THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
1883), and collections of his minor writings were published later in two groups comprising: Redevoeringen, verhandelingen en verspreide geschriften (Rotterdam, 1857); Varia. Verspreide geschriften (1861); Christelijk-litterairische opstellen (Amsterdam, 1877); Christelijk-historische opstellen (1878); and Christelijk-kerkelijke opstellen (1879). Mention should also be made of his popular devotional book, Het jaar des heils: Levenswoorden voor iederen dag (1874; Eng. transl., Year of Salvation: Words of Life for every Day, New York, 1875) , and of the posthumous collection of his poems, entitled Uit de dichterlijke nalatenschap (Amsterdam, 1884). (S. D. van Veen.)
Bibliography : Besides the autobiography ut sup., consult: The sketch by A. W. Bronsfeld in Mannen van Beteekenis, Haarlem, 1882; idem, Een theologisch klaverblad, Rotterdam, 1897; by Evans, in the Catholic Presbyterian, 1882; J. J. Doedes, in Utrechtsche Studenten-Almanak, 1883.
OPHIR: A district described in the table of nations (Gen. x. 29) as Joktanite, or South Arabian, although its precise location is unknown. It is of peculiar interest as the terminus of the trading voyages of Solomon, and is thus brought into contact with valuable articles of commerce of the ancient East. According to I Kings ix. 26-28, Solomon built at Ezion-geber (on the Edomitic shore of the Red Sea) ships which brought 420 talents of gold from Ophir (cf. II Chron. viii. 17-18). According to I Kings x. 11-12, the ships of Hiram brought Solomon not only gold, but also almug trees and precious stones. The Ophir of these passages was taken by Josephus (Ant. VIII., vi. 4, vii. 1) to be India; while Eusebius (Prceparatio evangelica, IX., xxx. 4; Eng. transl., Preparation for the Gospel, i. 476, 2 vols., Oxford, 1903), quoting Eupolemus (160-150 B.C.), states that David built ships in the Arabian city Aelan and sent miners to the island of Urphe (Uphre) in the Red Sea, whence gold was brought to Judea. The frequent transcription of Ophir by the Septuagint Sophir, Souphir, connoted, as is clear from Coptic vocabulary, a part of India; and it has been compared with the Supara of Ptolemy and the Uppara of Arrian, a place in the vicinity of the modern Goa. The Urphe (Uphre) of Eupolemus corresponds, in all probability, to the Ophir of the Old Testament, especially as it points to an Arabian locality.
Those who have depended on the Old Testament, especially on Gen. x. 29, have sought Ophir in Southern Arabia. Sprenger located it in Asir between Hajaz and Yemen (19-17° n. lat.), since Greek and Arab writers mention gold mines and river gold on the west coast of Arabia. Herzfeld sought Ophir on the southern coast in the Himyaritic territory, south of the Sabeans (cf. Gen. x. 28-29), who are said by Ptolemy to have been an inland people. Although, according to Agatharchides, the Arabians considered gold worth only one-third as much as copper and half as much as iron, the servants of Solomon can scarcely have gained their 420 talents by trade, but more probably mined in the highlands in the land of the Alilseans and Casandrians. Glaser
regards Ophir as the western coast of the Persian Sea as far south as the promontory Ras Musandum, The geographer al-Hamdani (about 940 a.d.) located the most of the gold mines in the northeastern part of inner Arabia around the Jabal Yamamah. Here he places the land of Havilah, " where there is gold " (Gen. ii. 11), taking Ophir as the corresponding coast land to the Persian gulf. Between the peninsula of Katar and the Ras Musandum he locates the harbor of Ommana, which is mentioned as a place of export for gold. Glaser likewise compares the peculiar form-names Apira, Apir, which were applied to the west and northeast shores of the Persian Gulf. The evidence seems, on the whole, to be in favor of the localization of Ophir on the eastern coast of Arabia.
Lassen and Ritter sought to locate Ophir in India near the delta of the Indus and the Gulf of Cambay, partly because of the Sanskrit name Abhira as applied to a pastoral people. This view, however, has little in its favor, especially as the inhabitants of Syria first became acquainted with India through the Persians and Greeks. The same criticism applies to Von Baer's attempt to locate Ophir in the peninsula of Malacca, where *the distance forms a fatal objection to the theory. In recent years there has been a revival of the hypothesis that Ophir was situated on the east coast of South Africa. In' 1871 Mauch discovered remarkable ruins on the Mountain of Fura or Afura which, according to Portuguese documents of the sixteenth century, were attributed by the natives to the Queen of Sheba or to Solomon. These ruins are situated at Zimbabye, in a district formerly inhabited by the Malotse, west of the Portuguese station of Sofala or Sofara. The resemblance of the name Fura or Afura to Ophir is too slight to be accepted without further evidence; and the name Sofala, though compared with the Sophir of the Septuagint, is really cognate with the Hebrew Shefelah, " lowland." The gold fields at the headwaters, of the Nile were known at a very early date, but the first uncertain records of gold fields in South Africa do not antedate Ptolemy (2d cent. a.d.). Even had knowledge of their existence spread to Syria about 1000 B.C., it would still be incredible that the workmen of Hiram and Solomon would have mined at the distance of forty German miles from the coast. (H. Guthe.)
Bibliography: A. K. Keane, The Gold of Ophir, London, 1901; C. Lassen, Indische Altertumskunde, i. 538 sqq., 651 sqq., ii. 553 sqq., Bonn, 1844-63; A. Sprenger, Die alte Geographie Arabiens, p. 57, Bern, 1875; idem, in ZDMG, xliv (1890), 515-516; L. Herzfeld, Handelsgeschichte der Juden, pp. 18-36, Brunswick, 1879; K. E. von Baer, Reden, iii. 112-180, St. Petersburg, 1880; J. Lieblein, Handel und Schiffahrt auf dem rothen Meer, pp. 142 sqq-, Leipsic, 1886; E. Glaser, Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens, ii. 345-354, 357-383, Berlin, 1890; idem, in ZDMG, xliv (1890), 721; K. Peters, Das goldene Ophir, Munich, 1895; idem, Im Goldlande des Alterthums, ib. 1902; idem, Ophir nach den neuesten Forschungen, Berlin, 1908; J. Kennedy, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, -pp. 241-288, 1898; G. Oppert, Tharshishund Ophir, Berlin, 1903; DB, iii. 626-628; EB, iii. 3513-15; JE, ix. 406-407; Vigouroux, Dictionnaire, xxix. 1829-33; the commentaries on Gen. x. ; and the literature under Tablb ott Nation".