( hie of the exceptional cases ill which a word cor- responding to "pieces" is found in the Hebrew is in the Psalms, where presents of submission are | |
to be made of "pieces of silver." rr"":i~ (Ixviii, 30,
Heb. 31). The word "".which occurs nowhere else. [f it preserve its radical meaning, from '\"4*- must signify a piece broken off, or a fragment i there is no reason to suppose that a coin is meant. Smith. An- other exceptional passage is l Sam. ii, 26, where the Heb. word rendered "piece [of silver " is r.~"N. ago- rdh, which seems to signify a small piece of money, as wages, from the idea of collecting (root ~;,x. to gather).
See S 1 1 . \ BR. For the "pieces of silver" in Josh. \\iv. 32, -ee Kl -I 1 Ml.
II. Ill the X. T. two words are rendered h\ the phrase •■ piece of silver." drachma, cony///, and ap-) vptov. ( L.) The first (Luke \\. 8, 9) should he represented by drachm. It was a Greek silver coin, equivalent, at the time of Luke, to the 1 Ionian denarius, whicb i- | rob- ably intended by the evangelist, as it had then wholly or almost superseded the former. See Drachma. (2.) The second word i- very properly thus rendered. It occurs in the account of the betrayal of our Lord for
"thirty piece- o| 'silver" i Matt, xxvi, 15; xxvii. 3, 5, 6, 9). It is difficult to ascertain what coins are here in- tended. If the most common silver pieces be meant,' they would be denarii. The parallel passage in Zech- ariah | \i. 12, L8 I mu-t. however, be taki a into corisid-
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eration, where, if our view be correct, shekels must be understood. It may, however, be suggested that the two thirties may correspond, not as of exactly the same coin, but of the chief current coin. Some light may be thrown on our difficulty by the number of pieces. It can scarcely be a coincidence that thirty shekels of sil- ver was the price of blood in the case of a slave acci- dentally killed (Exod. xxi, 32). It may be objected that there is no reason to suppose that shekels were current in our Lord's time; but it must be replied that the tetradrachms of depreciated Attic weight of the Greek cities of Syria of that time were of the same weight as the shekels which we believe to be of Simon the Maccabee [see Money], so that Josephus speaks of the shekel as equal to four Attic drachmae (.1 nt. iii, 8, 2). These tetradrachms were common at the time of our Lord, and the piece of money found by Peter in the fish must, from its name, have been of this kind. See Stater. It is therefore more probable that the thirty pieces of silver were tetradrachms than that they were denarii. There is no difficulty in the use of two terms, a name designating the denomination and "piece of silver," whether the latter mean the tetradrachm or the denarius, as it is a vague appellation that implies a more distinctive name. In the received text of Mat- thew the prophecy as to the thirty pieces of silver is ascribed to Jeremiah, and not to Zechariah, and much controversy has thus been occasioned. The true expla- nation seems to be suggested by the absence of any prophet's name in the Syriac version, and the likeli- hood that similarity of style would have caused a copyist inadvertently to insert the name of Jeremiah instead of that of Zechariah. — Smith. See Silver- ling.
Pierce, Edward, an English painter who flour- ished in the reigns of Charles I and II, was eminent both in history and landscapes. He also drew archi- tecture, perspective, etc., and was much esteemed in his time, But there is little of his work now remaining, the far greater part being destroyed in the fire of Lon- don, 1666. It chiefly consisted of altar-pieces, ceilings of churches, and the like ; of these there is one yet re- maining, done by him, in Covent Garden Church, where are to be found many admirable parts of a good pencil. He worked some time for Vandyck, and several good pieces by Pierce are to be seen at Belvoir Castle, in Leicestershire. He died in London about the close of the 17th century.
Pierce, George Edmond, D.D., an American Congregational divine, noted especially as an educator, was born at Southbury, Conn., Sept. 9, 1794. He wras educated at Yale College, class of 181G; then studied theology at Andover Theological Seminary, class of 1821, teaching at the same time at the Fairfield Acad- emy. In July, 1822, he was ordained pastor of the Con- gregational Church at Harwinton, where he remained until called to the presidency of the Western Reserve College in 1834. He remained at the head of this high school until 1855, and gave to ft an excellent rep- utation. He died at Hudson, Ohio, May 27, 1871.
Pierce, Gershom, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in the closing quarter of the last century. He was converted about 1800, and called of God to the work of the sacred ministry ; joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and entered in 1803 the New York Conference. His first appointment was at Plattsbur«h. In 1804 he preached at Fletcher; 1805, Niagara; 1800, Oswegatchie: 1807, Dunham; 1808, Saratoga; 1809-10, Granville; 1811, Thurman; 1812, Grand Isle; 1813-14, Cambridge; 1815-16, Montgom- ery; 1*17-18, Sharon; 1819, Albany; 1820, Coeymans; 1821-22, Chatham; 1823-24, Granville ; 1825-26, Pitts- field; 1827, Burlington; 1828-29, Redding; 1830-31, Hempstead and Huntington. At the Conference of 1832 he became superannuated, and continued in that relation to the period of his death. Mr. Pierce was a