Onuphrius, Pan vinius, a celebrated Augustinian monk of Italy, was born in 1529 at Verona. He applied himself especially to the study of ecclesiastical history, and continued the Lives of the Popes, begun by Platina, which he published, with a dedication to pope Pius V, in 1566. The work had been printed before at Venice in 1557 by his friend James Strada, who had forcibly taken the copy from him. Onuphrius afterwards marked several mistakes in the piece, and intended to correct them in a general history of the popes and car- dinals, on which he was engaged when he died at Pa- lermo, in Sicily, in 1568, He published also, Be jnimatu Petri: — Chronicum Ecclesiasticum : — I)e antiquo ritu baptizandi Cathecumenos, et de orirjine baptizandi ima- gines: — Festi et triumpki Romanorum : — De Sibyllis : — Comment. Reipitb. lionumce: — Comment, de triumpho: — Comment, in fastos consulares: — Libri quatuor de im- pel: Rom. : — De urbis Veronm viris illustribus : — Civi- tas Roma : — De ritu sepeliendi mortuos .apiid reteres Christianos : — De prcecipuis urbis Romm basilicis, etc. Paulus Manutius, in Epistolis, calls him the "Helluo antiquarum historiarum ;" and it is said that he acquired the title of the Father of History. It is certain he was beloved by t^v•o emperors, Ferdinand and his son Maximilian, as also by Philip II, king of Spain. Onu- phrius took for his emblem an ox standing between a plough and an altar, with this motto, " In utrumque pa- ratus;" importing that he was equally ready to under- go the fatigues of divinity or those of human sciences. A magnificent marble monument, with his statue in bronze, was erected by his friends to his memorj-^ in the church of the .Vugustinc monks at Rome. See Gen- eral Hiog. Diet. s. V.
O'nus Cilvovt;)., a corrupt Grajcized form (1 Esdr. V, 22) of the name of the town Ono (q. v.).
Oayanibe, a wicked spirit much dreaded by the natives of Southern (niinca. The peo]ilc seldom speak of him, and always manifest uneasiness when his name is mentioned in their presence. They do not seem to
regard this spirit as having much influence over the aflairs of men. — Gardner, Faiths of the World, vol. ii, s. v. On'ycha, a modified form of the Greek wv^, a finger-nail, is used in the A. V. for the Heb. riPn'j, sheche'leth (prop, a shell, from a root signifying to scale or peel off), which occurs only in Exod. xxx, 34 (Sept. 6vvS,\ Vulg. onyx) as one of the ingredients of the sacred perfume. Similarly in Ecclus. xxiv, 15, wisdom is compared to the pleasant odor yielded by " galbanum, onyx, and sweet storax." Most versions, Hebrew inter- preters and Talmudists, understand the Unguis odoratus, the well-known Constantinople "sweet-hoof (Blattu Byzanthui) of the shops. It consists of the shells of several kinds of muscles, which when burned produce a scent similar to that of the castoreum. (See passages of Arabic and other authors in Bochart, Hieroz. iii, 796 sq.) There can be little doubt that the ui'v^ of Dios- corides (ii, 10) and the onyx of Pliny (xxxii, 10) are identical vvith the opercidum of a Strombus, perhaps S. lentiginosus. There is frequent mention of the onyx in the writings of Arabian authors, and it would appear from them that the operculum of several kinds of Strom- bus Avere prized as perfumes. The following is Dios- corides's description of the ovvS, : '• The onyx is the operculum of a shell-fish resembling the purpura, which is found in India in the nard- producing lakes; it is odorous, because the shell-fish feed on tlie nard, and is collected after the heat has dried up the marshes : that is the best kind which comes from the Red Sea, and is whitish and shining; the Babylonian kind is dark, and smaller than the other; both have a sweet odor when burned, something like castoreum." It is not easy to see what Dioscorides can mean by " nard - producing lakes." The lii'i/^, "nail," or "claw," seems to point to the operculum of the Strombidfe, which is of a claw shape and serrated, whence the Arabs call the mollusk " the devil's claw ;" for Unguis odoratus, or Blatla By-
Strombus Diance. A. The Shell. B. The operculum.
zantina — for under both these terms apparently the devil-claw (Teuflsklau of the Germans) is alluded to in old English writers on Materia Medica — has by some been supposed no longer to exist. Dr. Lister laments its loss, believing it to have been a good medicine, " from its strong aromatic smell." Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, says that the opercula of tlie different kinds o{ Strombidm agree with the figures of Blutta By- zantina and Unguis odoratus in the old books; with re- gard to the wlor he writes, " The hornj- opercula when burned all emit an odor which some may call sweet, ac- cording to their fancy." Mr. Daniel Hanbury procured some specimens in Damascus in October (1860), and a friend of his bought some in Alexandria a few months previously. The article appears to be ahvays mixed with the opercula of some species of Fusus. As regards the perfume ascribed to this substance, it does not ap- pear to deserve the character of the excellent odor which has l)een attributed to it, though it is not without an aromatic scent. See a figure of the true Blatta Byzan- timi m ]Mattliiolus's Comment, in Dioscor. (ii, 8), where there is a long discussion on the suljject ; also a fig. of B.. Byzant. and the operculum of Fusus in Pomet's His-