4. There was a time when Jerome's verdict on the Style of Amos, iniperitus semione, sed non scicntid, was generally acquiesced in. Now, however, it is seen that the Christian Kather was prejudiced by his Jewish teacher, and that the prophet was as little deficient in style as in know- ledge. In point of fact, he is very little inferior to the best OT writers. His language is clear and vigorous ; his sentences are well rounded. His imagery, mainly drawn, as was to be expected, from rural life (threshing-sledges, waggon, harvests, grasshoppers, cattle, birds, lions, fishing), is vivid and telling. He knows how to use the refiain (4), and the poetic lament (5-) ; he is skilful in working up to a tlimax. Two or three solecisms in spelling may well be set down to transcribers. An Eastern shepherd is not necessarily uncultivated, though his culture be not derived from books. This shepherd's outlook was a wide one (1. 2. 9') ; his apprehension of the meaning of events uncommonly clear ; his knowledge born of reflection and the touch of the Divine Spirit.
The boldness of his style was an expression of the boldness of the man and his thoughts. It required no small courage for a Judiean to enter Israelite territory for the express purpose of inter- fering in the religious and social life of the nation, denouncing everything as corrupt, tlirealeiiiiig swift and utter ruin. Nor is that all. No speaker ever ran counter to the most cherished convictions of his auditors more daringly than the prophet who tohl them that the destinies of other nations are as really guided by God as those of His chosen people ; 9' is almost a contradiction of 3'. His courage was derived from his conviction of the reality ami dignity of his mission. When the Lord God hath spoken, the man who hears Him cannot but prophesy. And whoever else may fail to hear, the ]iropliet does not ; he is of the Privy Council (3'- ", cf. Gn 18"). That is the starting-point of Hebrew- prophecy.
LiTKRATCRR. — Oalvln, Prmlect. in Duod. Proph. Min. 1610 ; J. Gerhunli, Adn. Ponth. in Proph. Arnon et Jon. 1670; J. C. U.irenberK, Arnoa Proph. Expoxtt. 1763; L. J. Vh\&nii, Artnot. ad loc. qutvil. Am. 1770; J. 8. Vat«r, Amog ril/erit. n. erkUtrl, 1810 ; JuvTibolI, Difpxitatia de A moso, 182H ; Kw.'ihl, Vie Proph. de$ Alte'n Bundrti, 1H40: HendtTson, Minn/- Prophets, ;s4'i, IS.'^S ; Baur, Dcr Proph. Amog, 1817 ; Gnnilill in Tlie Speaker'i Cmnnu-nffir;/, 187(1; Hitzix-StciniT, 7)i< ZinilJ Kl. Proph. Issl ; W. K. Smith, The Prophet go/ 1 sriieP, 1800; HoITnmiin, 'Vernuflic zu Amos,' in ZA TiV, 1S8;1 ; flunniiijr, De tiotljrj*raken van A oiog, lSS.'i ; iMvidsoti, Kxpositor, .Mar. atui Sept. 1S87 ; Kcil, Die Kl. I'roph. 1S8S; Orclli, IMe Zwol/ Kl. Proph. 18S8(tr. by Dniilis); nachmann, Prtrjiaratiotien ru den lit. Pr. Hoft 3, 1800; Karrar, The Minor PropheU : WellhuuRen. Die Kl. Propti. 1802; Keu88, Dir Prophelen, Bd. ii. of A.T. 1S02; Michflcl, ylin<i» ocertat. 1803; Ililii'b, IHt mehliqften i!ot:e der n a ( Krilik von Staridp. der v. Am. «. //. au* betrachtet, I8!<;l ; i;ulho in KantzKcira A.T. 180-1; Cornill, Der lur. Prt,ph't 180i ; O. A. Kuiilh, The lik. qf the Pvxlix Proplicta, laOC ; Dr ve^
88
AMOZ
AMULETS
Joel and Amo», 1897 ; laat but not least, well deserving to In truistated into Eng., ValetOD, Avwt en Hogea. 1894.
J. Taylor.
AMOZ (pes), father of the prophet Isaiah (2 K 19-, Is 1', etc.), to be carefully distinguished from Amos (oicj;) the prophet. See AMOS (p. 85'' n.)
AMPHIPOLIS ('A/x0(7roXi5). — Amphipolis, men- tioned in Ac 17' as a stage in St. Paul's mission- i'ourney from Philippi to Thessalonica, was a city of ilaeedonia. It was situated on the eastern bank of the river Stryraon, about 3 miles from the sea, closer to which lay its seaport Eion. The river, on leaving Lake Cercinitis, winds in a semi- circle round the base of a terraced hill, on which the town was built, protected by the river on three Bides, and by a wall along the landward chord of the arc. It was, as Thucydides (iv. 102) says, conspicuous (■wipitpavi)!) toward sea and land ; and this is probably the import of its name, ' the all- around (visible) city ' (Classen, in loc, who suggests the parallel of Umbstadt in Upper Hesse). Its importance, already marked by its earlier name 'Nine Ways' ('Ew^a 65o/), made its possession keenly contested, alike on military and mercantile grounds. The Athenians founded a colonj under Hagnon in B.C. 437, which presented a history of chequered fortunes and varied interest, in its surrender to Brasidas, the fight under its walls between Brasidas and Cleon in which both fell, its refusal to submit again to the mother-city, its repeated attempts to assert its independence, till it passed into the pos- session of the Macedonians under Perdiccas and Philip, and eventually into that of the Romans. By these A. was constituted a free city, and made the capital of the first of the four districts into which, in B.C. 167, they divided the province (Liv. xlv. 18. 29). The Via En^iatia passed through it. It was called in the Middle Ages Popolia (Tafel, Thessal. p. 498 f.), and is now represented by a village called Neochori, in Turkish Jenikoei (see plan in Leake, N.G. ii. 191). Zoilus, the carping critic of Homer, was a native, and wrote a history of it in three books (Suidas, s.v.).