PhilpOttS. See PHILUPOTT&
Philter, Philtre (Gr. QiXrpov, love-charm, love- potion). A superstitious belief in the efficacy of certain artificial means of inspiring and securing love seems to have been generally prevalent from very earl} times;
and among tin Greeks and R ans (among the latter
in the later days of the republic, and undi r the emp r- ora) love-charms, and especially love-potions, were in continual use. Ii i- nol certainly known of what these love-potions were composed nor can we rely entirely on the details ;iven us on this Bubjecl by classic writ- ers, and their i ommentators in later time but then' is no doubt that certain poisonous or deleterious herbs
and drugs were among their chief ingredients, to which other Bubstances, animal as well as vegetable, are said to have been added, coupled with the employment of magic rites. Thessaly had the credit of producing the most potent herbs, and her people wire notorious as the most skilful practicers of magic arts, whence the well- known "Thessala philtra" of Juvenal (vi, 610). These potions were violent and dangerous in operation, and their use resulted often in the weakening of the menial
, powers, madness, and death, instead of Lhe purpose for which they were intended. Lucretius is said to have been driven mad by a love-potion, and to have died by hi.^ own baud in consequence— though the Btory does nol perhaps res! on sufficient authority; and the mad-
; ness of the emperor Caligula was attributed by some persons to love-potions given him by his wife Caesonia —by which also she is said to have preserved his at- tachment till the end of his life. In the corrupt anil licentious days of the Roman empire the manufacture of love-charms of all kinds seem lo have been carried on as a regular trade: the purchasers, Lfnol the makers of them, being chiefly women. The use of philters seems to have been not unknown during the Middle Ages; and in the Last, the nurse of superstition of all kinds, belief in the power of love-potions lingers proba- bly down to the present day.— Chambers, Cyclop. b.y.
Philumena, one of the youngest, and in Italy one of the most revered of saints, especially as the protec- tress of the imprisoned, deserves to be mentioned here as one of the most extravagant examples of Romish credulity and superstition. Her remains were reported to have been exhumed in 1802 from the catacomb of St. Priscilla (q. v.) at Rome. Her history is claimed to have been revealed at the time to three different persons, and according to this she was the descendant of a Greek prince, and in her thirteenth year was brought to Rome as a Christian devotee, and came under the notice of the emperor Diocletian, who desired her for wife — an honor which she refused on the ground that she had two years previously wedded herself to her Lord in her virginity. For this refusal the emperor condemned her to death by martyrdom. In 1805 her remains were removed to her supposed birthplace — — Mugnano, twenty miles from Naples. The wonders wrought at her tomb were related far and near, and soon her resting-place became the object of many pil- grimages, and she is now known as the "wonder- worker of the 19th century." Pope Gregory XVI put her in the calendar of saints, anil she is commemorated Aug. 11. See sintzel. Verehrung der keil Pkilomena (Munich, 1844) : YVet/cr u.Weltc. A' irch n-Li xikon, xii, '.»*! sip: Abel. I>i> /.<</<m/r mm lull, .h !t,inn r. A"</«»-
muck d'.erl. 1855), p. 6. (J. H.W.)
Phin'ees (QHvtec), the Graecized form of the Heb. name Pimm m is (q, v. | : a. The son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, the great hero of the Jewish priesthood (1 Esdr. v, 5; viii, 2, 29; 2 Esdr. i, 2 b; Ecclus. xlv. 23; 1 Mac. ii. 26); 6. The son of Eli (2 Esdr.i,2a): bul i he inser- tion of the name in the genealogy of F./.ra ( in this place only) i^ evidently an error, since Ezra belonged to the line of Eleazar. and Eli to thai of Ithamar; <-. A priest or Levite of the time of Ezra, father of Eleazar | l Esdr. viii, 63).
chires.) In 1 E8dr.v,31 ii stands for Pasi \h (q.v.) ofthi lb b. texl (Ezra ii, 19).
Phin'ehas (Heb. Pinechas', OfiSPB, mouth of brass [Gesen.], or of utterance \ Fursl |; Sept. fttvccg v. r. bliVlSQ ; Josephus, •I'li.-.T,., i, the name of two or three
Hebrews.
1. Son of Idea, a, and grandson of Aaron ( Lxod. vi, 25). Mi mother is recorded as one of the daughters of 1'iuiei. an unknown person, who 18 identified by the rabbins with JethrO the Midiaur lojon. on
Exod. vi, 26; Wagenseil, Soto, \iii. 6). Phinehas is memorable for having while quite a youth, by bis zeal and energy at the critical moment of the licentious idol-
PHINEHAS
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atry of Shittim, appeased the divine wrath and put a stop to the plague which was destroying the nation ( Numb, xxv, 7). B.C. 1019. For this he was rewarded by the special approbation of Jehovah, and by a promise that the priesthood should remain in his family forever (ver. 10-13). This seems to have raised him at once to a very high position in the nation, and he was appointed to accompany as priest the expedition by which the Midianites were destroyed (xxxi, 6). Seven years later he also headed the party who were despatched from Shiloh to remonstrate against the altar which the trans- jordanic tribes were reported to have built near Jordan (Josh, xxii, 13-32). In the partition of the country he received an allotment of his own — a hill on Mount Ephraim which bore his name — Gibeath-Pinechas. Here his father was buried (xxiv. 32).