ment of the great metropolis, a:id had a wide influence in leading to similar operations elsewhere. He resigned his position in the Union in the fall of 18G3 to take a l)osition as agent in a life insurance company, but he so conditioned his employers that he had perfect liberty to go and come when he pleased, and he became thence- forth of even greater service to the general Sunday- school interests of this country than he had previously been. He now spent more than three fourths of his time in voluntary, unpaid labor in the Sunday-school cause, going to conventions, institutes, and Smiday- school meetings of every kind to which he was invited, visiting in this way every state in the union except California, everywhere welcome, and ever^'where carry- ing with him an influence rich in blessing. He was also sent for by the students of several of our largest theological seminaries, and delivered in each a course of familiar lectures on the practical details of Sundaj-- school organization and labor. Among the institutions in which he thus labored were the Presbyterian Theo- logical Seminary at Princeton, the Union Seminar}' in New York, and the Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia. These blessed labors were suddenly' cut short by death, Feb. 11, 18G9. A more gentle, genial, loving spirit was never met. W'ithout being remarkably original, he was yet eminentl}' progressive in his ideas, alwaj's keeping himself on the top of the advancing wave; and the new ideas which he gathered and scattered in such rich profusion wherever he went were in turn sent broadcast all over the country through the columns of the Sun- day-school Times, to which he regularly contributed from the establishment of that paper until his hand ceased to hold a pen. Mr. C. C. North, the noted JNIeth- odist lay -worker, in a eulogy which he pays the much- lamented Pardee, writes (^N. Y. Christian A drocate, Feb. 18, 18G9) : " It has not been within my province to write of philosophic powers, of scientific researches, of brill- iant poetic conceptions, nor of splendid oratory ; but of traits, virtues, and usefulness, so singular and so rare, that while the generation past produced but one Raikes, the present has given birth to but one Pardee." His two volumes, the Sunday-school Worker and the Sab- 'bath-school Index, are widely known and prized. See Dr. .John S. Hart in Sunday-school Times, April 3, 18G9. (J. H.W.)
PaX'des (DT^S, i. e. Paradise) is the acrostic com- prising the four exegetical rules, TiO, imi, T~1, UCS, by which the rabbins explained the Scriptures. Im- mediately after the close of the canon the study of the Old Testament became an object of scientific treatment among the Jews. A number of God-fearing teachers arose, who, by their instruction, encouragement, and sol- emn admonitions, rooted and builded up the people iu their scriptural faith. As the Bible formed the central point around which their legends, sermons, lectures, discussions, investigations, etc., clustered, a homiletico- exegetical literature was in the course of time devel- oped, called Midrnsh (q. v."), Tl'~iT3 (from Cn, "to study, expound" — a term which the A. V. renders by "Story," 2 Chron. xiii, 22; xxiv, 27), which became as mysterious in its gigantic dimensions as it is in its or- igin. Starting from the principle that Scripture contains all sciences, as well as the requirements of man for time and eternity, an answer to every question, and that every repetition, figure, parallelism, synonym, word, letter,nay, the very shape and ornaments of the letter or titles, must have some recondite meaning, "just as everj' fibre of a fly's wing or an ant's foot had its peculiar significance," the text was explained in a fourfold manner: viz. 1. a'r S ; 2. T-a'l ; 3. 'd'^'n ; 4. 110. The one called I: w"3, simple, primary, literal, aimed at the simple understanil- ing of words and things, in accordance witli the primary exegetical law of the Talmud, " that no verse of the Scri|i- ture evcrpractically travelled beyond itslitera! moaning,"
•::"r2 "^n^r s'jt' x-p-c ';''s (j,bam<ith,-i\u),t\w\\g\\
i
PARDIES
6C9
PARDO
itmightbeexplained,homiletically aiidothenvise, in in- 1 numerable new ways. The second, 1'2'J, means "hint," i. e. the discovery of the indications contained in certain seemingly superHuous letters and signs in Scripture. These were taken to refer to laws not distinctly men- tioned, but either existing traditionally or newly pro- mulgated. This method, when more generally applied, begot a kind of memoria tec/mica, a stenography akin to the " Notarikon" of the Romans. Points and notes were added to the margins of scriptural MSS., and the foundation of the Massorah, or diplomatic preservation of the text, was thus laid. The third, C^T^I, was hom- iletic application of prophetical and historical dicta to the actual condition of things. It was a peculiar kind of sermon, with all the aids of dialectics and poetry, of parable, gnome, proverb, legend, and the rest, exactly as we find it in the New Testament. The fourth, TlO, secret, mystenj, was a science into which but few were initiated. It was theosophy, metaphysics, angelology, a host of wild and glowing visions of things bej-ond earth. Faint echoes of this science survive in Neo- Platonism, in Gnosticism, in the Cabala, in Hermes Trismegistus. It was also called "the Creation" and " the Chariot," in allusion to Ezekiel's vision. Yet here again the power of the vague and m3'Sterions was so strong that the word Pardes or Paradise gradually in- dicated this last branch, " the secret science only." Comp. Keil, Introd. 1o the Old Testament (Edinb. 1870), ii, 381 sq. ; Hiivernick, /«/?-0(/. (ibid. 1852), p. 3G'2 ; Gins- burg, Cuheleth (Lond. 18GI), p. 30 ; Deutsch, Lit. Remains (New York, 1874), p. 14 ; Wiihner, A ntiq. Ehraorum (Giitt. 1743), i, 353 sq. ; Steinsclmeider, Jewish Lit. (Lond. 1857), p. 142; Hirschfeld, Ilalachische Extgese (Berlin, 1840), p. 114 sq. ; Schlirer, Lehrhuch der neutes- tam. Zeit(jeschichte, p. 448 ; Dcipke, Ilermeneutik der neu- testumenilischen Schriftsteller, p. 135 sq. ; Zunz, Gottes- dienstliche Vojirdt/e (Berlin, 1832), p. 59 ; Schwab, Troite des' Berakoth ou ■premiere partie du Talmud (Paris, 1871), p. 9 sq. (B.P.)