could he so directly and pre-eminently styled the poi- son plant (it was even placed on the table a- a Bide- dish. Pliny, xix. 58); and if rosh had denoted a plant -ii well known, surely some one of the old interpreters would have discovered it. '• Water of rosh" would thus be simply " opium ;" but it must be admitted that there appears in none of the ahove pa— .aires to he any allu- sion to i he characti ristic effects of opium. Tin- effects an- simply nausea and loathing. It w as probably a general term for any hitter or nauseous plant, whether poisonous or not. ami became afterwards applied to the venom of snakes, as the corresponding word in Chaldee i> frequently bo used. See Hi mi ock. i . strictly something emitted, as a missile weap- on; hence the venom of a serpenl (James iii. 8; Rom. in. 18 i. See Si rpi m.
iu<zKoi', prop, medicine, hence often a deadly po- tion. There is a clear case of suicide by poison related in 2 Mace. x. 13, where Ptolemseus Macron is said to have destroyed himself by this means. But we do not find a trace ..| it among the .lews, and certainly poison-
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ing in any form was not in favor with them. Nor is there any reference to it in the N. T., though the prac- tice was fatally common at that time in Pome (Sueton. Nero, 33, 34, 35; Tib. 73; Claud. 1). It has been sug- gested, indeed, that the <papfiaiciiu of GaJ. v, 20 (A. V. '•witchcraft") signifies poisoning, but this is by no means consistent with the usage oi the word in the Sept. (comp. Exod. vii, 11 ; viii, 7, 18. etc.), and with its occurrence in Rev. ix, 21, where it denotes a crime clearly distinguished from murder (see Rev. xxi, 8 ; xxii, 15). It more probably refers to the concoction of magical potions and love philtres. See Witchckaft.
The reference in Mark xvi, 18 seems to be to the custom of condemnation to death by means of poison (kwi'eiov, Plato, Lys. 219; Plutarch, "Phoc. c. 3(3; Diog. Laert. ii, 42 ; Ael. V. If. i, 16; ix, 21 ; comp. J. Jac. Bose, De potionibus mortiferis, Lips. 1736). We read in 2 Mace, x, 13 of an example of suicide by poison (comp. Bose, Bigs. p. 25 sq.). The administration of poisons seems to have been no unusual crime in the days of the apostles (see Winer, A d Galat. p. 125 ; comp. Philo, Op. ii, 315 sq.), and the Arabian women were especially fa- mous for their skill in preparing them (Joseph. Ant. xvii, 4, 1 ; comp. Rein, Rom, Criminalrecht, p. 427 sq.). But in the New Testament the words <papp.aKiia and tpapfiaicti'G do not refer to this, but to necromancy (q. v.). On poisoned arrows, see Bow. Swords were sometimes also dipped in poison {Curt, ix, 8, 20). See Myrrh.
Poissi. See Poissy.
Poisson, Nicolas-Joseph, a French ecclesiastic, noted as a writer of philosophy, was born in 1637 at Paris. He entered the Congregation of the Oratory at the age of twenty-three (1660), and undertook to prop- agate the principles of Descartes by writing a general commentary on all the works of that philosopher; but after publishing the Traite de la Mecanique annote (Par. 1668, 4to), and Remurques sur la Metkode (Ven- dome, 1671, 8vo), he gave up the project for fear of com- promising his congregation, whom their zeal for the new philosophy exposed to the resentment of the fol- lowers of Aristotle. The same fear prevented him from complying with the solicitations of Clerselier and of queen Christina, who promised him ample materials for a Life of Descartes. In 1677 he went to Rome, and handed secretly to pope Innocent XI, in the name of the bishops of Arras and Saint-Pons, a Memoire com- posed by Nicoles, and thus obtained the condemnation of sixty-five propositions of lax morals which were then in vogue in the schools of theology. The real object of his journey being discovered, he was recalled by or- der of Pere Lachaise (1679), and relegated to Nevers, where bishop Valot made him his vicar, and gave him the direction of the diocesan seminary. After the death of this prelate, Poisson retired to a house of his order at Lyons (1705), where he died, May 3, 1710. He pub- lished, besides, Acta Ecclesice Mediolanensis sub sancto Carolo (Lyons, 1081-83, 2 vols, fob), valuable for the number of documents translated by the author from Italian into Latin :— Delectus actorum Ecclesiw Univer- salis (ibid. 1706, 2 vols. fob). This summary of the coun- cils is the most extensive abridgment which we have on the subject. He left a number of manuscripts, among them, Vie de Charlotte de Harlay-Sancy : — a Descrip- tion de Pome moderne : — a Relation of his journey to Rome, etc. See Salmon, Traite de VEtude des Conciles, p. 275 sq. ; Moreri, Grand Diet. Hist. s. v. — Hoefer, Nouv. Bio;j. Generate, s. v.
Poissy, Conference of, an ecclesiastical colloquy held September. 1561, is of very great importance in the reformatory history of the French Church. It has been somewhat spoken of in the article Huguenots (q. v.). It was called by Catharine de' Medici, and was composed of all bishops and archbishops, and the rep- resentatives of the absent prelates of France. It was intended that the conference should prepare partly for