history of that people. Saul, Ahithophel, and the traitor Judas | the humours, and by their inherent virtues to preserve it as are the only persons recorded to have laid violent hands upon themselves, in a fit of desperation, (1 Sam. xxxi. 4, 5. 2 Sam. xvii. 23. Matt. xxvii. 3—5.) In the last period of the Jewish state, however, the custom of the Romans appears to have greatly lessened the horror of suicide among the Jews; but that most terrible of all diseases, the leprosy, seems to have rendered its victims utterly regardless of life. (Job vii. 15.) long as possible from putrefaction and decay. Thus we read that Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight, to perform the customary office to the dear deceased. This embalming was usually repeated for several days together, that the drugs and spices thus applied might have all their efficacy in the exsiccation of the moisture and the future conservation of the body.8 They then swathed the corpse in linen rollers or bandages, I. The Hebrews, in common with many other ancient closely enfolding and wrapping it in that bed of aromatic nations, especially in the East, were accustomed to re- drugs with which they had surrounded it. Thus we find present death by various terms which were calculated to that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took the body of mitigate the appalling image inspired by that last enemy of Jesus and wrapt it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manmankind. Hence they often called death a journey or depar-ner of the Jews is to bury. (John xix. 40.) This custom we ture. (Josh. xxiii. 14. 1 Kings ii. 2. Eccles. v. 15. ví. 6. behold also in the Egyptian mummies, round which, TheveLuke iì. 29.) Frequently also they compared it to sleep, not informs us, the Egyptians have sometimes used above a and to rest after the toils of life were over (Gen. xlvii. 30. thousand ells of filleting, besides what was wrapped about Job iii. 13. 17-19. Isa. xiv. 8. lvii. 2. Matt. ix. 29. xxvii. the head. Thus, when our Lord had cried with a loud voice, 52. John xi. 11. Acts vii. 60. 1 Cor. xi. 30. 1 Thess. iv. 13. Lazarus, come forth it is said, the dead came forth, bound 2 Pet. iii. 4. Rev. xiv. 13.); and it was a very common ex- hand and foot in grave-clothes. (John xi. 44.)9 We learn pression to say, that the party deceased had gone, or was from Scripture, also, that about the head and face of the gathered to his fathers or to his people. (Gen. xv. 15. xxv. corpse was folded a napkin, which was a separate thing, and 8. 17. xxxv. 29. xlix. 29. 33. Num. xx. 24. xxvii. 13. xxxi. did not communicate with the other bandages in which the 2. Deut. xxxii. 50. Judg. ii. 10. 2 Kings xxii. 20.)2 body was swathed. Thus we read, that the face of Lazarus was bound about with a napkin (John xi. 44.); and when our Lord was risen, Peter, who went into the sepulchre, saw the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that had been folded round his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wreathed together in a place by itself, lying at some distance from the rollers in which his body had been swathed, and folded up, exactly in the state it was when first wrapped round his head." (John xx. 7.)10 II. By the law of Moses a dead body conveyed a legal pollution to every thing that touched it, even to the very house and furniture,-which continued seven days. (Num. xix. 14, 15, 16.) And this was the reason why the priests, on account of their daily ministrations in holy things, were forbidden to assist at any funerals, but those of their nearest relatives (Lev. xxi. 1-4. 10-12.); nay, the very dead bones, though they had lain ever so long in the grave, if digged up, conveyed a pollution to any one who touched them. This circumstance will account for Josiah's causing the bones of the false priests to be burnt upon the altar at Bethel (2 Chron. xxxiv. 5.), in order that these altars, being thus polluted, might be held in the greatest detestation.3 III. After the principle of life was extinguished, the following ceremonies were performed by the Jews: 1. The eyes of the deceased were closed by the nearest of kin, who gave the parting kiss to the lifeless corpse: thus, it was promised to Jacob, when he took his journey into Egypt, that Joseph should put his hands upon his eyes (Gen. xlvi. 4.); and accordingly we read that, when Jacob expired, Joseph fell upon his face and kissed him. (Gen. 1. 1.) From the Jews, Calmet observes, this practice passed to the heathens, who gave the dying farewell kiss, and received their last sigh, in token of their affectionate union. 2. The next office was the ablution of the corpse, which (except when it was buried immediately) was laid out in an upper room or chamber. Thus, when Tabitha died, it is said, that they washed her body, and laid it in an upper chamber. (Acts ix. 37.) This rite was common both to the Greeks and Romans, in whose writings it is frequently mentioned. In Egypt, it is still the custom to wash the dead body several times. 3. The bodies of persons of distinction were embalmed: this process the Jews probably derived from the Egyptians, whose various methods of embalming their dead with spices and nitre are minutely described by Herodotus, and Diodorus Siculus. 5 The patriarch Jacob was embalmed according to the Egyptian process: his remains lay in nitre thirty days, for the purpose of drying up all superfluous and noxious moisture; and during the remaining forty days, they were anointed with gums and spices, to preserve them; which unction, it appears from Gen. 1. 2, 3., was the proper embalming. The former circumstance explains the reason why the Egyptians mourned for Jacob threescore and ten days; the latter explains the meaning of the forty days, which were fulfilled for Israel.6 In later times, where the deceased parties were persons of rank or fortune, after washing the corpse, the Jews "emDalmed it, by laying all around it a large quantity of costly spices and aromatic drugs,' in order to imbibe and absorb 1 Josephus, De Bell. Jud. lib. iii. c. 8. $$ 4-7. Pareau, Antiquitas Hebr. pp. 468, 469. Home's Hist. of the Jews, vol. ii. p. 362. Michaelis has examined at length the reason and policy of the Mosaic statutes on this subject. Com mentaries, vol. iii. pp. 322-330. Sophoclis Electra, verse 1143. Virgil, Æneid. lib. vi. 218, 219. Herodotus, lib. ii. cc. 86-88. tom. i. pp. 131, 132. Oxon. 1809. rus Siculus, lib. i. cc. 91-93. edit. Bipont. Paxton's Illustrations, vol. iii. p. 249. 2d edit. Besides the custom of embalming persons of distinction, the Jews commonly used great burnings for their kings, composed of large quantities of all sorts of aromatics, of which they made a fire, as a triumphant farewell to the deceased. In these they were wont to burn their bowels, their clothes, armour, and other things belonging to the deceased. Thus, it is said of Asa, that they made a very great burning for him (2 Chron. xvi. 14.), which could not be meant of his corpse in the fire, for in the same verse it is said, they buried him in his own sepulchre. This was also done at the funeral of Zedekiah. (Jer. xxxiv. 5.) And it was very probably one reason why, at the death of Jehoram, the people made no burning for him like the burning of his fathers (2 Chron. xxi. 19.), because his bowels being ulcerated by his sickness, they fell out, and to prevent the stench, were immediately interred or otherwise disposed of; so that they could not well be burnt in this pompous manner after his death; though as he was a wicked king, this ceremony might possibly have been omitted on that account also. The burning of dead bodies in funeral piles, it is well known, was a custom prevalent among the Greeks and Romans, upon which occasion they threw frankincense, myrrh, cassia, and other fragrant articles into the fire: and this in such abundance, that Pliny represents it as a piece of profaneness, to bestow such heaps of frankincense upon a dead body, when they offered it so sparingly to their gods. And though the Jews might possibly learn from them the custom of burning the bowels, armour, and other things belonging to their kings, in piles of odoriferous spices, yet they very rarely, and only for particular reasons, burnt the dead bodies themselves. We are told, indeed, that the people of JabeshGilead took the bodies of Saul and his sons (from the place does not properly signify to bury. The note of Beza is accurate. Ad sepeliendum, malé. Nam aliud est a quam ut Latinis funerandum me, #ps TO SUTagiaσas μs. Vulg. et Erasulus, ad me sepelire est sepulchro condere: funerare vero pollincire, cadaver sepul chro mandandum prius curare. Beza ad Matt. xxvi. 12. EVTXQIσ est corpus ad funus componere, et ornamentis sepulchralibus ornare. Wetstein, in loc. Habebat consuetudo, ut carissima capita, et quæ plurimi fierent cadavera, non semel tantum ungerentur, sed sæpius, pluribusque continuis immo tabefactà carne arida, et quasi ænea redditâ, diu servari possint diebus, donec exsiccato, et absorpto vi aromatum omni reliquo humore, integra et immunia a putrefactione. Lucas Brugensis, in Marc. xvi. • Δεδεμένος-χειρίαις. Phavorinus explains Krip by calling them επιτάφιοι δεσμοι, sepulchral bandages. Κείρια σημαίνει τα σχοινια τα VT. Etyinol. 10 He went into the sepulchre, and then he plainly saw the linen clothes, uova, alone, or without the body, and xv lying, that is, undisturbed, and at full length, as when the body was in them. The cap, or napkin, also, which had been upon our Lord's head, he found separate, or at a little dis tance from the open coffin; but studyμevov, folded up in wreaths, in Diodo- the form of a cap, as it had been upon our Lord's head. Dr. Benson's Life of Christ, p. 524. Wrapped together in a place by itself; as if the body had miraculously slipt out of it, which indeed was the real fact. Dr. Ward's Dissertations, p. 149. Harwood's Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 135 Matt. xxvi. 12. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my funeral, #pos тO SYтAQIÑσNI μ, to embalm me. The word—137. where the Philistines had hung them up), and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there (1 Sam. xxxi. 12.); but by this time their bodies must have been in such a state, that they were not fit to be embalmed; or, perhaps, they were apprehensive that if they should embalm them, and so bury them, the people of Bethshan might at some future time dig them up, and fix them a second time against their walls; and, therefore, the people of Jabesh might think it more advisable to recede from their common practice, and for greater security to imitate the heathen in this particular. Amos also speaks of the burning of bodies (vi. 10.); but it is evident from the words themselves, and from the context, that this was in the time of a great pestilence, not only when there were few to bury the dead, but when it was unsafe to go abroad and perform the funeral rites by interment, in which case the burning was certainly the best expedient. In some cases the rites of sepulture were not allowed; and to this it has been thought that there is an allusion in Job xxvii. 19. It was the opinion of the pagan Arabs that, upon the death of any person, a bird, by them called Manah, issued from the brain, which haunted the sepulchre of the deceased, uttering a lamentable scream. This notion, also, the late professor Carlyle thinks, is evidently alluded to in Job xxi. 32., where the venerable patriarch, speaking of the fate of the wicked, says: He shall be brought to the grave, And shall watch upon the raised up heap.1 the body of one who had been hanged on a tree should be taken down before night. The burial of Tabitha was delayed, on account of the disciples sending for the apostle Peter. (Acts ix. 37.) 2. The poorer classes were carried forth to interment lying on an open hier or couch, as is the universal practice in the East to this day, not screwed into a coffin. In this way the son of the widow of Nain was borne to his grave without the city: and it should seem that the bearers at that time moved with as much rapidity as they do at the present time among the modern Jews.2 The rich, and persons of rank, were carried forth on more costly biers. Josephus relates that the body of Herod was carried on a golden bier, richly embroidered; and we may presume, that the bier on which Abner was carried was more costly than those used for ordinary persons. (2 Sam. iii. 31.) But whatever the rank of the parties might be, the superintendence and charge of the funeral were undertaken by the nearest relations and friends of the deceased. Thus, Abraham interred Sarah in the cave of Machpelah (Gen. xxiii. 19.); Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham (Gen. xxv. 9.); Esau and Jacob buried Isaac (Gen. xxxv. 29.); Moses buried Aaron on Mount Hor (Num. xx. 29.); the old prophet laid the disobedient prophet in his own grave (1 Kings xiii. 30.); Joseph of Arimathea interred Jesus Christ in his own new tomb (Matt. xxvii. 59, 60.); and the disciples of John the Baptist performed the last office for their master. The sons and numerous relations of Herod followed his funeral proThe Jews showed a great regard for the burial of their cession.3 Sometimes, however, servants took the charge of dead; to be deprived of it was thought to be one of the great-interring their masters, as in the case of Josiah king of Judah. est dishonours that could be done to any man: and, there- (2 Kings xxiii. 30.) Devout men carried Stephen to his fore, in Scripture it is reckoned one of the calamities that burial. (Acts viii. 2.) The funeral obsequies were also atshould befall the wicked. (Eccles. vi. 3.) In all nations tended by the friends of the deceased, both men and women, there was generally so much humanity as not to prevent their who made loud lamentations for the deceased, and some of enemies from burying their dead. The people of Gaza al- whom were hired for the occasion. David and a large body lowed Samson's relations to come and take away his body of the Israelites mourned before Abner. (2 Sam iii. 31, 32.) (Judg. xvi. 31.); though one would have thought that this Solomon mentions the circumstance of mourners going about last slaughter which he made among them might have pro- the streets (Eccles. xii. 5.); who, most probably, were pervoked them to some acts of outrage even upon his dead body. sons hired to attend the funeral obsequies, to wail and lament But as he stood alone in what he did, none of the Israelites for the departed. From Jer. ix. 17. it appears, that women joining with him in his enterprises, they might possibly be were chiefly employed for this purpose; and Jerome, in his apprehensive, that, if they denied him burial, the God of commentary on that passage, says, that the practice was conIsrael, who had given him such extraordinary strength in his tinued in Judæa, down to his days, or the latter part of the lifetime, would not fail to take vengeance on them in that fourth century. In Jer. xlviii. 36., the use of musical instrucase, and, therefore, they were desirous, it may be, to get ments by these hired mourners is distinctly recognised; and rid of his body (as afterwards they were of the ark), and Amos (v. 17.) alludes to such mourning as a well-known glad, perhaps, that any one would remove such a formidable custom. object out of their sight. Jeremiah prophesied of Jehoiakim, that he should be buried with the burial of an ass (Jer. xxii. 19.), meaning that he should not be buried at all, but be cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem, exposed to the air and putrefaction above ground, as beasts are, which is more plainly expressed afterwards, by telling us, that his body should be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. (Jer. xxxvi. 30.) The author of that affecting elegy, the seventy-ninth psalm, when enumerating the calamities which had befallen his unhappy countrymen, particularly specifies the denial of the rites of sepulture, as enhancing their afflictions. The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of heaven; the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. (Psal. lxxix. 2.) IV. The RITES OF SEPULTURE were various at different times, and also according to the rank or station of the de ceased. 1. Before the age of Moses, the funeral took place a few days after death. (Gen. xxiii. 19. xxv. 9. xxxv. 29.) In Egypt, a longer time elapsed before the last offices were performed for Jacob and Joseph, on account of the time which was requisite for the Egyptian process of embalming, in order that the corpse might be preserved for a long time. (Gen. xlix. 29. 1. 3. 24-26.) As it is probable that the Israelites, when in Egypt, had been accustomed to keep their dead for a considerable period, the Mosaic laws, respecting the uncleanness which arose from a dead body, would compel them to a more speedy interment. At length, after the return from the Babylonish captivity, it became customary for the Jews to bury the dead on the same day, and as soon as possible after the vital spark was extinguished. Jahn affirms (but without assigning any authority for his assertion), that the Jews did this in imitation of the Persians; but it is more likely, that the custom arose from a superstitious interpretation of Deut. xxi. 22, 23., which law enjoined, that Carlyle's Speciinens of Arabian Poetry, p. 14. 2d edit. In the time of Jesus Christ and his apostles, the funeral dirges sung by these hired mourners were accompanied by musical instruments. "The soft and plaintive melody of the flute was employed to heighten these doleful lamentations and dirges. Thus we read, that on the death of the daughter of Jairus, a company of mourners, with players on the flute, according to the Jewish custom, attended upon this sorrowful occasion. When Jesus entered the governor's house, he saw the minstrels and the people wailing greatly. (Matt. ix. 23.) The custom of employing music to heighten public and private grief was not in that age peculiar to the Jews. We find the flute also employed at the funeral solemnities of the Greeks and Romans, in their lamentations for the deceased, as appears from numerous testimonies of classic authors." The same custom still obtains among the Moors in Africa, the Turks in Palestine, and the modern Greeks. "At all their principal entertainments," says Dr. Shaw, "and to show mirth and gladness upon other occasions, the women welcome the arrival of each guest, by squalling out for seve a Not to detail the observations of the earlier travellers, it may suffice to adduce three instances from recent and intelligent English travellers.— At Cairo, says Mr. Carne, "we met an Arab funeral: about twenty men, friends of the deceased, advanced under a row of palm trees, singing in a mournful tone, and bearing the body. The corpse was that of a woman neatly dressed in white, and borne on an open bier, with a small awning of red silk over it." (Letters from the East, p. 109.) At Baghtchisarai in the the Christians: it "was simply wrapped round with a white cloth, laid upon Crimea, Dr. Henderson saw a corpse conveyed to the public cemetery of bier or board, and borne by four men to the grave. This mode of performing the funeral obsequies obtains equally among the Jews, Christians, families, who naturally conform to the rite of their ancestors." (Biblical and Mohammedans in these parts, with the exception of the European Researches, p. 304.) Mr. Hartley observed a similar mode of interment in Greece. The corpse is always exhibited to full view: it is placed upon a bier which is borne aloft upon the shoulders, and is dressed in the best gayest garments possessed by the deceased." (Researches in Greece, 118.) Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xvii. c. 8. $3. Bell. Jud. lib. i. c. 33. § 9. Holden's translation of Ecclesiastes, p. 171. p. Dr. Blayney's translation of Jeremiah, p. 270. 8vo. edit. Harwood's Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 132. 134., where various pasages of classic authors are cited. ral times together, Loo! Loo! Loo!! At their funerals, [to do honour to his memory, and who accompanied the proalso, and upon other melancholy occasions, they repeat the cession into the land of Canaan. (Gen. 1. 7-10.) At the same noise, only they make it more deep and hollow, and burial of Abner, David commanded Joab and all the people end each period with some ventriloquous sighs. The that were with him to rend their garments, and gird themCarras, or wailing greatly (as our version expresses it, selves with sackcloth, and to mourn before Almer, or make Mark v. 38.), upon the death of Jairus's daughter, was, pro- lamentations in honour of that general; and the king himself bably, performed in this manner. For there are several followed the bier. (2 Sam. iii. 31.) All Judah and the inhawomen, hired to act upon these lugubrious occasions, who, bitants of Jerusalem did honour to Hezekiah at his death. like the præfica, or mourning women of old, are skilful in (2 Chron. xxxii. 33.) Much people of the city were with the lamentation (Amos v. 16.), and great mistresses of these me- widow of Nain, who was following her only son to the lancholy expressions: and, indeed, they perform their parts grave. (Luke vii. 12.), Josephus informs us that Herod was with such proper sounds, gestures, and commotions, that they attended to Herodium (a journey of twenty-five days), where rarely fail to work up the assembly into some extraordinary he had commanded that he should be interred, first, by his pitch of thoughtfulness and sorrow. The British factory has sons and his numerous relations; next, by his guards, and often been very sensibly touched with these lamentations, after them by the whole army, in the same order as when whenever they were made in the neighbouring houses."2 they marched out to war; and that these were followed by The Rev. William Jowett, during his travels in Palestine, five hundred of his domestics, carrying spices. arrived at the town of Napolose, which stands on the site of the ancient Shechem, immediately after the death of the governor. "On coming within sight of the gate," he relates, we perceived a numerous company of females, who were singing in a kind of recitative, far from melancholy, and beating time with their hands. On our reaching the gate, it was suddenly exchanged for most hideous plaints and shrieks; which, with the feeling that we were entering a city at no time celebrated for its hospitality, struck a very dismal impression upon my mind. They accompanied us a few paces, but it soon appeared that the gate was their station; to which, having received nothing from us, they returned. We learned in the course of the evening that these were only a small detachment of a very numerous body of cunning women, who were filling the whole city with their cries,-taking up a wailing with the design, as of old, to make the eyes of all the inhabitants run down with tears, and their eyelids gush out with waters. (Jer. ix. 17, 18.) For this good service they would, the next morning, wait upon the government and principal persons, to receive some trifling fee."3 The Rev. John Hartley, during his travels in Greece, relates, that, one morning, while taking a solitary walk in Egina, the most plaintive accents fell upon his ear which he had ever heard. He followed in the direction from which the sounds proceeded, and they conducted him to the newly-made grave of a young man, cut down in the bloom of life, over which a woman, hired for the occasion, was pouring forth lamentation and mourning and wo, with such doleful strains and feelings, as could scarcely have been supposed other than sincere. In proportion to the rank of the deceased, and the estimation in which his memory was held, was the number of persons who assisted at his funeral obsequies, agreeably to the very ancient custom of the East. Thus, at the funeral of Jacob, there were present not only Joseph and the rest of his family, but also the servants and elders (or superintendents of Pharaoh's house) and the principal Egyptians, who attended 1 Dr. Shaw conceives this word to be a corruption of Hallelujah. He remarks, A, a word of the like sound, was used by an army either be fore they gave the onset, or when they had obtained the victory. The Turks to this day call out, Allah! Allah! Allah! upon the like occasion. Travels, vol. i. p. 435. note. (8vo. edit.) Ibid. pp. 435, 436. Jowett's Christian Researches in Syria, p. 194. The mourning of the Montenegrins bears a great resemblance to that of the oriental nations. On the death of any one, nothing is heard but tears, cries, and groans from the whole family the women, in particular, beat themselves in a frightful manner, pluck off their hair and tear their faces and bosoms. The deceased person is laid out for twenty-four hours, in the house where he ex; pires, with the face uncovered; and is perfumed with essences, and strewed with flowers and aromatic leaves, after the custom of the ancients. The lamentations are renewed every moment, particularly on the arrival of a fresh person, and especially of the priest. Just before the defunct is carried out of the house, his relations whisper in his ear, and give him commissions for the other world, to their departed relatives or friends. After these singular addresses, a pall or winding sheet is thrown over the dead person, whose face continues uncovered, and he is carried to church: while on the road thither, women, hired for the purpose, chant his praises, amid their tears. Previously to depositing him in the ground, the next of kin tie a piece of cake to his neck, and put a piece of money in his hand, after the manner of the ancient Greeks. During this ceremony, as also while they are carrying him to the burial ground, a variety of apostrophes is addressed to the defunct, which are interrupted only by mournful sobs, asking him why he quitted them? Why he abandoned his family? He, whose poor wife loved him so tenderly, and provided every thing for him to eat! Whose children obeyed him with such respect, while his friends succoured him whenever he wanted assistance; who possessed such beautiful flocks, and all whose undertakings were blessed by heaven! When the funeral rites are performed, the curate and mourners return home, and partake of a grand entertainment, which is frequently interrupted by jovial songs, intermixed with prayers in honour of the deceased. One of the guests is commissioned to chant a "lament" impromptu, which usually draws tears from the whole company; the performer is accompanied by three or four monochords, whose harsh discord excites both laughter and tears at the same time. Voyage Historique et Politique à Montenegro, par M. le Colonel Vialla de Sommières, tom. i. pp. 275-278. Paris, 1820. Svo. • Hartley's Researches in Greece, pp. 119. 120 Further, it was usual to honour the memory of distinguished individuals by a funeral oration or poem: thus David pronounced a eulogy over the grave of Abner. (2 Sam. iii. 33, 34.) Upon the death of any of their princes, who had distinguished themselves in arms, or who, by any religious actions, or by the promotion of civil arts, had merited well of their country, they used to make lamentations or mournful songs for them: from an expression in 2 Chron. xxxv. 25. Behold they are written in the Lamentations, we may infer that they had certain collections of this kind of composition. The author of the book of Samuel has preserved the exquisitively beautiful and affecting elegy which David composed on occasion of the death of Saul and Jonathan; but we have no remains of the mournful poem which Jeremiah made upon the immature death of the pious king Josiah, mentioned in the last-cited chapter: which loss is the more to be deplored, because in all probability it was a masterpiece in its kind, since never was there an author more deeply affected with his subject, or more capable of carrying it through all the tender sentiments of sorrow and compassion, than Jeremiah. But no funeral obsequies were conferred on those who laid violent hands on themselves : hence we do not read that the traitor-suicide Judas was lamented by the Jews (Matt. xxvii. 4.), or by his fellow-disciples. (Acts i. 16.) Among many ancient nations, a custom prevailed of throwing pieces of gold and silver, together with other precious articles, into the sepulchres of those who were buried: this custom was not adopted by the Jews. But in Ezek. xxxii. 27. there is an allusion to the custom which obtained among almost all ancient nations, of adorning the sepulchres of heroes with their swords and other military trophies. The prophet, foretelling the fall of Meshech and Tubal, and all her multitude, says that they are gone down to hell (or the invisible state) with their weapons of war; and they have laid their swords under their heads. In Mingrelia, Sir John Chardin informs us, they all sleep with their swords under their heads, and their other arms by their sides; and they bury them in the same manner, their arms being placed in the same position. This fact greatly illustrates the passage above cited, since, according to Bochart and other learned geographers, Meshech and Tubal mean Mingrelia, and the circumjacent country. V. The most simple TOMBS or monuments of cld consisted of hillocks of earth, heaped up over the grave, of which we have numerous examples in our own country. In the East, Where persons have been murdered, heaps of stones are raised over them as signs; and to this custom the prophet Ezekiel appears to allude. (xxxix. 15.) The earliest sepulchres, in all probability, were caverns. Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah of Ephron the Hittite for a family burial-place. (Gen. xxiii. 8-18.) Here were interred Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah; here also Jacob buried Leah, and charged his sons to deposit his remains. (Gen. xlix. 29-32. 1. 13.) The ancient Jews seem to have attached much importance to interment in the sepulchre of their fathers, and particularly to being buried in the land of Canaan (Gen. xlvii. 30. xlix. 29. l. 25.), in which affection for the country of their ancestors they are not surpassed by their descendants, the modern Jews. Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xvi. c. 8. § 3. Harmer's Observations on Scripture, vol. iii. pp. 55, 56. The modern Jews, in the time of Rabbi Solomon Jarchi, buried their dead immediately, and put wooden props in the tombs by their side, by leaning on which they would be enabled to arise more easily at the resur rection of inankind from death. They further persuade themselves that all the bodies of Jews dying out of Palestine, wherever they may be In Psal. xxviii. 1. cxliii. 7. and Prov. i. 12. the grave is also, was the grave in which the body of our Lord was derepresented as a pit or cavern, into which a descent is neces- posited. Joseph of Arimathea, a person of distinction, by sary; containing dormitories or separate cells for receiving St. Mark called an honourable counsellor" (Mark xv. 43.), the dead (Isa. xiv. 15. Ezek. xxxii. 23.), so that each person or member of the sanhedrin, "mindful of his mortality, had may be said to lie in his own house (Isa. xiv. 18.), and to hewn out of the rock in his garden a sepulchre, in which he rest in his own bed. (Isa. lvii. 2.) These sepulchral vaults intended his own remains should be reposited. Now in the seem to have been excavated for the use of the persons of place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the high rank and their families. The vanity of Shebna, who garden a new sepulchre, wherein was no man yet laid. When was reproved for it by Isaiah, is set forth by his being so Joseph, therefore, had taken the body of Jesus, and wrapped studious and careful to have his sepulchre on high, in a lofty it in a clean linen cloth, he carried it into the tomb which he vault, and, probably, in an elevated situation, that it might had lately hollowed out of the rock; and rolled a great stone be the more conspicuous. (Isa. xxii. 16.) Of this kind of to the low door of the sepulchre, effectually to block up the sepulchres there are remains still extant at Jerusalem, some entrance, and secure the sacred corpse of the deceased, both of which are reported to be the sepulchres of the kings of from the indignities of his foes, and the officiousness of his Judah, and others, those of the Judges. friends. Sometimes, also, they buried their dead in fields, The following description of the Tombs of the Kings (as over whom the opulent and families of distinction raised they are termed), which are situated near the village of superb and ostentatious monuments, on which they lavished Gournou, on the west bank of the river Nile, will illustrate great splendour and magnificence, and which they so reli. the nature of the ancient sepulchres, which were excavated giously maintained from time to time in their pristine beauty out of the mountains. "Further in the recesses of the and glory." ." To this custom our Saviour alludes in the fol mountains, are the more magnificent Tombs of the Kings; lowing apt comparison: Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, each consisting of many chambers, adorned with hierogly-hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which inphics. The scene brings many allusions of Scripture to the deed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead mind; such as Mark v. 2, 3. 5., but particularly Isaiah xxii. men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly 16. Thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that hew- appear righteous to men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy eth him out a sepulchre on high, and that graveth a habitation and iniquity. (Matt. xxiii. 27.) But though the sepulchres for himself in a rock; for many of the smaller sepulchres of the rich were thus beautified, the graves of the poor were are excavated nearly halfway up the mountain, which is oftentimes so neglected, that if the stones by which they very high. The kings have their magnificent abodes nearer were marked happened to fall, they were not set up again, the foot of the mountain; and seem, according to Isaiah xiv. by which means the graves themselves did not appear; they 18., to have taken a pride in resting as magnificently in death were ada, that is, not obvious to the sight, so that men as they had done in life-All the kings of the nations, even all might tread on them inadvertently. (Luke xi. 44.) From of them, lie in glory; every one in his own house. The stuc- Jer. xxvi. 23. we may collect that the populace of the lowest coed walls within are covered with hieroglyphics. They order (Heb. sons or children of the people) were buried in a cannot be better described than in the words of Ezekiel, viii. public cemetery, having no distinct sepulchre to themselves, 8-10. Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the as all persons of rank and character, and especially of so wall; and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And honourable an order as that of the prophets, used to have. he said unto me, go in; and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in, and saw and behold every form of creeping things and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the wall round about. The Israelites were but copyists: the master-sketches are to be seen in all the ancient temples and tombs of Egypt."4 Farther, "it appears from the Scriptures, that the Jews had family sepulchres in places contiguous to their own houses, and generally in their gardens:" and the same usage obtained among the Romans and other nations." "Such was the place in which Lazarus was interred; and such, : interred, will perform a subterraneous journey into Palestine, in order that they may participate in the resurrection. S. Jarchi on Gen. xlvii.-Alber, last. Herm. Test. tom. i. p. 319. 1 Bp. Lowth on Isaiah, vol. ii. pp. 120. 170. 328, 329. "Above half a mile from the wall" of Jerusalem, "are the Tombs of the Kings. In midst of a hollow, rocky and adorned with a few trees, is the eatrance. You then find a large apartment, above fifty feet long, at the side of which a low door leads into a series of small chambers, hewn out of the rock, of the size of the human body. There are six or seven of these low and dark apartments, in which are hewn recesses of different shapes for the reception of bodies." (Carne's Letters from the East, p. 24. Three Weeks in Palestine, p. 75.) The Sepulchres of the Judges, so called, are situated in a wild spot, about two miles from the city. They bear much resemblance to those of the Kings, but are not so handsome or spacious." (Carne's Letters from the East, p. 294.) "No shadow, not even of a rock, is spread over these long enduring relics, in which tradition has placed the ashes of the rulers of Israel. They consist of several divisions, each containing two or three apartments cut out of the solid rock, and entablatures are carved with some skill over the entrance. No richly carved relics, or fragments of sarcophagi remain here, as in the tombs of the kings; and their only use is to shelter the wandering passenger or the benighted traveller, who finds no other resting place in the wild around." (Carne's Recollections of the East, pp. 135, 136.) 4 Jowett's Researches in the Mediterranean, p. 133. Thus, the Mausoleum of Augustus was erected in a garden. Dr. Munter has collected numerous classical inscriptions, which attest the application of gardens to sepulchral purposes. (Symbol ad Interpretationem Evangelii Johannis ex Marmoribus, pp. 29, 30.) The modern inhabitants of Mount Lebanon have their sepulchres in gardens. The Rev. Mr. Jowett, during his visit to Deir el-Kamar, the capital of the Druses on that moun tain, says, that while walking out one evening a few fields' distance with the son of his host, to see a detached garden belonging to his father, the young man pointed out to him near it a small solid stone building, very solemnly adding, "Kabbar Beity-the sepulchre of our family." It had neither door nor window. "He then" (adds Mr. J.) "directed my attentin to a considerable number of similar buildings at a distance; which to the eye are exactly like houses, but which are, in fact, family mansions for the dead. They have a most melancholy appearance, which made him shudder while he explained their use."...." "Perhaps this custom, which prevails particularly at Deir-el-Kamar, and in the lonely neighbouring parts of the mountain, may have been of great antiquity, and may serve to ex plain some Scripture phrases. The prophet Samuel was buried in his house at Ramah (1 Sam. xxv. 1.); it could hardly be in his dwelling-house. Joab was buried in his own house in the wilderness. (1 Kings ii. 34.)" Jowett's Christian Researches in Palestine, p. 250. VOL. II. 2 C After the deceased had been committed to the tomb, it was customary among the Greeks and Romans, to put the tears shed by the surviving relatives and friends into lachrymatory urns, and place these on the sepulchres, as a memorial of their distress and affection. From Psal. lvi. 8. it should seem that this custom was still more anciently in use among the eastern nations, especially the Hebrews. These vessels were of different materials, and were moulded into different forms. Some were of glass, and some were of earthenware,10 being diminutive in size and of delicate workmanship. In order to do honour to the memory of the dead, their sepulchres were sometimes distinguished by monuments. described and delineated by Mr. Emerson, completely elucidate the form Harwood's Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 139. 141, 142. The sepulchres, Macknight's Harmony, sect. 87. vol. ii. p. 473. 10 Dr. Chandler's Life of David, vol. i. p. 106. Among the valuable remains of ancient art collected by Dr. E. D. Clarke among the ruins of Sicyon, in the Peloponnesus, were lachrymatories of more ancient form and materials than any thing he had ever before observed of the saine kind; "the lachrymatory phials, in which the Sicyonians treasured up their tears, deserve rather the name of bottles; they are nine inches long, two inches in diameter, and contains as much fluid as would fill a phial of three ounces; consisting of the coarsest materials, a heavy blue clay or marle.... Sometimes the vessels found in ancient sepulchres are of suc diminutive size, that they are only capable of holding a few drops of fluid in these instances there seems to be no other use for which they were fitted. Small lachrymal phials of glass have been found in the tombs of the Romans in Great Britain; and the evident allusion to this practice in the Sacred Scriptures-Put those my tears into thy bottle (Psal. lvi. 8.)-—seems decisive as to the purpose for which these vessels were designed." Tra vels in various Countries of Europe, &c. vol. vi. pp. 541, 542. The custom of erecting these seems to have obtained even | the days of mourning. (Gen. xxvii. 41. and 1. 4.) Thus from the patriarchal age. Thus, Jacob erected a pillar upon the Egyptians, who had a great regard for the patriarch the grave of his beloved wife Rachel. (Gen. xxxv. 20.) This Jacob, lamented his death threescore and ten days. (Gen. is the earliest monument mentioned in the Scriptures: it is 1. 3.) The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab evident from that passage that it was standing when Moses thirty days. (Deut. xxxiv. 8.) Afterwards, among the Jews, wrote; and its site seems to have been known in the time of the funeral mourning was generally confined to seven days. Samuel and Saul. (1 Sam. x. 2.) The monument now shown Hence, besides the mourning for Jacob in Egypt, Joseph in the vicinity of Bethlehem, as Rachel's tomb, is a modern and his company set apart seven days to mourn for his father, and Turkish structure, which may, perhaps, be the true place when they approached the Jordan with his corpse. (Gen. of her interment.1 In later times, inscriptions appear to have 1. 10.) In the time of Christ, it was customary for the been placed on tombstones, denoting the persons who were nearest relative to visit the grave of the deceased and to there interred. Such was the title or inscription discovered weep there. The Jews, who had come to condole with by Josiah, which proved to be the burial-place of the prophet Mary on the death of her brother Lazarus, on seeing her go who was sent from Judah to denounce the divine judgments out of the house, concluded that she was going to the grave against the altar which Jeroboam had erected more than three to weep there. (John xi. 31.) The Syrian women are still centuries before. Simon Maccabæus built a splendid monu-accustomed, either alone or accompanied by some attendants, ment at Modin in honour of his father and his brethren. to visit the tombs of their relatives, and mourn their loss: (1 Macc. xiii. 25-30.) In the time of Jesus Christ, it appears and the same usage obtains almost throughout the East, that the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees repaired and among Jews as well as Christians and Mohammedans; and adorned the tombs of the prophets whom their ancestors had in Persia, Egypt, Greece, Dalmatia, Bulgaria, Croatia, murdered for their faithfulness, under a sanctimonious ap- Servia, Wallachia, and Illyria. pearance of respect for their memory. The ancient Arabs It does not appear that there was any general mourning raised a heap of stones over the body of the dead (Job xxi. for Saul and his sons, who died in battle: but the national 32. marginal rendering), which was guarded. In the year troubles, which followed upon his death, might have pre1820, Mr. Rae Wilson observed on the plain of Zebulun, not vented it. David, indeed, and his men, on hearing the news far from Cana, piles of stones covering over or marking the of their death, mourned and wept for them until even. place of graves. Similar cairns, also the remains of remote (2 Sam. i. 12.) And the men of Jabesh-Gilead fasted for antiquity, exist both in England and in Scotland.2 Among them seven days (1 Sam. xxxi. 13.), which must not be unthe Hebrews, great heaps of stones were raised over those derstood in a strict sense, as if they took no food during that whose death was either infamous, or attended with some very time, but that they lived very abstemiously, ate little, and remarkable circumstances. Such were the heaps raised over that seldom, using a low and spare diet, and drinking water the grave of Achan (Josh. vii. 26.), over that of the king of only. Ai (viii. 29.), and over that of Absalom (2 Sam. xviii. 17.); all which were sepulchral monuments to perpetuate the place of their interment. VI. A FUNERAL FEAST commonly succeeded the Jewish burials. Thus, after Abner's funeral was solemnized, the people came to David to eat meat with him, though they could not persuade him to do so. (2 Sam. iii. 35.) He was the chief mourner, and probably had invited them to this banquet. Of this Jeremiah speaks (xvi. 7.), where he calls it the cup of consolation, which they drank for their father or their mother; and accordingly the place where this funeral entertainment was made, is called in the next verse the house of feasting. Hosea calls it the bread of mourners. (Hos. ix. 4.) Funeral banquets are still in use among the oriental Christians. The usual tokens of mourning by which the Jews expressed their grief and concern for the death of their friends and relations, were by rending their garments, and putting on sackcloth (Gen. xxxvii. 34.), sprinkling dust on their heads, wearing of mourning apparel (2 Sam. xiv. 2.), and covering the face and the head. (2 Sam. xix. 4.) They were accustomed also in times of public mourning to go up to the roofs or platforms of their houses, there to bewail their misfortunes, which practice is mentioned in Isaiah xv. 3. and xxii. 1. Anciently, there was a peculiar space of time allotted for lamenting the deceased, which they called Maundrell's Journey from Aleppo, p. 117. "It has all the appearance of one of those tombs often erected to the memory of a Turkish Santon." Carne's Letters, p. 277. Rae Wilson's Travels in the Holy Land, vol. ii. p. 5. third edition. • Harmer's Observations, vol. iii. p. 19. How long widows mourned for their husbands is nowhere told us in Scripture. It is recorded, indeed, of Bathsheba, that when she heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for him (2 Sam. xi. 26.); but this could neither be long nor very sincere. "A female, with part of her robe drawn over her head, or veiled, was seen seated by the tombs of her relatives on the summit of Mount Morian, or along its sides, just beneath the walls of Jerusalem." Carne's Letters, P.33 "We arrived" (at one of the villages of Elephantina, an island in the Nile) "just in time to witness a coronagh, or wailing for the dead. A poor woman of the village had that morning received the melancholy intelligence that her husband had been drowned in the Nile. He had been interred without her knowledge, near the spot where the body was found; and she, along with several of her female friends, was paying the unavailing tribute of lamentation to his departed shade." (Richardson's Travels, vol. i. p. 355.) "One morning," says the same intelligent traveller, "when standing among the ruins of the ancient Syene, on the rocky promontory above the ferry, I saw a party of thirteen females cross the Nile to perform the lugu. brious dirge at the mansions of the dead. They set up a piteous wail on dirty robes of beteen. On landing they wound their way slowly and entering the boat, after which they all cowered up together, wrapt in their silently along the outside of the walls of the ancient town, till they arrived at their place of destination, when some of them placed a sprig of flowers the ground, and threw dust over their heads, uttering mournful lamenta on the grave, and sat down silently beside it; others cast themselves on tions, which they continued to repeat at intervals, during the short time that I witnessed their procedure." (Ibid. vol. i. p. 360.) Mr. Jowett witnessed a similar scene at Manfelout, a more remote town of Upper Egypt. Christian Researches in the Mediterranean, p. 162. Alber, Inst. Herm. Vet. Test. tom. i. pp. 311-319. Calmet, Dissertation sur les Funérailles des Hébreux. Dissert. tom. i. pp. 20-309. Pareau, Antiquitas Hebraica, pp. 472 477. Jahn, Archæol. Bibl. §§ 204-211. Stosch, Compendium Archæologia Economica Novi Testamenti, pp. 121-132. Brünings, Compendium Antiquitatum Græcarum, pp. 38400.; and his Compendium Antiquitatum Hebræarum, pp. 257-264. The subject of Hebrew sepul chres is very fully discussed by Nicolai, in his treatise De Sepulchris Hebræorum (Lug. Bat. 1706), which is illustrated with several curious plates, some of which, however, it must be confessed, are rather fanciful. |