Argentre, Charles du Plessis r>', bishop of Tulle, was born in the Castle du Plessis, near Vitre, May 10, 1673, and died Oct. 27, 1740. In 1699 he was appointed by Louis XIV to the abbey of St. Cr.iix de Guingamp, and in 1700 he became a doctor of the Sor- bonne. In 1705 he attended the General Assembly of the clergy of France as a deputy of the second or-
der from the province of Tours. In 1707 he was ap- pointed by the bishop of Treguier vicar general ; in 1709, almoner of the king ; and in 1723, bishop of Tulle. In 1723 he also attended the General Assem- bly of the clergy of France as a deputy of the first or- I der from the province of Bourges. He wrote numer- ous theological and philosophical works, among which are V Analyse de Foi (against Jurieu, Lyons, 1698, 2 vols. 12mo) • Lexicon Philosophictim (Hague, 1706, 4to). — Hoefer, Biographie Generate, iii, 130.
Ar'gob (Heb. Argob', nia"iX, for Sin, with X prosthetic, stone-heap), the name of a place and also of a man.
1. (Sept. Apyw/3, but in Kinp:s 'Epyo/3). A district in Bashan beyond the lake Gennesareth, containing 60 cities (Havoth-Jair), originally ruled over by Og (Deut. iv, 4, 13), and eventually formed into a pur- veyorship by Solomon (1 Kings iv, 13). The name may probably be traced in the Ragab (2S"i) of the Mishna {Menachoth, viii, 3), the Rigobah (ilSWU"1") of the Samaritan version (see Winer's Diss, de vers. Samar. indole, p. 55), the Ragaba (Payafiu) of Jose- phus {Ant. xiii, 15, 5), and the Arg'i or Ergaba {'Eo- yaftci) placed by Jerome and Eusebius {Onomast. s. v. Argob) 15 Roman miles west of Gerasa (see Reland, Pahest. p. 959). Josephus elsewhere {Ant. viii, 2, 3) seems to locate it in Trachonitis (q. v.), i. e. Gaulon- itis, where Burckhardt is disposed to find it in El- Husn, a remarkable ruined site {Syria, p. 279), but Mr. Banks {Quar. Rev. xxvi, 389) has assigned this to Gamala (comp. Jour. Sac. Lit. Jan. 1852, p. 364). Dr. Robinson identifies it with the modern village with ruins called Rajib, a few miles north-east of the junc- tion of the Jabbok with the Jordan {Researches, iii, Append, p. 166); and Dr. Thomson very properly re- marks that it probably denotes rather the whole adja- cent region, for the hill on which l'\.\ Keis (somewhat to the north) stands is called Arkiib by the Bedouins {Land and Booh, ii, 54). — Kitto, s. v.
From this special or original locality, however, the term Argob seems to have been extended in its appli- cation to designate a large tract to the north-east ; for we find it identified (as by Josephus above) with Tra- chonitis (i. e. the rough country) in the Targums (Onkelos and Jonathan Wnla, Jerusalem WlSHX). Later we trace it in the Arabic version of Saadiah as Mujeb (with the same meaning); and it is now appar- ently identified with the Lr-jah, a very remarkable dis- trict south of Damascus, and east of the Sea of Gali- lee, which has been visited and described by Burck- hardt (p. 111-119), Seetzen, and Porter (specially ii, 240-245). This extraordinary region — about 22 miles from north to south, by 14 from west to east, and of a regular, almost oval shape — has been described as an ocean of basaltic rocks and boulders, tossed about in the wildest confusion, and intermingled with fissures and crevices in ever}' direction. " It is," says Mr. Porter, "wholly composed of black basalt, which ap- pears to have issued from innumerable pores in the earth in a liquid state, and to have flowed out on ev- ery side. Before cooling, its surface was violently agi- tated, and it was afterward shattered and rent by in- ternal convulsions. The cup-like cavities from which the liquid mass was extruded are still seen, and like- wise the wavy surface a thick liquid assumes which cools while flowing. The rock is filled with little pits and air-bubbles; it is as hard as flint, and emits a sharp metallic sound when struck" (p. 241). " Strange as it may seem, this ungainly and forbidding region is thickly studded with deserted cities and villages, in all of which the dwellings are solidly built, and of re- mote antiquity" (p. 238). The number of these towns visited by one traveller lately returned is 50, and there were many others to which he did not go. A Roman road runs through the district from south to north,
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ARIANISM
probably between Bosra and Damascus. On the edge of the Lejah are situated, among others, the towns known in Biblical history as Kenath and Edrei. In the a I 'since of more conclusive evidence on the point, a strong presumption in favor of the identification of the Lejah with Argob arises from the peculiar Hebrew word constantly attached to Argob, and in this defi- nite sense apparently to Argob only. This word is bzn (Che'bel), literally "a rope" {n\oiviaiia,Tiipifii- rpov, funiculus), and it designates with striking accu- raej' the remarkably denned boundary-line of the dis- trict of the Lejah, which is spoken of repeatedly by its latest explorer as " a rocky shore ;" "sweeping round in a circle clearly defined as a rocky shore-line ;" "re- sembling a Cyclopean wall in ruins" (Porter, ii, 19, 219, 239, etc.). The extraordinary features of this re- gion are rendered still more remarkable by the con- trast which it presents with the surrounding plain of the Hauran, a high plateau of waving downs of the richest agricultural soil stretching from the Sea of Gal- ilee to the Lejah, and beyond that to the desert, almost literally " without a stone ;" and it is not to be won- dered at — if the identification proposed above be cor- rect— that this contrast should have struck the Israel- ites, and that their language, so scrupulous of minute topographical distinctions, should have perpetuated in the words Mishor and Chebel (which see severally) at once the level downs of Bashan (q. v.), the stony lab- yrinth which so suddenly intrudes itself on the soil (Argob), and the definite fence or boundary which in- closes it. — Smith, s. v. See Hauran.