wood will
^inall Oriental hanging Lamps.
serves to protect the flame from the wind. Lamps of this kind arc sometimes hung over doors. The shape in figure 3 is also that of a nuich- used indoor lamp, called kandil (Lane, Modern Kf/i/piian.i. chap. V, p. lol). It is a small vessel of glass, having a small tube at the liottom, in -which is stuck a wick formed of cotton twisted round a piece of straw ; some water is poured inJirst, and then the oil.
^ , '^^ , ,-. „. ,f ,,.. Lamps verv nearlv of this shape
EiiliH-'MMl \ lew ol tlie • ",.-■•
irrt<jrf;':inditsieccp- appear on the Lgyptian monu-
ti\c!e for oil. ments, and they seem, iilso, to be
o'' glass (Wilkinson, Ancient E(/i/ptiuns, iii, 101 ; v, 370).
If the Egj-ptians had lamps of glass, there is no reason why the Jews also might not have had them, especially as this material is more proper for lamps intended to be hung uji, and therefore to cast their light down from above.
The Jews used lamps in other festivals besides those of marriage. The Eoman satirist (Persius, Sat. v, 179) expressly describes them as making illuminations at their festivals by lamps hung up and arranged in an or- derly manner; and the scriptural intimations, so far as they go, agree with this description. If this custom had not been so general in the ancient and modern East, it might have been supposed that the Jews adopted it from the Egyptians, who, according to Herodotus (ii, G"2), had a " Feast of Lamps," which was celebrated at Sais, and, indeed, throughout the countr\' at a certain season of the year. The description which the historian gives of the lamps employed on this occasion strictly applies to those in modern use already described, and the concur- rence of both these sources of illustration strengthens the probable analogy of Jewish usage. He speaks of them as " small vases filled with salt and olive-oil, in which the wick floated, and burnt during the whole night." It does not, indeed, apiiear of what materials these vases were made, but we may reasonalily suppose them to have been of glass. The later Jews had even something like this feast among themselves. A '■ Feast of Lamps" was held everv^ year on the twenty-fifth of the month Kisleu. See Dkdication. It was founded bv Judas IMaccabfcus, in celebration of the restoration of the Temple worship (Josephus, Anf. xii, 7, 7\ and has ever since been observed by the lighting up of lamps or candles on that day in all the countries of their disper- sion (^Maimonides, Rosh. Hashanah, fol. 8). Other Ori- entals have at this day a similar feast, of which the " Feast of Lanterns" among the Chinese is perhaps the best known (Davis, Chinese, p. 138). See Lantp:kx.
LA^IP, a strange ceremony of the IMaronitc Church. A wafer of some size, having seven pieces of cotton stuck into it, is put into a flask or basin of oil ; a relig- ious serv'ice is then read, the cotton is set fire to, and the sick person for whose recovery the rite is intended is anointed with the oil, and prayer is repeated over him. — Eadie, Eccles. Diet. s. v.
LA;MPS (their use in the Christian Church). Among the Jews lamps were freely used in the synagogue for various purposes. In fact, all the ancient nations had them in their temples; but how soon they were made use of by Christians, and what significance they had in symbolism, remains a matter of dispute between the Eomish and Protestant churches. The Protestants gen- erally hold that there is no evidence that lamps were used in the early Church for any other purpose than to light np the dark places where they were obliged to congregate for worship, while Komanists claim that they were used as symbols. (Compare, on the Poman Catholic view, Martigny, Diet, des Antiqitites Chre- tiennes, p. 151, s. v. Cierges; see also the art. Lights.) Several of the fathers, among them Chrysostom, con- demn in strong terms the custom of setting up lamps on days of festival — as the relic of some pagan rite. In the days of Jerome, it is true, lights were freely used in churches, but Pomish theologians forget to teU tliat the propriety of the custom was much questioned even then. In graves of the Catacombs "lamps were often placed," says Walcott (Sacred Archeology, s. v.), '"as a symbol ofthc eternal light which the departed, it is hoped, en- joy—as nicniorials of their shining lights before men, and their future gloiy" (Matt, xiii, 43). Put it is evi- dent that even this custom was early disajiprovcd of, fol' the Council of EUbaris forbade the faithful, on jiain of excommunication, lighting wax candles in the day- time in cemeteries or other burial-places of the martyrs (compare I-Ladie, Eccles. Diet. p. 367). In our day it is the custom in tiie Eoman Catholic churches to keep a lamp (eternal light) constantly burning before or by the side of the tabernacle. (J. H. W.)
LAMPADARY
223
LAMY
Lampadary is the name of an officer in the East- ern Church whose (hity it is to carry before the patri- archs in all processit)ns a lighted candelabrum, called Xa/KTrncoi'XOi', as a badge of distinction among bishops. It is the business of the lampadar}^ also to see that the lamps of the church are lighted, and to carry a taper on days of great i)rocessions. See Farrar, Eccles. Did. s. v.