The ' valley of Sorek ' oilers an easy and natural line of approach to Jerus. and the highlands of Judah. I'lie Philistines followed it in the days of t!ie Judges and of David ; up it the kine, lowing as they went, dragged the cart with the ark to Beth-snemesh ; and, at the present day, it is followed by the railway from Jallii to Jerusalem. In or near the basin, according to several authori- ties, were fought the battles in which the ark was taken by the Philistines, and in wliich the Philis- tines were defeated by Samuel (1 S 7).
In Hebrew the word sorek means a particular kind of vine, which produced a purple grape, and ' the valley of Sorek ' may have derived its name from the growth of this vine in the vineyards that covered its slopes (PEF Mem. iii. 53 ; G. A. Smith, ZrC?//i 218 fi". ; Cornier, Tent-Work, i. 172).
C. W. Wilson.
SOSIPATER (Zuff(jraTpos, Sonpater).—\n Ro 16" called a kinsman of St. Paul, i.e. a Jew, and joined with him in greetings at the close of the Epistle. The name is the same as Sopater (Ac 2u'), and the two m.iy be identical, as Jason, another of those mentioned in Ro 16-', may be identical with the Jason of Thessalonica (Ac 17"); two Mace- donian Christians might naturally be with St. Paul at Corinth. The name Sosipater occurs in the well-known inscription of Thessalonica (CIG ii. 1967) giving a list of Politarchs, as also does that of Secunuus [Kc 20-'). For later traditions see Acta Sanctorum, June vol. v., June 25, p. 4.
A. C. Headlam.
SOSITHENES (Swo-Wi-ijs). — A name occurring twice in the NT, but under circumstances which leave it doubtful wliether it denotes one or two persons. 1. In Ac IS", when the Jews at Corinth rose against St. Paul and brought him to the tribunal of Gallio, tlie proconsul of Achaia, and the latter, refusing to be a judge in questions of their law, dismissed them from his bar, we learn that ' they all,' i.e. the bystanders or assembled crowd, ' laid hold on Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment- seat, without interference on the part of Gallio, who, in his indilference to Jewish disputes, gave himself no concern. In the best critical texts the word 'air (Trdi-rts) stands without any defining noun, which has accordingly been supplied by the insertion, in some MSS, of an explanatory gloss, cither ol 'loioafoi, as though the a.ssailants were the Jews, visiting the failure of their comjilaint on the head of their own leader, or oftener and more feasibly ol-EXXT/i-fs, the (predominantly) Greek on- lookers. Sosthenes, described as 'ruler of the synagogue' (which see), was doubtless the chief representative and mouthpiece of the complainants. Ho was probably the successor in oHlce ot Crispus, who had become a convert to Christianity (.\c 18"). The theory of Chrysostom, which identilies him with Crispus, and ascribes his maltreatment to his being a Christian, is wholly arbitrary ; and hardly less so are the conjectures that he had been a
508
SOSTRATUS
SPAIN
collea-ue in 'rule' will. Cri.pus (.ee ' r"l"«' j" the plural, Ac 13'»), or had presided over anuthci
syna;:o^'ue^ 1' Sosthenes stands alongside of St.
Paul in the inscription of the Epi.tle. He ,s s.mply
designated as ' the brother,' whu-h would seen, to
tZfy that his person and CUrisUan standing' ^^e.e
wellhnown to the readers of the letter He has
been often identilied with the synagogal ru er of
Ac 18, who is assumed to have heeomea eon ert m
the interval ; but such an assumption is aibitiaiy,
hen the name was. confessedly, a con.uion one ;
and St Paul's associate was now at Ephesus, not
at Corinth. Many 1-ve assumed hun to be the
apostle's amanuensis in tl'e Eiustle to ^ huh e
appends an autograph salutation ( fa ) , but he
n ust have been something more ll»'i"._f . '»^r«
amanuensis to be thus honouraby co-ordinated in
So^.r-'' '~'°' sarfwa."'
SOSTRATUS (A ZJi-rrparos, V 26,rTpaTos).-The covernur of the citadel (6 Tijs d^•poJ^.\cu>s f'^W' at Jerusalem, who in vain demanded on behalf o Anliochus'Emphanes. the money .^vlu^h Mene. us hadpromisei to pay on being raised to the hi;,h priesthood in place of Jason, 2 Mac 4" *-«'• •
SOTAI C^iD and -.=) -The ^V°'^y"\'>l!',l^fXh 'Solomon's servants, who .^^'urne^ w th Zerub babel, Kzr 2" (B ^arel, A and Luc. 2arral)-.^ell / (BA ioirrel, Luc. Zoiral).
SOUL is throufrhout a great part of/^'e Bible simply the equlva'ient of 'life' eni^^f'"-! '° \\"f, creatures. In the earlier usage of the OT it has no Snce to the later philosophical meaning- the animating principle, still le.ss to the ifea of an • immaterial nature' which will survive the body ■A livin- soul- in Genesis and o her records is Bimi an 'animated being,' and the word ,s ap- plied e.iuallv to the lower animals and to man. ^Vhen tl"e life is emphasized as human, rt signi les life in the individual. This meaning it takes especially when c>rj, ^vx^ is put in contrast with m TT.^cL, 'spirit,' which then comes to signify the principle of life. In this way soul' acquires more precisely the idea of the individual life in man! the Self, the Kgo, although it may denote other aspects of man than the '"tellec ua 1, and in fact, is sometimes ei^i^'H"* t° ''^'V'^ t,'^' xvell as to ' mind ' (see analysis below). In tlie NT the emphasis on the personality becomes most marlced in such sayings of our Lord as Mt 16 , Mk 8»