is a play on the name : " I will bring your heir (yoresh) to you, O city of inheritance" (Mareshah). The fol- lowing verse (16) shows that the inhabitants had adopt- ed the heathen and forbidden custom of cutting off the back hair as a sign of mourning. In the time of the Maccabieans it was occupied by the Iduma;ans (2 Mace, xii, 35), but it was laid desolate by Judas on his march from Hebron to Ashdod (1 Mace, v, 65-68 ; Josephus, Ant. xii, 8, 6). Only a few years later it is again reck- oned to Iilumwa ; and Hyrcanus I took it and compelled its inhabitants to practice circumcision (Josephus, .1 nt. xiii, 9, 1). Josephus mentions it among the towns pos- sessed by Alexander Jannaus, which had been in the hands of the Syrians {Ant. xiii. 15, 4); but bj' Pompey it was restored to the former inhabitants, and attached to the province of Syria (ib. xiv, 1, 4). Maresa was among the towns rebuilt by Gabinius (ib. xiv, 5, 3), but was again destroyed by the Parthians in their ir- ruption against Herod {ib. xiv, 13, 9). A place so often mentioned in history must have been of considerable importance; but it does not appear that it was ever again rebuilt (see lleland, Pakest. p. 888). The site, liowever, is set down by liusebius and Jerome (Onomast. s. V. Morasthi) as within two miles of Eleutheropolis, but the direction is not stated. Dr. Robinson {Bibl. Re- searches, ii, 422) found, at a mile and a half so«?/i of the site of J^leutheropolis, a remarkable tel, or artificial hill, with foundations of some buildings. As there are no other ruins in the vicinitj^, and as the site is admirably suited for a fortress, this, he supposes, may have been Mareshah. According to Schwarz (Palest, p. 104) these ruins are still known by the Arabs by the name Mara- sa, probably the Mai'ash described by Tobler (Dritte Wand. p. 129, 142) as lying on a gently swelling hill leading down from the mountains to the great western plain, from which it is but half an hour distant (Van de Velde, Memoir, p. 333).
Maresius or Marets, Jean de, a most remark- able character in French history, fiourished in the 17th century. In his youth he was an infidel. He has him- self left us a picture of his morals in early life, wliich is by no means an advantageous one ; for he owns that, in order to triumph over the virtue of such women as ob- jected to him the interest of their salvation, he made no scruple to lead them into atheistical principles. '• I ought," says he, " to weep tears of blood, considering the bad use I have made of my address among the la- dies; for I have used nothing but specious falsehoods, malicious subtleties, and infamous treacheries, endeav- oring to ruin the souls of those I pretended to love. I studied artful speeches to shake, blind, and seduce them ; and strove to persuade them that vice was virtue, or, at least, a thing natural and indifferent." But after his conversion Marets ran into as great extremes in the opposite direction. In short, he became at last a vision- ary and a religious fanatic, dealing in nothing but in- ward lights and revelations. Among other things, he promised the king of France, upon the strength of some prophecies, whose meaning, he tells us, was imparted to him from above, that he should overthrow Moham- medanism and become the promoter of Christian unity, under the leadership of the pope of Home. But Ma- resius deserves our attention especially for the relation he sustained to the .Jansenists. Appointed inquisitor, he became one of the severest persecutors of Jansenism, and was bent upon the extirpation of this heresy from French ground. In Delices de I'esprit, one of his pro- ductions, he seriously boasts that " God, in his infinite goodness, had sent him the key of the treasures con- tained in the Apocalypse, Avhich was known but to few before him ;" and that, " by the command of (iod. he was to levy an army of 144,000 men, part of which he had already enlisted, to make war upon the impious and the Jansenists" (p. 76). He died in 1676. See Gen. Biog. Diet. vol. ix, s. v. ; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, vol. xxxiii, s. V.
Maresius (Des Marets), Samuel, a noted French
MARETS
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MARGARET
Eeformed theologian, was born at Oisemond, Picanly, in 159i); was educated at Geneva and at Paris; studied theology at Saumur and Geneva, entered the ministry in 1G20, and was settled at Laon by the Synod of Cha- renton. His experience in this place was rather of a peculiar nature. He was stabbed one night, and this attack on his life is charged to the Jesuits, because he had violently opposed them, and had, in a pamphlet de- fending the Protestant faith, severely criticised their conduct. In 1624 he accepted a call to Sedan, both as pastor and theological instructor in the school of theol- ogy situated in this place, lately so celebrated in history. Before he entered upon this new position he went to Leyden, and there secured the degree of D.D. in July, 16'2&. Having made a small tour into England, he re- turned to Sedan. In 1632 he was called as pastor to Maestricht; in 1636 he removed to Herzogenbusch as minister and professor at the Schola illuslris; in 1640 he had an invitation to a professorship at Franeker, and to another at Groningen in 1642. This last he accept- ed, and from that time to his death did such great ser- vices to that university that it was reckoned one of the most flourishing in the Netherlands. The magistrates of Beam, well informed of his abilities and learning, of- fered him, in 1671, the professor of divinity's chair at Lausanne; and in 1673 the University of Leyden in- vited him to a like professorship there. He accepted this last, but died before he had taken possession of it (May 18, 1673). ]\laresius's literary activity was very great, and his ability as a writer equal to that of any man of his day. He was an able polemic, and wrote much against the Roman Catholics, the Socinians, the IMillenarians, and the Arrainians, and even against many of his own confession. Indeed, JMaresius was quite a lit- erarj' pugilist. His contest with Voetius, the Utrecht professor, is famous. See Voetius. His ablest work is his Systema theoloyim (Gron. 1673), in the appendix of which is found a list of all the productions from his pen. Their number is prodigious, and the variety of their subjects shows an unbounded genius. He designed to collect all his works into a body, as well those which had been already published as tliose which were in ISIS. He revised and augmented them for that purpose, and had materials for four volumes in folio, but his death prevented the execution of that project. The first vol- ume was to have contained all those works which he had published before settling at (ironingen. The second his Opera theolorjica (lidadira. The third his Opera tke- olof/ica pulemica. The title of the fourth was to have been Impietas triumphala. Its contents were to have been the "Hydra Socinianismi expugnata." one of the ablest works against the Socinians, the " Biga fanatico- rum eversa," and the "•Fabula prroadamitarum refutata," three works which had been jtrinted at different times. Marets's system of divinity was found to be so method- ical that it was made use of at other academies ; indeed, his reputation procured him so much authority in for- eign countries as well as his own that a jjcrson in Ger- many who had published some severe censures against Slarets received orders to suppress his book. See Gen. Biori. Diet. vol. ix, s. v. ; Bayle, Diet. Hist. s. v. Marets; Kfjinies et Vitce professorum Oroninr/. ; Herzog, Real-En- c)jkhipddie. vol. ix, s. v. (J. H. W.)