Inquisitor. See Inquisition.
I. N. R. J. are the initials for Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judit'orum (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews), fre- quently met with as inscriptions. See Cross of Ciiuist.
Insabbatati. See Waldensians.
Insacrati, the name usually given in the ancient canons to the inferior clergy. The superior clergy are commonly called the iepoi'i^ievot, holy or sacred ; the oth- ers insacrati, unconsecrated. Different ceremonies were observed at their ordination : the higher orders were set apart at the altar by the solemn imposition of hands; the others had no imposition of hands. The superior orders ministered as priests, celebrating the sacraments and preaching in the church ; the inferior performed some lower or ordinary duties, and generally attended upon the others in their sacred services. — Farrar, Eccles. Dictionary. See Inferior Clergy.
Inscriptions carved on stone have in all ages been regarded by cultivated, and sometimes even by rude na- tions, as the most enduring monuments of remarkable events. Thus the early patriarch Job woiUd have his dying profession of faith " graven with iron in the rock forever" (Job xix, 24). Moses inscribed the law upon stones, and set them up permanently in Mt. Ebal (Deut. xxvii, 2-8; Josh, viii, 30). See Pillar.
The oldest inscriptions now known to us are the Chi- nese, which profess to ascend to B.C. 2278. Those of India date only back to B.C. 315, the age of Sandracot- tus; but it has been thought that the hieroglyphical in- scriptions of Central America and of 3Iexico may prove to be of much older date than those of China even. The Egyptian inscriptions are generally acknowledged to l)e as old as B.C. 2000; next in order come the Assyrian and Babylonian, reaching nearly as high an anticpiity, and then follow the Persian, and JMedian, and Pliojni- cian, all of about B.C. 700, ^vhile the Greek date only to B.C. 500 and 600, and the Etruscan and Koman to no re- moter date than the Indian, i. e. B.C. 400-300. The most remarkable of all the known inscriptions are the trilingual inscription of Kosetta, that of Shalmanezer on the obelisk of Nimriid, and the cylinder of Sennach- erib; the trilingual inscrijjtion of Darius I on the rock at Behistun ; the Greek inscription of the soldiers of Psammetichus at Ipsamboul. and of the bronze helmet dedicated bv Hiero I to the Olympian Jupiter; the in- scription on the coffin of the Cyprian king Asmumazer; the Etruscan inscription called the Eugubine Tables; that of Mummius, the conijueror of Corinth, at Rome, and the will of Augustus at Ancyra; the inscription of the Ethiopian monarch Silco; the old monument of Yu, and the inscription of Se-gan-fu, recording the arrival of Christianity in China (A.D.631); the inscriptions of Chandra-gupta and Asoka in India.
I. Egyptian Ilirroghiphics. — These are at once the most ancient, the most copious, and the most instruc-
INSCRIPTIONS
606
INSCRIPTIONS
tive of all relics of this description extant. The Egyp- tians used three modes of writing : (1) the Enchorial or JJenwtir, the common language of the countrj' ; (2) the llunttic, peculiar to the priests; and (3) the Hie- ri>(ihjj>hic. Hieroglyphics, again, are of three kinds: {i)'j'Ji<>ii('tic, when the hieroglyphic stands for a letter ; (ii.) Kmhlematic or Symbolic, when it is an emblem or livmbol of the thing represented ; (iii.) Fiyuratice, when it is a representation of the object itself. The annexed engraving will give some idea of the four dift'erent kinds of Egyptian characters ; by this it will be seen that in some cases the derivation of the demotic character is to be traced, through its various gradations, from the orig-
\V
^ ^
S::=3 ^^ It /
inal pure hieroglyphic, while in others the resemblance is utterly lost. We illustrate this subject by a few examples, pointing out the various meanings attached to the Egyptian characters under different circum- Btances. The names of the gods were in general ex- pressed by symbols and not by letters ; " in the same manner, the Jews never wrote at full length the ineffa- ble name of Jehovah, but always expressed it by a short mark, which they pronounced Adonai." These repre- sentations were of two kinds : jiguratire, in which the name of the deity is implied by the form in whicli he Was represented in his statue, and symbolic, in which a part of the statue, or some object having a reference to the deity, was employed, as for instance :
'^Ifi I
Phr6. Cnouphis. Anion,
m/?5
Many words were also expressed bj' symbols, of ^vhich the following are examples :
cr
'^ 'll
r^
-I
n 1
^
er
nple.
God.
intU
a
Mother. Son or Child.
Dr. Young and Mr. Tattam have satisfactorily shown that all that has come down to us of the language and literature of ancient Egypt is contained in the Coptic, Sahadic, or Upper Country, and the Basniurico-Coptic dialects, and in the enchorial, hieratic, and hieroglyph- ic inscriptions and MSS. ; and it is a point tliat cannot be too much insisted upon, that a previous knowledge of the Coptic is ahsdhitcly necessary to a correct under- standing of the liicroglyphics. See TIieuoglvpiiics.
These insiriptions are found abundantly on the vari- ous monuments still remaining in Egypt, e^|)ecially in the tombs and palaces of the several kings. Tliey are found either alone, as documentary records, e. g. oii the obelisks and columns ; or oftener in connection with pic- torial representations of ])\d)lic or private scenes; very rarely, as in the famous Kosetta Stone, with interlinear translations in the corresponding Egyptian or a foreign language. See Egypt.