refused’ (οὐδὲν ἀπόβλητον, RV ‘nothing is to be rejected’), Cf. Lk 45. Rhem. ‘And when the Devil had throwen him into the middes, he went out of him, and hurted him nothing’; also the Annotation to Luke 195 in Rhem. NT, ‘The poore widowes brasse peny was very grateful, because it was al or much of that she had: but the riche man’s pound of his superfluitie, though 1t be good, yet is nothing so grateful.’ In Crusoe, p. 60, efoe uses the word almost as if it were ‘not’: ‘I was nothing near so anxious about my own safety.’ Abbott (Shaks. Gram. p. 46) quotes Henry VI/I. vy. i. 126, ‘I fear nothing, what can be said against me,’ and points out that ‘what’ is not put for ‘which’; ‘nothing’ is equivalent to ‘not at all.’ In the phrase ‘nothing worth’ it is probable that ‘nothing’ is again adverbial, though we have but to transpose the words to find it a substantive. It occurs in Job 24% ‘who will make me a liar, and make my hee nothing worth?’ (dx); Wis 2" ‘That which is feeble is found to be nothing worth’ (ἄχρηστον, RV ‘of no service’); Bar 67 *, Cf. Jn 8% Tind. ‘Jesus answered, Yf I honoure my selfe, myne honoure is nothinge worth’ (οὐδέν ἐστιν, Wyc. ‘is nought,’ other vss ‘is nothing’). J. HAsTINGs.
NOUGHT.—See NAuGHT.
NOVICE.—The word used in 1 Ti 3° to translate the Greek νεόφυτος (neophytes A bishop is to be ‘not a novice, lest being li up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.’ The literal meaning of the word is ‘newly planted.’ The word neophyte became later a technical term, used to describe those who had been recently bap- tized, when they wore during the Liturgy their white baptismal robes, were placed near the altar, and received each day. For other details see Dict. Chr. Ant. ii. 1385. A. Ο. HEADLAM,
NUMBER.—
1. Numbers and Textual Oriticism (jigures). & Numbers and ‘Theology (holy numbers, eymbol numbers, Gematria). Ὁ ‘
The interpreter of Scripture has to look at the numbers which occur in the sacred texts from other points of view besides those that are usually taken account of in grammar (cf. Kénig, Syntax,
Ρ. 310-338). He has to ask whether such num-
rs do not fall within the sphere of Textual Criticism, of Rhetoric, or even of Philosophy and Theology.
1, NUMBERS AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM.—(a) In the only inscription which has been preserved to us from the earlier times of the Hebrews, the Siloam Inscription, which, notwithstanding the objections of Pilcher, is to be dated in all proba- bility from the days of Hezekiah (ef. Expos. Times, 1898, p. 292f.), the numbers are written in full in words : vw and 5>x) p»nxd (lines2, 5). One sees that we have only a very slender basis for conclusions as to the way in which the ancient Hebrews indi- cated numbers in their writing. Certainly, the dog- matic judgment must not be passed that the above was the only mode. On the one hand, no doubt, this view is supported by the circumstance that upon the Moabite Stone also (ef. Socin, ‘zur Mesa- Inschrift’ in Verhandlungen der stichs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1897, ii.) the numbers are written in words : 27v, ete. (lines 2, 8, 16, 20, 28 f.). But, on the other hand, it is to be noted that else- where, even at periods when figures were employed, numbers are notwithstanding indicated frequently
NUMBER
by words. For instance, in the old Aramaic in- scriptions of Zinjirli, we read the numbers ‘yay (Panammu, line 3) and νὸν (WZEKM, 1893, τς 119. It may be noted that the inscription of Bar-Rekub, published by Sachau in Sitzungsb. d. Berl. Akad. 1896, p. 1051 f., contains no numbers). But in the same inscriptions we find also figures, and the same combination of both methods of indicating numbers recurs also ‘on the Assyro-Aramaic lion-weights, where the numbers are expressed first in words and then in symbols’ (W. R. Smith, Academy, 1893, No. 1124, p. 444°). Again, in the S. Arabian inscriptions the numbers are partly written in full and partly indicated by figures, e.g. ‘nyanN) yay, ete., in Halévy, No, 199 (Pritorius, ZDMG xxvi. 748). The Phenicians also employed both words fully written and figures, e.g. | II] -* ya. oy in the Eshmunazar inscription (CJS i. 14); 1} pwr, in an inscription of Citium (% 36), and the same dittography is found in an inscription of Idalium (i. 102, cf. 151), II paw (p. 183), Il ΠῚ 1Π] 30%, ete. (pp. 109f., 225). Nay, there are Pheenician inscrip- tions in which the numbers are written only in words: whe (p. 203), ono von, ete. (in a Spanish inscription, No. 166, p. 245), nd (twice in one in- scription, p. 264). The Siloam Inscription may be an stance of an inscription of this kind. This Sealgened must be conceded the more that S.
inach also remarks, in his Traité d’épigraphie grecque (1885, p. 219), ‘at all periods the inscrip- tions furnish instances, rather rare no doubt, of figures [read ‘ numbers’] expressed at length in 8; 6.0. Ταμίαις ἔσοδος ula ἐνενήκοντα λίτραι, K.T.r. (CIG, No. 5640).’
(6) If, then, it is possible that the pre -exilic Hebrews also employed signs for numbers, what kind of figures h they? Of such signs four lead- ing species are known to the present writer :—