VOL. III.—24
MILL, MILLSTONE 36S
this hole the grain to be ground is thrown, and it escapes as flour between the two stones at the circumference, and falls on a smooth sheepskin which is placed under the lower stone. On the surface of the upper stone, near its circumference,
SECTION OF HAND-MILL,
the handle is inserted, which may be of any length, according to the number of hands used in turning it. Small stones are generally turned by one woman, but larger ones may be turned by two, three, or four women.
In ancient times, turning the mill was a work deemed fit only for women and slaves. In Jg 162 Samson was set to grind in the prison. In La 5, rendered in RV ‘the young men bare the mill, and the children stumbled under the wood,’ it should probably be, as in the Arab., ‘They eaused the young men to grind, and the boys stumbled under the wood.’ The poet laments that the young men should be put to so degrading an employment, and that the boys should be put to a work for which they were not able, such as carrying the wood to ie oven for firing the bread which was made from the flour ground by the young men. Hand-mills have no wood about them except the handle and the central pin, which are fixed so that they cannot be taken out. In Lebanon and those parts of Syria where a fall of water can be obtained, large millstones are turned by a hori- zontal water-wheel. The water falls through a
ipe formed of large stones perforated, and at the ower end of this pipe a wooden channel directs the stream against the floats of the wheel. The water-wheel is enclosed in a vault, the roof of which forms the floor of the room in which the millstones are placed. The wooden axle of the wheel passes through the roof of the vault, through the lower millstone, and is fixed to the upper mill- stone, which it turns round. When the wheat is ground into flour it is gathered in the same ner as when the hand-mill is used. This kind of mill is called tahoon. Cf. the Heb. téhén. There is another kind of mill turned by animals, which is called t@hdnet. In Mt 18°, Mk 9" we have μύλος ὀνικός, a millstone turned by an ass. Usually the stones of the mill are of a dark-brown sandstone, and when the stone is soft the flour is full of sand. The upper stone has frequently to be taken off to have its under surface roughened; but when the porous Hauran stone is used, that is not necessary, as the stone in wearing presents new holes, and, consequently, new cutting edges.
The hand-mill being an implement absolutely necessary in a fonseliid it was forbidden to take the upper millstone (229, Arab. mirddt) as security for debt, as that would render the mill useless (Dt 24°).
Mills are used not only for grinding wheat into flour, they are used also for making crushed wheat (burghal). The wheat is first boiled and then dried in the sun, and when put into the mill water is sprinkled upon it to prevent its being ground into flour. he mill is turned slowly. Crushed wheat is used to make a kind of food which is a great favourite with the mountaineers of Lebanon ; it is called kibhby. It is a mixture of crushed wheat (RV ‘bruised corn,’ Pr 27”) and
MILLENNIUM
370
raw mutton beaten together in a mortar for hours, and is generally eaten cooked, but often raw. The grinding of the burghal, or bruised wheat, was a season of rejoicing in Lebanon some years ago. The young men gathered together, and, while the grinding was going on, songs were sung to the accompaniment of musical instruments and a kind of small drum. W. CARSLAW.
MILLENNIUM.—A name suggested by the period or 1000 years described in Rey 20% “7 during which Satan iS confined in the abyss, and the martyr saints reign with Christ. Hence variously under- stood, according to the interpretation put upon the ery either as (1) the period, present or future,
efinite or indefinite, ‘during which the kingdom of Christ will be established upon earth, and will dominate over all other authority’ (Cent. Dict.) ; or more specially (2) as the period in which ἡ Christ will reign in Body prone on earth for a thou- sand years’ (Oxf, Eng. Dict. s. ‘Chiliasm’). In this latter sense it is associated with pre-millenarian views of Christ’s Second Coming, the word Chiliast or Millenarian being usually applied in the pre- millenarian sense (Oxf. Eng. Dict. l.c.; Cent. Dict. * Millenarian’).
That which is characteristic of the doctrine in all its forms is the belief in a period of triumph and blessedness for the saints on earth, preceding and distinct from the final blessedness of the world to come. Such a belief meets us not only in the early Christian eschatology, but also in that of the later Jews, where it was probably due to a combination of the simpler eschatology whose horizon is bounded by this world and the hope of earthly triumph, and a more developed eschatology which distinguishes two worlds or zons, and places the true salvation in tle latter (Schiirer, HJP U. ii. 178). While the term is often used loosely to describe carnal ideals of the future, whether limited in duration or not (as when reference is made to the chiliastic views of the Jews in Christ’s time), it should properly be restricted to those opinions which, making the above distinction be- tween the two ons, hold to a preliminary period of blessedness in the former. Hence those modern millenarians (like Seiss, Zhe Last Times, 211) who identify the Millennium with the world to come, use the term in a sense altogether different from that which we are new discussing.