AICHMALOTARCH, Ἀιχμαλοτάρχης signifiesthe prince of the captivity, orchief of the captives. The Jews pretend that this was the title of him who had the government of their people during the captivity of Babylon; and they believe these princes or governors to have been constantly of the tribe of Judah, and family of David. But they give no satisfactory proof of the real existence of these Aichmalotarchs. There was no prince of the captivity before the end of the second century, from which period the office continued till the eleventh century. The princes of the captivity resided at Babylon, where they were installed with great ceremony, held courts of justice, &c, and were set over the eastern Jews, or those settled in Babylon, Chaldæa, Assyria, and Persia. Thus they affected to restore the splendour of their ancient monarchy, and in this view the following account may be amusing. The ceremonial of the installation is thus described: The spiritual heads of the people, the masters of the learned schools, the elders, and the people, assembled in great multitudes within a stately chamber, adorned with rich curtains, in Babylon, where, during his days of splendour, the Resch-Glutha fixed his residence. The prince was seated on a lofty throne. The heads of the schools of Sura and Pumbeditha on his right hand and left. These chiefs of the learned men then delivered an address, exhorting the new monarch not to abuse his power; and reminded him that he was called to slavery rather than to sovereignty, for he was prince of a captive people. On the next Thursday he was inaugurated by the laying on of hands, and the sound of trumpets, and acclamations. He was escorted to his palace with great pomp, and received magnificent presents from all his subjects. On the Sabbath all the principal people being assembled before his house, he placed himself at their head, and, with his face covered with a silken veil, proceeded to the synagogue. Benedictions and hymns of thanksgiving announced his entrance. They then brought him the book of the law, out of which he read the first line, afterward he addressed the assembly, with his eyes closed out of respect. He exhorted them to charity, and set the example by offering liberal alms to the poor. The ceremony closed with new acclamations, and prayers to God that, under the new prince, he would be pleased to put an end to their calamities. The prince gave his blessing to the people, and prayed for each province, that it might be preserved from war and famine. He concluded his orisons in a low voice, lest his prayer should be repeated to the jealous ears of the native monarchs, for he prayed for the restoration of the kingdom of Israel, which could not rise but on the ruins of their empire. The prince returned to his palace, where he gave a splendid banquet to the chief persons of the community. After that day he lived in a sort of stately oriental seclusion, never quitting his palace, except to go to the schools of the learned, where, as he entered, the whole assembly rose and continued standing, till he took his seat. He sometimes paid a visit to the native sovereign in Babylon (Bagdad.) This probably refers to a somewhat later period. On these great occasions his imperial host sent his own chariot for his guest; but the prince of the captivity dared not accept the invidious distinction, he walked in humble and submissive modesty behind the chariot. Yet his own state was by no means wanting in splendour: he was arrayed in cloth of gold; fifty guards marched before him; all the Jews who met him on the way paid their homage, and fell behind into his train. He was received by the eunuchs, who conducted him to the throne, while one of his officers, as he marched slowly along, distributed gold and silver on all sides. As the prince approached the imperial throne, he prostrated himself on the ground, in token of vassalage. The eunuchs raised him and placed him on the left hand of the sovereign. After the first salutation, the prince represented the grievances, or discussed the affairs, of his people.
The court of the Resch-Glutha is described as splendid. In imitation of his Persian master,he had his officers, counsellors, and cup-bearers; and rabbins were appointed as satraps over the different communities. This state, it is probable, was maintained by a tribute raised from the body of the people, and substituted for that which, in ancient times was paid for the temple in Jerusalem. His subjects in Babylonia were many of them wealthy.
AIJALON, a city of the Canaanites; the valley adjoining to which is memorable in sacred history from the miracle of Joshua, in arresting the course of the sun and moon, that the Israelites might have sufficient light to pursue their enemies, Joshua x, 12, 13. Aijalon was afterward a Levitical city, and belonged to the tribe of Dan; who did not, however, drive out the Amorite inhabitants, Judges i, 35.
AIR, that thin, fluid, elastic, transparent, ponderous, compressible body which surrounds the terraqueous globe to a considerable height. In Scripture it is sometimes used forheaven; as, “the birds of the air;” “the birds of heaven.” To “beat the air,” and “to speak to the air,” 1 Cor. ix, 26, signify to fatigue ourselves in vain, and to speak to no purpose. “The prince of the power of the air” is the head and chief of the evil spirits, with which both Jews and Heathens thought the air was filled.
ALABASTER, Ἀλάβαϛρον, the name of a genus of fossils nearly allied to marble. It is a bright elegant stone, sometimes of a snowy whiteness. It may be cut freely, and is capable of a fine polish; and, being of a soft nature, it is wrought into any form or figure with ease. Vases or cruises were anciently made of it, wherein to preserve odoriferous liquors and ointments. Pliny and others represent it as peculiarly proper for this purpose; and the druggists in Egypt have, at this day, vessels made of it, in which they keep their medicines and perfumes.
In Matt. xxvi, 6, 7, we read that Jesus being at table in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came thither and poured an alabaster box of ointment on his head. St. Mark adds, “She brake the box,” which merely refers to the seal upon the vase which closed it, and kept the perfume from evaporating. This had never been removed, but was on this occasion broken, that is, first opened.
ALBIGENSES. SeeWaldenses.
ALEPH,א, the name of the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet, from which the alpha of the Syrians and Greeks was formed. This word signifies,prince,chief, orthousand, expressing, as it were, a leading number.
ALEXANDER, commonly called the Great, son and successor of Philip, king of Macedon, is denoted in the prophecies of Daniel by a leopard with four wings, signifying his great strength, and the unusual rapidity of his conquests, Dan. vii, 6; and by a one-horned he-goat running over the earth so swiftly as not to touch it, attacking a ram with two horns, overthrowing him, and trampling him under foot, without any being able to rescue him, Dan. viii, 4–7. The he-goat prefigured Alexander; the ram, Darius Codomannus, the last of the Persian kings. In the statue beheld by Nebuchadnezzar in his dream, Dan. ii, 39, the belly of brass was the emblem of Alexander. He was appointed by God to destroy the Persian empire, and to substitute in its room the Grecian monarchy.
Alexander succeeded his father Philip, A. M. 3668, and B. C. 336. He was chosen, by the Greeks, general of their troops against the Persians, and entered Asia at the head of thirty-four thousand men, A. M. 3670. In one campaign, he subdued almost all Asia Minor; and afterward defeated, in the narrow passes which led from Syria to Cilicia, the army of Darius, which consisted of four hundred thousand foot, and one hundred thousand horse. Darius fled, and left in the hands of the conqueror, his camp, baggage, children, wife, and mother.
After subduing Syria, Alexander came to Tyre; and the Tyrians refusing him entrance into their city, he besieged it. At the same time he wrote to Jaddus, high priest of the Jews, that he expected to be acknowledged by him, and to receive from him the same submission which had hitherto been paid to the king of Persia. Jaddus refusing to comply under the plea of having sworn fidelity to Darius, Alexander resolved to march against Jerusalem, when he had reduced Tyre. After a long siege, this city was taken and sacked; and Alexander entered Palestine, A. M. 3672, and subjected it to his obedience. As he was marching against Jerusalem, the Jews became greatly alarmed, and had recourse to prayers and sacrifices. The Lord, in a dream, commanded Jaddus to open the gates to the conqueror, and, at the head of his people, dressed in his pontifical ornaments, and attended by the priests in their robes, to advance and meet the Macedonian king. Jaddus obeyed; and Alexander perceiving this company approaching, hastened toward the high priest, whom he saluted. He then adored God, whose name was engraven on a thin plate of gold, worn by the high priest upon his forehead. The kings of Syria who accompanied him, and the great officers about Alexander, could not comprehend the meaning of his conduct. Parmenio alone ventured to ask him why he adored the Jewish high priest; Alexander replied, that he paid this respect to God, and not to the high priest. “For,” added he, “whilst I was yet in Macedonia, I saw the God of the Jews, who appeared to me in the same form and dress as the high priest at present, and who encouraged me and commanded me to march boldly into Asia, promising that he would be my guide, and give me the empire of the Persians. As soon, therefore, as I perceived this habit, I recollected the vision, and understood that my undertaking was favoured by God, and that under his protection I might expect prosperity.”
Having said this, Alexander accompanied Jaddus to Jerusalem, where he offered sacrifices in the temple according to the directions of the high priest. Jaddus is said to have showed him the prophecies of Daniel, in which the destruction of the Persian empire by Alexander is declared. The king was therefore confirmed in his opinion, that God had chosen him to execute this great work. At his departure, Alexander bade the Jews ask of him what theywould. The high priest desired only the liberty of living under his government according to their own laws, and an exemption from tribute every seventh year, because in that year the Jews neither tilled their grounds, nor reaped their fruits. With this request Alexander readily complied.
Having left Jerusalem, Alexander visited other cities of Palestine, and was every where received with great testimonies of friendship and submission. The Samaritans who dwelt at Sichem, and were apostates from the Jewish religion, observing how kindly Alexander had treated the Jews, resolved to say that they also were by religion Jews. For it was their practice, when they saw the affairs of the Jews in a prosperous state, to boast that they were descended from Manasseh and Ephraim; but when they thought it their interest to say the contrary, they failed not to affirm, and even to swear, that they were not related to the Jews. They came, therefore, with many demonstrations of joy, to meet Alexander, as far almost as the territories of Jerusalem. Alexander commended their zeal; and the Sichemites entreated him to visit their temple and city. Alexander promised this at his return; but as they petitioned him for the same privileges as the Jews, he asked them if they were Jews. They replied, they were Hebrews, and were called by the Phœnicians, Sichemites. Alexander said that he had granted this exemption only to the Jews, but that at his return he would inquire into the affair, and do them justice.
This prince having conquered Egypt, and regulated it, gave orders for the building of the city of Alexandria, and departed thence, about spring, in pursuit of Darius. Passing through Palestine, he was informed that the Samaritans, in a general insurrection, had killed Andromachus, governor of Syria and Palestine, who had come to Samaria to regulate some affairs. This action greatly incensed Alexander, who loved Andromachus. He therefore commanded all those who were concerned in his murder to be put to death, and the rest to be banished from Samaria; and settled a colony of Macedonians in their room. What remained of their lands he gave to the Jews, and exempted them from the payment of tribute. The Samaritans who escaped this calamity, retired to Sichem, at the foot of mount Gerizim, which afterward became their capital. Lest the eight thousand men of this nation, who were in the service of Alexander, and had accompanied him since the siege of Tyre, if permitted to return to their own country, should renew the spirit of rebellion, he sent them into Thebais, the most remote southern province of Egypt, where he assigned them lands.
Alexander, after defeating Darius in a pitched battle, and subduing all Asia and the Indies with incredible rapidity, gave himself up to intemperance. Having drunk to excess, he fell sick and died, after he had obliged “all the world to be quiet before him,” 1 Macc. i, 3. Being sensible that his end was near, he sent for the grandees of his court, and declared that “he gave the empire to the most deserving.” Some affirm that he regulated the succession by a will. The author of the first book of Maccabees says, that he divided his kingdom among his generals while he was living, 1 Macc. i, 7. This he might do; or he might express his foresight of what actually took place after his death. It is certain, that a partition was made of Alexander’s dominions among the four principal officers of his army, and that the empire which he founded in Asia subsisted for many ages. Alexander died, A. M. 3684, and B. C. 323, in the thirty-third year of his age, and the twelfth of his reign. The above particulars of Alexander are here introduced because, from his invasion of Palestine, the intercourse of the Jews with the Greeks became intimate, and influenced many events of their subsequent history.
On the account above given of the interview between Alexander and the Jewish high priest, by Josephus, many doubts have been cast by critics. But the sudden change of his feelings toward them, and the favour with which the nation was treated by him, render the story not improbable.
ALEXANDRIA, a famous city of Egypt, and, during the reign of the Ptolemies, the regal capital of that kingdom. It was founded by Alexander the Great: who being struck with the advantageous situation of the spot where the city afterward stood, ordered its immediate erection; drew the plan of the city himself, and peopled it with colonies of Greeks and Jews: to which latter people, in particular, he gave great encouragement. They were, in fact, made free citizens, and had all the privileges of Macedonians granted to them; which liberal policy contributed much to the rise and prosperity of the new city; for this enterprising and commercial people knew much better than either the Greeks or the Egyptians how to turn the happy situation of Alexandria to the best account. The fall of Tyre happening about the same time, the trade of that city was soon drawn to Alexandria, which became the centre of commercial intercourse between the east and the west; and in process of time grew to such an extent, in magnitude and wealth, as to be second in point of population and magnificence to none but Rome itself.
Alexandria owed much of its celebrity as well as its population to the Ptolemies. Ptolemy Soter, one of Alexander’s captains, who, after the death of this monarch, was first governor of Egypt, and afterward assumed the title of king, made this city the place of his residence, about B. C. 304. This prince founded an academy, called the Museum, in which a society of learned men devoted themselves to philosophical studies, and the improvement of all the other sciences; and he also gave them a library, which was prodigiously increased by his successors. He likewise induced the merchants of Syria and Greece to reside in this city, and to make it a principal mart of their commerce. His son and successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, pursued the designs of his father.
In the hands of the Romans, the successors of the Macedonians in the government of Egypt, the trade of Alexandria continued toflourish, until luxury and licentiousness paved the way, as in every similar instance, for its overthrow.
Alexandria, together with the rest of Egypt, passed from the dominion of the Romans to that of the Saracens. With this event, the sun of Alexandria may be said to have set: the blighting hand of Islamism was laid on it; and although the genius and the resources of such a city could not be immediately destroyed, it continued to languish until the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, in the fifteenth century, gave a new channel to the trade which for so many centuries had been its support; and at this day, Alexandria, like most eastern cities, presents a mixed spectacle of ruins and wretchedness,--of fallen greatness and enslaved human beings.
Some idea may be formed of the extent and grandeur of Alexandria, by the boast made by Amrou: “I have taken,” said he, “the great city of the west. It is impossible for me to enumerate the variety of its riches and beauty. I shall content myself with observing, that it contains four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theatres or places of amusement, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable foods, and forty thousand tributary Jews.”
It was in Alexandria chiefly that the Grecian philosophy was engrafted upon the stock of ancient oriental wisdom. The Egyptian method of teaching by allegory was peculiarly favourable to such a union: and we may well suppose that when Alexander, in order to preserve by the arts of peace that extensive empire which he had obtained by the force of arms, endeavoured to incorporate the customs of the Greeks with those of the Persian, Indian, and other eastern nations, the opinions as well as the manners of this feeble and obsequious race would, in a great measure, be accommodated to those of their conquerors. This influence of the Grecian upon the oriental philosophy continued long after the time of Alexander, and was one principal occasion of the confusion of opinions which occurs in the history of the Alexandrian and Christian schools. Alexander, when he built the city of Alexandria, with a determination to make it the seat of his empire, and peopled it with emigrants from various countries, opened a new mart of philosophy, which emulated the fame of Athens itself. A general indulgence was granted to the promiscuous crowd assembled in this rising city, whether Egyptians, Grecians, Jews, or others, to profess their respective systems of philosophy without molestation. The consequence was, that Egypt was soon filled with religious and philosophical sectaries of every kind; and particularly, that almost every Grecian sect found an advocate and professor in Alexandria. The family of the Ptolemies, as we have seen, who after Alexander obtained the government of Egypt, from motives of policy encouraged this new establishment. Ptolemy Lagus, who had obtained the crown of Egypt by usurpation, was particularly careful to secure the interest of the Greeks in his favour, and with this view invited people from every part of Greece to settle in Egypt, and removed the schools of Athens to Alexandria. This enlightened prince spared no pains to raise the literary, as well as the civil, military, and commercial credit of his country. Under the patronage first of the Egyptian princes, and afterward of the Roman emperors, Alexandria long continued to enjoy great celebrity as the seat of learning, and to send forth eminent philosophers of every sect to distant countries. It remained a school of learning, as well as a commercial emporium, till it was taken, and plundered of its literary treasures by the Saracens. Philosophy, during this period, suffered a grievous corruption from the attempt which was made by philosophers of different sects and countries, Grecian, Egyptian, and oriental, who were assembled in Alexandria, to frame, from their different tenets, one general system of opinions. The respect which had long been universally paid to the schools of Greece, and the honours with which they were now adorned by the Egyptian princes, induced other wise men, and even the Egyptian priests and philosophers themselves, to submit to this innovation. Hence arose a heterogeneous mass of opinions, under the name of theEclectic philosophy, and which was the foundation of endless confusion, error, and absurdity, not only in the Alexandrian school, but among Jews and Christians; producing among the former that specious kind of philosophy, which they called theirCabala, and among the latter innumerable corruptions of the Christian faith.
At Alexandria there was, in a very early period of the Christian æra, a Christian school of considerable eminence. St. Jerome says, the school at Alexandria had been in being from the time of St. Mark. Pantænus, placed by Lardner at the year 192, presided in it. St. Clement of Alexandria succeeded Pantænus in this school about the year 190; and he was succeeded by Origen. The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to Palestine, gave an easy entrance to the new religion, and when Adrian visited Egypt, he found a church composed of Jews and Greeks, sufficiently important to attract the notice of that inquisitive prince. The theological system of Plato was introduced into both the philosophical and Christian schools of Alexandria; and of course many of his sentiments and expressions were blended with the opinions and language of the professors and teachers of Christianity.
Alexandria was the source, and for some time the principal stronghold, of Arianism; which had its name from its founder, Arius, a presbyter of the church of this city, about the year 315. His doctrines were condemned by a council held here in the year 320; and afterward by a general council of three hundred and eighty fathers, held at Nice, by order of Constantine, in 325. These doctrines, however, which suited the reigning taste for disputative theology, and the pride and self-sufficiency of nominal Christians, better than the unsophisticated simplicity of the Gospel, spreadwidely and rapidly notwithstanding. Arius was steadfastly opposed by the celebrated Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, the intrepid champion of the catholic faith, who was raised to the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria in 326.
This city was, in 415, distinguished by a fierce persecution of the Jews by the patriarch Cyril. They who had enjoyed the rights of citizens, and the freedom of religious worship, for seven hundred years, ever since the foundation of the city, incurred the hatred of this ecclesiastic; who, in his zeal for the extermination of heretics of every kind, pulled down their synagogues, plundered their property, and expelled them, to the number of forty thousand, from the city.
It was in a ship belonging to the port of Alexandria, that St. Paul sailed from Myra, a city of Lycia, on his way to Rome, Acts xxvii, 5, 6. Alexandria was also the native place of Apollos.
ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY. This celebrated collection of books was first founded by Ptolemy Soter, for the use of the academy, or society of learned men, which he had founded at Alexandria. Beside the books which he procured, his son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, added many more, and left in this library at his death a hundred thousand volumes; and the succeeding princes of this race enlarged it still more, till at length the books lodged in it amounted to the number of seven hundred thousand volumes. The method by which they are said to have collected these books was this: they seized all the books that were brought by the Greeks or other foreigners into Egypt, and sent them to the academy, or museum, where they were transcribed by persons employed for that purpose. The transcripts were then delivered to the proprietors, and the originals laid up in the library. Ptolemy Euergetes, for instance, borrowed of the Athenians the works of Sophocles, Euripides, and Æschylus, and only returned them the copies, which he caused to be transcribed in as beautiful a manner as possible; the originals he retained for his own library, presenting the Athenians with fifteen talents for the exchange, that is, with three thousand pounds sterling and upwards. As the museum was at first in the quarter of the city called Bruchion, the library was placed there; but when the number of books amounted to four hundred thousand volumes, another library, within the Serapeum, was erected by way of supplement to it, and, on that account, called the daughter of the former. The books lodged in this increased to the number of three hundred thousand volumes; and these two made up the number of seven hundred thousand volumes, of which the royal libraries of the Ptolemies were said to consist. In the war which Julius Cæsar waged with the inhabitants of Alexandria, the library of Bruchion was accidentally, but unfortunately, burnt. But the library in Serapeum still remained, and there Cleopatra deposited the two hundred thousand volumes of the Pergamean library with which she was presented by Marc Antony. These, and others added to them from time to time, rendered the new library more numerous and considerable than the former; and though it was plundered more than once during the revolutions which happened in the Roman empire, yet it was as frequently supplied with the same number of books, and continued, for many ages, to be of great fame and use, till it was burnt by the Saracens, A. D. 642. Abulpharagius, in his history of the tenth dynasty, gives the following account of this catastrophe: John Philoponus, surnamed the Grammarian, a famous Peripatetic philosopher, being at Alexandria when the city was taken by the Saracens, was admitted to familiar intercourse with Amrou, the Arabian general, and presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his opinion, but contemptible in that of the barbarians; and this was the royal library. Amrou was inclined to gratify his wish, but his rigid integrity scrupled to alienate the least object without the consent of the caliph. He accordingly wrote to Omar, whose well known answer was dictated by the ignorance of a fanatic: “If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran, or book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.” The sentence of destruction was executed with blind obedience: the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four thousand baths of the city; and such was their number, that six months were barely sufficient for the consumption of this precious fuel.
ALGUM,אלגםorאלגומים, 1 Kings x, 11, 12. This is the name of a kind of wood, or tree, large quantities of which were brought by the fleet of Solomon from Ophir, of which he made pillars for the house of the Lord, and for his own palace; also musical instruments. SeeAlmug.
ALLEGORY, a figure in rhetoric, whereby we make use of terms which, in their proper signification, mean something else than what they are brought to denote; or it is a figure whereby we say one thing, expecting it shall be understood of another, to which it alludes; or which, under the literal sense of the words, conceals a foreign or distant meaning. An allegory is, properly, a continued metaphor, or a series of several metaphors in one or more sentences. Such is that beautiful allegory in Horace, lib. i, Od. 14.
“O navis, referent in mare te noviFluctus,”&c.
“O navis, referent in mare te noviFluctus,”&c.
“O navis, referent in mare te noviFluctus,”&c.
“O navis, referent in mare te novi
Fluctus,”&c.
[O ship, shall new billows drive thee again to sea, &c.]
Where the ship is usually held to stand for the republic; waves, for civil war; port, for peace and concord; oars, for soldiers; and mariners for magistrates. Thus, also, in Prior’s Henry and Emma, Emma describes her constancy to Henry in the following allegorical manner:--
“Did I but purpose to embark with theeOn the smooth surface of a summer’s sea,While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales,And fortune’s favour fills the swelling sails;But would forsake the ship, and make the shore,When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?”
“Did I but purpose to embark with theeOn the smooth surface of a summer’s sea,While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales,And fortune’s favour fills the swelling sails;But would forsake the ship, and make the shore,When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?”
“Did I but purpose to embark with theeOn the smooth surface of a summer’s sea,While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales,And fortune’s favour fills the swelling sails;But would forsake the ship, and make the shore,When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?”
“Did I but purpose to embark with thee
On the smooth surface of a summer’s sea,
While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales,
And fortune’s favour fills the swelling sails;
But would forsake the ship, and make the shore,
When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?”
Cicero, likewise, speaking of himself, in Pison. c. 9, tom. vi, p. 187, uses this allegorical language:“Nor was I so timorous, that, after I had steered the ship of the state through the greatest storms and waves, and brought her safe into port, I should fear the cloud of your forehead, or your colleague’s pestilential breath. I saw other winds, I perceived other storms, I did not withdraw from other impending tempests; but I exposed myself singly to them for the common safety.” Here the state is compared to a ship, and all the things said of it under that image, are expressed in metaphors made use of to denote the dangers with which it had been threatened. We have also a very fine example of an allegory in Psalm lxxx; in which the people of Israel are represented under the image of a vine, and the figure is supported throughout with great correctness and beauty. Whereas, if, instead of describing the vine as wasted by the boar from the wood, and devoured by the wild beasts of the field, the Psalmist had said, it was afflicted by Heathens, or overcome by enemies, which is the real meaning, the figurative and the literal meaning would have been blended, and the allegory ruined. The learned Bishop Lowth,De Sacrâ Poesi Hebræorum, Præl.10, 11, has specified three forms of allegory that occur in sacred poetry. The first is that which rhetoricians call a continued metaphor. When several metaphors succeed each other, they alter the form of the composition; and this succession has very properly, in reference to the etymology of the word, been denominated by the Greeks αλληγορια, an allegory; although Aristotle, instead of considering it as a new species of figure, has referred it to the class of metaphors. The principle of allegory in this sense of the term, and of the simple metaphor, is the same; nor is it an easy matter to restrict each to its proper limit, and to mark the precise termination of the one, and the commencement of the other. This eminently judicious critic observes, that when the Hebrew poets use the congenial figures of metaphor, allegory, and comparison, particularly in the prophetic poetry, they adopt a peculiar mode of doing it, and seldom regulate the imagery which they introduce by any fixed principle or standard. Not satisfied with a simple metaphor, they often run it into an allegory, or blend with it a direct comparison. The allegory sometimes follows, and sometimes precedes the simile: to this is added a frequent change of imagery, as well as of persons and tenses; and thus are displayed an energy and boldness, both of expression and meaning, which are unconfined by any stated rules, and which mark the discriminating genius of the Hebrew poetry. Thus, in Gen. xlix, 9, “Judah is a lion’s whelp;” this metaphor is immediately drawn out into an allegory, with a change of person: “From the prey, my son, thou art gone up,” that is, to the mountains, which is understood; and in the succeeding sentences the person is again changed, the image is gradually advanced, and the metaphor is joined with a comparison that is repeated.
“He stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion;And as a lioness; who shall rouse him?”
“He stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion;And as a lioness; who shall rouse him?”
“He stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion;And as a lioness; who shall rouse him?”
“He stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion;
And as a lioness; who shall rouse him?”
A similar instance occurs in the prophecy, recorded in Psalm cx, 3, which explicitly foretels the abundant increase of the Gospel on its first promulgation. This kind of allegory, however, sometimes assumes a more regular and perfect form, and then occupies the whole subject and compass of the discourse. An example of this kind occurs in Solomon’s well known allegory, Eccles. xii, 2–6, in which old age is so admirably depicted. There is also, in Isaiah xxviii, 24–29, an allegory, which, with no less elegance of imagery, is more simple and regular, as well as more just and complete, both in the form and the method of treating it. Another kind of allegory is that which, in the proper and more restricted sense, may be called a parable; and consists of a continued narration of some fictitious event, accommodated, by way of similitude, to the illustration of some important truth. The Greeks call these allegories αινοι or apologues, and the Latinsfabulæ, or fables. (SeeParable.) The third species of allegory, which often occurs in the prophetic poetry, is that in which a double meaning is couched under the same words, or when the same discourse, differently interpreted, designates different events, dissimilar in their nature, and remote as to time. These different relations are denominated the literal and mystical senses. This kind of allegory, which the learned prelate calls mystical, seems to derive its origin from the principles of the Jewish religion; and it differs from the two former species in a variety of respects. In these allegories the writer may adopt any imagery that is most suitable to his fancy or inclination; but the only proper materials for this allegory must be supplied from the sacred rites of the Hebrews themselves; and it can only be introduced in relation to such things as are immediately connected with the Jewish religion, or their immediate opposites. The former kinds partake of the common privileges of poetry; but the mystical allegory has its foundation in the nature of the Jewish economy, and is adapted solely to the poetry of the Hebrews. Besides, in the other forms of allegory, the exterior or ostensible imagery is mere fiction, and the truth lies altogether in the interior or remote sense; but in this allegory each idea is equally agreeable to truth. The exterior or ostensible image is itself a reality; and although it sustains another character, it does not wholly lay aside its own. There is also a great variety in the use and conduct of the mystical allegory; in the modes in which the corresponding images are arranged, and in which they are obscured or eclipsed by one another. Sometimes the obvious or literal sense is so prominent and conspicuous, both in the words and sentiments, that the remote or figurative sense is scarcely permitted to glimmer through it. On the other hand, the figurative sense is more frequently found to beam forth with so much perspicuity and lustre, that the literal sense is quite cast into the shade, or becomes indiscernible. Sometimes the principal or figurative idea is exhibited to the attentive eye with a constant and equal light; and sometimes it unexpectedly glares upon us, and breaks forth with suddenand astonishing coruscations, like a flash of lightning bursting from the clouds. But the mode or form of this figure which possesses the chief beauty and elegance, is, when the two images, equally conspicuous, run, as it were, parallel throughout the whole poem, mutually illustrating and correspondent to each other. The learned author has illustrated these observations by instances selected from Psalms ii, and lxxii. He adds, that the mystical allegory is, on account of the obscurity resulting from the nature of the figure, and the style of the composition, so agreeable to the nature of the prophecy, that it is the form which it generally, and indeed lawfully, assumes, as best adapted to the prediction of future events. It describes events in a manner exactly conformable to the intention of prophecy; that is, in a dark, disguised, and intricate manner, sketching out, in a general way, their form and outline; and seldom descending to a minuteness of description and exactness of detail.
ALLELUIA, orHallelu-jah,הללו־יה,praise the Lord; or,praise to the Lord: compounded ofהללו,praise ye, andיה,the Lord. This word occurs at the beginning, or at the end, of many Psalms. Alleluia was sung on solemn days of rejoicing: “And all her streets shall sing Alleluia,” says Tobit, speaking of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, Tob. xiii, 18. St. John, in the Revelation, xix, 1, 3, 4, 6, says, “I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, who cried, Alleluia; and the four living creatures fell down, and worshipped God, saying, Alleluia.” This expression of joy and praise was transferred from the synagogue to the church. At the funeral of Fabiola, “several psalms were sung with loud alleluias,” says Jerom, inEpitaphio Paulæ, “The monks of Palestine were awaked at their midnight watchings, with the singing of alleluias.” It is still occasionally used in devotional psalmody.
ALMAH,עלמה, a Hebrew word signifying properlya virgin, a young woman unacquainted with man. In this sense it occurs in the famous passage of Isaiah, vii, 14: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” The Hebrew has no term that more properly signifies a virgin thanalmah. St. Jerom, in his commentary on this passage, observes, that the Prophet declined using the wordbethaulwhich signifies any young woman, or young person, but employed the termalmah, which denotes a virgin never seen by man. This is the import of the wordalmah, which is derived from a root which signifiesto conceal. It is very well known, that young women in the east do not appear in public, but are shut up in their houses, and their mothers’ apartments, like nuns. The Chaldee paraphrast and the Septuagint translatealmah“a virgin;” and Akiba, the famous rabbin, who was a great enemy to Christ and Christians, and lived in the second century, understands it in the same manner. The Apostles and Evangelists, and the Jews of our Saviour’s time, explained it in the same sense, and expected a Messiah born of a virgin.
The Jews, that they may obscure this plain text, and weaken this proof of the truth of the Christian religion, pretend that the Hebrew word signifies a young woman, and not a virgin. But this corrupt translation is easily confuted. 1. Because this word constantly denotes a virgin in all other passages of Scripture in which it is used. 2. From the intent of the passage, which was to confirm their faith by a strange and wonderful sign. It surely could be no wonder, that a young woman should conceive a child; but it was a very extraordinary circumstance that a virgin should conceive and bear a son.
ALMIGHTY, an attribute of the Deity, Gen. xvii, 1. The Hebrew name,שדי,Shaddai, signifies alsoall-sufficient, orall-bountiful. See Gen. xxviii, 3; xxxv, 11; xliii, 14; xlix, 25. Of the omnipotence of God, we have a most ample revelation in the Scriptures, expressed in the most sublime language. From the annunciation by Moses of a divine existence who was “in the beginning,” before all things, the very first step is to the display of his almighty power in the creation out of nothing, and the immediate arrangement in order and perfection, of the “heaven and the earth;” by which is meant, not this globe only with its atmosphere, or even with its own celestial system, but the universe itself; for “he made the stars also.” We are thus at once placed in the presence of an agent of unbounded power; for we must all feel that a being which could create such a world as this, must, beyond all comparison, possess a power greater than any which we experience in ourselves, than any which we observe in other visible agents, and to which we are not authorized by our observation or knowledge to assign any limits of space or duration.
2. That the sacred writers should so frequently dwell upon the omnipotence of God, has important reasons which arise out of the very design of the revelation which they were the means of communicating to mankind. Men were to be reminded of their obligations to obedience; and God is therefore constantly exhibited as the Creator, the Preserver, and Lord of all things. His solemn worship and fear were to be enjoined upon them; and, by the manifestation of his works, the veil was withdrawn from his glory and majesty. Idolatry was to be checked and reproved, and the true God was therefore placed in contrast with the limited and powerless gods of the Heathen: “Among the gods of the nations, is there no god like unto thee; neither are there any works like thy works.” Finally, he is exhibited as the object oftrustto creatures constantly reminded by experience of their own infirmity and dependence; and to them it is essential to know, that his power is absolute, unlimited, and irresistible, and that, in a word, he is “mighty to save.”
3. In a revelation which was thus designed to awe and control the wicked, and to afford strength of mind and consolation to good men under all circumstances, the omnipotence of God is therefore placed in a great variety of impressive views, and connected with the most striking illustrations.
It is declared by the fact ofcreation, thecreation of beings out ofnothing; which itself, though it had been confined to a single object, however minute, exceeds finite comprehension, and overwhelms the faculties. This with God required no effort: “He spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast.” Thevastnessandvarietyof his works enlarge the conception: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work.” “He spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea; he maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south; he doeth great things, past finding out, yea, and wonders without number. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in the thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them; he hath compassed the waters with bounds until the day and night come to an end.” Theeasewith which he sustains, orders, and controls the most powerful and unruly of the elements, arrays his omnipotence with an aspect of ineffable dignity and majesty: “By him all things consist.” “He brake up for the sea a decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” “He looketh to the end of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven, to make the weight for the winds, to weigh the waters by measure, to make a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder.” “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, meted out heaven with a span, comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance.” The descriptions of the divine power are oftenterrible: “The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof; he divideth the sea by his power.” “He removeth the mountains, and they know it not; he overturneth them in his anger; he shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble; he commandeth the sun and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars.” The same absolute subjection of creatures to his dominion is seen among the intelligent inhabitants of the material universe; and angels, mortals the most exalted, and evil spirits, are swayed with as much ease as the most passive elements: “He maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.” They veil their faces before his throne, and acknowledge themselves his servants: “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers,” “as the dust of the balance, less than nothing and vanity.” “He bringeth princes to nothing.” “He setteth up one and putteth down another;” “for the kingdom is the Lord’s, and he is governor among the nations.” “The angels that sinned he cast down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.” The closing scenes of this world complete these transcendent conceptions of the majesty and power of God. The dead of all ages rise from their graves at hisvoice: and the sea gives up the dead which are in it. Before hisfaceheaven and earth fly away; the stars fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven are shaken. The dead, small and great, stand before God, and are divided as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats. The wicked go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.
4. Of these amazing views of the omnipotence of God, spread almost through every page of the Scriptures, the power lies in theirtruth. They are not eastern exaggerations, mistaken for sublimity. Every thing in nature answers to them, and renews from age to age the energy of the impression which they cannot but make on the reflecting mind. The order of the astral revolutions indicates the constant presence of an invisible but incomprehensible power. The seas hurl the weight of their billows upon the rising shores, but every where find a “boundfixed by a perpetual decree.” The tides reach their height; if they flowed on for a few hours, the earth would change places with the bed of the sea; but, under an invisible control, they become refluent. The expression, “He toucheth the mountains and they smoke,” is not mere imagery:--every volcano is a testimony of its truth; and earthquakes proclaim, that, before him, “the pillars of the world tremble.” Men collected into armies, or populous nations, give us vast ideas of human power; but let an army be placed amidst the sand storms and burning winds of the desert, as, in the east; or, before “his frost,” as in our own day in Russia, where one of the mightiest armaments was seen retreating before, or perishing under, an unexpected visitation of snow and storm; or let the utterly helpless state of a populous country which has been visited by famine, or by a resistless pestilential disease, be reflected upon; and we feel that it is scarcely a figure of speech to say, that “all nations before him areless than nothingandvanity.”
5. Nor, in reviewing this doctrine of Scripture, ought the great practical uses made of the omnipotence of God, by the sacred writers, to be overlooked. By them nothing is said for the mere display of knowledge, as in Heathen writers; and we have no speculations without a subservientmoral. To excite and keep alive in man the fear and worship of God, and to bring him to a felicitous confidence in that almighty power which pervades and controls all things, are the noble ends of those ample displays of the omnipotence of God, which roll through the sacred volume with a sublimity that inspiration only could supply. “Declare his glory among the Heathen, his marvellous works among all nations; for great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.--Glory and honour are in his presence, and strength and gladness in his place.--Give unto the Lord, ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength; give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.--The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?--The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? If God be for us, whothencan be against us? Our help standeth in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.--What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”--Thus, as one observes,“our natural fears, of which we must have many, remit us to God, and remind us, since we know what God is, to lay hold on his almighty power.”
6. Ample, however, as are these views of the power of God, the subject is not exhausted. As, when the Scriptures speak of the eternity of God, they declare it so as to give us a mere glimpse of that fearful peculiarity of the divine nature, that God is the fountain of being to himself, and that he is eternal, because he is the “I am;” so we are taught not to measure God’s omnipotence by the actual displays of it which we see around us. These are themanifestationsof the fact, but not themeasureof the attribute; and should we resort to the discoveries of modern philosophy, which, by the help of instruments, has so greatly enlarged the known boundaries of the visible universe, and add to the stars which are visible to the naked eye, those new exhibitions of the divine power in the nebulous appearances of the heavens which are resolvable into myriads of distinct celestial luminaries, whose immense distances commingle their light before it reaches our eyes; we thus almost infinitely expand the circle of created existence, and enter upon a formerly unknown and overwhelming range of divine operation. But still we are only reminded, that his power is trulyalmightyandmeasureless--“Lo, all these are parts of his ways; but how little a portion is known of him, and the thunder of his power who can understand?” It is a mighty conception that we form of a power from which all other power is derived, and to which it is subordinate; which nothing can oppose; which can beat down and annihilate all other power whatever; which operates in the most perfect manner, at once, in an instant, with the utmost ease; but the Scriptures lead us to the contemplation of greater and even unfathomable depths. The omnipotence of God is inconceivable and boundless. It arises from the infinite perfection of God, that his power can never be actually exhausted; and, in every imaginable instant in eternity, that inexhaustible power of God can, if it please him, be adding either more creatures to those in existence, or greater perfection to them; since “it belongs to self-existent being, to be always full and communicative, and, to the communicated contingent being, to be ever empty and craving.”
7. One limitation of the divine power it is true we can conceive, but it detracts nothing from its perfection. Where things in themselves imply a contradiction, as that a body may be extended and not extended, in a certain place and not in it, at the same time; such things cannot be done by God, because contradictions are impossible in their own nature. Nor is it any derogation from the divine power to say, they cannot be done; for as the object of the understanding, of the eye, and the ear, is that which is intelligible, visible, and audible; so the object of power must be that which is possible; and as it is no prejudice to the most perfect understanding, or sight, or hearing, that it does not understand what is not intelligible, or see what is not visible, or hear what is not audible; so neither is it any diminution to the most perfect power, that it does not do what is not possible. In like manner, God cannot do any thing that is repugnant to his other perfections: he cannot lie, nor deceive, nor deny himself; for this would be injurious to his truth. He cannot love sin, nor punish innocence; for this would destroy his holiness and goodness: and therefore to ascribe a power to him that is inconsistent with the rectitude of his nature, is not to magnify but debase him; for all unrighteousness is weakness, a defection from right reason, a deviation from the perfect rule of action, and arises from a want of goodness and power. In a word, since all the attributes of God are essentially the same, a power in him which tends to destroy any other attribute of the divine nature, must be a power destructive of itself. Well, therefore, may we conclude him absolutely omnipotent, who, by being able to effect all things consistent with his perfections, showeth infinite ability, and, by not being able to do any thing repugnant to the same perfections, demonstrates himself subject to no infirmity.
8. Nothing certainly in the finest writings of antiquity, were all their best thoughts collected as to the majesty and power of God, can bear any comparison with the views thus presented to us by divine revelation. Were we to forget, for a moment, what is the fact, that their noblest notions stand connected with fancies and vain speculations which deprive them of their force, still their thoughts never rise so high; the current is broken, the round of lofty conception is not completed, and, unconnected as their views of divine power were with the eternal destiny of man, and the very reason of creation, we never hear in them, as in the Scriptures, “theTHUNDERof his power.”
ALMOND TREE,לוז. Arabic,lauz. Translatedhazel, Gen. xxx, 37;שקד, renderedalmond, Gen. xliii, 11; Exod. xxv, 33, 34; xxxvii, 19, 20; Num. xvii, 8; Eccles. xii, 5; and Jer. i, 11. The first name may be that of thetree; the other, that of thefruit, ornut.
A tree resembling the peach tree in its leaves and blossoms, but the fruit is longer and more compressed, the outer green coat is thinner and drier when ripe, and the shell of the stone is not so rugged. This stone, or nut, contains a kernel, which is the only esculent part. The whole arrives at maturity in September, when the outer tough cover splits open and discharges the nut. From the circumstance of its blossoming the earliest of any of the trees, beginning as soon as the rigour of winter is past, and before it is in leaf, it has its Hebrew nameshakad, which comes from a verb signifyingto make haste,to be in a hurry, orto awake early. To the forwardness of the almond tree there seems to be a reference in Jeremiah: “The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it;” or rather, “I am hastening, or watching over my word to fulfil it,” Jer. i, 11, 12. In this manner it is rendered by the Seventy;and by the Vulgate,Vigilabo ego super verbum meum. [I will watch over my word.] This is the first vision with which the Prophet was honoured; and his attention is roused by a very significant emblem of that severe correction with which the Most High was hastening to visit his people for their iniquity; and from the species of tree to which the rod belonged, he is warned of its near approach. The idea which the appearance of the almond rod suggested to his mind, is confirmed by the exposition of God himself: “I am watching over, or on account of, my word to fulfil it;” and this double mode of instruction, first by emblem, and then by exposition, was certainly intended to make a deeper impression on the mind both of Jeremiah and of the people to whom he was sent.
It is probable that the rods which the princes of Israel bore, were scions of the almond tree, at once the ensign of their office, and the emblem of their vigilance. Such, we know from the testimony of Scripture, was the rod of Aaron; which renders it exceedingly probable, that the rods of the other chiefs were from the same tree.
The hoary head is beautifully compared by Solomon to the almond tree, covered in the earliest days of spring with its snow white flowers, before a single leaf has budded: “The almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail,” Eccl. xii, 5. Man has existed in this world but a few days, when old age begins to appear, sheds its snows upon his head, prematurely nips his hopes, darkens his earthly prospects, and hurries him into the grave.
ALMUG TREE, a certain kind of wood, mentioned 1 Kings, x, 11; 2 Chron. ii, 8; ix, 10, 11. Jerom and the Vulgate render it,ligna thyina, and the Septuagint ξύλα ϖελεκητὰ,wrought wood. Several critics understand it to meangummy wood; but a wood abounding in resin must be very unfit for the uses to which this is said to be applied. Celsus queries if it be not the sandal; but Michaelis thinks the particular species of wood to be wholly unknown to us. Dr. Shaw supposes that the almug tree was the cypress; and he observes that the wood of this tree is still used in Italy and other places for violins, harpsichords, and other stringed instruments.
ALOE,עלר, a plant with broad leaves, nearly two inches thick, prickly and serrated. It grows about two feet high. A very bitter gum is extracted from it, used for medicinal purposes, and anciently for embalming dead bodies. Nicodemus is said, John xix, 39, to have brought one hundred pounds’ weight of myrrh and aloes to embalm the body of Jesus. The quantity has been exclaimed against by certain Jews, as being enough for fifty bodies. But instead of ἑκατὸν it might originally have been written δέκατον,tenpounds’ weight. However, at the funeral of Herod there were five hundred ἀρωματόφορους,spice bearers; and at that of R. Gamaliel, eighty pounds of opobalsamum were used.
The wood which God showed Moses, that with it he might sweeten the waters of Marah, is calledalvah, Exod. xv, 25. The word has some relation to aloe; and some interpreters are of opinion that Moses used a bitter sort of wood, that so the power of God might be the more remarkable. Mr. Bruce mentions a town, or large village, by the name of Elvah. It is thickly planted with trees; is theoasis parvaof the ancients; and the last inhabited place to the west that is under the jurisdiction of Egypt. He also observes that the Arabs call a shrub or tree, not unlike our hawthorn, either in wood or flower, by the name of elvah. “It was this,” say they, “with which Moses sweetened the waters of Marah; and with this, too, did Kalib Ibn el Walid sweeten those of Elvah, once bitter, and give the place the name of this circumstance.” It may be that God directed Moses to the very wood proper for the purpose. M. Neibuhr, when in these parts, inquired after wood capable of this effect, but could gain no information of any such. It will not, however, from hence follow that Moses really used a bitter wood; but, as Providence usually works by the proper and fit means to accomplish its ends, it seems likely that the wood he made use of was, in some degree at least, corrective of that quality which abounded in the water, and so rendered it potable. This seems to have been the opinion of the author of Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 5. That other water, also, requires some correction, and that such a correction is applied to it, appears from the custom in Egypt in respect to that of the Nile, which, though somewhat muddy, is rendered pure and salutary by being put into jars, the inside of which is rubbed with a paste made of bitter almonds. The first discoverers of the Floridas are said to have corrected the stagnant and fetid water they found there, by infusing in it branches of sassafras; and it is understood that the first inducement of the Chinese to the general use of tea, was to correct the water of their ponds and rivers.
TheLign-Aloe, or agallochum, Num. xxiv, 6; Psalm xlv, 9; and Cantic. iv, 14.אהלת, masculine,אהל, whose plural isאהלים, is a small tree about eight or ten feet high. That the flower of this plant yielded a fragrance, is assured to us in the following extract from Swinburne’s Travels, letter xii: “This morning, like many of the foregoing ones, was delicious. The sun rose gloriously out of the sea, and all the air around was perfumed with the effluvia of the aloe, as its rays sucked up the dew from the leaves.” This extremely bitter plant contains under the bark three sorts of wood. The first is black, solid, and weighty; the second is of a tawny colour, of a light spongy texture, very porous, and filled with a resin extremely fragrant and agreeable; the third kind of wood, which is the heart, has a strong aromatic odour, and is esteemed in the east more precious than gold itself. It is used for perfuming habits and apartments, and is administered as a cordial in fainting and epileptic fits. These pieces, called calunbac, are carefully preserved in pewter boxes, to prevent their drying. When they are used they are ground upon a marble with such liquids as are best suited to the purpose for which they are intended. This wood, mentioned Cantic. iv, 14, in conjunction with several other odoriferous plants there referred to, wasin high esteem among the Hebrews for its exquisite exhalations.