Tellier, Michael le, a Jesuit and father confessor to Lfiuis Xn', was born at Yire, in Normandy, in 1643. He entered the Order of Jesuits in his eighteenth year, and at first devoted himself to historical studies, whose fruit was an edition of Quintus Curtius in 1()78; but he eventually engaged in theology, becoming one of the most violent opponents of the • Jansenists. In 1G72, 1675, and 1684 he published fulminations against the Mons (properly Amsterdam) version of the Bible by
De Sacy and other Port -Royalists. He co-operated with father Boidiours in his translation of the Scriptures, however, and zealously defended the Jesuit missiona- ries to Cliina against the well-fomided complaints raised against them. In 1699 he issued a liistoire dcs Cinq Propositions de Jansenius imder the name of Dumas, and in 1705 he assailed Quesnel (cj. v.) as a rebel and heretic. He now became provincial of his order, and in 1709 confessor to the king. In the latter capacity he succeeded in inducing the king to procure from pope Clement XI the condemnation of the New Test, with Quesnel's notes. The bull Vnif/enitvs, which occasion- ed so much controversy in Franco, and was forcibly ex- ecuted by the king, is to be charged primarily upon Tellier. His dominion ended, however, in 1715, on the death of Louis, and he was removed first to Amiens and afterwards to La Fleche. He died at the latter place in 1719. — Herzog, Real-Encyklop. s. v.
Tel-me'lah (Heb. Tel-me'lach, nb-Q-^n, salt hill; Sept. BtXntXtx and QeX^iXsB, v. r. GfX^tf^sX and 9fp- /(E/XfSfi ; Vulg. Thelinala) is joined with Tel-harsa and Cherub as the name of a place where the Jews returned who had lost their pedigree after the Captivity (Ezra ii, 59; Neh. iii, 61). It is perhaps the Thilme of Ptolemy (v, 20), which some wrongly read as Theame (0EAMH for BEAMH), a city of the low salt tract near the Per- sian Gulf, whence probably the name ((iesen. Lex. Heb. s. v.). Cherub, which may be pretty surely identified with Ptolemy's Chiripha (Xipt^d), was in the same re- gion. Herzfeld {Gesch. Tsr. i, 452) insists that it desig- nates the province of Melitene according to Ptolemy (vi, 3), adjoining Susiana west of the Tigris; but Ptolemy (v, 7, .5) and Pliny (vi, 3) know only a Jlelitene on the border of Cappadocia and Armenia Major.
Te'ma (Heb. Teyma', X'S'^P [in Job vi, 19 more concisely Tenia', Nin] = the Arab, teyma, ^' & desert" [but Gesen. = Teman, i. e. the South']; Sept. ftaifini', Vulg. Thema [but in Isa. Auster]), the name of a per- son and of a tribe or district.
1. The ninth son of Ishmael (Gen. xxv, 15 ; 1 Chron. i, 30). B.C. post 2020.
2. The tribe descended from him mentioned in Job vi, 19, "The troops of Tema loolied, the companies of Sheba waited for them," and by Jeremiah (xxv, 23), "Dedan, Tema. and Buz;" and also the land occupied by this tribe: "The burden upon Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling companies of Dedanim. The inhabitants of the land of Tema brought water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled" (Isa. xxi, 13, 14).
The name and the tribe appear to have been known to classic writers. Ptolemy mentions the city of Thein- me (0f|U/()/) among those of Arabia Deserta, and appar- ently in the centre of the country {Geoep: v, 19). Pliny states that " to the Nabattei the ancients joined the Thimanei" (f/ist. Xat. vi, 32). It may be questioned, however, whether he refers to the Biblical Teman or Tema.
There can be little doubt that the Themme of Ptol- emj' is identical with the modern Teima, an Arab town of some five hundred inhabitants, situated on the west- ern border of the province of Nejd. Wallin, who visit- ed it in 1848, thus describes if. "Teima stands on a mass of crystalline limestone, very slightly raised above the surrounding level. Patches of sand, which have encroached upon the rock, are the only spots which can be cultivated. The inhabitants, however, have consid- erable date plantations, which yield a great variety of the fruit, of which one kind is esteemed the best flavored in all Arabia. Grain is also cultivated, especially oats of a remarkably good quality, but the produce is never suflicient for the wants of the inhabitants. The great- er portion of the gardens are watered from a copious well in the middle of the villngc. The hydraulic con- trivance by which water is raised for distribution through channels among the plantations is the same as is used
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through ^Mesopotamia as well as in NejM, viz. a bucket of camel-skin hung to the end of a long lever moving upon an upriglit pole fixed in the gronnd" [Journal R. G. S. XX, 332). Arab writers state of Teima that "it is a town in the Syrian desert, and that it is commanded by the castle called El-Ablak [or Kl-Ablak el-Fard], of Es-Semawal [Saninel] Ibn-'Adiya the Jew, a contem- porary of Imra-el-Keys" (A.D. cir. 550) ; bnt according to a tradition it was built by Solomon, which points at any rate to its antiquity (comp. El-Bekri, in Mardsid. iv, '23). Wallin says no remains of the castle now ex- ist, nor does even the name •' live in the memory of the present inhabitants. A small ruined building, Cdustruct- ed of hewn stone, and half buried in sand and rubbish, appeared to me to be too inconsiderable to admit of its being identified with the celebrated old castle" {lit sti^h p. 333). This fortress seems, like that of Dumat-el-,len- del. to be one of the strongholds that must have pro- tected the caravan route along the northern frontier of Arabia; and they recall the passage following the enu- meration of tlie sons of Ishmael: "These [are] the sons of Ishmael, and these [are] their names, by their ioirns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations" (Gen. xxv, 16).