In the religions of the ancient heathen world groves play a prominent part. In old times altars only were erected to the gods. It was thought wrong to shut up the gods witliin walls, and hence, as Pliny express- ly tells us (//. N. xii, 2), trees were the first temples (Tacit. Germ. 9 ; Lucian, de Sncrific. 10 ; see Carjizov, App. Crit. p. 332), and from the earliest times groves are mentioned in connection with religious worship (Gen. xii, 6, 7 ; xiii, 18 ; Deut. xi, 30 ; A. V. " plain ;" see above). Their high antiquity, refreshing shade, solemn silence, and awe-inspiring solitude, as well as the striking illustration they afford of natural life, marked them out as the fit localities, or even the ac- tual objects of worship (" Lucos et in lis silentia ipsa adoramus," Plin}', xii, 1; " Secretum luci . . . et ad- miratio umbroe fidem tibi numinis facit," Senec. Eji. xii; "Quo posses viso dicere Numen habet," Ovid, Fast, iii, 295 ; " Sacra nemus accubet umbra," Virgil, Ceor^. iii, 334 ; comp. Ovid, il/e/.viii, 743; seeEzek.vi, 13 ; Isa. Ivii, 5 ; Hos. iv, 13). This last passage hints at another and darker reason whj- groves were opportune for the degraded services of idolatry ; their shadow hid the atrocities and obscenities of heathen worship. The groves were generally found connected with temples, and often had the right of affording an asylum (Tacit. Germ. 9, 40 ; Herod, ii, 138 ; Virgil, ^En. i,"441 ; ii, 512; Sil. Ital. i, 81). Some have supposed that even the Jewish Temple had a Ttptvoq planted with palm, and cedar (Psa. xcii, 12, 13), and olive (Psa. Iii, 8), as the mosque which stands on its site now has. This is more than doubtful ; but we know that a celebrated oak stood by the sanctuary at Shechem (Josh, xxiv, 2G ; Judg. ix, G ; Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. 142). We find repeated mention of groves consecrated with deep superstition to particular gods (Livj', vii, 25 ; xxiv, 3 ; XXXV, 51 ; Tacit. Ann. ii, 12, 51, etc. ; iv, 73, etc.). For this reason they were stringenth' forbidden to the Jews (Exod. xxxiv, 13; Jer. xvii, 2; Ezek. xx, 28), and Mainionides even sajs that it is forbidden to sit under the shade of any green tree where an idol-statue was (Fabric. /rii/. ^7i<!'j. p. 290). Yet we find abundant indications that the Hebrews felt the influence of groves on the mind ("the spirit in the woods," Words- worth), and therefore selected them for solemn pur- poses, such as great national meetings (Judg. ix, 6, 37) and the burial of tlie dead (Gen. xxxv, 8 ; 1 Sam. xxxi, 14). Those connected with patriarchal history were peculiarly liable to superstitious reverence (Amos V, 5 ; viii, 13) ; and we find that the groves of Mamre were long a place of worship (Sozomen, //. E. ii, 4 ; Euseb. r«V. Co?(s^ p. 81; Keland,i'afes<. p.714). Tliere are in Scripture many memorable trees; e.g. Allon- bachuth ((ien. xxxv, 8), the tamarisk (see above) in Gibeah (lSam.xxii,6), the terebinth in Shechem (Josh. xxiv, 2G, under which the law was set np), the palm- tree of Deborah (Judg. iv, 5\ the terebinth of enchant- ments (Judg. ix,37), the terebinth of wanderers (Judg. iv, 11), and others (1 Sam. xiv, 2 ; x, 3; sometimes "plain" in A.V., Vulg. " convallis").
This observation of particular trees was among the heathen extended to a regular worship of them. " Tree- worship maj' be traced from the interior of Africa not onlj' into Egypt and Arabia, but also onward uninter- ruptedly into Palestine and Syria, Assyria, Persia, In- dia, Thibet, Siam, the Philippine Islands, China, Japan, and Siberia; also westward into Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and other countries ; and in most of the coun- tries here named it obtains in the present day, com- bined as it has been in other parts with various forms
GROVE
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of idolatry" (Poole, Gen. of Earth and Man, p. 139). " The worship of trees even goes back among the Irau- nians to the rules of Horn, called in the Zend-Avesta the promulgator of the old law. We know from He- rodotus the delight which Xerxes took in the great plane-tree in Lj'dia, in which he bestowed golden or- naments, and appointed for it a sentinel in the person of one of the 'immortal Ten Thousand.' The early veneration of trees was associated, by the moist and re- freshing canopy of foliage, with that of sacred fount- ains. In similar connection with the early worship of nature were among the Hellenic nations the fame of the great palm-tree of Delos, and of an aged pla- tanus in Arcadia. The Buddhists of Cej'lon venerate the colossal Indian fig-tree of Anurah-depura. ... As single trees thus became objects of veneration from the beauty of their form, so did also groups of trees, under the name of 'groves of gods.' Pausanias (i, 21, § 9) is full of the praise of a grove belonging to tlie temple of Apollo at Grynion in ^olis ; and the grove of Co- lone is celebrated in the renowned chorus of Sophocles" (Humboldt, Cosmos, ii, 96, Eng. ed.). The custom of adorning trees "with jewels and mantles" was very ancient and universal (Herod, vii, 31 ; iElian, T'. H. ii, 14 ; Theocr. id. xviii ; Ovid, Met. viii, 723, 745 ; Arnob. adv. Gentes, i, 39), and even still exists in the East.