18
AGEE
AGRICULTURE
The refreshment of the brook makes men think of the fountainhead. Hence in Israel the akedia of Ecclesiastes on account of the omnipresent past ; and in heathenism the inscription of religious despair, 'To the unknown god,' and the unrest that urged phUosophy to 'some new thing' (Ac 17^).
The Bible witnesses throughout to this vital relationsliip between the new and the old ; for its last scene is a repetition of the first — the new creature stepping into the new heavens and new earth, and m the eternal service behind the veil new notes are heard in the song of Moses and the Lamb. As long as the power of vision remains limited, it is essential to the sublime that some- thing of blue haze and boundlessness should lie on the horizon both of life and landscape.
G. M. Mackie.
AOEE (k3n). — The father of Shammah, one of • the Three ' (2 S 23"). We should prob. read ' the Hararite ' here in conformity with v." and 1 Ch 11", the Jonathan of v." (as emended) being the grandson of Agee. Wellhausen, however, prefers the reading ' Shage ' ( 1 Ch 1 1**) to ' Shammah ' of 2 S 23'', and would restore ' Shage ' here for ' Agee ' ; on this view, Jonathan (v.**) would be the brother of Shammah. J. F. Stenning.
AGGABA (A B" °»- 'A77o(9d, B om., AV Graba), 1 Es 5=».— In Ezr 2» Hagabah, Neh T** Hagaba. The source of the AV form is doubtful.
AGGAEUS (AV Aggens), 1 Es 6> 7^ 2 Es 1« for Haggai (which see).
AGIA (•A7<i, AV Hagia), 1 Ea 6^*.— In Ezr 2",
Neh T" HattU.
AGONE.— 1 S 30" 'Three days agone I fell sick.' This is the earlier form of the past part, of the verb agan or agon, ' to pass by,' or ' go on.' Only the part, is found after 1300, and alter Caxton's day this longer form gradually gave place to ago. Chaucer (Troilv^, ii. 410) says —
•Of this world the feTth la all agon.'
J. Hastings. AGONY. — In the sense of great trouble or distress, agony is used in 2 Mac 3" 'There was no small a. throughout the whole city' (cf. 3"-"). In Canonical Scripture the word is found only in Lk 22** of our Lord's Agony in the Garden. And there it seems to have been introduced by Wyclif directly from the Vulg. agonia, just as the Lat. of the Vulg. waa a transliteration of the Gr. d7aii»(a (on which see Field, Otium Norv. iii., ad loc). Tindale (1534), Cranmer (1539), the Geneva (1557), the Rheims (1582), the AV (1611), and the RV (1881) all have 'an agony' here; Wyclif himself has simply ' agony.' J. HASTINGS.
AGREE TO.— In the sense of assent to,' with a person as object, a. is found in Ac 5" 'To him they a.' trelaBriaiui ainif. In Mk 14" it is used in the obsolete sense of ' agree with ' or ' correspond with,' 'Thou art a Galilaean, and thy speech agreeth thereto' (btuniiet, TR ; RV following edd. omits the clause). J, Hastings.
AGRICULTURE. — Apricnltnre, which in ite wider sen.se enilirnces horticulture, forestry, and the pastoral industry, is here restricted to the art of arable farming — including not only ploughing, hoeing, etc., but reaping and threshmg. As the savage phase has been followed by the pastoral, .so the pastoral has been followed by the A*", in the history o) the progressive peoples. The first important «dvance upon the primitive stage took
the form of the domestication of wild animals, and this, by bringing man into closer and more deliberate contact with the soil, contained the promise of further progress. The domestication of wild plants naturally succeeded, and the neolithic man is knowTi, not only to have reared cattle, goats, and swine, but to have cultivated wheat, barley, and millet, which he ground mth mill- stones and converted into bread or pap.
While the Aryans were still virtually in the pastoral stage, the A*" art was being actively developed in Egypt and Assyria. In the Nile Valley nature bountifully paved the way. The inundations of the Nile create an admirable bed for the seed by reducing the irrigated soil to a ' smooth black paste,' and the monuments exhibit the people as improving from the earliest times their great natural advantages. The early traditions of the Hebrews, on the other hand, were essentially nomadic. The association of Cain with A. (Gn 4) implies a disparagement of the calling. Abraham is represented as a pure nomad. And although, as is indicated in the histories of Isaac (Gn 26'^) and Jacob, the be- ginnings of A. would naturally have a place in the primitive period, it is only after the conquest of Can. that the Jews take rank as an A"^ people ; and even then the tribes of the trans-Jordanic plateau, whose territory was unsuitable for tillage, continued to depend on cattle-rearing.
The agrarian legislation of the Pent, in reference to the settlement of Can. doubtless embodies some ancient laws and customs regulating the tenure of the soil, although other enactments must be regarded as of later origin, or even as the unfulfilled aspirations of the exUic age. To the last class probably belon" the institution of the sabbatical year (Ex 23", Lv 25^), the produce of which, or its ' volunteer ' crop, was reserved for the poor, the stranger, and cattle ; and that of the year of jubilee (Lv 25^), in which the dispossessed heir resumed possession of his ancestral acres. Among the enactments of a greater antiquity and validity may be mentioned the law against the removal of landmarks (Dt 19'*), which was made urgent by the fact that the arable lands, unlike the vine- yards, were not divided by hedges (Is 5').