At the funeral of the good lady Paula psalms were sung by attendant monks and nuns in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac.

Besides the Jews and their pupils, there were in Palestine numerous sects of Jewish Christians as zealously attached to the study of the Hebrew Bible, and as well versed in traditionary lore as the Hebrews themselves. The Nazareans living, according to Epiphanius, in Beroa, in Syria, in Colo-Syria, Decapolis, and Basanitis, were most attentive readers of the Hebrew Scriptures.b Such was the case also with the Ebionites of Nabathea, Paneas, Moabitis, and Cocabe. Even the Gnostic Jewish sects appear to have cultivated Hebrew learning with much success. The number of these Christianized Jews was very great. Among them various apocryphal writings were in circulation. Thus we read of the book called the Jubilees, the Parva Genesis (twice mentioned by Jerome, Ep. ad Fab. de Mans. 18, 24, evidently as written in Hebrew, since he refers to the word D as found there), and the Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarenes, translated by Jerome. Besides these, the Wisdom of Solomon, Jesus son of Sirach, Judith, Tobit, Shepherd of Hermas, First Book of Maccabees, were in circulation in Palestine at this time, all written in Aramean.

In addition to these works, many of the Greek apocryphal writings then in use, viz., The Test. of XII. Patriarchs, the Sibylline Oracles, the Fourth Book of Ezra, are extremely Aramean in style and Jewish in doctrine.

In all these writings the strong influence of Hebrew and Rabbinical study is plainly discernible.

b Epiphanius says of the Nazarenes, Εβραϊκήν δὲ διάλεκτον ἀκριβῶς εἰσὶν ἠσκημένοι· παρ ̓ ἀυτοῖς πᾶς ὁ νόμος, καὶ οἱ προφῆται, καὶ τὰ γραφεῖα λεγόμενα—Εβραϊκῶς ἀναγινώσκεται ὥσπερ ἀμέλει καὶ παρὰ Ιουδαίοις.

ON

ON CUSTOMS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE BIBLE.

No. I.

By the Rev. D. G. WAIT, D.C.L., Rector of Blagdon, Somerset.

THE most ancient manner of perpetuating events in the very early times was by indenting the records of them in stone. In Yemen several specimens, which have been averred to relate to the Hamyarites, have been found; but every interpretation of them that has been offered is doubtful. Ibn Mokri has recorded that this mode of perpetuating events was customary among the Arabs of Yemen; and there is a proverb in Meidáni which corroborates his statement. The arrow-headed inscriptions in Persia and Babylonia are sufficient to prove the extensive prevalence of the practice, which is confirmed by inscriptions of another class, which India and Egypt supply. The Tarikhi Sung at Mazenderàn, and the Rosetta Stone, were national records. The Tables of the Law, which consisted of the Decalogue engraven on stone, whilst they afford an evidence that this style was designed for endurance, yield in the context an intimation that another style was known also in the days of Moses. Without bestowing an implicit credit on the statement of Eupolemus, that Moses first invented alphabetic characters, we may safely aver, from Exod. xxxii. 32, 33, that the art of writing on other substances had been at that time discovered. For it would have been impossible that D, especially if the word had then the full sense a which the Kamus and Sihah attribute to its Arabic counterpart, could have been applied to any engraving on stone; nor could it have been so applied if the idea of an entire perforation, suggested by Michaelis, be correct. The North American Indians and other barbarous people were accustomed to commemorate, as well on bark as on rocks, the histories of men and events in hieroglyphics; and the use of the papyrus was doubtless known in Egypt in a very remote antiquity; if it were known to Moses, might it not have been the material of the mentioned in these passages?

With the inscribed pillars assigned to Seth, or the boundaries attributed to Joseph, or the characters on Mount Horeb, we are not concerned; for the books of Genesis, Job, and Joshua present authorities sufficient for our inquiry. Hence, in proportion to the

a The Arabic root implies the obliteration of every trace of a thing. VOL. III.NO. VI.

Y

increase

increase of idolatry was the veneration attached to particular stones which were supposed to be inhabited by a Deity: the 200 uxo, the Hindù Salagrama, and the residences of the Duergar were such; and among the ancient inhabitants of Denmark and Norway the runic characters engraven on rocks in historical remembrance of the martial deeds of Odin and other barbarians contributed not a little to that veneration. Whether we advert to the spirits of rocks and mines, to the Bætulia, to the marks of Divine feet, to pyramids, to obelisks, to gigantic temples of stone, to cairns and cromlechs, to caves or excavations, such as those at Nakshi-rustam, at Dendera, Elephantine, and Salsette, to the stupendous monuments and temples in Upper Egypt and Abyssinia, to all that Masúdi has recorded on this branch of superstition, or to all that the Druidical religion will present to us, we shall find an ample justification of every denunciation in the Bible against the worship of stocks and stones.

The unction of stones, which was permitted to the patriarchs, soon became abused; the Hebrews themselves applied it to idolatry. They poured their libations, and they presented their meat-offerings to them, and slew children, as victims, in the clefts of the rocks. Images of stone were not only anointed, but were crowned with garlands, and exalted to the rank of tutelary divinities; so writes Tibullus (i. 1. 11):—

'Nam veneror, seu stipes habet desertus in agris,
Seu vetus in trivio florea serta lapis.'

And Clemens Alexandrinus, in the seventh book of his Stromata, strongly alludes to this idolatry, with which also osculation was connected, as we know it to have been with that (Job xxxi. 27 ; 1 Kings xix. 18; Hosea xiii. 2) which is recorded in the Scriptures.

The earliest habitations of mankind were in the excavations of rocks and mountains, whether natural or artificial; from whence those places became the dormitories of the dead. Palestine and Persia abound with them. And, where persons were otherwise buried, it was the custom among some nations for their friends and passengers to throw stones by way of remembrance on their graves; but among the Hebrews and Arabs stones piled over graves were tokens of ignominy. Thus upon Achan, upon the king of Ai, and upon Absalom was a heap of stones piled; thus, also, when the people had transgressed the law by eating the cattle of the Philistines with the blood, Saul exclaimed, 'Roll a great stone unto me this day!' Hence likewise arose the proverb to roll away reproach.

Several particulars in the interments at Machpelah bear a sin

gular

gular correspondence to some of the funereal descriptions in the Sháh-námeh; the lamentations are strikingly coincident. The sepulchral cavities in rocks have furnished the Scriptures with many phrases: the pit and the nether parts of the earth, and each corpse lying in its own house, or in the separate dormitories of their recesses, are among the vivid descriptions of the Hebrew poets. A comparison of the 15th verse of the 14th chapter of Isaiah with the 18th verse, of the in with ina will

suggest to us that there were separate cells at the sides of those sepulchres, which suggestion is fully established by Ezek. xxxii. 23. This is also supported by that ancient style of sepulchre which the Arabs call, which had holes in its sides for the reception of bodies. Such probably was the burial-place at Machpelah. Not merely these, however, but the summits of mountains and valleys were chosen to receive the dead.

To be deprived of sepulture was a great disgrace in the opinion of almost every nation. It was a disgrace in proportion to the desire of being buried with ancestors. In the history of Jehoram we observe that the denial of a burial with ancestors was an ignominy merely inferior to the want of the rite; for although he was interred in the city of David he was not permitted to repose in the tombs of the kings. Such was likewise the case with Joash and with Ahaz; but on Jehoiakim the fullest ignominy of an unburied state was denounced. To cast the dead body of a person of rank into the graves of the common people (Jer. xxvi. 23), or as that of Jehoram was cast on the portion of Naboth the Jezreelite; to expose it to the sun by day, and to the cold by night, to the birds and to the beasts, to consign it to putrefaction in the open air, was a disgrace that could not be effaced. We observe precisely the same sentiments among the heroes of the Iliad and Æneid; and the same were in force among the Egyptians. Some, however, have imagined that the Hebrews burnt the bodies of some of the dead. Those of Saul and his sons, which the men of Jabesh burnt, are cited as examples; and those of Asa and of Zedekiah are adduced in corroboration of them. But with respect to the first, the reason obviously lay in the state in which they were when they were recovered; and with respect to the others, it by no means appears from the text that anything but aromata was burned at their interment. In the instance of Asa this fact is expressly declared; and in the case of Jehoram it is stated that there was no burning for him, like the burnings of his fathers. What they were is explained by Jeremiah concerning Zedekiah, are a direct evidence that not the body

יִשְׂרְפוּ לָךְ where the words

but that something else was burned. The allusion could only have been to aromatic substances. And although Amos vi. 10 has been quoted in support of the contrary assertion, the authority of other passages confirms the opinion of those who have interpreted the 70 incensor thymiamatum; however, some, arguing from the sense of the root in Samaritan, might have styled him the pollinctor. Bion, in his Epitaph of Adonis, mentions the practice; and Virgil writes,

'Aversi tenuere facem :-congesta cremantur

Thurea dona, dapes, fuso crateres olivo.'

Tibullus yields a similar evidence,

'Non soror, Assyrios cineri quæ dedat odores,

Et fleat effusis ante sepulchra comis.'

When, therefore, we arrive at a proof from the history of Christ's death, that it was equally a Jewish custom, we can have but little hesitation in determining such to have been the force of those passages, and less in maintaining that it was not usual for the Jews to burn their dead.

We observe, likewise, that it was customary among many people to close the eyes of the deceased, which probably was the meaning of the promise to Jacob, that Joseph should put his hand upon his eyes; and to wash and lay out the body in an népwov was a practice that was not confined to any particular nation. Rending the garments, adopting mourning attire, the sackcloth and ashes of the Hebrews, and eating the bread of mourning, may be detected far and wide. Nor are parallels wanting to the cup of consolation. We may also trace among many savage people, remotely situated from each other, a great part of the idolatrous superstitions which the Scriptures have shown to have been attendant on funerals; the cutting or plucking of the hair and the lacerations of the body were the most general. Jeremiah's words, Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep sore for him that goeth away;' and those of Solomon, 'The day of death is better than the day of man's birth,' recal to our minds the similar sentiments of the ancient Thracians and Scythians, which Strabo has recorded, and the custom of that people in Mississippi, whom the Chevalier de Tonti has mentioned to have wept at births and to have rejoiced at funerals.

Both the classical writers and the Persian poets have assigned two gates to Hades, at one of which the person enters, and at the other of which he departs. The gates of Death, and the gates of the Grave, and the path of Life are correspondent Biblical expressions; to which Daphilus, quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. v., exhibits a near analogy as to the prevalent notion.

Και