CORBAN
504
CORBEL
1. 8tem of Coral 2. Pwt enlaiiged to show the Zoophyte.
minute pol7i>e8 with eight tentacles. It is found at- tached to the rocks at considerable depths, as fix>m 20 to 120 fathoms. The demand for it has given rise to a fishery of some importance, about 180 boats being employed in it on the coast of Algeria, of which 156 fish in the neighborhood of Bona and Calla, obtaining 86,000 kilogrammes (about 720 cwt.) of coral ; and this, selling at tlie rate of 60 francs per kilogramme, produces a return of $450,000. The mode by which it is obtained is the same which has always prevailed, and is rude and wasteful. A great cross of wood load- ed with stones, and carrying at the end of each arm a sort of net formed of cords parti}" untwisted, is lowered from a boat, and dragged over the bottom. The branches of the corals are entangled in this apparatus, and, as the boat moves on, are torn off; at intervals it is pulled up, and the produce secured. Of course a great deal must be broken off which is not secured, but yet it is a profitable employment. A boat manned by nine or ten hands has been known to bring in 80 or 100 kilogrammes in a day, yielding $100 or f 125 ; but such success is rare. Tbe fishery is prosecuted from the 1st of April to the end of SeptemW, during which there may be on the average about 100 days in which the fishermen can work (Milne Edwards, Higt, des Corallines). — Fairbaim, s. v. See Gem.
Cor^^an (cwp/Sar, for "jS'^U, Jcorbau^y an offering)^ a Hebrew word (occurring fluently in the original of the 0. T., but only in Lev. and Numb., except in Ezek. XX, 28; xl, 48) employed in the Hellenistic Greek, just as the corresponding Greek word dCi^ov was employed in the Rabbinical Hebrew (Buxtorf, Lex. Hab. col. 579) to designate an oblation of any kind to God, whether bloody or bloodless, but particularly in fulfilment of a vow (Jahn, Bibl. Arch, v, § 392, 394). It occurs only once in the New Testament (Mark vii, 11), where it is explained (as also by Josephus, Ant, iv, 4, 4 ; contra Ap. i, 22) by the word * ' gift " Money, lands, and houses, which had been made the subject of this vow, became the property of the tabernacle or the Temple, except that the land might be redeem- ed before the year of JubUee (Lev. xxvii, 1-24). Among oUier false doctrines taught by the Pharisees, who were the keepers of the sacred treasury (Kopfia- v&Ct from corbany Matt, xxvii, 6), was this, that as soon as a person bad pronounced to his father or moth- er this form of consecration or offering, " Be it (or. It is) corban [i. e. devoted] whatever of mine shall profit thee" (-^ njrji "^SKt^ la-i;?), he thereby conse- crated all he bad spoken of to God, and must not thenceforth do anything for his indigent parents if they solicited support from him. Therefore our Lord reproaches them with having destroyed by their tra- dition not only that commandment of the Law which enjoins children to honor their father and mother, but also another divine precept, which, under the severest penalty, forlmde that kind of dishonor which consists in contumelious words (3fark vii, 9; x, 13). They, owevcr, proceeded even further than this unnatural
gloss; for though the son did not giTc, or even shk to give, bis property to the Temj^, jet, if 1m al^. wards should repent of his rashness, and wish to nf- ply his parents with anything, what he had fioms-h said precluded the possibility of doin^ so, for, aeeofd- ing to the Pharisaic doctrine, the sacred ttemsarj had a claim upon him in preference to his parents, altfava^ he was perfectly at liberty to keep it to himKlf (see Lightfoot, Hot. J7e6., and Grotius, ^imoC, on Matt XT, 5). The law laid down rules for tows, 1. affira- ative ; 2. negative. By the former, persons, anlasih. and property might be devoted to God, bat, with cer- tain limitations, they were redeemable by motney psj- ments. By the latter, persons interdicted tfaemselTe& or were interdicted by their parents, from the we ctf certain things lawful in themselves, as wine, eUba for a limited or an unlimited period (Lev. xxrii ; Kam. XXX ; Judg. xiii, 7 ; Jer. XXXV4 comp. Josephus, Ate, iv, 4, 4; War, ii, 15, 1; see Afcts xviii, 18; xxi, 23, 24). See Vow. Upon these rules the traditica^s enlarged, and laid down that a man might inter&i himself by vow, not only from using for linmn^lf, \m from giving to another, or receiving from him soanf particular object, whether of food or any other ki^ whatsoever. The thing thus interdicted was censid- ered as corban^ and the form of interdiction was vir- tually to this effect : '^ I forbid myself to toodh or be concerned in any way with the thing forbidden, as if it were devoted by law, "i.e. ** let it be cor&cm. *' (The exact formula, ^b njn? ^^»to DSSp, »* [that] ^ been given [to God], which pn respect to] me is tex>- eficial to thee," of which the Evangelist^s S^pov, v lor i^ ifiov uM^iXrjByi: seems a strict rendering, is cited br Schdttgen, Bor, Bebr. i, 188, f^om the Mifihna, A«^ rim, fol. 24, 1.) So fu did they carry the princi|k that they even held as binding the incomplete exds- mations of anger, and called them tni*r^, kamdlm. A person might thus exempt himself from asssdng g^ receiving assistance fh)m some particnlar perscm ct persons, as parents in distress ; and, in short, from snr inconvenient obligation under plea of corftan, thoog^ by a legal fiction he was allowed to suspend the r^ striction in certain cases (Surenhusins, 3fistiiHL, 6f Fo^, i, 4 ; ii, 2). It was with practices of thb scst that our Lord found fault (Matt, xv, 5 ; Mark rii, 11), as annulling the spirit of the law. See Offcuso.