EZRI ("^ii). — David's superintendent of agri- culture (1 Ch 21^).
EZRIL (B 'EfpefX, A -<-, AV Esril), 1 Es »" ; AzAREL in Ezr 10".
* On the value o( these books, see Byle, Ezra and J/A. Introd. 1 11.
FADLE
FACT
825
F
FABLE is nsnally defined (with Dr. Johnson in his lite of Gaj') to be ' a narrative in which beings, ii rational and sometimes inanimate, are, for tlie purposes of moral instruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions ' ; and hence, as such beings do not present analogies to man in the spiritual region, it dillers from other tropes (see ALLEGORY) in that its lessons are con- tin«?d to the sphere of practical worldly prudence. Accepting this prevailing usage, we lind (and the rarity is not surprising) but two instances of fable in sacred literature: (1) Jotham's fable of the trees choosing their king (Jg 9"-") ; and (2) the fable of the thistle and the cedar of Lebanon, in the answer of Jehoash to Amaziah (2 K 14'). In neitlier of these cases, however, is the story de- scribed by any appellation. Indeed the word fable does not occur in the canonical OT, nor is liiSot (its Apocr. and NT equivalent) certainly found in the LXX, except in Sir 20" ('a man without grace is as a tale out of sea.son '), where in the next verse irapoySoX?) appeals as the parallel, ' a wise saw.' The compound ^ufliXoyos, author of fables, is used in Bar 3" ; and here the parallel, searcher out of understanding, suggests a similar interpretation. Accordingly, we may conclude that the nearest approach in the OT to the idea of titdoi is found in viushal, the dark saying, parable, proverb, adage, in which Orientals clothed their deeper thoughts (Ps 49^ 78^ Ezk 17^), and which sometimes appears to stand for a warning example (Jer 24' [JuJali] ' a reproach and a, proverb' wafa- poMi, LXX). This does not dill'er materially from the Homeric and almost purely poetical use of fiOOo!, — found once or twice also in Plato, — from which the connotation of truth had not yet been entirely banished.
But in Greek prose, as a rule, and even occa- sionally in poetry as early as that of Pindar (0. I. 47, N. 7. 34), iiuBot was the Latin fabula, con- noting fction, sometimes (in opposition to i-Xdff/ia) spontaneously growing, as, in religious tradition, the mi/th of god or hero (Plato, Legg. 9. 865 D) ; sometimes deliberately composed, like ..^i^sop's Fables (Plato, Ph<r.d. 60 C), and then opposed to X(i70!, the historic story, or to dXTjffeia, actual fact (Plato, Phaid. 61 B ; Aristot. Jlist. An. 9. 12). It is to this usage that the NT livBos allies itself (1 Ti 1* 4', 2 Ti 4*, Tit 1", 2 P 1").
In 2 P 1" the word apparently bears the genera] sense olfction, ' what we tell you aa to the power and coming of the Lord is not cunningly devised fiction, but sober truth.' But the fables referred to in the Pastoral Epp. as already endangering the soundness of the faith and the health of the churches in Kphesus and Crete, are of a special kind. They are ' Jewish ' (Tit 1") ; they are ' pro- fane and anile' 1 Ti 4' (cf. Plat. Rep. 1. 350); they are connected with genealogies, 1 Ti 1* (cf. Plato, Tim. 22 A, as to the otVspring of Deucalion and Pyrrha), with fghlings about the law (Tit 3") and with commandments of men (Tit 1"). The two last expressions and tne epithet Jewish find some explanation in the rigid asceticism of abstaining from meats and forbidding to marry (I Ti 4*), which was doubtless founded upon Jewish law, and was a characteristic of tliat side of Gnosticism which was afraid of matter, even as licence (Tit l"*- ") was the characteristic of that other side which alTected to despise its power ; the ' genealogiea ' remind us of the worship of angels
at Colossre (Col 2"), and the Gnosticism which bridged the gulf between God and the world by means of angelic intermediaries generated from the pleroma and from one another ; and when we read al.so elsewhere in these epistles of the ' gnosis falsely so-called ' (1 Ti 6-°), of the ' resurrection past already ' (2 Ti 2'*), of the ' enchanters ' (2 Ti 3"), and of the 'doctrines of demons' (1 Ti 4'), we are irresistibly drawn towards the belief that the fables of these epistles are closely akin to the teachings of Ophite Gnosticism — that earliest Gnosticism of Asia Minor, which was a strikingly similar mixture of Jewish and heathen speculation, ritual, and practice. See Gnosticism.
LiTERATORB. — Crcnier, Bib.-Theol. Lex. g. fx.vDei and yiuo^Xeyiet ; Trench, Parables, p. 2 ; Goebel, Parables of Jetnts, Off.; Moore, Judtjet, 24411.; Eticyc. Brit.^ and Smith, DB!^ s.v. ; and see Allkooky ; on the ' fables' of Past. Epp. see Lightfoot, Biblical Essuj/s, p. 411 ff. ; (on the other side— tiiat the heresy is simply Judaistic — Uort, Judaistxc Christianity, Lect. 7).
J. Massib.
FACE is AV tr. of 1. in, for which RV in several instances substitutes more exact renderings, such as 'nose' (Gn 24"), 'nostrils' (Ezk 38'8). 2. py, lit. 'eye' {e.g. Ex 10»- ", Nu 22» 'the face of the earth '). Rv rightly gives ' eyes ' instead of ' face ' in 1 K 20^- ■", 2 K 9^, Jer 4*'. 3, d-js very fre- quent both in a lit. and a metaphorical sense {e.g. '19 ^11 ' upon the face of '). The shewbread (see Bread, p. SIS'*) was called d-ij onS, lit. 'bread of the face, i.e. presence' (see next paragraph). With a personal pronoun ' my (thy, his, etc. ) face ' may be simply a circumlocution for ' me (thee, him,' etc.). Hence the substitution by RV of ' them ' for ' their face ' in Ex 14'", and of ' thee' for ' thy face ' in Gn 30**, Dt 9» 28'. Conversely, in Jer 17'' AV has ' thee ' and UV ' thy face.'