Abish'alom, a fuller form (1 Kings xv, 2, 10) of the name Absalom (q. v.).
Abish'ua (Heb. Abishuii, 9^"&^&, father of ■welfare, i. e. fortunate ; Sept. 'Afttaov or 'Afiioov, but in 1 Chron. viii, 4 [v. r. ' Afiirjaovt] and Ezra vii, 5, 'Afiiaovi), the name of two men.
1. A son of Bela, and grandson of Benjamin (1 Chron. viii, 4) ; possibly the same as Jerimoth (1 Chron. vii, 7). B.C. post 185G. See Jacob.
2. The son of Phinehas (grandson of Aaron) and
father of Bukki, being the fourth high-priest of tha Hebrews (1 Chron. vi, 4, 5, 50; Ezra vii, 5). Jose-. phus calls him Abiezer (A/3i££sp//c, Ant. v, 11, 4), but elsewhere Josephus (Iuhjijttoc,, Ant. viii, 1, 3, ed. Havercamp). He appears from the Chronicon of A A ./- amlria to have been nearly contemporary with Ehud, B.C. cir. 1523-1466. See High-piuest.
Ab'ishur (Heb. Abishur' , "irj^nx, father of the wall, i. e. perhaps mason ; Sept. ' Afiiaom)), the second named of ths two sons of Shammai, of the tribe of Ju- dah, who married Abihail, by whom he had two sons (1 Chron. ii, 28, 29), B.C. considerably post 1612.
Ab'isum ('A/3iffat v. r. 'Afiurovai), the son of Phinees and father of Boccas, in the genealogy of Ezra (1 Esdr. viii, 2) ; evidently the high-priest Abish- ua (q. v.).
Ab'ital (Heb. Abital' ', Vj*~X, father of dew, i. e. fresh} Sept. 'AfiirdX), the fifth wife of David, by whom she had Shephatiah, during his reign in Hebron (2 Sam. iii, 4 ; 1 Chron. iii, 3), B.C. 1052. ' Ab'itub (Heb. Abitub', ^B^St, father of good- ! ness, i. e. good; Sept. 'Afiiriiifi v. r. FA/3trouX), a Ben- jamite, first named of the two sons of Shaharaim by | his second wife, Baara or Hodesh, in Moab (1 Chron. viii, Hi. B.C. cir. 1612. See Shaharaim.
Abi'ud, a Grxcized form (Matt, i, 13) of the name Abiiiud (q. v.).
Abiyoiiah. See Caper.
Abjuration (I), in the Roman Church, a formal and solemn act by which heretics and those suspected of heresj' denied and renounced it. In countries where the inquisition was established, three sorts of abjura- tion were practised: 1. Abjuratio de, formal/., made by a notorious apostate or heretic; 2. Abjuratio (A vehe- ment/', made by a Roman Catholic strongly suspected of heresy ; 3. Abjuratio de lev/', made by a Roman Cath- olic only slightly suspected. (II.) In England, the oath of abjuration is an oath by which an obligation was come under not to acknowledge any right in the Pretender to the throne of England. It is also used to signify an oath ordained by the 25th of Charles II, abjuring particular doctrines of the Church of Rome. (See S. G. Wald, De Hmresi Abjuranda, Regiom. 1821 ; low d. Absehirdrung der Simonie, in Henke's Eusebia, i, 184 sq.) Sec Heretic.
Able (or Abel), Thomas, chaplain to queen Cath- arine, wife of Henry VIII of England. He took the degree of M.A. at Oxford, in 1516, and subsequently that of D.D. He vehemently opposed the divorce of the king and queen, and wrote a treatise on the sub- ject in 1530, entitled De non dissolvendo Henrici et Catharines matrimonio. He was also a strenuous op- ponent of the king's supremacy, for which he was hanged at Smithfield in 1540 (Hook, Ec.cl. Biog. i, 45).
Ablution (I), the ceremonial washing, whereby, as a symbol of purification from uncleanness, a person was considered (1.) to be cleansed from the taint of an in- ferior and less pure condition, and initiated into a high- er and purer state ; (2.) to be cleansed from the soil of common life, and fitted for special acts of religious service ; (3.) to be cleansed from defilements contract- ed by particular acts or circumstances, and restored to the privileges of ordinary life; (4.) as absolving or purifying himself, or declaring himself absolved and purified, from the guilt of a particular act. Wc do not meet with any such ablutions in patriarchal times ; but under the Mosaical dispensation they arc all indicated. See LUSTRATION; Sprinkling.
A marked example of the first kind of ablution oc- curs when Aaron and his sons, on their being set apart for the priesthood, were washed with water before they were invested with the priestly robes and anointed with the holy oil ( Lev. viii, G). To this bond we arc inclined to refer the ablution of persons and raiment
ABLUTION
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ABLUTION
■which was required of the whole of the Israelites, as a preparation to their receiving the law from Sinai (Exod. xix, 10-15). We also rind examples of this kind of purification in connection with initiation into some higher state both among the Hebrews and in other nations. Thus those admitted into the mys- teries of Eleusis were previously purified on the banks of the Ilissus by water being poured upon them by the Hydranos (Polysen. v, 17 ; iii, 11). See CONSE- CRATION.
The second kind of ablution was that which required the priests, on pain of death, to wash their hands and their feet before they approached the altar of God (Exod. xxx, 17-21). For this purpose a large basin of water was provided both at the tabernacle and at the temple. See Laver. To this the Psalmist alludes when he says, " I will wash my hands in innocency, and so will I compass thine altar" (Ps. xxvi, 6). Hence it became the custom in the early Christian Church for the ministers, in the view of the congregation, to wash their hands in a basin of water brought by the deacon, at the commencement of the communion (Jamieson, p. 126) ; and this practice, or something like it, is still retained in the Eastern churches, as well as in the Church of Rome, when mass is celebrated. See Holy "Water. Similar ablutions by the priests before pro- ceeding to perform the more sacred ceremonies were usual among the heathen (see Smith's Diet, of Class. Anliq. s. v. Chernips). The Egyptian priests indeed carried the practice to a burdensome extent (Wilkin- son, i, 324, abridgm.), from which the Jewish priests were, perhaps designedly, exonerated; and in their less torrid climate it was, for purposes of real clean- liness, less needful. Reservoirs of water were at- tached to the Egyptian temples; and Herodotus (ii, 37) informs us that the priests shaved the whole of their bodies every third day, that no insect or other filth might be upon them when they served the gods, and that they washed themselves in cold water twice every day and twice every night ; Porphyry says thrice a day, with a nocturnal ablution occasionally This kind of ablution, as preparatory to a religious act, answers to the simple wadu of the Moslems, which they are required to go through five times daily before their stated prayers (see Lane, Mod. Eg. i, 94 sq.), be- sides other private purifications of a more formal char- acter (see Reland, I)e Relig. Moh. p. 80-83). This makes the ceremonies of ablution much more con spicuous to a traveller in the Moslem East at the pres- ent day than they would appear among the ancient