BALMES
628
BALSAM
clled into Palestine and Syria purposely to obtain a knowledge of this Bubstance, it grew in Jericho and many other parts of the Holy Land. The cause of its total decay has been ascribed, not without reason, to the royal attention being withdrawn from it by the distractions of the country. In more recent times its naturalization seems to have been attempted in Egypt; for Prosper Alpinus relates that forty plants were brought by a governor of Cairo to the garden there, and ten remained when Belon travelled in Egypt, nearly two hundred and fifty years ago ; but, whether from "not agreeing with the African soil or otherwise, only one existed in the last century, and now there appears to be none. (See also Thomson, Land and Book, ii. 193, 457.) See Gilead, Balm of.
The word balm occurs frequently in the Authorized Version, as in Gen. xxxvii, 25; xliii, 11; Jer. viii, 22; xlvi, 11; li,8; and Ezek. xxviii, 17. In all these passages the Hebrew text has 1*1^ or 1*13 Qsori' or tseri', Sept. pnrivri), which is generally understood to be the true balsam, and is considered a produce of Gilead, a mountainous district, where the vegetation is that of the Mediterranean region and of Europe, with few traces of that of Africa or of Asia. Lee {Lex. p. 520) supposes it to be mastich, a gum obtained from the Ptsfaccia Lentiscus; but Gescnius defends the com- mon rendering, balsam. It was the gum of a tree or shrub growing in Gilead, and very precious. It was one of the best fruits of Palestine (Gen. xliii, 11), ex- ported (Gen. xxxvii, 25; Ezek. xxvii, 17), and espe- cially used for healing wounds (Jer. viii, 22 ; xlvi, 11 ; li, 8). The balsam was almost peculiar to Palestine (Strab. xvi, 2, p. 7(33; Tac. Hist, v, 6; Plin. xii, 25, § 54 ; 32, § 59), distilling from a shrub like the vine and rue, which in the time of Josephus was cultivated in the neighborhood of Jericho and of the Dead Sea {Ant. xiv, 4, 1 ; xv, 4, 2), and still grows in gardens near Tiberias (Burckhardt, Syria, p. 323). In Ezek. xxvii, 17, the Auth. Vers, gives in the margin rosin. The fact that the tsori grew originally in Gilead does not forbid us to identify it with the shrub mentioned by Josephus as cultivated near Jericho. The name bal- sam is no doubt derived from the Arabic balasan, which is probably also the origin of the /3«A<r«/(oi' of the Greeks. Forskal informs us that the balsam-tree of Mecca is there called abusham, i. e. " very odorous." The word basham, given by him, is the name of a fra- grant shrub growing near Mecca, with the branches and tufts of which the}- clean the teeth, and is sup- posed to refer to the same plant. These names are very similar to words which occur in the Hebrew text of several passages of Scripture, as in the Song of Solomon, v, 1, " I have gathered my myrrh with my spice" {basam) ; ver. 13, " His cheeks are as a bed of spices" {basam); and in vi, 2, "gone down into his garden to the beds of spices" {basam). The same word ■ ii ed in Exod. xxxv, 28, and in 1 Kings x, 10, "There came no more such great abundance of spices those which the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon." In all these passages basam' or bo'- sem (Dba and fib's), though translated "spices," would seem to indicate the balsam-tree, if we may in- fer identity of plant or substance from similarity in the Hebrew and Arabic names. But the word ma3- indicate only a fragrant aromatic substance in general. The passages in the Son-; of Solomon may with propri- ety be understood as referring to a plant cultivated in ■'u'l.ei, i,ut no! to spices in the general sense of that term. Queen Sheba might have brought balsam or rees, as well as spices, for both are the produce of southern latitudes, though far removed from each other. 1 I >u the balsams of modern commerce, sec the Penny Cyclop ?dia, -. v. Balsaminea; el sq.) See Bal- sam.
Balmes, Jaime, a Spanish theologian, was born Aug. 28, 1810, at VieJi iii Catalonia, and died there
July 9, 1848. He was for some time teacher of math- ematics at Vich, was exiled under the regency of Es- partero, and founded in 1844, at Madrid, a political weekly, El Pensamiento de la Nation, as an organ of the Conservative or Catholic party. In 1847 a pamphlet in favor of the political reforms of Pius IX {Pio IX, Madrid and Paris, 1847) brought him into conflict with his party. His principal works are a comparison of the relation of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism to European civilization {El Protestantismo comparado con el Catolicismo en sits relaciones con la ciriHsacion, Europea, 3 vols. 8vo, Madrid, 1848; Engl, transl. Lon- don, 1849, 8vo) ; a Filosojia fondamental (Barcelona, 1846, 4 vols. ; translated into French, 3 vols. 1852 ; into English, by H. F. Brownson, 2 vols. New York, 1857); and a Curso de Filosofta Elemental (Madrid, 1837). See A. de Blanche-Baffin, Jacques Balmes, sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1850) ; North British Review, May, 1852, art. iv.
' Balnu'us {BaXvovoc), one of the " sons" of Addi that divorced his Gentile wife after the exile (1 Esdr. ix, 31) ; evidently the Binxui (q. v.) of the true text (Ezra x, 30).