It does not appear to have been a question in this controversy, whether God in his word commands sinners to repent, and believe in Christ, nor whether he promises life to believers, and threatens death to unbelievers; but whether it be the Gospel under the form of a new law that thus commands or threatens, or the moral law on its behalf, and whether its promises to believing render such believing a condition of the things promised. In another controversy, however, which arose about forty years afterward among the same people, it became a question whether God did by his word, call it law or Gospel, command unregenerate sinners to repent and believe in Christ, or do any thing also, which is spiritually good. Of those who took the affirmative side of this question, one party maintained it on the ground of the Gospel being a new law, consisting of commands, promises, and threatenings, the terms or conditions of which were repentance, faith, and sincere obedience. But those who first engaged in the controversy, though they allowed the encouragement to repent and believe to arise merely from the grace of the Gospel, yet considered the formal obligation to do so as arising merely from the moral law, which, requiring supreme love to God, requires acquiescence in any revelation which he shall at any time make known.
NERO. The Emperor Nero is not named in Scripture; but he is indicated by his title of emperor, and by his surname Cæsar. To him St. Paul appealed after his imprisonment by Felix, and his examination by Festus, who was swayed by the Jews. St. Paul was therefore carried to Rome, where he arrived A. D. 61. Here he continued two years, preaching the Gospel with freedom, till he became famous even in the emperor’s court, in which were many Christians; for he salutes the Philippians in the name of the brethren who were of the household of Cæsar, that is, of Nero’s court, Phil. i, 12, 13; iv, 22. We have no particular information how he cleared himself from the accusations of the Jews, whether by answering before Nero, or whether his enemies dropped their prosecutions, which seems probable, Acts xxviii, 21. However, it appears that he was liberated in the year 63. Nero is reckoned the first persecutor of the Christian church: his persecution was A. D. 64. Nero, the most cruel and savage of all men, and also the most wicked and depraved, began his persecution against the Christian church, A. D. 64, on pretence of the burning of Rome, of which some have thought himself to be the author. He endeavoured to throw all the odium on the Christians: those were seized first that were known publicly as such, and by their means many others were discovered. They were condemned to death, and were even insulted in their sufferings. Some were sewed up in skins of beasts, and then exposed to dogs to be torn in pieces; some were nailed to crosses; others perished by fire. The latter were sewed up in pitched coverings, which, being set on fire, served as torches to the people, and were lighted up in the night. Nero gave leave to use his own gardens, as the scene of all these cruelties. From this time edicts were published against the Christians, and many martyrs suffered, especially in Italy. St. Peter and St. Paul are thought to have suffered martyrdom, consequent on this persecution, A. D. 65. The revolt of the Jews from the Romans happened about A. D. 65 and 66, in the twelfth and thirteenth of Nero. The city of Jerusalem making an insurrection, A. D. 66, Florus there slew three thousand six hundred persons, and thus began the war. A little while afterward, those of Jerusalem killed the Roman garrison. Cestius on this came to Jerusalem to suppress the sedition; but he was forced to retire, after having besieged it about six weeks, and was routed in his retreat, A. D. 66. About the end of the same year, Nero gave Vespasian the command of his troops against the Jews. This general carried on the war in Galilee and Judea during A. D. 67 and 68, the thirteenth and fourteenth of Nero. But Nero killing himself in the fourteenth year of his reign, Jerusalem was not besieged till after his death, A. D. 70, the first and second of Vespasian.
NESTORIANS, a denomination which arose in the fifth century, from Nestorius, bishop ofConstantinople; a man of considerable learning and eloquence, and of an independent spirit. The Catholic clergy were fond of calling the Virgin Mary Mother of God,” to which Nestorius objected, as implying that she was mother of the divine nature, which he very properly denied; and this raised against him, from Cyril and others, the cry of heresy, and perhaps led him into some improper forms of expression and explication. It is generally agreed, however, by the moderns, that Nestorius showed a much better spirit in controversy than his antagonist, St. Cyril. As to the doctrine of the trinity, it does not appear that Nestorius differed from his antagonists, admitting the coëquality of the divine Persons; but he was charged with maintaining two distinct persons, as well as natures, in the mysterious character of Christ. This, however, he solemnly and constantly denied; and from this, as a foul reproach, he has been cleared by the moderns, and particularly by Martin Luther, who lays the whole blame of this controversy on the turbulent and angry Cyril. (SeeHypostatic Union.) The discordancy not only between the Nestorians and other Christians, but also among themselves, arose, no doubt, in a great measure, from the ambiguity of the Greek termshypostasisandprosopon. The councils assembled at Seleucia on this occasion decreed that in Christ there were twohypostases. But this word, unhappily, was used both for person and subsistence, or existence; hence the difficulty and ambiguity: and of thesehypostasesit is said the one was divine, and the other human;--the divine Word, and the man Jesus. Now of these twohypostasesit is added, they had only onebarsopa, the original term used by Nestorius, and usually translated by the Greeks, person;” but to avoid the appearance of an express contradiction, Dr. Mosheim translates this barbarous word aspect,” as meaning a union of will and affection, rather than of nature or of person. And thus the Nestorians are charged with rejecting the union of two natures in one person, from their peculiar manner of expressing themselves, though they absolutely denied the charge.
In the earliest ages of Nestorianism, the various branches of that numerous and powerful sect were under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Catholic patriarch of Babylon,--a vague appellation which has been successively applied to the sees of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Bagdad,--but who now resides at Mousul. In the sixteenth century the Nestorians were divided into two sects; for in 1551 a warm dispute arose among them about the creation of a new patriarch, Simeon Barmamas, or Barmana, being proposed by one party, and Sulaka, otherwise named Siud, earnestly desired by the other; when the latter, to support his pretensions the more effectually, repaired to Rome, and was consecrated patriarch in 1553, by Pope Julius III., whose jurisdiction he had acknowledged, and to whose commands he had promised unlimited submission and obedience. Upon this new Chaldean patriarch’s return to his own country, Julius sent with him several persons skilled in the Syriac language, to assist him in establishing and extending the papal empire among the Nestorians; and from that time, that unhappy people have been divided into two factions, and have often been involved in the greatest dangers and difficulties, by the jarring sentiments and perpetual quarrels of their patriarchs. In 1555, Simeon Denha, archbishop of Gelu, adopted the party of the fugitive patriarch, who had embraced the communion of the Latin church; and, being afterward chosen patriarch himself, he fixed his residence in the city of Van, or Ormia, in the mountainous parts of Persia, where his successors still continue, and are all distinguished by the name of Simeon; but they seem of late to have withdrawn themselves from their communion with the church of Rome. The great Nestorian pontiffs who form the opposite party, and who have, since 1559, been distinguished by the general denomination of Elias, and reside constantly at Mousul, look with a hostile eye on this little patriarch; but since 1617 the bishops of Ormus have been in so low and declining a state, both in opulence and credit, that they are no longer in a condition to excite the envy of their brethren at Mousul, whose spiritual dominion is very extensive, taking in great part of Asia, and comprehending within its circuit the Arabian Nestorians, as also the Christians of St. Thomas, who dwell along the coast of Malabar.
NETHINIMS. The Nethinims were servants who had been given up to the service of the tabernacle and temple, to perform the meanest and most laborious services therein, in supplying wood and water. At first the Gibeonites were appointed to this service, Joshua ix, 27. Afterward the Canaanites who surrendered themselves, and whose lives were spared, were consigned to the performance of the same duties. We read, Ezra viii, 20, that the Nethinims were slaves devoted by David and the other princes to the ministry of the temple; and elsewhere, that they were slaves given by Solomon; the children of Solomon’s servants, Ezra ii, 58; and we see, in 1 Kings ix, 20, 21, that this prince had subdued the remains of the Canaanites, and had constrained them to several servitudes; and, it is very probable, he gave a good number of them to the priests and Levites for the service of the temple. The Nethinims were carried into captivity with the tribe of Judah, and there were great numbers of them near the coast of the Caspian Sea, from whence Ezra brought some of them back, Ezra viii, 17. After the return from the captivity, they dwelt in the cities appointed them, Ezra ii, 17. There were some of them also at Jerusalem, who inhabited that part of the city called Ophel, Neh. iii, 26. Those who returned with Ezra were to the number of two hundred and twenty, Ezra viii, 20; and those who followed Zerubbabel made up three hundred and ninety-two, Ezra ii, 58. This number was but small in regard to the offices that were imposed on them; so that we find them afterward instituting a solemnity calledXylophoria, in whichthe people carried wood to the temple with great ceremony, to keep up the fire on the altar of burnt sacrifices.
NETTLES. We find this name given to two different words in the original. The first isחרול, Job xxx, 7; Proverbs xxiv, 31; Zeph. ii, 9. It is not easy to determine what species of plant is here meant. From the passage in Job, the nettle could not be intended; for a plant is referred to large enough for people to take shelter under. The following extract from Denon’s Travels may help to illustrate the text, and show to what an uncomfortable retreat those vagabonds must have resorted. One of the inconveniences of the vegetable thickets of Egypt is, that it is difficult to remain in them; as nine-tenths of the trees and the plants are armed with inexorable thorns, which suffer only an unquiet enjoyment of the shadow which is so constantly desirable, from the precaution necessary to guard against them.” Theקימוש, Prov. xxiv, 31; Isaiah xxxiv, 13; Hosea ix, 6; is by the Vulgate renderedurtica,” which is well defended by Celsius, and very probably means the nettle.”
NICE or NICENE CREED is so denominated, because the greater part of it, namely, as far as the words, Holy Ghost,” was drawn up and agreed to at the council of Nice, or Nicæa, in Bithynia, A. D. 325. This council was assembled against Arius, who, though he brought down the Son to the condition of a creature, inferior, for that reason, in nature to the Father, yet acknowledged his personal subsistence before the world, and his superiority in nature to all the things that were created by him. So that there was need of some higher expression in this case than the other, to import his equal dignity of nature with the Father and Creator of all; and nothing was found to answer the purpose so well as the term ὁμοούσιος. The rest of this creed was added at the council of Constantinople, A. D. 581, except the words, and the Son,” which follow the words, who proceedeth from the Father,” and they were inserted A. D. 447. The addition made at Constantinople was caused by the denial of the divinity of the Holy Ghost by Macedonius and his followers; and the creed, thus enlarged, was immediately received by all orthodox Christians. The insertion of the words, and the Son,” was made by the Spanish bishops; and they were soon after adopted by the Christians in France. The bishops of Rome for some time refused to admit these words into the creed; but at last, A. D. 883, when Nicholas the First was pope, they were allowed, and from that time they have stood in the Nicene creed, in all the western churches; but the Greek church has never received them. SeeArius.
NICODEMUS, a disciple of Jesus Christ, a Jew by nation, and a Pharisee, John iii, 1, &c. At the time when the priests and Pharisees had sent officers to seize Jesus, Nicodemus declared himself openly in his favour, John vii, 45, &c; and still more so when he went with Joseph of Arimathea to pay the last duties to his body, which they took down from the cross, embalmed, and laid in a sepulchre.
NICOLAITANS. St. John says in his Revelation, to the angel of the church of Ephesus, But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate,” Rev. ii, 6; and again, to the angel of the church of Pergamos: So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate,” Rev. ii, 15. These are the only two places where the Nicolaitans are mentioned in the New Testament: and it might appear at first, that little could be inferred from these concerning either their doctrine or their practice. It is asserted, however, by all the fathers, that the Nicolaitans were a branch of the Gnostics: and the epistles, which were addressed by St. John to the seven Asiatic churches, may perhaps lead us to the same conclusion. Thus to the church at Ephesus he writes: Thou hast tried them which say they are Apostles and are not, and hast found them liars,” Rev. ii, 2. This may be understood of the Gnostic teachers, who falsely called themselves Christians, and who would be not unlikely to assume also the title of Apostles. It appears from this and other passages, that they had distinguished themselves at Ephesus; and it is when writing to that church, that St. John mentions the Nicolaitans. Again, when writing to the church at Smyrna, he says: I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan,” Rev. ii, 9. The Gnostics borrowed many doctrines from the Jews, and thought by this means to attract both the Jews and Christians. We might therefore infer, even without the testimony of the fathers, that the Gnostic doctrines were prevalent in these churches, where St. John speaks of the Nicolaitans: and if so, we have a still more specific indication of their doctrine and practice, when we find St. John saying to the church in Pergamos, I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication,” Rev. ii, 14. Then follow the words already quoted, So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.” There seems here to be some comparison between the doctrine of Balaam and that of the Nicolaitans: and I would also point out, that to the church in Thyatira the Apostle writes, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols,” Rev. ii, 20. The two passages are very similar, and may enable us to throw some light upon the history of the Nicolaitans. Tertullian has preserved a tradition, that the person here spoken of as Jezebel was a female heretic, who taught what she had learned from the Nicolaitans: and whether the tradition be true or not, it seems certain, that to eat things sacrificed untoidols, and to commit fornication, was part of the practice of the Nicolaitans.
These two sins are compared to the doctrine of Balaam: and though the Bible tells us little of Balaam’s history, beyond his prophecies and his death, yet we can collect enough to enable us to explain this allusion of St. John. We read, that when Israel abode in Shittim, the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab: and they,” that is, the women, called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods,” Num. xxv, 1, 2. But we read farther, that when the Midianites were spoiled and Balaam slain, Moses said of the women who were taken, Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor,” Num. xxxi, 16. This, then, was the insidious policy and advice of Balaam. When he found that he was prohibited by God from cursing Israel, he advised Balak to seduce the Israelites by the women of Moab, and thus to entice them to the sacrifices of their gods. This is what St. John calls the doctrine of Balaam,” or the wicked artifice which he taught the king of Moab: and so he says, that in the church of Pergamos there were some who held the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. We have therefore the testimony of St. John, as well as of the fathers, that the lives of the Nicolaitans were profligate and vicious; to which we may add, that they ate things sacrificed to idols. This is expressly said of Basilides and Valentinus, two celebrated leaders of Gnostic sects: and we perhaps are not going too far, if we infer from St. John, that the Nicolaitans were the first who enticed the Christians to this impious practice, and obtained from thence the distinction of their peculiar celebrity. Their motive for such conduct is very evident. They wished to gain proselytes to their doctrines; and they therefore taught that it was lawful to indulge the passions, and that there was no harm in partaking of an idol sacrifice. This had now become the test to which Christians must submit, if they wished to escape persecution: and the Nicolaitans sought to gain converts by telling them that they might still believe in Jesus though they ate of things sacrificed unto idols.” The fear of death would shake the faith of some; others would be gained over by sensual arguments: and thus many unhappy Christians of the Asiatic churches were found by St. John in the ranks of the Nicolaitans.
We might wish perhaps to know at what time the sect of the Nicolaitans began; but we cannot define it accurately. If Irenæus is correct in saying that it preceded by a considerable time the heresy of Cerinthus, and that the Cerinthian heresy was a principal cause of St. John writing his Gospel, it follows, that the Nicolaitans were in existence at least some years before the time of their being mentioned in the Revelation; and the persecution under Domitian, which was the cause of St. John being sent to Patmos, may have been the time which enabled the Nicolaitans to exhibit their principles. Irenæus indeed adds, that St. John directed his Gospel against the Nicolaitans as well as against Cerinthus: and the comparison which is made between their doctrine and that of Balaam, may perhaps authorize us to refer to this sect what is said in the second Epistle of St. Peter. The whole passage contains marked allusions to Gnostic teachers. There is another question concerning the Nicolaitans, which has excited much discussion. It is a question entirely of evidence and detail; and the two points to be considered are, 1. Whether the Nicolaitans derived their name from Nicolas of Antioch, who was one of the seven deacons: 2. Supposing this to be the fact, whether Nicolas had disgraced himself by sensual indulgence. Those writers who have endeavoured to clear the character of Nicolas have generally tried also to prove that he was not the man whom the Nicolaitans claimed as their head. But the one point may be true without the other: and the evidence is so overwhelming, which states that Nicolas the deacon was at least the person intended by the Nicolaitans, that it is difficult to come to any other conclusion upon the subject. We must not deny that some of the fathers have also charged him with falling into vicious habits, and thus affording too true a support to the heretics who claimed him as their leader. These writers, however, are of a late date; and some, who are much more ancient, have entirely acquitted him, and furnished an explanation of the calumnies which attach to his name. We know that the Gnostics were not ashamed to claim as their founders the Apostles, or friends of the Apostles. The same may have been the case with Nicolas the deacon; and though we allow, that if the Nicolaitans were distinguished as a sect some time before the end of the century, the probability is lessened that his name was thus abused; yet if his career was a short one, his history, like that of the other deacons, would soon be forgotten: and the same fertile invention, which gave rise in the two first centuries to so many apocryphal Gospels, may also have led the Nicolaitans to give a false character to him whose name they had assumed.
NICOPOLIS, a city of Epirus, on the gulf of Ambracia, whither, as some think, St. Paul wrote to Titus, then in Crete, to come to him, Titus iii, 12; but others, with greater probability, are of opinion, that the city of Nicopolis, where St. Paul was, was not that of Epirus, but that of Thrace, on the borders of Macedonia, near the river Nessus. Emmaus in Palestine was also called Nicopolis by the Romans.
NIGHT. The ancient Hebrews began their artificial day in the evening, and ended it the next evening; so that the night preceded the day, whence it is said, evening and morning one day,” Gen. i, 5. They allowed twelve hours to the night, and twelve to the day. Night is put for a time of affliction and adversity: Thou hast proved mine heart, thouhast visited me in the night, thou hast tried me,” Psalm xvii, 3; that is, by adversity and tribulation. And the morning cometh, and also the night,” Isaiah xxi, 12. Night is also put for the time of death: The night cometh, wherein no man can work,” John ix, 4. Children of the day, and children of the night, in a moral and figurative sense, denote good men and wicked men, Christians and Gentiles. The disciples of the Son of God are children of light: they belong to the light, they walk in the light of truth; while the children of the night walk in the darkness of ignorance and infidelity, and perform only works of darkness. Ye are all the children of the light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness,” 1 Thess. v, 5.
NIGHT-HAWK,תחמס, Lev. xi, 16; Deut. xiv, 15. That this is a voracious bird seems clear from the import of its name; and interpreters are generally agreed to describe it as flying by night. On the whole, it should seem to be thestrix orientalis, which Hasselquist thus describes: It is of the size of the common owl, and lodges in the large buildings or ruins of Egypt and Syria, and sometimes even in the dwelling houses. The Arabs settled in Egypt call it massasa,” and the Syrians banu.” It is extremely voracious in Syria; to such a degree, that if care is not taken to shut the windows at the coming on of night, he enters the houses and kills the children: the women, therefore, are very much afraid of him.
NILE, the river of Egypt, whose fountain is in the Upper Ethiopia. After having watered several kingdoms, the Nile continues its course far into the kingdom of Goiam. Then it winds about again, from the east to the north. Having crossed several kingdoms and provinces, it falls into Egypt at the cataracts, which are waterfalls over steep rocks of the length of two hundred feet. At the bottom of these rocks the Nile returns to its usual pace, and thus flows through the valley of Egypt. Its channel, according to Villamont, is about a league broad. At eight miles below Grand Cairo, it is divided into two arms, which make a triangle, whose base is at the Mediterranean Sea, and which the Greeks call the Delta, because of its figure Δ. These two arms are divided into others, which discharge themselves into the Mediterranean, the distance of which from the top of the Delta is about twenty leagues. These branches of the Nile the ancients commonly reckoned to be seven. Ptolemy makes them nine, some only four, some eleven, some fourteen. Homer, Xenophon, and Diodorus Siculus testify, that the ancient name of this river was Egyptus; and the latter of these writers says, that it took the name Nilus only since the time of a king of Egypt called by that name. The Greeks gave it the name of Melas; and Diodorus Siculus observes, that the most ancient name by which the Grecians have known the Nile was Oceanus. The Egyptians paid divine honours to this river, and called it Jupiter Nilus.
Very little rain ever falls in Egypt, never sufficient to fertilize the land; and but for the provision of this bountiful river, the country would be condemned to perpetual sterility. As it is, from the joint operation of the regularity of the flood, the deposit of mud from the water of the river and the warmth of the climate, it is the most fertile country in the world; the produce exceeding all calculation. It has in consequence been, in all ages, the granary of the east; and has on more than one occasion, an instance of which is recorded in the history of Joseph, saved the neighbouring countries from starvation. It is probable, that, while in these countries, on the occasion referred to, the seven years’ famine was the result of the absence of rain, in Egypt it was brought about by the inundation being withheld: and the consternation of the Egyptians, at witnessing this phenomenon for seven successive years, may easily be conceived. The origin and course of the Nile being unknown to the ancients, its stream was held, and is still held by the natives, in the greatest veneration; and its periodical overflow was viewed with mysterious wonder. But both of these are now, from the discoveries of the moderns, better understood. It is now known, that the sources, or permanent springs, of the Nile are situated in the mountains of Abyssinia, and the unexplored regions to the west and south-west of that country; and that the occasional supplies, or causes of the inundation, are the periodical rains which fall in those districts. For a correct knowledge of these facts, and of the true position of the source of that branch of the river, which has generally been considered to be the continuation of the true Nile, we are indebted to our countryman, the intrepid and indefatigable Bruce. Although the Nile, by way of eminence, has been called the river of Egypt,” it must not be confounded with another stream so denominated in Scripture, an insignificant rivulet in comparison, which falls into the Mediterranean below Gaza.
NIMROD. He is generally supposed to have been the immediate son of Cush, and the youngest, or sixth, from the Scriptural phrase, Cush begat Nimrod,” after the mention of his five sons, Gen. x, 8. But the phrase is used with considerable latitude, like father” and son,” in Scripture. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar: out of that land he went forth to invade Assyria; and built Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resin, between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city,” Gen. x, 8–12. Though the main body of the Cushites was miraculously dispersed, and sent by Providence to their destinations along the sea coasts of Asia and Africa, yet Nimrod remained behind, and founded an empire in Babylonia, according to Berosus, by usurping the property of the Arphaxadites in the land of Shinar; where the beginning of his kingdom was Babel,” or Babylon, and other towns: and, not satisfied with this, he next invaded Assur, or Assyria, east of the Tigris, where he built Nineveh, and several other towns.The marginal reading of our English Bible, He went out into Assyria,” or to invade Assyria, is here adopted in preference to that in the text: And out of that land went forth Ashur, and builded Nineveh,” &c. The meaning of the word Nineveh may lead us to his original name, Nin, signifying a son,” the most celebrated of the sons of Cush. That of Nimrod, or Rebel,” was probably a parody, or nickname, given him by the oppressed Shemites, of which we have several instances in Scripture. Thusnahash, the brazen serpent” in the wilderness, was called by Hezekiah, in contempt,nehushtan, a piece of brass,” when he broke it in pieces, because it was perverted into an object of idolatrous worship by the Jews, 2 Kings xviii, 4. Nimrod, that arch rebel, who first subverted the patriarchal government, introduced also the Zabian idolatry, or worship of the heavenly host; and, after his death, was deified by his subjects, and supposed to be translated into the constellations of Orion, attended by his hounds, Sirius and Canicula, and still pursuing his favourite game, the great bear; supposed also to be translated intoursa major, near the north pole; as admirably described by Homer,--
Ἄρκτον θ’, ἣν καὶ ἄμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν,Ἤ τ’ αὐτου ϛρέφεται, καὶ τ’ Ὠρίωνα δοκεύει.Iliadxviii, 485.
Ἄρκτον θ’, ἣν καὶ ἄμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν,Ἤ τ’ αὐτου ϛρέφεται, καὶ τ’ Ὠρίωνα δοκεύει.Iliadxviii, 485.
Ἄρκτον θ’, ἣν καὶ ἄμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν,Ἤ τ’ αὐτου ϛρέφεται, καὶ τ’ Ὠρίωνα δοκεύει.Iliadxviii, 485.
Ἄρκτον θ’, ἣν καὶ ἄμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν,
Ἤ τ’ αὐτου ϛρέφεται, καὶ τ’ Ὠρίωνα δοκεύει.
Iliadxviii, 485.
And the bear, surnamed also the wain, by the Egyptians, who is turning herself about there, and watching Orion.” Homer also introduces the shade of Orion, as hunting in the Elysian fields,--
Τὸν δὲ μέτ’, Ὠρίωνα πελώριον είσενόησαΘῆρας ὁμοῦ εἰλεῦντα, κατ’ ἀσφοδελον λειμωνα·Τοὺς αὐτος κατέπεφνεν ἐν οἰοπόλοισιν ὄρεσσιΧερσὶν ἔχων ρὅπαλον παγχάλκεον, αἰὲν ἀαγές.Odyss.xi, 571.
Τὸν δὲ μέτ’, Ὠρίωνα πελώριον είσενόησαΘῆρας ὁμοῦ εἰλεῦντα, κατ’ ἀσφοδελον λειμωνα·Τοὺς αὐτος κατέπεφνεν ἐν οἰοπόλοισιν ὄρεσσιΧερσὶν ἔχων ρὅπαλον παγχάλκεον, αἰὲν ἀαγές.Odyss.xi, 571.
Τὸν δὲ μέτ’, Ὠρίωνα πελώριον είσενόησαΘῆρας ὁμοῦ εἰλεῦντα, κατ’ ἀσφοδελον λειμωνα·Τοὺς αὐτος κατέπεφνεν ἐν οἰοπόλοισιν ὄρεσσιΧερσὶν ἔχων ρὅπαλον παγχάλκεον, αἰὲν ἀαγές.Odyss.xi, 571.
Τὸν δὲ μέτ’, Ὠρίωνα πελώριον είσενόησα
Θῆρας ὁμοῦ εἰλεῦντα, κατ’ ἀσφοδελον λειμωνα·
Τοὺς αὐτος κατέπεφνεν ἐν οἰοπόλοισιν ὄρεσσι
Χερσὶν ἔχων ρὅπαλον παγχάλκεον, αἰὲν ἀαγές.
Odyss.xi, 571.
Next, I observed the mighty OrionChasing wild beasts through an asphodel mead,Which himself had slain on the solitary mountains:Holding in his hands a solid brazen mace, ever unbroken.”
Next, I observed the mighty OrionChasing wild beasts through an asphodel mead,Which himself had slain on the solitary mountains:Holding in his hands a solid brazen mace, ever unbroken.”
Next, I observed the mighty OrionChasing wild beasts through an asphodel mead,Which himself had slain on the solitary mountains:Holding in his hands a solid brazen mace, ever unbroken.”
Next, I observed the mighty Orion
Chasing wild beasts through an asphodel mead,
Which himself had slain on the solitary mountains:
Holding in his hands a solid brazen mace, ever unbroken.”
The Grecian name of this mighty hunter” may furnish a satisfactory clue to the name given him by the impious adulation of the Babylonians and Assyrians. Ὠρίων nearly resembles, Ὀυρίαν, the oblique case of Ὀυρίας, which is the Septuagint rendering of Uriah, a proper name in Scripture, 2 Sam. xi, 6–21. But Uriah, signifying the light of the Lord,” was an appropriate appellation of that most brilliant constellation. He was also called Baal, Beel, Bel, or Belus, signifying lord,” or master,” by the Phenicians, Assyrians, and Greeks; and Bala Rama, by the Hindus. At a village called Bala-deva, or Baldeo in the vulgar dialect, thirteen miles east by south from Muttra, in Hindustan, there is a very ancient statue of Bala Rama, in which he is represented with a ploughshare in his left hand, and a thick cudgel in his right, and his shoulders covered with the skin of a tiger. Captain Wilford supposes that the ploughshare was designed to hook his enemies; but may it not more naturally denote the constellation of the great bear, which strikingly represents the figure of a plough in its seven bright stars; and was probably so denominated by the earliest astronomers, before the introduction of the Zabian idolatry, as a celestial symbol of agriculture? The thick cudgel corresponds to the brazen mace of Homer. And it is highly probable that the Assyrian Nimrod, or Hindu Bala, was also the prototype of the Grecian Hercules, with his club and lion’s skin.
Nimrod is said to have been a mighty hunter before the Lord;” which the Jerusalem paraphrast interprets of a sinful hunting after the sons of men to turn them off from the true religion. But it may as well be taken in a more literal sense, for hunting of wild beasts; inasmuch as the circumstance of his being a mighty hunter is mentioned with great propriety to introduce the account of his setting up his kingdom; the exercise of hunting being looked upon in ancient times as a means of acquiring the rudiments of war; for which reason, the principal heroes of Heathen antiquity, as Theseus, Nestor, &c, were, as Xenophon tells us, bred up to hunting. Beside, it may be supposed, that by this practice Nimrod drew together a great company of robust young men to attend him in his sport, and by that means increased his power. And by destroying the wild beasts, which, in the comparatively defenceless state of society in those early ages, were no doubt very dangerous enemies, he might, perhaps, render himself farther popular; thereby engaging numbers to join with him, and to promote his chief design of subduing men, and making himself master of many nations.
NINEVEH. This capital of the Assyrian empire could boast of the remotest antiquity. Tacitus styles it,Vetustissima sedes Assyriæ;” [the most ancient seat of Assyria;] and Scripture informs us that Nimrod, after he had built Babel, in the land of Shinar, invaded Assyria, where he built Nineveh, and several other cities, Genesis x, 11. Its name denotes the habitation of Nin,” which seems to have been the proper name of that rebel,” as Nimrod signifies. And it is uniformly styled by Herodotus, Xenophon, Diodorus, Lucian, &c, Ἡ Νίνος, the city of Ninus.” And the village of Nunia, opposite Mosul, in its name, and the tradition of the natives, ascertains the site of the ancient city, which was near the castle of Arbela, according to Tacitus, so celebrated for the decisive victory of Alexander the Great over the Persians there; the site of which is ascertained by the village of Arbil, about ten German miles to the east of Nunia, according to Niebuhr’s map. Nineveh at first seems only to have been a small city, and less than Resen, in its neighbourhood; which is conjectured by Bochart, and not without reason, to have been the same as Larissa, which Xenophon describes as the ruins of a great city, formerly inhabited by the Medes,” and which the natives might have described as belongingla Resen, to Resen.” Nineveh did not rise to greatness for many ages after, until its second founder, Ninus II., about B. C. 1230, enlarged and made it the greatest city in theworld. According to Diodorus, it was of an oblong form, a hundred and fifty stadia long, and ninety broad, and, consequently, four hundred and eighty in circuit, or forty-eight miles, reckoning ten stadia to an English mile, with Major Rennel. And its walls were a hundred feet high, and so broad that three chariots could drive on them abreast; and on the walls were fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet high. We are not, however, to imagine that all this vast enclosure was built upon: it contained great parks and extensive fields, and detached houses and buildings, like Babylon, and other great cities of the east even at the present day, as Bussorah, &c. And this entirely corresponds with the representations of Scripture. In the days of the Prophet Jonah, about B. C. 800, it seems to have been a “great city, an exceeding great city, of three days’ journey,” Jonah i, 2; iii, 3; perhaps in circuit. The population of Nineveh, also, at that time was very great. It contained more than sixscore thousand persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left, beside much cattle,” Jonah iv, 11. Reckoning the persons to have been infants of two years old and under, and that these were a fifth part of the whole, according to Bochart, the whole population would amount to six hundred thousand souls. The same number Pliny assigns for the population of Seleucia, on the decline of Babylon. This population shows that a great part of the city must have been left open and unbuilt.
The threatened overthrow of Nineveh within three days, was, by the general repentance and humiliation of the inhabitants, from the highest to the lowest, suspended for near two hundred years, until their iniquity came to the full;” and then the prophecy was literally accomplished, in the third year of the siege of the city, by the combined Medes and Babylonians; the king, Sardanapalus, being encouraged to hold out in consequence of an ancient prophecy, that Nineveh should never be taken by assault, till the river became its enemy; when a mighty inundation of the river, swollen by continual rains, came up against a part of the city, and threw down twenty stadia of the wall in length; upon which, the king, conceiving that the oracle was accomplished, burned himself, his concubines, eunuchs, and treasures; and the enemy, entering by the breach, sacked and rased the city, about B. C. 606. Diodorus, also, relates that Belesis, the governor of Babylon, obtained from Arbaces, the king of Media, the ashes of the palace, to erect a mount with them near the temple of Belus at Babylon; and that he forthwith prepared shipping, and, together with the ashes, carried away most of the gold and silver, of which he had private information given him by one of the eunuchs who escaped the fire. Dr. Gillies thinks it incredible that these could be transported from Nineveh to Babylon, three hundred miles distant; but likely enough, if Nineveh was only fifty miles from Babylon, with a large canal of communication between them, the Nahar Malka, or Royal River. But we learn from Niebuhr, that the conveyance of goods from Nosul to Bagdat by the Tigris is very commodious, in the very large boats calledhelleks; in which, in spring, when the river is rapid, the voyage may be made in three or four days, which would take fifteen by land. The complete demolition of such immense piles as the walls and towers of Nineveh may seem matter of surprise to those who do not consider the nature of the materials of which they were constructed, that is, of bricks, dried or baked in the sun, and cemented with bitumen, which were apt to be dissolved” by water, or to moulder away by the injuries of the weather. Beside, in the east, the materials of ancient cities have been often employed in the building of new ones in the neighbourhood. Thus Mosul was built with the spoils of Nineveh. Tauk Kesra, or the Palace of Chosroes, appears to have been built of bricks brought from the ruins of Babylon; and so was Hellah, as the dimensions are nearly the same, and the proportions so singular. And when such materials could conveniently be transported by inland navigations, they are to be found at very great distances from their ancient place, much farther, indeed, than are Bagdat and Seleucia, or Ctesiphon, from Babylon.
The book of Nahum was avowedly prophetic of the destruction of Nineveh; and it is there foretold that the gates of the river shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved. Nineveh of old, like a pool of water, with an overflowing flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof,” Nahum ii, 6; i, 8, 9. The historian describes the facts by which the other predictions of the prophet were as literally fulfilled. He relates that the king of Assyria, elated with his former victories, and ignorant of the revolt of the Bactrians, had abandoned himself to scandalous inaction; had appointed a time of festivity, and supplied his soldiers with abundance of wine; and that the general of the enemy, apprised by deserters, of their negligence and drunkenness, attacked the Assyrian army while the whole of them were fearlessly giving way to indulgence, destroyed great part of them, and drove the rest into the city. The words of the prophet were hereby verified: While they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry,” Nahum i, 10. The prophet promised much spoil to the enemy: Take the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold; for there is no end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture,” Nahum ii, 9. And the historian affirms that many talents of gold and silver, preserved from the fire, were carried to Ecbatana. According to Nahum, iii, 15, the city was not only to be destroyed by an overflowing flood, but the fire, also, was to devour it; and, as Diodorus relates, partly by water, partly by fire, it was destroyed.
The utter and perpetual destruction and desolation of Nineveh were foretold: The Lord will make an utter end of the place thereof. Affliction shall not rise up the second time.She is empty, void, and waste,” Nahum i, 8, 9; ii, 10; iii, 17–19. The Lord will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in,” Zeph. ii, 13–15. In the second century, Lucian, a native of a city on the banks of the Euphrates, testified that Nineveh was utterly perished, that there was no vestige of it remaining, and that none could tell where once it was situated. This testimony of Lucian, and the lapse of many ages during which the place was not known where it stood, render it at least somewhat doubtful whether the remains of an ancient city, opposite to Mosul, which have been described as such by travellers, be indeed those of ancient Nineveh. It is, perhaps, probable that they are the remains of the city which succeeded Nineveh, or of a Persian city of the same name, which was built on the banks of the Tigris by the Persians subsequently to A. D. 230, and demolished by the Saracens, A. D. 632. In contrasting the then existing great and increasing population, and the accumulating wealth of the proud inhabitants of the mighty Nineveh, with the utter ruin that awaited it, the word of God by the Prophet Nahum, was, Make thyself many as the canker worm, make thyself many as the locusts. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the canker worm spoileth and flieth away. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers which camp in the hedges in the cold day: but when the sun riseth, they flee away; and their place is not known where they are,” or were. Whether these words imply that even the site of Nineveh would in future ages be uncertain or unknown; or, as they rather seem to intimate, that every vestige of the palaces of its monarchs, of the greatness of its nobles, and of the wealth of its numerous merchants, would wholly disappear; the truth of the prediction cannot be invalidated under either interpretation. The avowed ignorance respecting Nineveh, and the oblivion which passed over it, for many an age, conjoined with the meagreness of evidence to identify it, still prove that the place where it stood was long unknown, and that, even now, it can scarcely with certainty be determined. And if the only spot that bears its name, or that can be said to be the place where it was, be indeed the site of one of the most extensive of cities on which the sun ever shone, and which continued for many centuries to be the capital of Assyria,--the principal mounds, few in number, which show neither bricks, stones, nor other materials of building,--but are in many places overgrown with grass, and resemble the mounds left by intrenchments and fortifications of ancient Roman camps, and the appearances of other mounds and ruins less marked than even these, extending for ten miles, and widely spread, and seeming to be the wreck of former buildings,--show that Nineveh is left without one monument of royalty, without any token whatever of its splendour or wealth; that their place is not known where they were; and that it is indeed a desolation, empty, void, and waste,” its very ruins perished, and less than the wreck of what it was. Such an utter ruin, in every view, has been made of it; and such is the truth of the divine predictions!
NISAN, a month of the Hebrews, answering to our March, and which sometimes takes from February or April, according to the course of the moon. It was made the first month of the sacred year, at the coming out of Egypt, Exod. xii, 2; and it was the seventh month of the civil year. By Moses it is called Abib. The name Nisan was introduced only since the time of Ezra, and the return from the captivity of Babylon.
NISROCH, a god of the Assyrians. Sennacherib was killed by two of his sons, while he was paying his adorations in the temple of this deity, 2 Kings xix, 37; Isaiah xxxvii, 38. It is uncertain who this god was.
NITRE,נתר, Prov. xxv, 20; Jer. ii, 22. This is not the same that we call nitre, or saltpetre, but a native salt of a different kind, distinguished among naturalists by the name of natrum. The natrum of the ancients was an earthy alkaline salt. It was found in abundance separated from the water of the lake Natron in Egypt. It rises from the bottom of the lake to the top of the water, and is there condensed by the heat of the sun into the hard and dry form in which it is sold. This salt thus scummed off is the same in all respects with the Smyrna soap earth. Pliny, Matthiolus, and Agricola, have described it to us: Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides, and others, mention its uses. It is also found in great plenty in Sindy, a province in the inner part of Asia, and in many other parts of the east; and might be had in any quantities. The learned Michaëlis plainly demonstrates, from the nature of the thing and the context, that this fossil and natural alkali must be that which the Hebrews callednether. Solomon must mean the same when he compares the effect which unseasonable mirth has upon a man in affliction to the action of vinegar upon nitre, Prov. xxv, 20; for vinegar has no effect upon what we call nitre, but upon the alkali in question has a great effect, making it rise up in bubbles with much effervescence. It is of a soapy nature, and was used to take spots from clothes, and even from the face. Jeremiah alludes to this use of it, ii, 22.
NO, or NO-AMMON, a city of Egypt, supposed to be Thebes.
NOAH, the son of Lamech. Amidst the general corruption of the human race, Noah only was found righteous, Gen. vi, 9. He therefore found grace in the sight of the Lord,” and was directed for his preservation to make an ark, the shape and dimensions of which were prescribed by the Lord. In A. M. 1656, and in the six hundredth year of his age, Noah, by divine appointment, entered the ark with his family, and all the animals collected for the renewal of the world. (SeeDeluge.) After the ark had stranded, and the earth wasin a measure dried, Noah offered a burnt-sacrifice to the Lord, of the pure animals that were in the ark; and the Lord was pleased to accept of his offering, and to give him assurance that he would no more destroy the world by water, Genesis ix. He gave Noah power over all the brute creation, and permitted him to kill and eat of them, as of the herbs and fruits of the earth, except the blood, the use of which was prohibited. After the deluge Noah lived three hundred and fifty years; and the whole time of his life having been nine hundred and fifty years, he died, A. M. 2006. According to common opinion, he divided the earth among his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. To Shem he gave Asia, to Ham Africa, and to Japheth Europe. Some will have it, that beside these three sons he had several others. St. Peter calls Noah a preacher of righteousness, because before the deluge he was incessantly preaching and declaring to men, not only by his discourses, but by the building of the ark, in which he was employed a hundred and twenty years, that the cloud of divine vengeance was about to burst upon them. But his faithful ministry produced no effect, since, when the deluge came, it found mankind practising their usual enormities, Matt. xxiv, 37. Several learned men have observed that the Heathens confounded Saturn, Deucalion, Ogyges, the god Cœlus or Ouranus, Janus, Protheus, Prometheus, &c, with Noah. The fable of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha is manifestly drawn from the history of Noah. The rabbins pretend that God gave Noah and his sons certain general precepts, which contain, according to them, the natural duties which are common to all men indifferently, and the observation of which alone will be sufficient to save them. After the law of Moses was given, the Hebrews would not suffer any stranger to dwell in their country, unless he would conform to the precepts of Noah. In war, they put to death without quarter all who were ignorant of them. These precepts are seven in number: the first was against the worship of idols; the second, against blasphemy, and required to bless the name of God; the third, against murder; the fourth, against incest and all uncleanness; the fifth, against theft and rapine; the sixth required the administration of justice; the seventh was against eating flesh with life. But the antiquity of these precepts is doubted, since no mention of them is made in the Scripture, or in the writings of Josephus, or in Philo; and none of the ancient fathers knew any thing of them.
NOD,Land of, the country to which Cain withdrew after the murder of Abel. As the precise situation of this country cannot possibly be known, so it has given rise to much ingenious speculation. All that we are told of it is, that it was on the east of Eden,” or, as it may be rendered, before Eden;” which very country of Eden is no sure guide for us, as the situation of that also is disputed. But, be it on the higher or lower Euphrates, (seeEden,) the land of Nod which stood before it with respect to the place where Moses wrote, may still preserve the curse of barrenness passed on it for Cain’s sake, namely, in the deserts of Syria or Arabia. The Chaldee interpreters render the word Nod, not as the proper name of a country, but as an appellative applied to Cain himself, signifying a vagabond or fugitive, and read, He dwelt a fugitive in the land.” But the Hebrew reads expressly, He dwelt in the land of Nod.”
NONCONFORMISTS, dissenters from the church of England; but the term applies more particularly to those ministers who were ejected from their livings by the Act of Uniformity in 1662; the number of whom, according to Dr. Calamy, was nearly two thousand; and to the laity who adhered to them. The celebrated Mr. Locke says, Bartholomew-day (the day fixed by the Act of Uniformity) was fatal to our church and religion, by throwing out a very great number of worthy, learned, pious, and orthodox divines, who could not come up to this and other things in that act. And it is worth your knowledge, that so great was the zeal in carrying on this church affair, and so blind was the obedience required, that if you compare the time of passing the act with the time allowed for the clergy to subscribe the book of Common Prayer thereby established, you shall plainly find, it could not be printed and distributed, so as one man in forty could have seen and read the book before they did so perfectly assent and consent thereto.”
By this act, the clergy were required to subscribe,ex animo, [sincerely,] their assent and consent to all and every thing contained in the book of Common Prayer,” which had never before been insisted on, so rigidly as to deprive them of their livings and livelihood. Several other acts were passed about this time, very oppressive both to the clergy and laity. In the preceding year 1661, the Corporation Act incapacitated all persons from offices of trust and honour in a corporation, who did not receive the sacrament in the established church. The Conventicle Act, in 1663 and 1670, forbade the attendance at conventicles; that is, at places of worship other than the establishment, where more than five adults were present beside the resident family; and that under penalties of fine and imprisonment by the sentence of magistrates without a jury. The Oxford Act of 1665 banished nonconforming ministers five miles from any corporate town sending members to parliament, and prohibited them from keeping or teaching schools. The Test Act of the same year required all persons, accepting any office under government, to receive the sacrament in the established church.
Such were the dreadful consequences of this intolerant spirit, that it is supposed that near eight thousand died in prison in the reign of Charles II. It is said that Mr. Jeremiah White had carefully collected a list of those who had suffered between Charles II. and the revolution, which amounted to sixty thousand. The same persecutions were carried on in Scotland; and there, as well as in England, numbers, to avoid the persecution, left theircountry. But, notwithstanding all these dreadful and furious attacks upon the dissenters, they were not extirpated. Their very persecution was in their favour. The infamous character of their informers and persecutors; their piety, zeal, and fortitude, no doubt, had influence on considerate minds; and, indeed, they had additions from the established church, which several clergymen in this reign deserted as a persecuting church, and took their lot among them. King William coming to the throne, the famous Toleration Act passed, by which they were exempted from suffering the penalties above mentioned, and permission was given them to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. In the reign of George III., the Act for the Protection of Religious Worship superseded the Act of Toleration, by still more liberal provisions in favour of religious liberty; and in the last reign the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed.
NOPH, Memphis, a celebrated city of Egypt, and, till the time of the Ptolemies, who removed to Alexandria, the residence of the ancient kings of Egypt. It stood above the dividing of the river Nile, where the Delta begins. Toward the south of this city stood the famous pyramids, two of which were esteemed the wonders of the world; and in this city was fed the ox Apis, which Cambyses slew, in contempt of the Egyptians who worshipped it as a deity. The kings of Egypt took much pleasure in adorning this city; and it continued in all its beauty till the Arabians made a conquest of Egypt under the Caliph Omar. The general who took it built another city near it, named Fustal, merely because his tent had been a long time set up in that place; and the Fatimite caliphs, when they became masters of Egypt, added another to it, which is known to us at this day by the name of Grand Cairo. This occasioned the utter decay of Memphis, and led to the fulfilment of the prophecy, that it should be waste and without inhabitant.” The prophets often speak of this city, and foretel the miseries it was to suffer from the kings of Chaldea and Persia, Isaiah xix, 13; Jer. xliv, 1; xlvi, 14, 19; Hosea ix, 6; Ezek. xxx, 13, 16.
NOVATIANS, the followers of Novatian, a priest of Rome, and of Novatus, a priest of Carthage, in the third century. They were distinguished merely by their discipline; for their religious and doctrinal tenets do not appear to be at all different from those of the church. They condemned second marriages, and for ever excluded from their communion all those who after baptism had fallen into sin. They affected very superior purity; and, though they conceived that the worst might possibly hope for eternal life, they absolutely refused to reädmit into their communion any who had lapsed into sin. They separated from the church of Rome, because the members of it admitted into their communion many who had, during a season of persecution, rejected the Christian faith.
NUMBERS, a canonical book of the Old Testament, being the fourth of the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses; and receives its denomination from the numbering of the families of Israel by Moses and Aaron, who mustered the tribes, and marshalled the army, of the Hebrews in their passage through the wilderness. A great part of this book is historical, relating several remarkable events which happened in that journey, and also mentioning various of their journeyings in the wilderness. This book comprehends the history of about thirty-eight years, though the greater part of the things recorded fell out in the first and last of those years; and it does not appear when those things were done which are recorded in the middle of the book. SeePentateuch.
NURSE. The nurse in an eastern family is always an important personage. Modern travellers inform us, that in Syria she is considered as a sort of second parent, whether she has been foster-mother or otherwise. She always accompanies the bride to her husband’s house, and ever remains there an honoured character. Thus it was in ancient Greece. This will serve to explain Genesis xxiv, 59: And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse.” In Hindostan the nurse is not looked upon as a stranger, but becomes one of the family, and passes the remainder of her life in the midst of the children she has suckled, by whom she is honoured and cherished as a second mother. In many parts of Hindostan are mosques and mausoleums, built by the Mohammedan princes, near the sepulchres of their nurses. They are excited by a grateful affection to erect these structures in memory of those who with maternal anxiety watched over their helpless infancy: thus it has been from time immemorial.
OAK. The religious veneration paid to this tree, by the original natives of our island in the time of the Druids, is well known to every reader of British history. We have reason to think that this veneration was brought from the east; and that the Druids did no more than transfer the sentiments their progenitors had received in oriental countries. It should appear that the Patriarch Abraham resided under an oak, or a grove of oaks, which our translators render the plain of Mamre; and that he planted a grove of this tree, Gen. xiii, 18. In fact, since in hot countries nothing is more desirable than shade, nothing more refreshing than the shade of a tree, we may easily suppose the inhabitants would resort for such enjoyment to