Examples of this direct course, showing that it
was regarded as quite usual, are—(l) the Alex- andrian corn-ship (Ac 27%) for Rome, which St. Paul found in Myra, Ac 275 ; (2) an ideal voyage, founded, of course, on contemporary facts, is a6. scribed in Lucian’s Navigium s. Vota.: an Italian corn-ship, sailing from Alexandria, sighted Akamas on the seventh day, but the strength of the west wind prevented it from clearing the cape, and it had to run for the Syrian coast (Cyprus offering no harbours, but only open roadsteads); in ten days from Sidon the ship reached the Khelidonian Islands east from Myra (compare St. Paul’s fif- teen days, according to the Western Text, from Cesarea to Myra), and afterwards it failed to keep the proper course in shelter south of Crete * (Ac 277), and ultimately on the seventieth day from Alexandria took refuge in the harbour of Pireus, where its great size attracted man visitors, and gave the cr for Lucians Dialogue; (3) Gregor azianzen, sailing from Alexandria direct for Greece, ran across the Par- thenic Sea (the Levant, defined by Ammianus xxii. 15, 2, as another name for the Issiac Sea), till he came near Cyprus, ‘ and under Cyprus cut the wave in a prety course for Hellas’ (Carmen de vita sua 128 ff., Orat. xviii. 31); he set sail in November, and apparently took twenty days to Rhodes (Carmen eA rebus suis 312).
The maritime importance of Myra continued into the Middle Ages. Tomaschek quotes from the pilgrim S#wulf the description of it as portus Adriatici (i.e. the eastern half of the Mediter- ranean, compare Ac 27”) maris, sicut Constanti- nopolis est portus Aigei maris.t The town by the harbour, strictly speaking, was Andriake, while Myra was 20 stadia or 24 miles inland ; but com- monly the port town is called Myra. It was a well-protected harbour ; but storms in the neigh- bourhood are mentioned, such as that which destroyed the Arab fleets in A.D. 807 (Theophanes, p- 483, de Boor); compare others mentioned in Acta 5. Nicolai (under Constantine), and in Lucian’s Navigium at the Khelidonian Islands.
As Myra was at one end of an unusually long sea-course, the sailors paid and discharged their vows there to the deity that protected their course. The ancient name of this deity is not known: Tozer, in a note to Finlay’s History of Greece, i. P: 124, suggests Poseidon. The Christians put in
is place St. Nicolas, who was bishop of Myra under Constantine; and that saint became the great sailors’ patron for the Levant, as St. Phocas of Sinope was for the Euxine. According to the story, Nicolas was born at Patara and buried at Myra; and the pilgrim Sewulf touched at these two ports on his return from the Holy Land, just as St. Paul did in the Western Text of Ac 21}
See the descriptions in Benndort Lykia, Spratt and Forbes, Beaufort, Fellows, Leake, Texier, etc.; Tomaschek Historische Topographie von Kleinasien im Mittelalter (Wien. Akad. Sitzungsber. 1891); Ramsay St. Paul the Trav. pp. 298, 319.
ΕΜ: RAMSAY.
MYRRH.—Two words in Heb. are rendered in AV ‘myrrh.’ 1. “Ὁ mér. The LXX tr. it vari- ously: σμύρνα (Ex 30% ete.), κρόκινος (Pr 7!” B), στακτή (Ca 18 ete.). The Arabs call it murr. It is a gum resin from Balsamodendron Myrrha, Nees, a shrubby tree, which grows in Yemen and the adjacent regions of Africa. The leaves are ternate, with obovate, obtuse leaflets, denticulate at tip, and the fruit ovate, smooth, somewhat larger than a pea. Murr occurs in pieces ot irregular form, composed of more or less agglu- tinated tears, usually covered with the dust caused by their attrition. The colour varies from pale reddish-yellow to red or reddish-brown. ‘The
* Du τὴν Κρήτην δεξιὰν λαβόντας, κ.τ.λ., Lucian, lc t The same passage is referred to in vol. ii. p. 449.
MYRTLE
MYSTERY
odour is balsamic, and the taste bitter and acrid. Myrrh is astringent, stimulant, and antiseptic. It is used in medicine as an astringent and emmena-
fogue, and its powder is an ingredient of many entifrices. The tincture is used in gargles, and the powder as a stimulant to foul and indolent ulcers. It was one of the pee of the Magi (Mt 24). It was used as a per e (Ps 458, Pr 7", Ca V8 5°), for the purification of women (Est 2”), for. embalming (Jn 1939), and as an anodyne (Mk 15%),
2. οὖ lét, στακτή, stacte. This Heb. word is the same as the Arab. /édhan or ladhdn, and the Gr. λήδανον or Addavov, Lat. ladanum or labdanum. This is a resinous exudation of various species of Cistus (‘rock rose’), particularly C. villosus, L., which grows abundantly along the coast and in the mountains of Syria and Palestine. It is a low shrub, of the order Cistine, with pink, rose- like flowers, in umbel-like cymes. The leaves are elliptical to obovate-oblong, and more or less wavy. A drink like tea is made from the somewhat aromatic leaves. The exudation is sometimes collected from the beards of goats. In eyes men with leathern breeches go through the lad- anum thickets, and the resin which adheres to their garments is scraped off and moulded into rolls. It is also collected by a kind of rake or whip, with a double row of leather thongs. It has rubefacient properties, and was formerly a con- stituent of warming plasters. Ldé¢ is mentioned only twice (Gn 37% AV and RV text ‘myrrh,’ RVm ‘ladanum,’ 43" AV and RV ‘myrrh’). Στακτή is mentioned in Sir 24%, The Turks still value it as a perfume. G. E. Post.