2. Karl Friedricii August, eldest son of Chris- tian Fritzsche, also a distinguished theologian, was born at Steinljach Deceml)er 16, ISOL After receiv- ing his first instruction from his father he continued his studies at the University of Leipzig, where he be- came professor extraordinarj' of theology in 1825. The year following he went to Rostock as ordinary professor, and in 1841 to Giessen, where he died Dec. 6, 1846. Besides some important exegetical essaj'S published in the Fritzschiorum Opuscula Academica, he
FRITZLAR
G80
FROG
■wrote De nonnullis secumhe Paidi ad Corintkios Episto- la Locis (Lpz. 1K24) : — Comnientar z. Muttha-us (Lpz. 1826) : — fommentar z. Marcus (Lpz. 1830): — De Confor- matione Novi Tedamenti crilica, quam C. Lachmannus edidii (Giessen, 1841) : — Pduli ad liurnanos Ejnstola, c. commmi. perpet. (Halle, 1S-3G-13, 3 vols. 8vo). As a commentator, his pbiluloyical acuteness is perhaps ex- treme. — Pierer, Unirersal-Lexikon, vi, 751 ; Christian liev. ix, 4G9 ; Herzo^', Real-EnajU. xix, 510.
Pritzlar (proIiaMy from Frideo \a.re=domvs pacii) is a citv of I'rus-i~ia, ?ituatcd on the shores of the Eder, and one of the oldest seats of the Church in Central Germany. Here Boniface founded in 732 a church dedicated to St. Peter, and a small convent, with a school chiefly intended for the accommodation of cler- ical students. He first directed it himself, but after- wards gave up the charge to his countrj'man Wighert, ■who thus became the first regular abbot of the institu- tion ( j 747). The second abbot was Tatian ; the third, "Wigbert II. The school soon gained a great reputa- tion. Sturm, abbot of Fulda, and Megingoz, bishop of Wiirzburg, were among its first scholars. The in- stitution remained fur centuries at the head of both clerical and secular education. Under Charlemagne, Fritzlar was in 774 burned down by the heathen Sax- ons, and the church alone escaped. As it stands at present, it is in the Roman style of the 12th century. Fritzlar was for a time a bishopi'ic (in 786), but was soon joined to that of Mayence. See S. Schminke, De antiqidtat. Fritcslariens. digs. (Marburg, 1715, 4to). — Herzog, Real-EnajUop. iv, 612. (.J. N^P.)
Fritzlar, Hermann of. See Hermann.
Frog ("T"^2!i, tsepharde'a, a marsh-leaper [Gese- nius, Thes. Htb. p. 1184], /3«rpoxoc; Exod. viii, 2 et sq. ; Psa. Isxviii, 45; cv, 80; Rev. xvi, 13), the ani- mal selected by God as an instrument for humbling tlie pride of Pharaoh (Exod. viii, 2-14 ; Psa. Ixxviii, 45 ; cv, 30 ; Wisd. xix, 10). Frogs came in prodigious numbers from the canals, the rivers, and the marshes ; they filled the houses, and even entsred the ovens and kneading-troughs; when, at the command of Moses, the frogs died, the people gathered them in heaps, and " the land stank" from tlie corruption of the bodies. There can be no doubt that the whole transaction was miraculous ; frogs, it is true, if allowed to increase, can easily be imagined to occur in such multitudes as marked the second plague of Egypt — indeed, similar plagues are on record as having occurred in various places, as at Poeonia and Dardania, where frogs sud- denly appeared in such numbers as to cause the in- habitants to leave that region (see Eustathius on Honi. 11. i, and other quotations cited byBochart, Ilieroz. iii, 575) ; Init that the transaction was miraculous appears from tlie following considerations : 1. The numbers were unprecedented, and suddenly produced, and they were found in extraordinary' places. 2. The time of the occurrence was in spring, when ordinarily the old frogs would be engaged in spawning, and the younger ones would lie in their tadpole state, or, at anj^ rate, not sufficientlj'^ developed to enable them to go far from the water. 3. The frogs would not naturally have died, in such prodigious numliers as is recorded, in a single day. Amongst tlie Egyptians the frog was con- sidered a symbol of an imperfect man, and was sup- posed to bo generated from the slinic of the river — t/c ri/c Tov Tro-afiov IXvoq (see Horapollo, i, 26). A frog sitting upon a lotus {Nelnmhiuni) was also regarded by the ancient Egyptians as symbolical of the return of the Nile to its lu'd after the inundations. Hence the I'.gyptian word Ilhriir, whicli was used to denote the Nile de.icendinfj, was also, witli the slight change of the first letter into an aspirate, Chnir, the name of a frog (Jablonski, Panth. yEfftjpt. iv, X, § 9).
The mention of this reptile in the O. T. is confined to the passage in Exod. viii, 2-7, etc., in which the
plague of frogs is described, and to the two allusions to that event in Psa. Ixxviii, 45; cv, 30. The term also occurs in Wisd. xix, 10, in reference to the same event. In the N. T. the word occurs once only in Pev. xvi, 13, "three unclean spirits like frogs." There is no question as to the animal meant. Although the common frog is so well known that no description is needed to satisfy the reader, it may be necessary to mention that the onh' species recorded as existing in Palestine is the green {liana esculenia), and that Dr. KicharJson alone refers the species of Egypt to the rarer speckled gray frog {Rana punctata). Tlie only known species of frog which occurs at present in Egypt is the Rana csculenfa, of which two varieties are de- scribed, dift'ering from Spallanzani^s species in some slight peculiarities (Descript. de rjtrpjple, Hist. Natur. i, 181, fol. ed.). The Rana escidenta^ the viell-known edible frog of the Continent, has a wide geogra]diical range, being found in many parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. How the R. pimctata (Pelodytes) came to be