HOSANNA
HOSEA
410
David, Oh save' ; or, by arbitrarily chanfriiig vlf to vU, 'U Son of David, save.' Otiiers, resorting to the secondary sense of Husnniia, have taken the sliout to mean ' Triuuiplial palms to the Son of David' (of. Syr. I'hilox.). Tlie phrase 'in the highest' also has been made to signify '() thou tliat dwcUest in tlie heavens,' or ' .May our cry be ratitied in lieaven,' or • talten up by tlie angels,' etc. Tlie inappro|)riatene.ss of finding an eelio of the psalmist's supplication in the Hosanna of the (iospels is made only the more evident by adducing the ceremonies of tlie Feast of Tabernacles. Kor that feast occurred in the autumn ; the triumjihal entry in the .spring. Consequently, .some critic's (e.tj. Wliiische, Erldiitcrunr/ dcr Ecunij. «!/.< Tul- inml n. ilidrafrli. p. 241 n.) have felt comijelled to assume tl.at the IV-wover ami the Feast of Taber- nacles have been confounded in the Gospels, or that a u.sage of the latter festival has been arbiirarily transferred to the former. Nor is the dilKi-ulty relieved by the fact that shouts of joy and waving of palms had become usual at the Feast of Dedica- tion as well as at the Feast of Tabernacles (2 Mac 10'' ■). For as the Feast of Dedication occurreil only two months later than the Feast of Taber- nacles (cf. .In 10--), the chronological discord is thereby only slightly abated.
This extension of the jubilant usages of the Feast of Tabernacles, however, does seem to point in the right direction, and to set us free to follow the i)laiii contextual indications of the evangeli.sts' narrative. According to those indications, it is most natural to regard the word Ilosaiiiia, as re.spects its form, as neither syncopateil nor con- tracted, but the shorter Hipliil imperative with the appended enclitic {"fi'^^'; cf. I's 80-, JerSl"). For this form there is distinct Talnmdic warrant (Dalmaii, (iritmmatik di's jililiscli-pulant. Am- )iiiii.icli. p. l!)ti ; Levy, Xeulihr. it. cluiUl. Wi'irlcr- liwli, i. 401 ; Schindler, /.i:rico)i I'enltujhit. cd. 10.>5, col. blO). As respects its force, we must, for the same contextual reiUson.s, assume that it had already lost its ])rimary supplicatory sense and become an ejaculation of joy or shout of welcome. Aa a quaint writer somewhat plumply ]nns the matter, "It was a kind of linlij hurrah' ; and the ' llo.sanna in the highest' correspcjnded roughly to our 'three times three.' Cf. the analogous tlreck and Ifonian exclamations ''Iij Traidi',' ' lo IriMinphe, terque ([ualeniue.' The waving of palms, etc., ami strewing of the way with garments and branches find abundant precedents in ancient us.age, including the Jewish: 2 Mac 10"-' 14<, 1 Mac l:!"', 2 K !)'» ; Jos. Ant. XIII. xiii. 5; see Wetstein, .Vol'. Te.st. Oner. i. 400 f. ; Keim, .Ash viin Xiiz. iii. H» n. 4 (Kng. trans, v. 107 n. 2) ; Schoeltgen, lIiiriK Il-lir. etc. on Mt 21". The general use of the palm among the Jews or. joyous occasions is attested by extant coins : F. W. Madden, C(iiii.i of the .frwn, I.ond. 1881, p. 7;5.
I'his ejaculatory interpretation of l/nsanna tinds some continuation in the post-l)iblical history of the word. Xot without signilicance is the circum- stance that <lown to quile modern limes it was simply transliterated in versions of Scripture, not Ininsiated. The .Xnglo-Saxon vei-sions seem to lie the tir.st to render it 'Hail' (.see S. C. Malan, The (iDsp. of St. John tr<ins. from the elereu olih'st rrr.siiinn, etc., 1802; J. Uosworth, (t'othir ami Aiiijlo-Saron (tn.ippli. 18(>5). Yet Cia.sca in his Latin version of the .\raliic text of Tatian's Har- mony renders it I.iiii.t, (llnriii. and the .\rmi'nian Vulgate, Illin.iimi (see Mill, .V. /Cphniiiti'n t.'uspil (••imuinitdnj, 18!K!, p. H()>. The Didiirhf (10. 0) and the Aixi.itnlir ('unsliliilinn.i (8. 12, al. 13, p. 2rill, 17, I'd. Lagarde ; cf. 7. 20, p. 200, 20) attest its early liturgical use in churches of heathen origin ; compare it.s doxological u.se, toi>, in the
•• *'oi>vri<ini. n»yvi. Of/
account by Hegesippus (in Euseb. IlE II. xxiii. 14) of the martyrdom of James the brother of the Lord. Although it is correctly interpreted (o-iio-oi 5jj) in tlie (iimpH of Nicudemux, ch. i. (ed. Thilo, p. 510 ft. ; Gesla Pilati, A. c. i.4, p. 210, ed. Tdf.), yet even Clement of Alex. (I'a'daij. I. v. 12) says it is eciuivalent in Greek to ^ut Kal MJo Kal aii-ot, and the diversity of opinion on this iioiiit in intelligent Christian circles appears sullicienlly in the correspondence between Damasus and .Jerome referred to above. By the lOtli cent, so thoroughly has its etymological meaning become ob.scured that Suidas or his annotator (see (jaisford"s ed. vol. ii. col. 2704 b) can define it elfi-qurt xoi oAfa, an<l add, 'Some say it signities aCxrov 6i) ; inrnrrerthi.' Especially instructive are the comments of Augus- tine (in his Dorlrina Christiana, ii. 1 1, Migne, xxxiv. col. 42, and Tract, in Jnhan. Ii. 2, Migne, xxxv. col. 1704) : he s.ays explicitly tli.at the wind is nothing more than an interjection of admiring joy, a term expressing an emotional mood, not a con- nected thought ; and he contrasts it with ' Amen ' and ' Hallelujah.' the intrinsic meaning of which evidently in his day still clung to tliem. The contnist he draws finds illustration in pseudo- .Justin in the fith cent, in his Besponsio ad QiKCit. .')0 (Otto, Corp. apol. chrint. ed. 3, vol. v. p. 74), where ' Hallelujah ' is correctly interpreted ' Sing praise to the Eternal,' but 'Hosanna' is said to mean 'Transcendent majesty.' The practice of employing the phrase ' Hosanna in the highest' as a glad greeting — deprecated by Jerome on Mt 21''' {bpp. vii. col. 152, Migne. I'atrol. /.at. xxvi.) — ajipears as late as .v.l>. 570, in the Itinerary of Antoninus (ed. Gildemeister, Berlin, 1889, § 40). '