Liutpraiid. Sec LuirrRAXD.
Liver ("I^S, kdbed', so called as being the heaviest of the viscera) occurs in Exod. xxix, 13, 22 ; Lev. iii, 4, 10, 15; iv, 9; vii, 4; viii, 16, 25; Lx, 10, 19; Prov. vii, 23; Lam. ii, 11 ; Ezek. xxi, 21. In the Pentateuch it forms part of the phrase translated in the Authorized A'ersion '• the caul that is above the liver," but which Gesenius {Thesaur, Heb. p. 645, 646), reasoning from the root, un- derstands to be the great lobe of the liver itself rather than the caul over it, wliich latter, he observes, is incon- siderable in size, and lias but little fat. Jahn thinks the smaller lobe to be meant. The phrase is also rendered in the Sept. " tlie lobe or lower pendent of the liver," the chief object of attention in the art of hepatoscopy, or divination by the liver, among the ancients. (Jerome gives " the net of the liver," " the suet," and " the fat;"
LIVERPOOL LITURGY
465
LIVING CREATURES
see Bochart, llieroz. i, 498.) See Cauu It appears from the same passages tliat it was burnt upon the al- tar, and not eaten as sacriticial food (Jahn, Bibl. A r- chmol. § 378, n. 7). The liver was supposed by the an- cient Greeks and Romans to be the seat of the passions — pride, love, etc. (see Anacreon, Ode iii, fin. ; Theocritus, IdijU. xi, IG; Horace, Carm. i, 13, 4 ; 25, 15; iv, 1, 12; and the Notes of the Delphin edition. Comp. also Per- sius, Sat. V, 129 ; Juvenal, Sat. v, 047). Some have ar- gued that the same symbol prevailed among the Jews (rendering "^"ibs, in Gen. xlix, G, " my licer" instead of " my honor," Sept. to. i'^iraTa ; compare the Hebrew of Psa. xvi, 9; Ivii, 9; cviii, 2), but Gesenius {llcbr. Lex. s. v. 1133) denies this signification in those passages. Wounds in the liver were supposed to be mortal ; thus the expression in Prov. vii, 23, '' a dart through his liv- er," and Lam. ii, 11, "my liver is poured out upon the earth," are each of them a periphrasis for death itself, ^schylus uses a similar phrase to describe a mortal wound (-4 gamemnon, 1. 442). See Heart.
The passage in Ezekiel (xxi, 21) contains an interest- ing reference to the most ancient of all modes of divina- tion, by the inspection of the viscera of animals, and even of mankind, sacrificially slaughtered for the pur- pose. It is there said that the king of Babylon, among other modes of divination referred to in the same verse, " looked upon the liver." The liver was always con- sidered the most important organ in the ancient art of L'xti<piciujn, or divination by the entrails. Philostra- tus felicitously describes it as " the prophesying tripod of all divination" (Life of Apollonius, viii, 7, 5). The rules by which the Greeks and Romans judged of it are amply detailed in Adams's Roman Antiquities, p. 261 sq. (Lond. 1834), and in Potter's Aj-chaeologia Grceca, i, 316 (Lond. 1775). Vitruvius suggests a plausible theory of the first rise of hepatoscopy. He says the ancients in- spected the livers of those animals which frequented the places where they wished to settle, and if they found the liver, to which they chiefly ascribed the process of sanguification, was injured, they concluded that the wa- ter and nourishment collected in such localities were unwholesome (i, 4). But divination is coeval and co- extensive with a belief in the divinity. Cicero ascribes divination by this and other means to what he calls '• the heroic ages," by which term we know he means a period antecedent to aU historical documents {De Ijii-i- natione'). Prometheus, in the play of that title (i, 474 sq.), lays claim to having taught mankind the different kinds of divination, and that of extispicy among the rest; and Prometheus, according to Servius (ad Virg. Eel. vi, 42), instructed the Assyrians ; and we know from sacred record that Assyria was one of the countries first peo- pled. It is further important to remark that the first recorded instance of divination is that of the teraphim of Laban, a native of Padan-Aram, a district bordering on that country (1 Sam. xix, 13, 16), but by which tera- phim both the Sept. and Josephus understood " the lii-er of goats" (.4 h/. vi, 11,4). See Teraphim. See gener- ally Whiston's Josephus, p. 169, note (Edinb. 1828) ; Bo- chart, i, 41, Z>e Caprarum Nominihus ; Encyclopeedia Me- tropolitana, s. v. Divination ; Rosenmiiller's Scholia on the several passages referred to ; Perizonius, ad ^-Elian, ii, 31 ; Peucer, Be Preecipins Divinationum Generibus, etc. (Wittemberg, 15G0). — Kitto. See Divination. Liverpool Liturgy. See Liturgy. Living Creatures. These, as presented in Ezek. i-x, and Rev. iv sq., are identical with the cherubim. Besides the general resemblance in form, position, and service, we have, Ezek. x, 20 : " I knew that they were the cherubim." Ezekiel, being a priest, was familiar With these symbolical forms. The living ones present some variations from the cherubim, but not greater than appear in the cheruljim themselves. The discussion of their forms and probalile uses has already been given, and is not here resumed. See CnERfB. They are taken up here to give a more careful attention to their symbol- V.— Gg