also Muth, the universal mother and queen of heaven. Neith wears the red crown of Lower Egypt, indicating the proper seat of her worship; but her monuments are found in the upper region also. By reversing her hiero- glyphic signs NT (i. e. by reading them in the European instead of the Asiatic manner), may have been formed Athene, the patron goddess of Athens, which city was supposed to have been founded from Sais. The owl, her favorite bird, is also found upon the coinage of the Delta; but the virgin mother of Egypt seems to have had little else in common with the Minerva who sprang full armed from the brain of Jupiter. See Minkhva. A statue of Neith is preserved in the Egyptian Room of the British Museum. Neith is generally represented in green, a sign that she was comiected with the under world, and invisible to mortals; a festival of '•Burning Lamps" was held in her honor. See Bunsen, Kgypt's Place in History, vo]. i; Kenrick, Anc. Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. i; Rouge, in Revue Archeologiqne (hui- tieme annee), p. 40 sq. ; Hardwick, Christ and other Masters, ii, '248 sq. ; Baur, Symbolik und Mythologie, vol. ii, pt. i, p. 43; Trevor, ^l«c. Egypt, p. 134, 187, 15-2. (J.II.W.)
Neithe is the name of a Celtic divinity who was superstitiously reverenced even in Christian Scotland. The primitive signification of the name is to wash or purify with water, and the name was probabU' given to this divinity because she is the presiding spirit of the water element. She was the goddess of fountains, which to this day are regarded with particular venera- tion over every part of the Highlands. " The sick, who resort to them for health," says Brand {Popular A ntiqni- ties of Great Britain, ii, 37G), " address their vows to the presiding powers and offer presents to conciliate their favor. The presents generally consist of a small piece of money or a few fragrant flowers." See the article Holy Wki.l.
Nekam, a iMoliammcdan martyr to the Christian cause, flourished near tiic middle of the 11th century. He was of an influential family, but, convinced of the errors of Jlohammedanism, he embraced Christianity and became a Jacobite. His parents and friends forsook him, and he consequently retired to the church of St. ^Micliijcl at ^Nloctara, where, after a short stay, he was urged l)y the monks to retreat with them to the convent of S. Macarius. He refused to join them, on the ground of his obligation to publicly confessing Christ, especially among his former associates, in order that they too might become Christ's servants on earth. He went to Cairo, and there boldly presenting himself in the public streets, was imprisoned and condemned to death, because of his apostasy. All efforts to reclaim him, or to feign mad- ness in order that his life might be saved, he refused as improper means, and he was consequently beheaded. The corpse was given up to his friends and buried near the church of Moctara, but the patriarch Abd-cl-Mes- siah removed it within the building, and erected an altar in honor of the noble martyr. Sec Nealc's Hist. Holy East. Ch. {Patriarchate of Alexandria, ii, 215, 71G).
Ne'keb (Ileb. id., but only with the art., 2)^itl; Sept. Kai 'SnjSwK, v. r. Nn/Si'ic, Na«,3; Vulg. qiue est Xeceb), given in our version as one of the towns on the boundary of Naphtali (Josh, xix, 33 only), apparently between Adami and Jabneel. A great number of com- mentators, from Jonathan the Targumist and Jerome (]'ulgate as above) to Kcil {./osua, ad loc), have taken this name as being connected with the preceding — .\dami-han-Xekeb (i. e. Adami [of] the Cavern) (so Junius and TremcUius, " Adamici fossa"); and indeed this is the force of the accentuation of the present He- brew text. But on the other hand the Sept. gives the two as distinct, and in the Talmud the post-biblic.il names of each are given, that of han-Xekeb being 7'.<i<j- dathah (Nni''S, Gcmara Hicros. Cod. Megilla, in Re- lanil, PalcEst. p. 545, 717, 817 ; also Schwarz, Palestine,
NEKODA
931
NELLO
p. 181). Of this more modern name Schwarz sufrgests that a trace is to be found in "Ilazedhi, three English miles N. from al-Chatti." Hackett suggests Neclcev, near Kamah, on the road to Akka (^Illust, of Script, p. 240). Both these suggestions, however, are superfluous. See Adami.
Neko'da (Heb. Nekoda', S^'lip!, distinffinshed ; Sept. 'HiKMCc't, V. r. '>itx'^^a and lstKit)Sdv), the head of a family of the " Temple servants" who returned with Zerubbabel from Babylon (Ezra ii, 48 ; Neh. vii, 50). B.C. 535. A man of the same name is mentioned in Ezra ii, 60; Neh. vii, 62, as the progenitor of certain persons who on the return from Babylon had lost their pedigree, from which it ^vould seem that they claimed to be Israelites; but as the Nethinim are mentioned im- mediately before, and neither of the associated names occurs again, we may presume that they were finally determined to be descendants of the above-named non- Israelite (see Keil, ad loc). See Nethinim.
Nekoth. See Spices.
Nelis, CoRSEiLLE Fk.vni^ois de, a learned Belgian prelate, was born in Mechlin June 5, 1736. He was educated at the University of Louvain, and took the degree of licentiate May 6, 1760. Almost immediately he became principal of the College of Mechlin, and, in addition, the management of the library of the Academy was intrusted to him. He made himself advantageous- ly known to the literary world by several Dissertations upon various points of history and philosophj'. He was nominated canon of Tournay in 1765, and in 1767 vicar- general of that city ; he also held for a time the vicari- ate-general over the province of Tournaisis. Upon the exclusion of the Society of Jesus from the country in 1773, he was designated as a member of the royal com- mission for the studies instituted at Brussels. The arch- duke IMaximilian, afterwards elector of Cologne, having appreciated his merit in a visit that Nelis made to the Belgian provinces, signalized him to the emperor Joseph II, who nominated Nelis to the bishopric of Antwerp, Oct. 25, 1784. Although he owed his elevation to the house of Austria, his conscience was greatly alarmed by the religious innovations that the emperor Joseph II wished to introduce ; and as early as jSIay 22, 1786, he addressed remonstrances to the government concerning the order of publishing from the pulpit the proclamations of the police and others, and several days after representations upon the suppression of societies, processions, and upon impediments that invalidate marriage. The same year he opposed the imperial edict which instituted a new form of concourse for conferring benetices ; later he wrote against the suppression of episcopal seminaries. The death of Joseph II wrought some changes, and on July 19, 1793, Nelis, who had shown himself one of the most ardent enemies of France, wrote to the emperor Francis II to justify and excuse his conduct during the Braban- ^onne revolution. The 21st of April following he went to Brussels, where the states were convened, and was cordially welcomed by the emperor. But the revo- lution advanced rapidly, and at the approach of the French army Nelis, who had everything to fear, tied in haste from Antwerp, June 28, 1794. He sought tirst an asylum at Breda, but could not long remain in that town, and made his way to Kotterdam, and in 1795 went over into Germany. After having sojourned sev- eral months at (lottingen and at Osnabrllck, then in Switzerland at Zurich, near Lavatcr, of whom he was an intimate friend, he passed to Bavaria, and shorth' after to Italy, where he dwelt successively at Florence, Parma, Bologna, Rome, and Naples. He found at last a welcome hospitality in a convent of Camaldules near Florence, where he died, August 21, 1798. We have among the works of this prelate, Eloge funehre de Vem- pereiir Francois I (Louvain, 1765, 4to, in Latin ; Brus- .sels, 1766, 4to, in Latin and French) : — Eloge fumhi-e de Marie -Ther'ese (Brussels, 1780, 4to and 8vo). This eulogy, written in French, is considered much superior