The descriptions of the tomb by the author of the book of Maccabees and Josephus, who had both appar- ently seen it, will be most conveniently compared by being printed together :
1 Mace, xxiii, 2T-30. "And Simon made a build- ing over the sepulchre of his father and his brethren, and raif'ed it aloft to view with polislied stone behind andbe-
Josephus, Ant. xiii, 6, 6.
"And Simon bnilt a very large monument to his father and his brethren of white and polished stoue. And he raised it up to a great and
fore. Audhe set up npon it conspicuous height, and seven pyramids, one agaiustthrew cloisters arouud, and another, for his father and set up pillars of a single hismotheraudhisfonrbreth- stone, a work wonderful to ren. And on these he made[ behold: and near to these enginesofwar, and set great! he built seven pyramids to pillars round about, and on his parents and his hroth- the pillars he made suits of ers, one for each, terrible to
behold both for size and beauty.
And these things are pre- served even to this day."
armor for a perpetual mem ory ; and by the suits of ar- mor ships carved, so that they might be seen by all that sail on the sea. This sepulchre he made at Modin, and it stands unto this day."
The monuments are said by Eusebius {ut sup.) to have been still shown when he wrote — A.D. cir. 320. Any restoration of the structure from so imperfect an account as the above can never be anything more than conject- ure. Something has been already attempted under Maccabees (q. v.). But in its absence one or two questions present themselves.
(1.) The "ships" (TrAoin, naves'). The sea and its pursuits were so alien to the ancient Jews, and the life of the Maccabrean heroes who preceded Simon was — if we except their casual relations with Joppa and Jamnia and the battle-field of the maritime plain — so uncon- nected therewith, that it is difficidt not to suppose that the word is corrupted from what it originally was. This Avas the view of J. D. IMichaelis, but he does not pro- pose any satisfactory word in substitution for TrXoTn (see his suggestion in Grimm, ad loc). True, Simon appears to have been to a certain extent alive to the importance of commerce to his country, and he is espe- cially commemorated for having acquired the harbor of Joppa, and thus opened an inlet for the isles of the sea (1 Mace, xiv, 5). But it is difficult to see the connec- tion between this and the placing of ships on a monu- ment to his father and brothers, whose memorable deeds had been of a different description. It is perhaps more YI.-C c
feasible to suppose that the scidptures were intended to be symbolical of the departed heroes. In this case it seems not improbable that during Simon's intercourse with the Romans he had seen and been struck with their war-galleys, no inapt symbols of the fierce and rapid career of Judas. How far such symbolical repre- sentation was likely to occur to a Jew of that period is another question.
(2.) The distance at which the " ships" were to be seen. Here again, when the necessary distance of Mo- din from the sea— Latrfin, fifteen miles; Kubab, thir- teen; Lydda itself, ten — and the limited size of the sculptures are considered, the doubt inevitably arises whether the Greek text of the book of IMaccabees accu- rately represents the original. De Saulcy {UArt Ju- daique, p. 377) ingeniously suggests that the true mean- ing is, not that the sculptures could be discerned from the vessels in the Mediterranean, but that they Avere worthy to be inspected by those who were sailors by profession. — Smith. Hitzig {Gesch. des Volkes Israels, p. 449) insists upon it (1869) that Modin is recognised in the modern little village el-BurjIi (comp. Robinson, iii, 272), but the exact location is by recent excavations determined to be in el-Mediyeh, two and a quarter hours east of Lydda (Quar. Statement of " Palestine Explora- tion Fund," 1870, p. 245 sq.; 1874, p. 58 sq.).
Modius. See Bushel.
Modius (from Greek jauSioc, a measure) desig- nates, in the language of archa3ological sculpture, a kind of basket frequently found in representations of heathen divinities. It was placed on their heads in imitation of the practice prevailing among the ancients, among whom the women carried in baskets on their heads sacrifices for the gods.
Modoin, or Maut-win, a noted early French ec- clesiastic, was born towards the latter part of the 8th century. In his early manhood he was a priest con- nected with St. George's church at Lyons. Later he was bishop of Autun. The first mention of his name in the Church records of Autun occurs in 815. Soon after- wards he was recognised as one of the leading prelates in the empire. Louis "le Debonnaire," in his disgrace and adversity, had no adherent more faithlul than Mo- doin, whose credit at the court of Charles the Bald was equally high. When Pepin was driven out of Aqui- taine, Charles the Bald divided that kingdom into three governments, the designated capitals of which were, re- spectively, Limoges, Clermont, and Angouleme. The ecclesiastical district of Clermont was then assigned to bishop Modoin. Later, after the deposition of Ago- bard, archbishop of Lj^ons, JModoin took an active part in the administration of the archiepiscopal see. Florus reproaches him with undue firmness in his treatment of the Lyonnese clergj'. The reverend Kouvier mentions jModoin as being numbered among the abbes of SIou- tier-Saint-Jean, in the diocese of Langres. In the 9th century it was not uncommon to meet bishops engaged in the same pursuits with abbes. When Theodulfe, bishop of Orleans, was in prison at Angers, he sent a po- etical composition to Modoin, begging him to interfere in his favor. Modoin, in reply, indited a short poem, his only literary work extant. He died about 842. See Gallia Christ, vol. iv, col. 359 ; Hist. Litter, de la France, i v, 547. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Gen. s. v.