>eoree (properly n^, (2at4 [Dtfn. ii, 9, 18, 16, else- Bre " law"], doyiia [Luke ii, 1 ; Acta xvi, 4; xvii, Ise-where '* ordinance"], an tdidi also *^tA, gazar^ ith. Ii, 13, cpivw [1 Cor. vii, 87, elsewhere otoally idge"3» ^ dstemitne; but represented by several er Heb. wordsX an oflloial lesolation passed by mag- srial authority (see Crabbe's EngL Symmifmee, s. ▼.). lon^ the Orientals the enactments of the kings were KsLaimed publicly by criers (Jer. xxxiv, 8, 9 ; Jonah
5-7>, wlio are designated in Daniel (iii, 4 ; y, 29) by ) term Mt*H2), harota\ the herald. They were made ovrn in distant provinces, towns, and cities by mee- igers sent for that purpose (1 Sam. xi, 7 ; Etra i,
Amos iv, 6). The message thus to be communica- l in any town or city was publicly announced when e messenger had arrived in the gate of the dty, or
some other public place. At Jerusalem it was an- fanced in the Temple, where there were always a eat many persons present. It was for the same rea- n that the prophets were accustomed to utter their t>phecies in the Temple. See Pboglamation.
DECREES OP THB Council of the Apostles at BRUSALSM (Acts xv). Theso related to the foUow- kg prohibitions, " that they abstain from pollutions t idols, and fh>m fornication, and from things stran- led, and fh>m blood" (ver. 20) ; or, as it is repeated ver. 29), *' that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, nd from blood, and ftt>m things strangled, and from ornication." These are declared (ver. 28) to be ** neo- iBsary" prohibitions. This necessity (as the yap, *" tot,*^ of ver. 21 intimates) lay in the £ftct that wher- tver the Jews resided the law of Moses was read, and .bus the ordinances in question were so deeply im- jtressed upon the people's mind that they could not ^lerate the neglect of them by the Gentile Christians. Instead of laying upon the Gentiles the burden of the whole law, and consequendy of circumcision, the con- rention of apostles and elders resolved to enforce upon them only the reception of certain individual precepts of easy observance. The object of this canon was plainly nothing but to meet in some measure the diffi- culties of the Jewish Christians, and to lead the Gen- tile Christians to shun whatever might prove offensive to their Jewish brethren, as otherwise, under the ex- isting usages and prejudices of education and caste, it would be impossible for them to associate together in a mixed conununity and church without scandal. In all this it was clearly indicated that the prohibitions were not absolute; once let the Jewish Christians be more thoroughly ft^ed from the O.-T.^orms, and the end for which these regulations were made would no longer exist. Now the ground on which these particuLr points were brought into view is explained by the circumstance that they were wont to be laid upon the proselytes of the Gate hi the so-called **sdP- m preeeptt of Noah" (comp. Buxtorf, Lex, Jtab. s. v. *^ p. 407 sq.). See Prosblttb. This, therefore, is the import of the arrangement, that the Gentile Chris- tians should not be obliged to become "proselytes of Tigbteottsness** by circumcision, but only to live as ''proselytes of the Gate." Those of the seven pre- cepts of Noah (see Noah, Pbecepts op), which are here omitted, viz. the ones regarding blasphemy, mur- der, robbery; and sedition, was of such a kind that it was self^vident to Christians that the like could have no place among them ; in the present instance it was not 80 much precepts of a purely moral character that requved to be brought forward, as precepts that re- ferred Mmply to the outward life. See Apostolical
COUNCTL.
^ 1. That the '* poUtitions of idols'* (aXtffyfifiOTa rwv Ei3(tfXttv) are thus to be understood of an outward act,
vis. the eating of the flesh of sacrifices, is quite clear flrom the analogous expression, ''things offSared to idols" (tidiaXS^VTa, idoi-^acriJioei)j in the parallel verse. The more particular distinction made by Paul in 1 Cor. x, between such flesh of sacrifices as was bought like any other in the shamUes and such as was eaten in the temple at an idol fiBstival, is not entered into by the assembly ; they interdict in the widest sense all eating of sacrifices becanse the Jevri took offence at it See Alisosma.
2. The same holds good of the eating of blood, and, which is the same thing, of that which was strangled, in which the blood remained coagulated. The Jews had the utmost abhorrence of blood as food, which was grounded particularly upon Lev. xvii, 10, 11, where it is not merely said that Jehovah would set his face against the perpetrator of this act, but the blood is also represented as the support of the soul (comp. Gen. ix, 4), that is, of the physical lifD, and it is placed in con- nection with the propitiation, which can only be made by the shedduig of blood (Heb. ix, 22). This law ap- pears to have been strictiy observed by the primitive Church (Euseb. Hi$i, EccL v, 1), and even in the Mid- die Ages the injunctlbn was fiequentiy given by the spiritual authorities to avoid the eating of blood (espe- dally in the Greek Church : see canon 67 of the second Councfl at Tmllo in 092 ; in tiie Latin Church, Augus- tine already took the right view, oontr. FcmttuMj xxxii, 18). See Blood.