The trunk of the palm does not increase in thickness from year to year like other trees but only rises higher, putting forth new leaves each year. The lower circle of leaves, .sometimes as much as seven years old, gradually withers away, and as the stumps of the old leaves wear off the trunk becomes more slender as it increases in height. The leaves, which are pinnate and are often 12 ft. long, form a kind of dome at the summit of the tall bare stem. The male and female blossoms are on different trees, and it is consequently necessary to impregnate the female blossoms if the seed is not to be barren. This is ettected either by tying a bunch of male blossom on to the female trees or else by shaking out the pollen over the female flowers. The flowers grow on a single or bran<;hcd tuft, covered by a spathe or sheath, some of which contain many thousands of flowers. The core of the trunk is soft and pithy, and palm wood is therefore of little use as timber, though it is of value for rafters and gate-posts.
The fruit is a staple article of food among the modern Bedouins. It is gathered by a man who
r.'o
PALSY
PAPIIOS
(•limbs tile trunk, severs the clusters of dates, places them in a basket, and lowers them to the Kround. The date is utilized in many ways. A kind of brandy is made from its juice, and also dibn, a syrup resembling honey, which forms a useful substitute for sugar, baskets, mats, and all sorts of utensils are manufactured from its leaves ; the crown of barren trees is boiled as a vegetable ; camels are fed on the pounded stones, horses on the fruit-stalks; and the fibres of the leaf-stalk and fruit-stalk are used for ropes.
branches of palms were regarded as ajipropriate emblems of triumph and jubilation, and tliey were carried at the least of Tabernacles, while they were also used in constructing the boutlis on the house-tops on the occasion of this festival (Lv 23'^). In Rev 7' the triumphal entry into Jeru- salem (Jn 12") may be in view.
Literature.— H. B. Tristram, A'a(«roiHis(oryo/(AeBi6?eio, 1911, p. 378 f. ; J. C. Geikie. The Hal// Land and the Bible, ed. 1887, 1. 207 1., ed. 1903, p. 76; W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 3 vols., ed. 1881-1886, pnssim, ed. 1910, p. 30; H. B. Swete, Apncatypm of St. John-, 1907, p. 100; P. S. P. Hand- cock, Mempotamian Archceolofjy, 1912, p. 12f. ; HDB iii. 056 f. ; SDB, p. 076 ; EBi iii. 3651 1.
P. S. p. Handcock. PALSY. — The more common word is ' paralysis.' Only two instances are reported in the Acts — 8' (many) and 9^* (.'Eneas). The condition referred to is marked by loss of muscular control, caused by cerebral or spinal lesion, or by local disease or disorder of nerves and muscles. Whether the paralytics who were healed by Philip in Samaria were brought to him on beds, were visited by him, or were able to come to him with others who were sufl'ering from bodily disturbance, we are not told., yEneas was for eight years bed-ridden, and thus appears to have been in a desperate plight. In the absence of competent and explicit medical testimony, it would be idle to conjecture whether any of these cases was organic rather than func- tional, or how large a part suggestion played in their cure. The healings by Philip brought to an end the practice of sorcery by .Simon and led to his conversion ; the healing of yEneas showed anew the power which resided in ' the name of Jesus' (cf. 3' 4'"). The recovery of all these paralytics followed the customary order of NT cases : no sooner was the word spoken than the cures took place. C. A. Beckwith.
PAMPHYLIA (noM^uXfa).— Paniphylia was the ancient name of a flat and low-lying country in the south of Asia Minor, 80 miles long from E. to W., and 20 miles broad in its widest part, skirted by the Bay of Adalia, and enclosed by a rough semicircle of lofty and precipitous mountains of the Taurus range. As no pass corresponding to the Cilician Gates afforded freedom of access to the interior, Pamphylia was always isolated. Its chief maritime cities — Attalia, Perga and Side— had to deal only with a limited tratlic, and never rose to any great importance. Its climate, too, greatly interfered with its progress. The hot, moist, enervating plain, rarely swept by bracing northern winds, was unsuitable for a race of hardy colonists, and though many Greeks and some Jews (1 Mac 15^, Ac 2'°) settled in its towns, the native Anatolian elements were too strong for an exotic Hellenism, so that Pamphylia as a whole remained one of the least civilized parts of Asia Jlinor. It was therefore late in attaining the dignity of Roman provincial government. Dio Cassius (Ix. 17) Indicates that Claudius instituted the province of Lycia-Pamphylia in A.D. 43, but Mommsen has proved by means of a recently dis- covered inscription ' that Pamphylia was a distinct procuratorial province for some time later, then was connected with Galatia for a short time, and
at last wa.s united to Lycia by Vespasian ' (W. M. Ramsay, Pauline and other Studies, I'JUO, p. 205). Paul and Barnabas crossed Pamphylia in both the outward and the homeward part of their first missionary tour. Landing at the river- harbour of Perga, the}' merely ' passed through from ' the city (Ac 13'''), hastening northward over the Taurus to Antioch in Pisiclia. Combining St. Luke's narrative with Gal 4'^ Ramsay infers that, while the original intention of the apostles was to carry on a prolonged mission in Pamphylia, which seemed, after Cilicia, to have the next claim to the gospel, a sudden illness — probably malarial fever — prostrated St. Paul and compelled them to change their plan and seek the cooler and more invigor- ating uplands of central Asia Minor (St. Pazd the Traveller, p. 93, The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, p. (jiff.). A. C. McGittert agrees that malarial fever was probably the ' infirmity of the flesh ' which led St. Paul to preach to the Galatians, but regards it as more likely that the illness, though contracted in the Pamphylian plain, did not show itself until St. Paul was labouring in Antioch (Apostolic Age, 1897, p. 177). About two years later the return journey was made by Perga and Attalia (Ac 14^), and on this occasion the gospel was preached in the former city, but ap- parently little impression was made. Christianity, which always had the best chance of success where Hellenism and Judaism had already prepared the soil, was late in taking root in backward and un- civilized Pamphylia. The provinces named in 1 P P as having Christian converts Within their borders sum up the whole of Asia Minor north of the Taurus, but Pamphylia and Lycia are con- spicuous by their absence. Had these lands con- tained any considerable body of ' the elect,' the fact that they were regarded as ' without (i.e. to the south of) the Taurus ' would not have prevented them from being enumerated with the other provinces.