In the Incarnation, then, God has put Himself where men might touch Him ; and in the various instances of touching Christ, grouped above, we see how men responded to this opportunity. There were those who sought with all their hearts for closer contact, impelled by the sense of need, or by the impulse of adoring love ; ' the history of all God's dealings with man is the record of an approach nearer still, and nearer . . . until faith puts its fingers into the print of the nails, its hand into the wounded side, and constrains us to cry. My Lord, and my God' (Ker, ^.c). There were those who merely jostled and thronged our Lord, but obtained no blessing, because enlightened by no deep desire. And there were those whose only impulse towards God manifest in the flesh was one of repudiation and dislike.
Only one passage of those quoted above seems at first sight to put itself outside the general symbol- ism. This is the record of our Lord's saying to Mary Magdalene : ' Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto the Father,' — a passage of which the interpretations are nearly as numerous as the com- mentators. But is not the explanation to be found in the present tense of the injunction, combined with the contrasted commandj^ 'But go,' etc. — as tliough our Lord were saying, ' Keep not on touching me, making sure of me in a selfish rapture, for the duty of the moment calls thee to be a witness to others ; handle me not, but go to my brethren, and say unto them'? And if it be objected, as by Godet, that on that view the following words, 'I am not yet ascended,' present ' absolutely no sense,' the answer is that the hour was coming later, when, after the gift of the Spirit, close and intimate communion with Christ could be given along with the work of witness and service, — when it would be possible for a soul to be both in contact with the living Lord and also a messenger for Him, — when (in other words) the disciple could be in ' touch ' with Christ by His Spirit and also 'go' on His errands.
R. Stevenson.
TOWEL. — ' Towel ' in the two passages in which it occurs in the Gospels (Jn 13^') represents X^vtiov, which is clearly the Latin linteum, a word mean- ing, in the first instance, 'linen cloth,' and then ' napkin ' or ' apron ' worn by slaves or servants, and especially ' bath-towel.' Under the Empire
r38
TOWER
TRADE AND COMMERCE
this Latin word made its Avay not only into Greek, but also into late Hebrew in the form 'aluntith. It is found in the Mishna (Shabbath xxii. 5) of the bath-towels used at the hot baths of Tiberias and elsewhere. That slaves or attendants wore the linteiim is more than once referred to in the classics. The best known passage is in Pha^d. Fab. II. V. 11 tf. , where an officious attendant of Tiberius, Avho was snubbed for his pains, is described as —
' Ex alticinctis unus atriensibus Cui tunica ab humeris linteo Pelusio Erat destricta.'
Less known, but even more interesting, as at the same time supplying parallel and contrast, is the anecdote given by Suetonius {Calig. 26) of the humbling of distinguished senators by the mad C;T?sar Caligula, by allowing them to stand at iiis couch or his feet, girt with towels (succinctos linteo). This is evidently recorded as a grave indignity to which the haughty Romans submitted with the greatest reluctance.
LiTERATiRE. — Wetst«in on Jn 135; Becker's Galhts(Eng. tr.), 1849, p. 395 ; Fiirst, Glossarium Grcecn-Ucbrceum, 1S90, p. 5ia.
"W. Taylor Smith. TOWER.— 'Tower' (irvpyos) is mentioned three times in the Lord's teaching : in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Mt 21», Mk 12i), in the allusion to an accident in Siloani which led to the loss of eighteen lives (Lk 13^), and in the illustra- tion of the builder who was unable to complete his undertaking (Lk 14^). Two, if not three, kinds of tower may be referred to in these passages : —
(1) The builder who exposed himself to ridicule by beginning what he could not finish (Lk 14-*) may be thought of as building a house. The larger houses in the Holy Land are sometimes provided at one end with a tower-like annex. A good re- presentation of one in the neighbourhood of Sidon is given in the Pulychronie Bible ('Judges,' p. 59). The 'aliijydh or upper storey, seen from a little dis- tance, must suggest a tower rather than a dwelling- house (see also Land and Book, ed. 1874, p. 160).
(2) The tower in Siloam [iv ti^ 'LiKoia.ix, Lk IS"*) may have been connected with some fortifications. The Avails of ancient Oriental cities were generally pro- ■vided with towers at frequent intervals. Many illustrations could be given fi'om Assyrian sculp- tures, and the old wall in the Jerusalem of the 1st cent. A.D. had sixty towers (Jos. BJ V. iv. 3), two of which, Hii^picus and Piiasaelus, are probably represented to some extent by two of the towers of the modern citadel, the latter being partly pre- served in the so-called David's Tower (Picturesque Palestine, i. pp. 1, 5, 7-11). Edersheim (Life of Jesus the Messiah, ii. 222) suggests that the tower may have been connected with the building of the aqueduct constructed by Pilate with money taken from the temple treasury (Jos. Ant. xvili. iii. 2; BJ II. ix. 4) ; but that is unsupported conjecture. If the Tower was situated literally in Siloam, the nature of the ground may help to explain the accident. The village of S'ilwdn, which represents the ancient Siloam, ' is built on a steep escarpment of rock, on which a building with good foundations would stand for ever ; ill-laid foundations would drop their superstructure to the very bottom of the valley ' (Hastings' DB, art. ' Tower '). For the Tower of Antonia see art. Jerusalem. (3) The vineyard tower referred to in the two other passages (Mt 2\^, Mk 12' ; cf. Is 5=) can be illus- trated from ancient ruins and modern practice. Tristram remarks (Eastern Customs in Bible Lands, p. 139 f.) that 'in many cases we still find the remains of the solidly-built tower which com- manded a Wew of the whole enclosure, and was probably the permanent residence of the keeper through the summer and autumn.' Dr. W. Wright observes that every vineyard and garden in Syria