PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
A Dictionary of the Bible — Volume 5
James Hastings · 1,128,046 words · 1137 reading sections
Section 241
(ad) A special group of symbolical actions ex- presses the establishing of a relation between per- sons. This is above all symbolized by the giving of the hand: 2 K 10 (‘ give me thine hand then’), Ezr 10 (‘and they gave their hand’), Jer 50, (Dyke US. bey 3, Pa (ON Gad dee eles ROS ha 1Ch 294 the giving of the hand by…
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(f) Symbolical actions affecting certain classes of socety.—(a) If a Hebrew slave declined to avail himself of the liberty that was open to him after seven years’ service, one of his ears—probably the right one—was bored through with an awl against the door and thus pinned to it (Ex 21%, Dt 1527), This was meant to ind…
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* Purpureo velare comas adopertus amictu, Ne qua inter sanctos ignes in honore deorum Hostilis facies occurrat et omina turbet.’ (@) The meaning of the interesting ceremony de- scribed in 18 7%, when the Israelites, moved to repentance by the words of Samuel, drew water and poured it out before Jahweh, is unfortunate…
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(5) Symbolical actions with a negative purpose included, in the first place, the oft-mentioned wash- ings (Ex 19” etc.). Washing oneself is spoken of elsewhere as an act of self-consecration (Jos 3° 738, 1S 165; ef. Odyss. iv. 759), and least doubtful of all is this symbolical sense in the case of Jesus’ washing of His…
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With reference to the above passages from the prophetical literature, the difficult question now arises, what we are to hold as to the literal perform- ance of the actions mentioned by the prophets. We will examine the various possible solutions of the problem, in order to arrive at the correct solution. (a) As in dea…
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after marriage’ (Wellhausen, Skizzen wnd Vorar- beiten, v. p. 104f.; similarly W. R. Smith, Prophets of Israel, p. 181f., and G. A. Smith, Book of the Twelve Prophets, i. 238 f.) cannot be reconciled with the text. Our first main argument may be rein- forced by the following questions. Would Hosea, even supposing his w…
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Such are the positive grounds for holding that Ezekiel’s accounts of symbolical actions, whose actual performance is not specially mentioned (127 2418), make up a species of parables, whose subject was the prophet as representative either of Jahweh or of Israel (cf. the present writer’s art. ‘Zur Dentung der symbolisch…
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Consequently, the view that all the symbolical actions mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel were literally performed, fails again to find any support from Klostermann’s hypothesis about the con- dition of the prophet’s health. On the contrary, in 374-26 24%-27 and 448 he is only represented as the subject of a symbolical a…
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i, CosmoGony.—(A) Creation of the world.—(1) From the earliest times from which we possess Egyptian religious texts down to the period when the ancient polytheism gave way to the Christian faith, the relation between Divinity and humanity was thought of by the inhabitants of the Nile valley as reciprocally conditioned.…
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178 RELIGION OF EGYPT been the fashion to attribute to this people now an obscure monotheism, now a professedly pro- found but in reality perfectly unintelligible pan- theism, or some other religious system, and to support such pretensions by sentences of the in- scriptions torn from their context. From the oint of v…
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The goddess of heaven is for the most part thought of as a woman, but at times also as a cow— two forms which from the point of view of Egyptian mythology are really identical. For in the Nile valley in general the only purpose served by the goddess is to be the mother and nurse of the future god. The natural symbol fo…
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Alongside of the myth of the great cackler which in the form of a goose lays the sun-ege, runs another, according to which the sun- and also the moon-egg are fashioned by a deity upon the potter’s wheel, a process in which it ig especially the by- form of the god of Memphis, Ptah-Tatunen (relief at Phils, in Rosellini’…
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It was not only gods that originated from a primeval deity by the instrumentality of Onani ; men also were formed in the same way. In the tomb of Seti 1., founded c. 1850 B.c., there are portrayed (Leps. Denkm. iii. 136°) the four races of men, which, according to the Egyptian view, peopled the earth, and which are ch…
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For the most part, the king is satistied with one god as his father; but at times a step further is taken, and the Pharaoh claims a plurality of heavenly fathers. Thus Ramses II. makes. the gods of Egypt declare that they had generated him as their son and heir, while the goddesses tell how they nursed and brought him …
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The god who, above all, created by means of words, was Thoth; who appears sometimes, as at Hermopolis, the principal seat of his worship in Upper Egypt, as exercising this function on his own initiative, at other times as acting as the instrument of the creator proper, for whom he speaks. This was a réle to which he wa…
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The myth itself relates how the sun-god Ra ruled over gods and men. But men observed that he had grown old, his bones had turned into silver, his joints into gold, and his hair into lapis-lazuli. When Ra noticed how men were thus inclined towards rebellion, he secretly summoned the rest of the gods to Heliopolis to tak…
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y Mont (Ment), the god of the ancient metropolis Hermonthis. With the advance of Thebes and the growing importance of its temple of Amon, the latter became from the 12th dynasty onwards the principal deity. But as the power of Thebes waned more and more during the Saitic period, the prestige of its god also sank in the…
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In the time of the early dynasties, whose power was concentrated in Upper Egypt, and which, it would appear, succeeded only gradually in con- quering the Delta, Ra plays no considerable réle. Even under the 4th dynasty, which had its resi- dence at Memphis, not far from Heliopolis, he is still quite in the background. …
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(B) List of gods:—1. NATIVE EGYPTIAN DEITIES.—Ra is the god of the sun, who, conceived of as a man, or as a man with a hawk’s head, guides the heavenly bodies, creates new life by his rays, and thus blesses mankind, although at times he also shoots forth consuming fire (his eye is the goddess Sechet, cf. above, p. 182)…
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Amon of Thebes was presumably at first a god of the reproductive natural force which generates animals and plants, as were his neighbour gods, Ment of Hermonthis and Min of Koptos. The three names probably go back to the root men (=‘stand’), the allusion being to the erected phallus. At a later period Amon blends more …
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Ptah (Gr. 0a) was the god of Memphis, and, 186 RELIGION OF EGYPT RELIGION OF EGYPT oP ae a ee as such, well known to the Greeks, who for un- known reasons call him Hephestos. Herodotus visited and described his temple (Herod. ii. 99, 101, 121,176). Ptah appears in mummy form, swathed, with only the head free; the f…
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(a) From the Libyans the Egyptians, in invading their future settlements, presumably borrowed the goddesses Neith and Bast, who at the beginning of Egyptian history play a considerable part, then recede entirely, and come forward once more in the Saitic period (from B.C. 700 onwards). Bast appears pre-eminently as the…
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Reshpu, the Pheenician Reseph, carries a lance, exhibits Semitic features, and makes his appear- ance frequently upon steles belonging to the flourishing period of Egyptian history. ' Astarte was worshipped in several Egyptian temples. The most frequently mentioned is her shrine at Memphis, which existed down to the …
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When in invocations a god appears with different by-names, as for instance Amon-Ra the king of the gods, side by side with Amon-Ra the lord of the throne of the world, our first impulse is to find here two titles of one and the same god, and we shall thus do justice upon the whole to the notion of the worshipper. But w…
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The proper moon-god Aah gradually passed into the god Thoth, and, even when he is not exactly amalgamated with the latter, he is depicted simi- larly to him. In later times he is further attached also to Osiris. In the case of Thoth it is probable that, at least in some localities, we have in him an actual moon-god who…
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In the train of the Nile appear a number of forms which embody the blessings dispensed by him. Thus we have the god of provisions, Ka (not to be confounded with the soul-form a), who is also called the father of the gods; the gods Hu, T’efa, and Resef, which stand for abundance and nourishment; the goddess of corn, Nep…
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The Sphinx, a lion with human head, was an embodiment of Ra-Harmachis, who is represented in this manifestation-form by the great Sphinx of Gizeh. The Sphinx, further, represents more generally the form assumed by various deities RELIGION OF EGYPT when they descend to the earth as watchers. The figures representing s…
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(hk) There were also certain buildings, temples, pyramids, and the like, that were temporarily peated as divinities to whom veneration was ue. (5) DEIFIED ABSTRACT NOTIONS.—These hold a special place in the list of Egyptian objects of veneration. It would be a mistake to look upon such deification as tle result of pr…
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some of them are mentioned not infrequently | from the time of the 20th dynasty (publ. in 192 RELIGION OF EGYPT Hieratische Papyr. aus der Kénigl. Mus. zu Berlin, i., Leipzig, 1896-1901) ; cf. Lemm, Ritwal- buch des Ammondienstes, Leipzig, 1882 ; and Moret, Le rituel du culte divin journalier en Egypte, Paris, 1902. …
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The object of all these acts was to clothe and to purify the god. The latter point was considered important, because the Egyptians in all matters of religion laid special stress upon bodily cleanness. Washings of every kind were required before any sacred transaction; even the gods must wash them- selves repeatedly if …
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EXTRA VOL.—1I3 RELIGION OF EGYPT 193 shape it left the body as it grew cold in death, and flew upwards. © On reaching heaven, the soul dwelt in the com- pany of the gods and of the souls that had arrived there before it. How a place was assigned it here is a question on which the Egyptians in general do not appear t…
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(4) Lhe Osirian doctrine of immortality.—We have already noticed in the preceding pages a con- siderable number of Egyptian conceptions of the future life. In this matter there was no uniform RELIGION OF EGYPT — system of belief in the Nile valley. It appears to have been a generally accepted dogma that man’s life e…
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In addition to the embalming of the god, we hear of the reconstruction of his body. This con- nects itself with the erecting of his spinal column, and a festival in its honour was held on the 30th of Choiak especially at Busiris in Lower Egypt. Finally, side by side with this there lingers on till the latest times the …
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(a) The doctrine of immortality attached to the name of Osiris is the best known to us of all the Egyptian conceptions of the future life. To it is devoted the so-called Book of the Dead, whose oldest texts date from the Middle Empire (cf. Lepsius, Aelteste Texte des Todtenbuchs, Berlin, 1867; Birch, Egyptian Texts of …
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As experience proved more and more that mum- mies did not leave the sepulchres, a distinction was drawn between the mummy (cha) and the Osiris; the former remained in. the coffin, the latter passed to the Plain of Aalu. All the same, however, the two were thought of as essen- tially identical. The mummy was equipped fo…
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LitEraturs.—Jablonski, Pantheon Aegyptiorum, Frankfort, 1750-1752 (the best collection of the passages from the classical writers, the most important of which are those found in Plutarch’s de Iside et Osiride [good edition by Parthey, Berlin, 1850]). || Champollion’s Panthéon Egyptien, Paris, 1823-1881, and Wilkinson’s…
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ii. WorkKs.—Philo’s collected works have ap- peared in several editions, of which that of Thomas Mangey is still the standard. This edition, how- ever, published in 1742, is neither sufficiently com- plete nor sufficiently accurate, and will be super- seded by that of Cohn and Wendland, of which four volumes have appea…
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3. There are several historical treatises, which were complete in themselves. 4. de Vita Mosis, originally in two, but now arranged in three books. *The first number refers to the section in Richter and Tauchnitz; the subsequent figures to the volume and page of Mangey. PHILO 2. A work called “frodericd, of which o…
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Notwithstanding his apparent narrowness of view and rigid seripturalism, Philo was far from limiting his sympathies to the Jewish nation. The man who conformed to the Law was, he conceived, a citizen of the world. He himself attended the theatre as well as lectures on philosophy, and was a shrewd observer of the habits…
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3. Philo’s theory of the universe.—Notwithstand- ing his depreciation of physics, Philo believed that the invisible could be entered only through the door of the visible cosmos, and he was fairly familiar with the science of his day. In order to understand some of his speculations, it is necessary to know in what sort …
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4. Man as the microcosm.—From the macrocosm we pass to the microcosm, man, considering him at present simply as a natural object. He combines in himself the powers which we have already en- countered, éxrixy, purex}, Yuxix4, and adds to these Aoyex and diavoyrixy. It is accordingly from the study of man that we derive…
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5. The doctrine of God as eternal Being.—(a) The belief in the ewistence of one supreme God was fundamental in the Jewish religion. In the world of speculation, however, this was opposed by athe- istic and pantheistic hypotheses, and it wag there- fore necessary to support the belief by philosophical arguments. The mi…
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(c) There is, then, no contradiction in ascribing attributes to Him whose uncompounded essence is so inscrutable. He is eternal, incorruptible, and immutable, and thus differentiated in the most absolute way from every thing created. Hence He is not only the one only God, but He is the indi- visible, archetypal unity, …
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204 PHILO PHILO when He wished to fabricate this visible cosmos, first shaped forth the intelligible, in order that, using an immaterial and most Godlike pattern, He might work out the material cosmos, a more recent copy of an older one, destined to contain as many perceptible genera as there were intelli- gible in t…
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(c) What, then, is the function of the powers? They are not intended, as is so often said, to act as personal agents who can take the place of God in all mundane affairs, but to present to our thought the mode in which we may conceive of the Eternal Mind as acting in time and space; or, in other words, they are not mea…
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(6) We have already seen that the cosmos pre- sented a picture of rational forms or ideas; and, as these were combined in one harmonious whole, they constituted one cosmic thought. This thought was the highest genus, under which the multitu- dinous ideas took rank as species; or, more strictly, God, as pure Being, was …
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(f) Philo, following the Old Testament, fre- quently refers to Wisdom. In many passages this is identified with the Logos. In others the two terms are distinguished ; and it is a little perplex- ing to find that their mutual relations are inverted, Wisdom being the fountain of the Logos, and the Logos being the fountai…
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PHILO ee —( sis‘ ‘; PHILO 207 ST ee incorporeal power, and that ordinary men eat showers of angels. The Scripture is accustomed to describe heavenly visitations under the name of angels; but these, when applied to the various characters represented by the persons whom they visited, symbolize the Divine thoughts, pr…
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iv. PHILO’s INFLUENCE ON CHRISTIAN WRITERS. —The interest which is felt by Christian theologians in the writings of Philo is due not only to the light which they throw on Hellenistic thought in the time of Christ, but still more to the wide influence which they exerted on the development of Christian theology. The begi…
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him the rules of allegorical interpretation, and are dependent on him in some of their important doc- trinal statements. Eusebius frequently quotes him, and borrows his doctrines and interpretations; and he was read even in the West, for Ambrose makes ample use of him, and sometimes transfers his very words, in a Latin…
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Evidence of Readings.’ 70. The relation of B to other primary authorities. 71-76. The relation of x to B. 77-81. 8 and B in relation to the oldest forms of the Latin and Syriac Versions, especially k and Syr-sin. 82. The value of 8B in opposition to Syriac and Latin evidence combined. 83 f. Conclusion. i, OBJECT.—…
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t See The Teatual Controversy and the Twentieth Century, by Edward Miller, M.A., p. 24: ‘Thus I submit my case to all the learned in Christendom. When I speak of the Traditional Text, Imean that recension of the Received Text which shall ulti- mately be settled by the voice of Christendom upon an ex- haustive examinati…
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It is strange, and not a little sad, that after nearly two centuries of discussion there should as yet be no general agreement among textual critics on the fundamental principles or even the methods of their science. Yet so it is. Critics have from the first been divided into two main schools—the ‘Traditional’ and the …
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* As this distinction is of primary importance in estimating the weight to be attached to a document, and as beginners in Textual Criticism sometimes find a difficulty in understanding it, it may be worth while to explain that the ‘date of a docu- ment’ is, strictly speaking, the date at which it was written, and, when…
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On the other hand, we are bound to make allow- ance for an undeniable tendency towards the assi- milation of parallel passages—a tendency which must have acted with growing intensity as the comparative study of the Gospels developed (as it did very early), and especially in a country which possessed a popular ‘Harmony’…
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In the interests of ‘true history’ and ‘sound logic’ we must remember that the foundations of the Critical position were laid, not only long before 8 was discovered, but even while the read- ings of B were almost entirely unknown. It must, no doubt, have given B a peculiar interest in the eyes of Griesbach when he fou…
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_ The fact to which we allude is in itself so strik- ing an evidence both of the phenomenon to which we wish to call attention, and of the insight of the scholar who alone in our generation seems to have mastered the textual problems presented by Patristic citations, that we venture to transcribe in full the account wh…
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In other words, ‘we entirely traverse’ a state- ment, which has express reference to one element in the Traditional Text, by asserting propositions which have never been denied with regard to the other elements which on any hypothesis are recog- nizable in its composition. It would have been simpler to deny altogether …
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On this reading see Hort, Appendix, p. 132 ff. Note especially the evidence of theVersions, (12) 1 Ti 4? &v dydary a év ricrer, SACD,G, cu? verss: Clem Chr. év ay. é&v mvetuare ev 1., +c. Yell. Insertion awkward; 1 Co 47, 2 Co 68 no parallels. Prob, from Col 18. (13) 1 Ti 4% davepa 7 raow, NACD,*G, cu? verss. gay.…
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21. The next point of interest is the distribution of support on the different sides on the part of Fathers and Versions.* : In the Patristic evidence the result is remark- able. Taking the whole number of passages (25), ante-Nicene evidence is quoted against the ‘Syrian’ s with many cursives: * We have taken the ev…
909 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical reference work (1898–1905); OCR text from Internet Archive. Historical scholarship and terminology reflect its era; OCR may contain errors. Verify quotations and current scholarly claims independently.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.