine will is necessarily determined to that mode only; both which positions,” says Paley, presume a knowledge of universal nature, much beyond what we are capable of attaining.” It is, indeed, a very unsatisfactory mode of speaking, to say, God will always do what is best; since we can conceive him capable in all cases of doing what is still better for the creature, and also that the creature is capable of receiving more and more from his infinite fulness for ever. All that can be rationally meant by such a phrase is, that, in the circumstances of the case, God will always do what is most consistent with his own wisdom, holiness, and goodness; but then the disposition to pray, and the act of praying, add a new circumstance to every case, and often bring many other new circumstances along with them. It supposes humility, contrition, and trust, on the part of the creature; and an acknowledgment of the power and compassion of God, and of the merit of the atonement of Christ: all which are manifestly new positions, so to speak, of the circumstances of the creature, which, upon the very principle of the objection, rationally understood, must be taken into consideration.

But if the efficacy of prayer as to ourselves be granted, its influence upon the case of others is said to be more difficult to conceive. This may be allowed without at all affecting the duty. Those who bow to the authority of the Scriptures will see, that the duty of praying for ourselves and for others rests upon the same divine appointment; and to those who ask for the reason of such intercession in behalf of others, it is sufficient to reply, that the efficacy of prayer being established in one case, there is the same reason to conclude that our prayers may benefit others, as any other effort we may use. It can only be by divine appointment that one creature is made dependent upon another for any advantage, since it was doubtless in the power of the Creator to have rendered each independent of all but himself. Whatever reason, therefore, might lead him to connect and interweave the interests of one man with the benevolence of another, will be the leading reason for that kind of mutual dependence which is implied in the benefit of mutual prayer. Were it only that a previous sympathy, charity, and good will, are implied in the duty, and must, indeed, be cultivated in order to it, and be strengthened by it, the wisdom and benevolence of the institution would, it is presumed, be apparent to every well constituted mind. That all prayer for others must proceed upon a less perfect knowledge of them than we have of ourselves, is certain; that all our petitions must be, even in our own mind, more conditional than those which respect ourselves, though many of these must be subjected to the principles of a general administration, which we but partially apprehend; and that all spiritual influences upon others, when they are subject to our prayers, will be understood by us as liable to the control of their free agency, must also be conceded; and, therefore, when others are concerned, our prayers may often be partially or wholly fruitless. He who believes the Scriptures will, however, be encouraged by the declaration that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man,” for his fellow creatures, availeth much;” and he who demands something beyond mere authoritative declaration, as he cannot deny that prayer is one of those instruments by which another may be benefited, must acknowledge that, like the giving of counsel, it may be of great utility in some cases, although it should fail in others; and that as no man can tell how much good counsel may influence another, or in many cases say whether it has ultimately failed or not, so it is with prayer. It is a part of the divine plan, as revealed in his word, to give many blessings to man independent of his own prayers, leaving the subsequent improvement of them to himself. They are given in honour of the intercession of Christ, man’s great Advocate;” and they are given, subordinately, in acceptance of the prayers of Christ’s church, and of righteous individuals. And when many or few devout individuals become thus the instruments of good to communities, or to whole nations, there is no greater mystery in this than in the obvious fact, that the happiness or misery of large masses of mankind is often greatly affected by the wisdom or the errors, the skill or the incompetence, the good or the bad conduct, of a few persons, and often of one.

PREACHING is the discoursing publicly on any religious subject. From the sacred records, says Robert Robinson, we learn that when men began to associate for the purpose of worshipping the Deity, Enoch prophesied, Jude 14, 15. We have a very short account of this prophet and his doctrine; enough, however, to convince us that he taught the principal truths of natural and revealed religion. Conviction of sin was in his doctrine, and communion with God was exemplified in his conduct, Gen. v, 24; Heb. xi, 5, 6. From the days of Enoch to the time of Moses, each patriarch worshipped God with his family: probably several assembled at new moons, and alternately instructed the whole company. Noah,” it is said, was a preacher of righteousness,” 1 Peter iii, 19, 20; 2 Peter ii, 5. Abraham commanded his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, and to do justice and judgment, Gen. xviii, 19; and Jacob, when his house lapsed to idolatry, remonstrated against it, and exhorted all them that were with him to put away the strange gods, and go up with him to Bethel, Gen. xxxv, 2, 3. Melchisedec, also, we may consider as the father, the priest, and the prince, of his people; publishing the glad tidings of peace and salvation, Gen. xiv; Heb. vii.

Moses was a most eminent prophet and preacher, raised up by the authority of God, and by whom, it was said, came the law, John i, 17. This great man had much at heart the promulgation of his doctrine: he directed it to be inscribed on pillars, to be transcribed in books, and to be taught both in public and private by word of mouth, Deut. iv, 9; vi, 9; xvii, 18; xxvii, 8; xxxi, 19; Num. v, 23. He himself set the example of each; and how he and Aaron preached, we may see by several parts of his writings. The first discourse was heard with profound reverence and attention; the last was both uttered and received with raptures, Exod. iv, 31; Deut. xxxiii, 7, 8, &c. Public preaching does not appear under this economy to have been attached to the priesthood: priests were not officially preachers; and we have innumerable instances of discourses delivered in assemblies by men of other tribes beside that of Levi, Psalm lxviii, 11. Joshua was an Ephraimite; but, being full of the spirit of wisdom, he gathered the tribes to Shechem, and harangued the people of God, Deut. xxxiv, 9; Joshua xxiv. Solomon was a prince of the house of Judah; Amos, a herdsman of Tekoa; yet both were preachers, and one at least was a prophet, 1 Kings ii; Amos vii, 14, 15. When the ignorant notions of Pagans, the vices of their practice, and the idolatry of their pretended worship, were in some sad periods incorporated into the Jewish religion by the princes of that nation, the prophets and all the seers protested against this apostasy; and they were persecuted for so doing. Shemaiah preached to Rehoboam, the princes, and all the people at Jerusalem, 2 Chron. xii, 5; Azariah and Hanani preached to Asa and his army, 2 Chron. xv, 1; xvi, 7; Micaiah, to Ahab. Some of them opened schools, or houses of instruction; and there to their disciples they taught the pure religion of Moses. At Naioth, in the suburbs of Ramah, there was one where Samuel dwelt; and there was one at Jericho, and a third at Bethel, to which Elijah and Elisha often resorted. Thither the people went on Sabbath days and at new moons, and received public lessons of piety and morality, 1 Sam. xix, 18; 2 Kings ii, 2, 5; iv, 2, 3. Through all this period, however, there was a dismal confusion of the useful ordinance of public preaching. Sometimes they had no open vision, and the word of the Lord was precious, or scarce; the people heard it only now and then. At other times they were left without a teaching priest, and without law. And at other seasons again, itinerants, both princes, priests, and Levites, were sent through all the country, to carry the book of the law, and to teach in the cities. In a word, preaching flourished when pure religion grew; and when the last decayed, the first was suppressed. Moses had not appropriated preaching to any order of men: persons, places, times, and manners, were all left open and discretional. Many of the discourses were preached in camps and courts, in streets, schools, cities, villages; sometimes, with great composure and coolness; at other times, with vehement action and rapturous energy; sometimes, in a plain, blunt style; at other times, in all the magnificent pomp of eastern allegory. On some occasions, the preachers appeared in public with visible signs, with implements of war, with yokes of slavery, or something adapted to their subject. They gave lectures on these, held them up to view, girded them on, broke them in pieces, rent their garments, rolled in the dust, and endeavoured, by all the methods they could devise, agreeably to the customs of their country, to impress the minds of their auditors with the nature and importance of their doctrines. These men were highly esteemed by the pious part of the nation; and princes thought proper to keep seers and others who were scribes, who read and expounded the law, 2 Chron. xxxiv, 29, 30; xxxv, 15. Hence, false prophets, bad men, who found their account in pretending to be good, crowded the courts of princes. Jezebel, an idolatress, had four hundred prophets of Baal; and Ahab, a pretended worshipper of Jehovah, had as many pretended prophets of his own profession, 2 Chron. xviii, 5.

When the Jews were carried captive into Babylon, the prophets who were with them inculcated the principles of religion, and endeavoured to possess their minds with an aversion to idolatry; and, to the success of preaching, we may attribute the re-conversion of the Jews to the belief and worship of one God; a conversion that remains to this day. The Jews have since fallen into horrid crimes; but they have never since this period lapsed into gross idolatry, Hosea ii, iii; Ezekiel ii, iii,