Potsherd (-~n. cheres, from the root C*n, to scrape or scratch; Sept. oarpaKOV ; Vulg. testa, vas fictile; "sherd" in two places, once '-stone.'" often •■earthen vessel" ). a hit of pottery ware (.lob ii, 8), is 6guratively used in Scripture to denote a tiling worth- less and insignificant (Psa. xxii. 15; Prov. xxvi. 23; Isa. xlv. (.i). It may illustrate some of these allusions to remind the reader ol' the fact that the sites of an- cient towns are often covered at the surface with great quantities of broken pottery, usually of coarse texture, hui coaled and protected with a strong and bright- colored glaze, mostly bluish-green, and sometimes yel- low. These fragments give to some of the most ven- erable sites iii the world the appearance of a pottery rather than of a town. The fact i>. however, that they occur only upon the sites of towns which were built with crude brick; and this suggests that the heaps of ruin into which these had fallen being disintegrated, and worn at the surface by the action of the weather, bring to view and leave exposed the broken pottery, which is not liable to he thus dissolved and washed away. Ii is certainly remarkable that of the more mighty cities of old time, nothing hut potsherds now remains visible at the surface of the ground. Towns
built with st '. or kiln-burnl bricks, do not exhibit
this form of ruin, which is therefore not usually met with in Palestine. — Kitto. See I'm u r.
Pott, David Julius, D.D., a German theologian, was horn at I'.imlx ckhauseii, in Hanover, in 1760. In I7s7 he was appointed professor of theology at Helm- Btadt, from which place he removed to occupy the same chair al Gbttingen. While professor al the former place he, with Ruperti, edited the S[ I entationum
Theologicarum (8vols. 1800 7), and afterwards at Gbttin- gen undertook, as joint continuator with Heinricb, an edition of Koppe's Testamentum Novum, a commentary on the Catholic epistles (1810 16). He died about 1820. See [llgen, Zeitschrijl iur historisch i - :
p. 568.
POTT
451
POTTER
Pott, Joseph Holden, an English divine, noted especially as a Biblical scholar, was born about 1759, and was educated at Eton and at St. John's College, Cam- bridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1780, M.A. in 1783; was made prebendarv of Lincoln in 1785; rector of St. Olavc Jewry, and St. Martin, Ironmongers Lane, m 1787; 'archdeacon of St. Albans in 1789; rector of Lit- tle Burstead, Essex, in 1797 ; rector of Northall, Middle- sex, in 1806; vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields in 1813; archdeacon of London in 1813; prebendary of London in 1822; vicar of Kensington in 1824, and chancellor of Exeter in 1826. He died in 1847. This exemplary di- vine published many separate sermons, collections of sermons, charges, theological treatises, and in early life some poems, etc., for a list of which we refer the reader to the Lond. Gent. Mag. Aug. 1847, p. 210-12, see also p. 659. We notice : Two Sermons for the Festivals and Fasts (Lond. 1790, 4 to) :— Elementary Discourses, etc., after Confirmation (1790, 16mo) :— Three Sermons on ike Festivals and Fasts (1794, 12mo) -.—Christian Cov- enants (1803, 8vo ; 1807, 2d ed.) -.—Controversies respect- in// Baptism (1810, 12mo) -.—Sermons for the Lord's Day (1817, 2 vols. 8vo; 1818, 3d ed.): — Course of Sermons for the Fes- tivals and Fasts (1821, 8vo) :— Testimonies of St. Paul concern- ing Justification (1846, 8vo). (J. H. W.)
Pottage (T*3, naz'ul, some- thing boiled, Genl xxv, 29, 34). The red pottage for which Esau profanely bartered his birthright was prepared, as we learn from this chapter, by seething len- tiles in water [see Lextilf.] ; but the common pottage in the East, at the present day, is made by cutting their meat into little pieces, and boiling them with flour, rice, and parsley, all which is afterwards poured into a prop- er vessel. See Thomson, Land and Booh, ii, 397.
Potter prP, yotser, a fashioner ; Chald. "ins, pe- chdr; icepafitvg). This artifi- cer, and the produce of his la- bors, are often alluded to in the Scriptures. The fragility of his wares, and the ease with which they are destroyed, supply apt emblems of the facility with which human life and power may be broken and destroyed. It is in this figurative use that the potter's vessels are most frequent!}' noticed in Scripture (Psa. ii, 9; Isa. xxx, 14; Jer. xix, 11; Rev. ii, 27). In one place, the power of the potter to form with his clay, by the im- pulse of his will and hand, ves- sels either for honorable or for mean uses, is employed with great force by the apostle to il- lustrate the absolute power of God in moulding the destinies of men according to his pleasure (Rom. ix, 21). The first distinct mention of earthenware vessels is in the case of the pitchers in which Gideon's men concealed their lamps, and which they broke in pieces when they with- drew their lamps from them (Judg. vii, 16, 19). Pitchers and
bottles are indeed mentioned earlier; but the "bottle" which contained Hagar's water ((Jen. xxi, 14, 15) was undoubtedly of skin; and although Rebekah's pitcher was possibly of earthenware (xxiv, 14, 15), we cannot be certain that it was so. The potter's wheel is mentioned only once in the Bible (Jer. xviii, 2) ; but it must have been in use among the Hebrews long before the time of that allusion ; for we now know that it existed in Egypt before the Israelites took refuge in that country (Wil- kinson, Anc. Fgypt. iii, 165, large ed.). The art of pottery is one of the most common and most ancient of all manufactures. The modern Arab culinary ves- sels are chiefly of wood or copper (Niebuhr, Voy. i, 188). The processes employed by the Hebrews were probably not in any way dissimilar to those of the Egyptians, from whom the use of the wheel may be supposed to have been adopted. They had themselves been con- cerned in the potter's trade in Egypt (Psa. lxxxi. 6). The clay, when dug, was trodden by men's feet so as to form a paste (Isa. xli, 25; Wisd. xv, 7) [see Bkick] ; then placed by the potter on the wheel beside which he sat, and shaped by him with his hands. It consisted