See also Bag.
Literature. — The Lexicons of Liddell and Scott, and Grimm- Thayer, s.v. ^aXXavrtov ; ExpT iv. [1893] 153 ff. ; Expositor, i. vi. [187V]312fl. W. H. DUNDAS,
Q
QUARANTANIA.— See Wilderness,
QUATERNION (rerpdStoi').— The word occurs only once in NT, and then not in the Gospels (Ac 12^)'; but we know that four soldiers at a time were ordinarily told off for work in the Roman army (Vegetius, de Re Milit. iii. 8), and that there were that number in charge of our Lord's Crucifixion (Jn 19-3- 2^ ; cf. Evang. Petr. 9 ; see art. Coat).
C. L. Feltoe.
QUEEN (pacylXiaaa). — A title occurring only once in the Gospels (Mt 12^^^ Lk Ipi), in our Lord's reference to the queen of Sheba as ' the queen of the south.' The visit of the queen of Sheba to king Solomon is related in 1 K lO^-^^ and in 2 Ch Qi-^ and the chief object of her journey was to satisfy herself as to his great wisdom, the report of which had reached her, although she was also attracted by the accounts which had been brought to her of his riches and magnificence. It is to the former of these two purposes of her visit that our
Lord refers. The Pharisees had demanded of Him a special sign, and He replied that no such sign should be given them, but that they should have a sign in Himself and in His burial and resurrection, as the Ninevites had had in Jonah. But the Ninevites, He added, would in the judgment condemn the men of that generation ; for they had repented at the preaching of Jonah, Avho was a sign to them, while the men of that generation. He implied, would not repent at the preaching of one greater than Jonah. Then, referring to the celebrated queen. He added : ' The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it ; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.'
The connexion between the case of the Ninevites and that of the queen of Sheba does not lie on the surface. Some have supposed that our Lord refers to a woman as the correlative to the men of
QUESTIONS AXD ANSWERS
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 461
I
Nineveh previously spoken of. Others tliink that, having;- spoken of the Ninevites to whom without any seeking of tiieirs a i^reaching of repentance was l)rought, He refers, to complete the warning, to one who was herself a spontaneous seeker of wisdom. Without setting aside these suggestions, it is more to the point to observe that our Lord brings into juxtaposition the two characteristics — so strongly emphasized in the case of Jew and Gentile^of the desire for a sign, and the seeking after wisdom ; and it has been suggested that St. I'aul may well have had this whole incident in mind when he wrote 1 Co V>^-'^ (see esp. v.--). We may also notice how our Lord in efl'ect boldly claims to be what St. Paul says that He is, ' the wisdom of God.' Solomon was 'wiser than all men' (1 K 4^'), and later Jewish literature de- lighted to magnify his wisdom (cf. Wis 7""^^). For our Lord, then, to claim before a Jewish audience to be ' something more ' than Solomon, was to claim to be Wisdom itself. We may also remark how here again, as in the discourse at Nazareth, our Lord chooses His examples from among Gentiles (cf. also Mt 8"- ^^ 10'* W'-'"*).
Ab.vssinian legend has many strange tales of the queen of Shelia, declaring that she came from Ethiopia, that lier name was Maqnefla, and tliat she had a son by Solomon. (For many curious details, see Ludolf, Hist. Aethiop. ii. 3 ; I'itce sanctorum indifjenarum, ed. K. Conti Rossini ; Legend of the Queen of Sheba, ed. E. Littmann ; also Jos. Ant. viii. vi. 5). All this, how- ever, probably rests on a confusion between Seba (N3P) and Sheba (N3i), cf. Ps 721". Our Lord's phrase, ' the queen of the south,' falls in with the most widely accepted opinion, i.e. that Sheba was in South Arabia ; her land was accordingly more than a thousand miles from Jerusalem, a fact which justifies our Lord's words, ix tmv Tlpa-Tuv rr,; yri; (cf. Jer &'^^).
Albert Bonus.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.— A full examina- tion of the questions asked and the answers given by Jesus would involve a general consideration of the methods He employed in His teaching, and in meetijig the difficulties of His hearers. Every good teacher must adopt the plan, associated for classical students with tlie name of Socrates, of using questions to make his hearers define their own position and ideas, and to help them to see clearly the admitted fundamental principles which underlie the discussion ; and he will further find in the questions they ask, since they give him an insight into the way in which their minds are work- ing, opportunities for emphasizing, explaining, or developing his teaching according to their re- quirements. If any one will take the trouble to read through the Gospels, and note and mark in the margin all the questions and answers of Jesus, he can hardly fail to learn from the method em- ployed by the world's greatest Teacher much that will be of use to one who has himself to teach others. It is personal work at the records them- selves that has a real value, and the main object of this article is to suggest lines of study, since an exhaustive investigation is obviously impossible withm the space available.