Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, was a zealous and active supporter of image-worship in the time of the empress Irene. See Icosoclasm. He tirst held the secular position of secretary of state, but was cho- sen, though a layman, to fill the patriarchal office by both the court and the people (A.D. 784). His election gave great offence to Rome, but he was eventually rec- ognised by Hadrian I on the ground of his avowed in- tention to restore the worship of images in the Greek Church. A synod to promote the unifying of the Church of Constantinople with other churches, which he had suggested as a condition of his acceptance of the pa- triarchate, met in 785, but was compelled by a mob to adjourn to Nicea, where it reconvened in 787. In this body the papal legates were accorded the first place and
the patriarch of Constantinople the second, and the lat- ter heartily endorsed the new creed, which determined that worship, in the exercises of kissing, bowing the knee, illuminations, and burning of incense, should be rendered to the images of the human person of Christ and of Mary, the angels, apostles, prophets, and all saints; but not such worship as is due to the Divine Being only {ti)v ti}1))tik))v irpoaKiw^Giv — ov pt)v rriv d\i)^ii'i]i' Xarpuar, i) TTpiTrei ^lovy ry ^tiq (pvnti). All laws directed against the worship of images were anath- ematized. In liis own person, Tarasius was also espe- cially active in the work of converting the opponents of image-worship. In the matrimonial affairs of Con- stantine, the son of Irene, Tarasius played an unworthy part. He protested at first against the rejection of (pieen Maria and the substitution for her of Theodota, but soon gave way to the wishes of the court, and thereby came into collision with the monks, who re- garded the emperor as excommunicated. Tarasius died in 806, and ranks among the saints of both the Greek and the Romish Church. His literary remains con- sist of letters and homilies (see. Walch, Entwurf einer rollst. fJist. d. Ketzereien, Spultunr/en u. Religionsstreitig- keiten [Leips. 1782], x, 419-511). — Herzog, Real-Ency- klop. s. v.
Ta'rea [some Tare'ci] (Heb. Tare'd, ?"ixri, by in- terchange of gutturals for Tahrea ; Sept. Qaptk v. r. 9a- p<'i-)(^\ Vulg. Tharaa), son of Micah in the lineage of king Saul (1 Chron. viii, 35 ) ; elsewhere (ix, 41) called Tahrea (q. v.).
Tares {Zi^c'ina; Y\.\\g. zizania). There can be little doubt that the ZiZdria of the parable (Matt, xiii, 25) denote the weed called " darnel" {Lolium temulentum), a widely distributed grass, and the only species of the order that has deleterious properties. The word used by the evangelist is an Oriental, and not a Greek, term (the native Greek word seems to be alpa, Dioscor. ii, 91). It is the Arabic zaivdn, the Syriac zizdna, and the zonin ('pilT) of the Talmud (Mishna, i, 109; see Bux- torf. Lex. Tidm. s. v. ). The derivation of the Arabic word from zun, " nausea," is well suited to the character of the plant, the grains of which produce vomiting and
Bearded Darnel {Lolium temuleritum).
TARES
202
TARGUM
purijing, convulsions, and even deatli. Volney (Traiu ii, 300) experienced tlic ill effects of eating its see<ls; and "the whole of the inmates of tlie Sliefheld work- house were attacked some years ai^o with symjitoms supposed to he produced by tiieir oatmeal having been accidentally adulterateil with lolium" {Kiu/l. Cyclop, s. v. "Lolium"), The darnel before it comes into ear is very similar in appearance to wheat; hence the command that the ziztuiid should be left to the harvest, lest while men plucked up the tares "they should root up also the wheat with thetn." Prof. Stanley, however {Sinai and Palest, p. 4'_'G), speaks of women and children pick- ing out from the wheat in the corntields of Samaria the tall green stalks, still called by the Arabs ztiirdn. "These stalks," he continues, "if sown designedly throughout the lields, would be inseparable from the wheat, from which, even when growing naturally and by chance, they are at tirst sight hardly distinguish- able." See also Tlutmson (Land and Book, ii, 111): "The grain is just in the proper stage to illustrate the parable. In those parts where the grain has headed out, the tares have done the same, and then a child cannot mistake them for wheat or barley; but where both are less developed, the closest scrutiny will often fail to detect them. Even the farmers, who in this country generally weed their fields, do not attempt to separate the one from the other." The grain-growers in Palestine believe that the zincdn is merely a de- generate wheat; that in wet seasons the wheat turns to tares. Dr. Thomson asserts that this is their fixed opin- ion. It is curious to observe the retention of the fallacy through man}' ages. " Wheat and zunin" says Light- foot (/loi: Ileb. on Matt, xiii, 25), quoting from the Tal- mud, " are not seeds of different kinds." See also Bux- torf {Lex. Tulm. s, v. 'pJIT): "Zizania, species tritici degeneris, sic dicti, quod scortando cum bono tritico, in pejorem naturam degenerat." The Koman writers (comp. "Infelix lolium," Virgil, Georij. i, 154) appear to have entertained a similar opinion with respect to some of the cereals. Thus Pliny {Hist. Nat. xviii, 17), borrowing probably from Tbeophrastus, asserts that "barley will degenerate into the oat." The notion that the zizania of the parable are merely diseased or degenerate wheat has been defended by Brederod (see liis letter to Schultetus in Kxercif, Evang. ii, G5), and strangely adopted by Trench, who {Notes on the Para- bles, p. ill, 4th ed.) regards the distinction of these two plants to be "a falsely assumed fact." If the zizania of the parable denote the darnel, and there cannot be any reasonable doubt about it, the plants are certainly dis- tinct, and the L. temulentiim has as much right to specif- ic distinction as any other kind of grass. — Smith. On the route from Beirut to Akka (1852), Dr. Ilobinson describes fields of wheat "of the most luxuriant growth, finer than which I had not before seen in this or any other country. Among these splendid fields of grain are still found the tares spoken of in the New Test. As described to me, they are not to be distinguished from the wheat until the ear appears. The seed resembles wheat in form, but is smaller and black. In Beirut, poultry are fed upon this seed, and it is kept for sale for that purpose. When not separated from the wheat, bread made from the flour ofteii cawses dizziness to those who eat of it" {Bihl. Res. iii, 55). The bearded darnel has the bad reputation of yielding the only dele- terious grain among all the countless grasses. SVe are not aware that any injurious quality has been detected in the seeds of its own congeners, Lolivm an-ense, L. perenne, the rye-grasses so familiar to British husband- ry; but if mixed with bread, L. temulentiim occasions giddiness, nausea, difliculty of articulation, and other symptoms ranging from intoxication to parah'sis, and instances are on record where mortification of the ex- tremities, or even death, has ensued (see Burnett, Plantce Utiliores, vol. iii). Hence the French have named it ivraie, or " tipsy-grass," a word from which the English