Part 17

A former missionary in Palestine[691] says: “Digging through the wall is the common method pursued by housebreakers in Palestine, and, save in the cities, the operation is not one of great difficulty. Windows, in our sense, do not exist in the houses of the villagers; ... but the walls, built of roughly broken stones and mud, are easily, and by a skilled hand almost noiselessly, penetrated. One night, about midnight, I was driven from my resting-place under a stunted olive-tree in the plain of Sharon by a terrific thunderstorm, and took refuge in the miserable fellahy village of Kalansaweh. A good woman unbarred her door and admitted me to a single apartment, in which, on the ground level, were several sheep and cattle, with an ass, and on the higher level a pretty large family asleep, all dimly discerned by the light of a little oil lamp stuck in a crevice of the wall. The atmosphere was awful. I asked why they did not have a window or opening in the wall. The woman held up her hands in amazement. ‘What!’ she exclaimed, ‘and assist the robbers [“thieves”]?’... The robbers [‘thieves’], she explained, were the Arabs in the plain. Greater rascals do not exist. They were great experts, she explained, in ‘digging through’ the houses; to put a window in the wall would only tempt them, and facilitate their work.”

Now, as of old, among the more primitive pastoral people of Palestine, “He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.... The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy.”[692]

I remember now, what I did not realize the meaning of at the time, that while I was journeying in Arabia we did not set a watch before the entrance of our tents, when we were near a village; but the guards were at the rear of the tents, to watch against thieves, who would crawl underneath the canvas to steal what they might.

It seems to have been a custom in medieval times, and probably earlier, for the besiegers in war time to endeavor to enter a city which they would sack through a breach in the walls, or by scaling the walls, rather than by entering the gates. On the other hand, if a conqueror would protect the inhabitants of a captured city, he would pass in through the opened gates. To deliver up the keys of the city gates to a hostile commander was equivalent to capitulating or making formal terms of surrender. In the military museum at Berlin are preserved the keys of cities captured by the emperors of Germany at various times along the centuries.

There is a trace of this custom of besiegers, even in Old Testament times, in the injunctions to Israel with reference to its warfares: “When thou drawest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it [proffer quarter]. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open [the gates] unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall become tributary unto thee, and shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: and when the Lord thy God delivereth it into thine hand, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.”[693]

It has been suggested on a former page,[694] but perhaps not sufficiently explained, that this idea of subjecting one’s self to the covenant obligations of citizenship by passing through the city gates, over the threshold, had to do with the Grecian custom of welcoming back to his own city the victor in the Olympian games through a breach in the walls, instead of through the gate. The meaning of this Greek custom (continued in Rome) was not clear in the days of Plutarch, and he, in seeking to account for it, suggests that it may have been intended to show that a city having such men among its citizens needed no walls of defense.[695] But, as they rebuilt their walls after the entrance of the victor, this explanation is not satisfactory. The world-wide recognition of the covenant obligations of a passage through a gate over the threshold is a more satisfactory explanation. If the victor, on returning in triumph from the games, were to enter his city through the gates, like any other citizen, he would be subject to the laws of the city as a citizen or a guest; but if the city would recognize him as a conqueror, at home as well as at Olympia, they would let him come in through a breach in the walls. In this act the citizens nominally submitted themselves to him; and a city thus entered, and, as it were, captured, often felt that it received more honor from its victor than it could confer upon him.[696]

Footnote 688:

Matt. 6 : 19; also Matt. 6 : 20.

Footnote 689:

Luke 12 : 39; also Matt. 24 : 43; Exod. 22 : 2; Ezek. 12 : 2–7.

Footnote 690:

See The Sunday School Times for March 7, 1896.

Footnote 691:

The Rev. William Ewing, in The Sunday School Times for March 7, 1896.

Footnote 692:

John 10 : 1, 10.

Footnote 693:

Deut. 20 : 10–13.

Footnote 694:

See pp. 5–7, _supra_.

Footnote 695:

Plutarch, _Symp._, Bk. ii, Quest. 5, § 2.

Footnote 696:

See Smith’s _Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiq._, s. vv. “Athletæ,” and “Olympic Games;” Gardner’s _New Chapters in Greek History_, pp. 297–302.

DOORKEEPER, AND CARRIER.

A “porter” and a “porter” are two very different persons, as the terms are employed in both Europe and America. We speak of a porter as a menial who carries burdens, such as parcels or baggage, a mere carrier for hire. Again, we speak of a porter as the attendant at, or the custodian of, the entrance gate of a mansion or public building. In the one case the porter is a very humble personage, in the other case he is a person of responsibility and importance. How it came about that the same term is applied to both these personages is worth considering, in view of its bearing on the importance of the door and the gate.

It is said to have been a custom of the ancient Etruscans and Romans, and perhaps of older peoples, in laying out the foundations of a city, to mark first the compass of the whole city with a plow. When they came to those places where they were to have the gates of the city, they took up the plow and carried it across the gateway, “transported” the plow at that space. It is said that from this custom the Latin word _porta_ came to apply to “a gate,” “_a portando aratrum_,” “from carrying the plow,”–_porta_, in Latin, meaning “to carry.” Whether or not the traditional custom referred to had a historical basis, it will be seen that the mere fact of the tradition will account for the twofold use, in languages derived from the Latin, of the word “porter” as a carrier, and again as a doorkeeper, or a gate watcher, or a guardian of the threshold. Apart from the question of the origin of the terms, we find that the porter or carrier is one who goes through the gate as the place of entrance or exit in his carryings; or, again, the porter or guardian of the gate is one who watches the place of carryings, and of outgoing and incoming.

Among the stories told of the founding of Rome by Romulus, it is said that at the threshold of this enterprise the people kindled fires before their tents, and then leaped through or over the flames.[697] In connection with this ceremony sacrifices were offered, and offerings of the first-fruits of forest and field were made to the gods.[698] A heifer and a bull were yoked to the plow, as in symbol of marriage, and afterwards were offered in sacrifice, thus supplying the symbolic blood on the threshold of the new city.[699] Plutarch, it is true, thinks that, in consequence of this custom of laying out a city, the walls of a city, _except the gates_, were counted sacred; but in this, as in other matters relating to the threshold,[700] it is evident that Plutarch was not sure to be correct as to the meaning of archaic customs.

There seems to be force in the suggestion that the two Latin words, _porta_ and _porto_, like the Greek _poros_, were derived from the common Aryan root _par_ or _por_, “to go,” “to bring over,” “to pass through.”[701] However this may be, we have the common English use of the term “port” in words meaning a door or entrance, and again a carrying or a place of carriage, as “export,” “import,” “transport,” “portico,” “porthole,” “portfolio,” etc.

An illustration of the twofold use of the word is found in the word “a portage” or “a carry” as the designation of “a break in a chain of water communication over which goods, boats, etc., have to be carried, as from one lake or river to another.” It is not merely that this is a place where a canoe, or other luggage, must be carried, but it is the definite “carry” or “portage,” the bridge, or isthmus, or door, or threshold,[702] by which they enter another region. This is the common American use of the term in pioneer life.[703]

Footnote 697:

A primitive wedding ceremony. See pp. 39–42, 142 f., 212, _supra_.

Footnote 698:

See, again, pp. 16 f., 46 f., _supra_.

Footnote 699:

See _Plutarch’s Lives_, “Romulus;” also references to Strabo, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in Hooke’s _Roman History_, I., 42.

Footnote 700:

See references at pp. 39, 263, _supra_.

Footnote 701:

See Skeat’s _Etymological Dictionary_ and the _Century Dictionary_, s. v.

Footnote 702:

See p. 180 f., _supra_.

Footnote 703:

See “portage” in _The Century Dictionary_, with examples of usage.

PASSING OVER INTO A COVENANT.

As these pages are going to press, Dr. Sailer calls my attention to the phrase לעבר בברית _laʿabhor bibereeth_, to enter, or pass over, into a covenant. This phrase, as Dr. Driver[704] points out, is found only in one place, at Deuteronomy 29 : 12. “That thou shouldest enter [or pass] into the covenant of the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day.”

It is evident that here is the idea of passing over a line or boundary, or threshold limit, into another region, or state or condition. Until that threshold is crossed, the person is outside of the covenant with its privileges and benefits; but when it is crossed, or passed, the person is a partaker of all that is within.

This word _ʿabhar_ corresponds with, while it differs from, the word _pasakh_. The two words have, indeed, been counted by some lexicographers as practically equivalents. Thus Fürst[705] gives “_pasakh_=_ʿabhar_.” In the covenant which Jehovah makes with Abraham, for himself and his posterity (Gen. 15 : 1–21), when the heifer and the she goat and the ram had been slaughtered and divided, and the pieces laid over against each other as two walls, or sides of a door, with the blood probably poured out on the earth as a threshold between, “a smoking furnace and a flaming torch,”–representing the divine presence–“passed,” or covenant-crossed, the blood on the threshold “between these pieces,” between these fleshly walls or door-posts of the sacrifice.[706]

In Jeremiah 34 : 18, the word appears in its twofold signification, in conjunction with a similar double use of the word _karath_ (“to cut”). Jehovah says, “I will give the men that have transgressed [_ʿabhar_, crossed or passed] my covenant, ... which they made [cut] before me when they cut the calf in twain and passed [over its blood] between the parts thereof.” Again, in Amos 7 : 8, Jehovah says of his reprobate people, “I will not again pass by [_ʿabhar_] them [covenant-cross them] any more.”

There seems to be a trace of this cross-over, or pass-over, covenant idea in the references to the passing through the fire in the worship of false gods, as at 2 Kings 16 : 3, where King Ahaz is said to have “walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through [_ʿʿabhar_] the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen.”[707] It is evident that this passing through the fire in honor of a false god was not the being thrown into the fire as a burnt offering; for such sacrifices are referred to by themselves, as at Deuteronomy 12 : 31, where it is said of the people of Jehovah that “even their sons and their daughters do they burn [_saraph_] in the fire to their gods.”[708] In the same chapter of 2 Kings (17 : 17, 31) the two phrases of causing children to “pass through” the fire, and of “burning” children in the fire, are separately referred to, in illustration of the fact that they are not one and the same thing.

It has already been shown[709] that jumping across, or being lifted over, a fire, at the threshold, is an ancient mode of covenanting, still surviving in many marriage or other customs; and that the blood of both human and substitute sacrifices has often been poured out at the same primitive altar.

Under the figure of a marriage covenant Jehovah speaks, in Ezekiel 16 : 8, of entering into a covenant, when he takes the virgin Israel as his bride: “Yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.” Here the more common word _bo_ is used for the idea of entering; but its connection with the covenant of marriage would seem to connect it, like the other words, _pasach_ and _ʿabhar_, with the thought of crossing over the threshold or barrier into a new state.

ENGLAND’S CORONATION STONE.

A notable survival of the primitive reverence for the one foundation, or the original threshold, as the earliest place of sacrifice and covenanting,[710] is shown in the famous “Coronation Stone” in Westminster Abbey. This stone is under the chair in which all the sovereigns of England from Edward I. to Victoria have been crowned. It was brought by Edward I. to England from Scone, the coronation seat of the kings of Scotland. The legend attached to it was that it was the stone pillar on which Jacob rested at Bethel,–the House of God where Abraham worshiped, and where Jacob covenanted with God for all his generations.[711]

“In it, or upon it, the Kings of Scotland were placed by the Earls of Fife. From it Scone became the ‘_sedis principalis_’ of Scotland, and the kingdom of Scotland the kingdom of Scone.” Since the days of Edward I., it has never been removed from Westminster Abbey, except when Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector in Westminster Hall, on which occasion it was brought out in order that he might be placed on it.

As in ancient Babylonia, in Egypt, in Syria, in India, in China, in Arabia, in Greece, in Scandinavia, the one primitive foundation was deemed the only foundation on which to build securely with Divine approval, so in the very center of the highest modern civilization the reputed foundation stone of the kingdom of the “Father of the Faithful” is deemed the only secure coronation, or installation, seat of King, Queen, or Lord Protector. Is it not reasonable to suppose that this feeling has a basis in primitive religious convictions and customs?

Dean Stanley, referring to this Coronation Stone as “probably the chief object of attraction to the innumerable visitors to the Abbey,” says of it: “It is the one primeval monument which binds together the whole Empire. The iron rings, the battered surface, the crack which has all but rent its solid mass asunder, bear witness to its long migrations. It is thus embedded in the heart of the English monarchy–an element of poetic, patriarchal, heathen times, which, like Araunah’s rocky threshing-floor in the midst of the Temple of Solomon, carries back our thoughts to races and customs now almost extinct; a link which unites the Throne of England to the traditions of Tara and Iona, and connects the charm of our complex civilization with the forces of our mother earth,–the stocks and stones of savage nature.”[712]

Footnote 704:

Driver’s _Deuteronomy_, p. 323.

Footnote 705:

_Heb. Chald. Lex._, s. v.

Footnote 706:

See p. 187 f., _supra_.

Footnote 707:

See, also, 2 Kings 21 : 6; 23 : 10; 2 Chron. 33 : 6; Ezek. 16 : 21; 20 : 26, 31; 23 : 37.

Footnote 708:

See, also, Jer. 7 : 31; 19 : 5.

Footnote 709:

See pp. 39–42, 142 f., 212, _supra_.

Footnote 710:

See pp. 153–164, _supra_.

Footnote 711:

See Dean Stanley’s _Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, first edition, pp. 59–67; also, Appendices, pp. 492–502.

Footnote 712:

See Dean Stanley’s _Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, first edition, pp. 64–66.

INDEXES.

TOPICAL INDEX.