Many of the writings of Grotius are important in the sphere o^ Church. Hisfory: such are, for instance, his Hist. Goihorum, Vandahvmni et Lo/tf/oharJoriim (IGo,")); and his .1 nnali's et hist, de rebns Belr/icis ob obitit PhJUppi regis tisque ad indvcias amii 1G09. He also treated several questions of ecclesiastical jurisprudence in his De imperio snmmnrum potestatum circa sacra (Ojp. theol. iii, p. 201), in which he sides with Arminius in
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favor of the territorial system against the opinion of Goraar.
The theological writings of Grotius are collected un- der the title Upera omnia theolixjica (Lond. 1G79, fol. 3 vols.). The first vol. contains a IJfe of Grotius, yi'itXx his Annot. in V. T. ; vol. ii contains the Annot.in N. T.; vol. iii includes his miscellaneous theological writ- ings. Thei'e have been man}' lives of Grotius, none of them adequate except Brandt, Hist, van het (even des Heeren Ihdrj de Groot (Amst. 1727, 2 vols. fol.). See alio Lchmann, Grotii Jfanes ah iniquis ohtrectationibus vindicate (Delft, 1727) ; Burigny, Vie de Grotius (Paris, 1752, 2 vols. 8vo), translated into English (Lond. 1754, 8vo) ; Butler, Life of Grotius (Lond. 1827, 8vo) ; Creu- zer, Luther uiid Grotius (Heidelh. 1810, 8vo); Cras, Laudatio U. Grotii (Amst. 1796, 8vo) ; Luden, //. Gro- tius nach seiiien Schiclcsakn und Schriften darr/estellt (Berlin, 1806, 8vo) ; Seegar, Orat. de Grolio (Utrecht, 1785, 4to) ; Bayle, Dictionary, s. v. ; Herzog, Lieal-En- Mopiidie, v, 395 sq. ; Niceron, Memoires pour servir, vol. xix; SchTockh, Kirckeiigeschichte,v,2iG; Hoefer, Nouv. Bioffr. Generate, xxii, 197 sq. ; Piper, Kalender, 1867 ; Nichols, Calvinism and A rminianism, ii, 582-641 ; Shedd, Hist, of Doctrines, ii, 347 sq.
Grove, the representative in the A. V. in certain passages of two Heb. words.
1. IT^dN (or 'n'^^'C^),asherak' (from ^dx, tn be up- right). Seiden was the first who endeavored to show that this word — which in the Sept. and Vulg. is gener- ally rendered (/rove, in which our authorized version has followed them — must in smne places, for the sake of the sense, be taken to mean a wooden image of Ash- toreth {De Diis Syris, ii. 2). Not long after, Spencer made the same assertion (/>e Leg. Jlehrmor. ii, IG). Vitringa then followed out the same argument in his note on Isa. xvii,8. Gesenius, at length, has treated the whole ques- tion so elaborately in his Thesaurus (p. 162) as to leave little to be desired, and has evinced that Asherah is a name, and also denotes an image of this goddess. Some of the arguments which support this partial, or, in Gesenius's case, total rejection of the signifi- cation grove for asherah
are brieflj' as follows : It is argued that it almost al- ways occurs with words which denote idols and statues of idols ; that the verbs which are employed to express the makinff an Asherah are incompatilde with the idea
scholars assume that Asherah is a name for Ashtoreth, and that it denotes more especially tlie relation of that goddess to the j)lantt Venus, as the lesser star of good fortune. It appears, namely, to be an indisputable fact that both Baal and Ashtoreth, although their primary relation was to the sun and moon, came in process of time to be connected, in the religious conceptions of the Syro-Arabians, with the planets Jupiter and Venus, as the two stars of good fortune. See Meni. We may instance the connection between Artemis and Selene ; that between Juno and the planet Venus, mentioned in Creuzer, ii, 566 ; the fact that astro is also tlie name of the same planet in the religious books of the Tsalians (Norberg's Onomast. Cod. Nasarcei, p. 20). It is in ref- erence to this connection, too, that a star is so often found among the emblems with which Ashtoreth is represented on ancient coins. Lastly, while the word Asherah cannot, in the sense oi grove, be legitimatelj' deduced from the primitive or secondary signification of any Syro-Arabian root, as a name of the goddess of good fortune it admits of a derivation as natural in a philological point of view as it is appropriate in signi- fication. The verb "iiL'N means to prosper; and Ashe- rah is the feminine of an adjective sigmfymg fortunate, happy. — Kitto, s. v. Ashtoreth. See Asherah.
AVe must not omit to notice a probable connection between this symbol or image — whatever it was — and the sacred sj'mbolic tree, the representation of which occurs so frequentl}' on Assyrian sculptures, and is shown in the subjoined woodcut. The connection is ingeniously maintained by Mr. Fergusson in his Nine- veh and PeisepoHs restored (p. 299-304), to which thS reader is referred. — Smith, s. v.
Sacred Symbolic Tree of the Assyrians. From Lord Aljerdeen's Black Stone.
2. 5'iL'N, e'shel (Sept. aponprt, Vulg. nemtis'). The first notice of this tree is in Gen. xxi, 33, "And Abraham planted a grove (esliet) in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the Lord." The second passage where of a grove, as they are such as to build, to shape, to erect ! it occurs is 1 Sam. xxii, 6 : " Now Saul abode in Gib- (except in one passage, where, however, Gesenius still I eah under a tree (eshel) in Eamah, having his spear in maintains that the verb there used means to erect); I his hand, and all his servants were standing about that the words used to denote the destruction of an i him." Under such a tree also he and liis sons were Asherah are those of breaking to pieces, subverting: that I buried, for in the only otlier notice of this word it is the image of Asherah is placed in theTempk (2 Kings said (1 Sam. xxxi, 13), "And they took their bones,