that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended | prize before me, pressing with eager and rapid steps, towards of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have appre- the goal, to seize the immortal palm which God, by Christ hended but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which Jesus, bestows. This affecting passage, also, of the same are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are apostle, in the second Epistle of Timothy, written a little before, I press towards the mark, for the prize of the high before his martyrdom, is beautifully allusive to the abovecalling of God in Christ Jesus: Not that already I have mentioned race, to the crown that awaited the victory, and acquired this palm; not that I have already attained per- to the Hellanodics or judges who bestowed it:-I have fection; but I pursue my course, that I may seize that crown fought a good fight, I have finished my course? I have kept of immortality, to the hope of which I was raised by the the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of rightgracious appointment of Christ Jesus. My Christian breth-cousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at ren, I do not esteem myself to have obtained this glorious that day: and not to me only, but to all them also that lov. prize but one thing occupies my whole attention; forget- his appearing." (2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.) ting what I left behind, I stretch every nerve towards the ON THE DISEASES MENTIONED IN THE SCRIPTURES, TREATMENT OF THE DEAD, AND FUNERAL RITES. SECTION 1. ON THE DISEASES MENTIONED IN THE SCRIPTURES. Origin and Progress of the Art of Medicine in the East.—II. Notice of Remedies in uɛe among the Jews.-III. Account of some particular Diseases mentioned in the Scriptures; viz. 1. The Leprosy ;-2. Elephantiasis, the Disease of Job;— 3. Disease of the Philistines;-4. Of King Saul;—5. Of King Jehoram ;—6. Of King Hezekiah;—7. Of Nebuchadnezzar; -8. Palsy ;-9. Issue of Blood;-10. Blindness;-11. The Reality of demoniacal Possessions proved. are mentioned first in Gen. 1. 2. Exod. xxi. 19. Job xiii. 4. Some acquaintance with chirurgical operations is implied in the rite of circumcision. (Gen. xvii. 11-14.) There is ample evidence that the Israelites had some acquaintance with the internal structure of the human system, although it does not appear that dissections of the human body, for medical purposes, were made till as late as the time of Ptolemy. That physicians sometimes undertook to exercise their skill, in removing diseases of an internal nature, is evident from the circumstance of David's playing upon the harp to cure the malady of Saul. (1 Sam. xvi. 16.) The art of healing was committed among the Hebrews, as well as among the Egyptians, to the priests; who, indeed, were obliged, by a law of the state, to take cognizance of leprosies. (Lev. xiii. 1-14. 57. Deut. xxiv. 8, 9.) Reference is made to physi cians who were not priests, and to instances of sickness, disease, healing, &c. in the following passages; viz. 1 Sam. 1 Τα μεν οπίσω επιλανθανόμενος, τοις δε εμπροσθεν επεκτεινόμενος, και is agonistical. The whole passage beautifully represents that ardour which fired the combatants when engaged in the race. Their spirit and contention are in a very striking manner described in the following truly poetical lines of Oppian, which happily illustrate this passage: I. THE diseases to which the human frame is subject would | from producing the effects he ascribes to them. Physicians naturally lead men to try to alleviate or to remove them hence sprang the ART OF MEDICINE. In the early ages of the world, indeed, there could not be much occasion for an art which is now so necessary to the health and happiness of mankind. The simplicity of their manners, the plainness of their diet, their temperance in meat and drink, and their active life (being generally occupied in the field, and in rural affairs), would naturally tend to strengthen the body, and to afford a greater share of health than what we now enjoy. So long as our first parents continued in that state of uprightness in which they were created, there was a tree, emphatically termed the tree of life, the fruit of which was divinely appointed for the preservation of health; but after the fall, being expelled from Eden, and, consequently, banished for ever from that tree, they became liable to various diseases, which, doubtless, they would endeavour to remove, or to mitigate in various ways. From the longevity of the patriarchs it is evident that diseases were not very frequent in the early ages of the world, and they seem to have enjoyed a suffi- To Spasov. Every term here employed by the apostle ciently vigorous old age, except that the eyes became dim and the sight feeble. (Gen. xxvii. 1. xlviii. 10.) Hence it is recorded as a remarkable circumstance concerning Moses, that in extreme old age (for he was an hundred and twenty years old when he died) his eye was NOT dim, nor his natural force abated. (Deut, xxxiv. 7.) The Jews ascribed the origin of the healing art to God himself (Ecclus. xxxviii. 1, 2.), and the Egyptians attributed the invention of it to their god Thaut or Hermes, or to Osiris or Isis. Anciently, at Babylon, the sick, when they were first attacked by a disease, were left in the streets, for the purpose of learning from those who might pass them what practices or what medicines had been of assistance to them, when afflicted with a similar disease. This was, perhaps, done also in other countries. The Egyptians carried their sick into the temple of Serapis; the Greeks carried theirs into those of Esculapius. In both of these temples there were preserved written receipts of the means by which various cures had been effected." With the aid of these recorded remedies, the art of healing assumed in the progress of time the aspect of a science. It assumed such a form, first in Egypt, and at a much more recent period in Greece; but it was not long before those of the former were surpassed in excellence by the physicians of the latter country. That the Egyptians, however, had no little skill in medicine, may be gathered from what is said in the Pentateuch respecting the marks of leprosy. That some of the medical prescriptions should fail of bringing the expected relief is by no means strange, since Pliny himself mentions some which are far Ως δε ποδώκενης μεμελημένοι άνδρες αέθλων, Oppian Pisc. lib. iv. ver. 101. edit. Rittershusii. Instat equis auriga suos vincentibus, illum xvi. 16. 1 Kings i. 2—1. 2 Kings viii. 29. ix. 15. Isa. i. 6. | the characteristic symptom of which is patches of smooto Jer. viii. 22. Ezek. xxx. 21. The probable reason of king laminated scales, of different sizes and of a circular form. Asa's not seeking help from God, but from the physicians, as This disease was not peculiar to the Israelites, but anciently mentioned in 2 Chron. xvi. 12., was, that they had not at was endemic in Palestine, as it still is in Egypt and other that period recourse to the simple medicines which nature countries. In the admirable description of the cutaneous offered, but to certain superstitious rites and incantations; and affections to which the Israelites were subject after their de this, no doubt, was the ground of the reflection which was parture from Egypt, given by Moses in the thirteenth chapcast upon him. About the time of Christ, the Hebrew phy-ter of the book of Leviticus, there are three which distinctly sicians both made advancements in science, and increased in belong to the leprosy. All of them are distinguished by the numbers. It appears from the Talmud, that the Hebrew name of ¬ (BEHRT), or "bright spot;" viz. physicians were accustomed to salute the sick by saying, i. The p (BoHak), which imports brightness but in a Irise from your disease." This salutation had a miraculous subordinate degree, being a dull white spot: it is not contaeffect in the mouth of Jesus. (Mark v. 41.) According to gious, and does not render a person unclean, or make it the Jerusalem Talmud, a sick man was judged to be in a necessary that he should be confined. Michaelis describes way of recovery, who began to take his usual food. (Com- a case of bohak from the traveller Niebuhr, in which the pare Mark v. 43.) The ancients were accustomed to attri- spots were not perceptibly elevated above the skin, and did bute the origin of diseases, particularly of those whose natural not change the colour of the hair: the spots in this species causes they did not understand, to the immediate interference of leprosy do not appear on the hands or abdomen, but on the of the Deity. Hence they were denominated, by the ancient neck and face they gradually spread, and continue sometimes Greeks, Marty, or the scourges of God, a word which is only about two months, though in some cases as long as two employed in the New Testament by the physician Luke him- years, when they gradually disappear of themselves. This self (vii. 21.), and also in Mark v. 29. 34.3 disorder is neither infectious nor hereditary, nor does it occasion any inconvenience. II. Concerning the remedies actually employed by the Jews few particulars are certainly known. Wounds were ii. Two species called nys (TSORT), that is, venom or bound up, after applying oil to them (Ezek. xxx. 21. Isa. i. malignity, viz. the (BHRT lebena), or bright 6.), or pouring in a liniment composed of oil and wine (Luke white behrat (Lev. xiii. 38, 39.), an (BHRT CECHU), x. 34.), oil being mollifying and healing, while wine would dark or dusky behrat, spreading in the skin. (Lev. xiii. 3.) be cleansing and somewhat astringent. Herod was let down Both these are contagious; in other words, render the perinto a bath of oil. Great use was made of the celebrated son affected with it unclean, and exclude him from society. balm of Gilead. (Jer. viii. 22. xlvi. 11. li. 8.) The com- (1.) In the behrat cecha (the Leprosis Lepriasis nigricans parison in Prov. iii. 8. is taken from the plasters, oils, and of Dr. Good's nosological system) the natural colour of the frictions, which, in the East, are still employed on the abdo- hair, which in Egypt and Palestine is bluck, is not changed, men and stomach in most maladies: the people in the vil- as Moses repeatedly states, nor is there any depression of lages being ignorant of the art of making decoctions and the dusky spot, while the patches, instead of keeping stapotions, and of the doses proper to be administered, generally tionary to their first size, are perpetually enlarging their make use of external medicines. When Jesus Christ autho-boundary. The patient labouring under this form of the rized his apostles to heal the sick (Matt, x. 8.), the evangelist disease was pronounced unclean by the Hebrew priest, Mark relates that they anointed with oil many that were sick, and, consequently, was sentenced to a separation from his and healed them. (ví. 13.) From the expressions in Prov. family and friends: whence there is no doubt of its having iii. Is. xi. 30. xiii. 12. and xv. 4. Calmet thinks it proba- proved contagious. Though a much severer malady than tle that the Jews had salutary herbs and plants which they the common leprosy, it is far less so than the species called the tree of life, and which we should now call medi- described in the ensuing paragraph; and on this account it cinal herbs and plants, in opposition to such as are poisonous is dismissed by Moses with a comparatively brief notice. and dangerous, which they call the tree of death. Some modern neologian expositors have imagined, that the Pool of Bethesda at Jerusalem was a bath, the waters of which derived their sanative power from the entrails of the victims offered in sacrifice being washed therein (John v. 2-7.), and that by the angel was simply intended a man, who was sent to stir up from the bottom the corrupt ediment; which being distributed through the water, the pores of the person who bathed in it were penetrated by this matter, and Lis disorder repelled. "But this is a miserable evasion, to get rid of the power and goodness of God, built on the merest conjecture, [and] self-contradictions, and every way as unlikely as it is insupportable. It has never yet been proved, that the sacrifices were ever washed; and, could even this be proved, who can show that they were washed in the Pool of Bethesda ? These waters healed a man in a moment of whatsoever disease he had. Now, there is no one cause under heaven can do this. Had only one kind of disorder been cured here, there might have been some countenance for this deistical conjecture-but this is not the case; and we are obliged to believe the relation just as it stands, and thus acknowledge the sovereign power and mercy of God, or take the desperate flight of an infidel, and thus get rid of the passage altogether." 996 III. Various diseases are mentioned in the Sacred Writings, as cancers, consumption, dropsy, fevers, lunacy, &c. Concerning a few disorders, the nature of which has exercised the critical acumen of physicians as well as divines, the following observations may be satisfactory to the reader. 1. Of all the maladies mentioned in the Scriptures, the most formidable is the disorder of the skin, termed LEPROSY, Mark v. 26. Luke iv. 23. v. 31. viii. 43. Josephus, Antiq. Jud. lib. Schabbath, p. 110. See also Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraica on Mark Jahn, Archæol. Biblica, by Upham, 6$ 105. 184. Pareau, Antiq. Hebr. 54. 166. c. 6.55. epbus, Bell. Jud. lib. i. c. 33. §5. p. Lowth's Isaiah, vol. ii. p. 10. Dr. A. Clarke's Commentary on John v. 3. Tus dreadful disorder has its name from the Greek Apz, from As, because in this disease the body was often covered with thin white (2.) The behrat lebena, (Leprosis Lepriazis candida, or leuce of Dr. Good's Nosology,) or bright white leprosy, is by far the most serious and obstinate of all the forms which the disease assumes. The pathognomonic characters, dwelt upon by Moses in deciding it, are "a glossy white and spreading scale upon an elevated base, the elevation depressed in the middle, but without a change of colour, the black hair on the patches, which is the natural colour of the hair in Palestine, participating in the whiteness, and the patches themselves perpetually widening their outline. of these characters taken separately belong to other lesions or blemishes of the skin, and, therefore, none of them were to be taken alone; and it was only when the whole of them concurred that the Jewish priest, in his capacity of physician, was to pronounce the disease a tsorat, or malignant leprosy. Several Common as this form of leprosy was among the Hebrews, during and subsequent to their residence in Egypt, we have no reason to believe that it was a family complaint, or even known amongst them antecedently: whence there is little doubt, notwithstanding the confident assertions of Manetho to the contrary, that they received the infection from the Egyptians, instead of communicating it to them. Their subjugated and distressed state, however, and the peculiar nature of their employment, must have rendered them very liable to this as well as to various other blemishes and misaffections of the skin: in the productions of which there are no causes more active or powerful than a depressed state of body or mind, hard labour under a burning sun, the body constantly covered with the excoriating dust of brick-fields scales, so as to give it the appearance of snow. Hence the hand of Moses is said to have been leprous as snow (Exod. iv. 6.); and Miriam is said to have become leprous, white as snow (Num. xii. 10.); and Gelazi, when struck judicially with the disease of Naainan, is recorded to have gone out from the presence of Elisha, a leper, as white as snow. (2 Kings v. 27.) Dr. A. Clarke on Lev. xiii. 1. For this account of the leprosy, the author is almost wholly indebted to the late Dr. Good's Study of Medicine, vol. v. pp. 587-597. 2 edition. Michaelis's Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, vol. iii. pp. 233, 234. "That all this," he adds, "with equal force and truth, should still be found exactly to hold, at the distance of 3500 years from the time of Moses, ought certainly to gain some credit to his laws, even with those who will not allow them to be of divine authority." (p. 234 and an impoverished diet; to all of which the Israelites | and show himself to the priests, that he might be declared were exposed, whilst under the Egyptian bondage. clean, and offer the sacrifice enjoined in that case; and, when purified, that he might be again admitted into civil society. (Matt. viii. 4. Lev. xiv. 11-32.) It appears, also, from the Mosaic account, that in consequence of these hardships there was, even after the Israelites had quitted Egypt, a general predisposition to the contagious (7.) Lastly, As this disease was so offensive to the Israelform of leprosy, so that it often occurred as a consequence ites, God commanded them to use frequent ablutions, and of various other cutaneous affections. Eight different ble- prohibited them from eating swine's flesh and other articles mishes in the skin, which had a tendency to terminate in of animal food that had a tendency to produce this disease. this terrible disease, are enumerated by Moses, and describ- The peculiar lustrations which a person who had been ed by Dr. Good, to whose elaborate treatise the reader is healed of a leprosy was to undergo are detailed in Lev. xiv. referred. The effects of leprosy, as described by travellers-See an abstract of them in p. 134. of this volume. who have witnessed the disorder in its most virulent forms, are truly deplorable.' The Mosaic statutes respecting leprosy are recorded in Lev. xiii. and xiv. Num. v. 1-4. and Deut. xxiv. 8, 9. They are in substance as follows: (1.) On the appearance of any one of the cutaneous affections above noticed on any person, the party was to be inspected by a priest, both as acting in a judicial capacity, and also as being skilled in medicine. The signs of the disease, which are circumstantially pointed out in the statute itself, accord with those which have been noticed by modern physicians. "If, on the first inspection, there remained any doubt as to the spot being really a symptom of leprosy, the suspected person was shut up for seven days, in order that it might be ascertained; whether it spread, disappeared, or remained as it was; and this confinement might be repeated. During this time, it is probable that means were used to remove the spot. If in the mean time it spread, or continued as it was, without becoming paler, it excited a strong suspicion of real leprosy, and the person inspected was declared unclean. If it disappeared, and after his liberation became again manifest, a fresh inspection took place. 66 (2.) The unclean were separated from the rest of the people. So early as the second year of the Exodus, lepers were obliged to reside without the camp (Num. v. 1-4.); and so strictly was this law enforced, that the sister of Moses herself, becoming leprous, was expelled from it. (Num. xii. 14-16.) When the Israelites came into their own land, and lived in cities, the spirit of the law thus far operated, that lepers were obliged to reside in a separate place, which was called (non) BETH CHOPHSCHITH, or the house of uncleanness, and from this seclusion not even kings, when they became leprous, were exempted. (2 Kings xv. 5.) As, however, a leper cannot always be within doors, and may, consequently, sometimes meet clean persons, he was obliged, in the first place, to make himself known by his dress, and to go about with torn clothes, a bare head, and his chin covered; and in the next place, when any one came too near him, to cry out that he was Unclean. (Num. xiii. 45, 46.)" (3.) Although a leper, merely meeting and touching a person, could not have immediately infected him, yet, as such a rencontre and touch would have rendered him Levitically unclean, in order to prevent leprosy from spreading, in consequence of close communication, "it was an established rule to consider a leprous person as likewise unclean in a Levitical or civil sense; and, consequently, whoever touched him, became also unclean; not indeed medically or physically so, that is, infected by one single touch, but still unclean in a civil sense. 66 (4.) "On the other hand, however, for the benefit of those found clean, the law itself specified those who were to be pronounced free from the disorder; and such persons were then clear of all reproach, until they again fell under accusation from manifest symptoms of infection. The man who, on the first inspection, was found clean, or in whom the supposed symptoms of leprosy disappeared during confinement, was declared clean only, in the latter case, he was obliged to have his clothes washed. If, again, he had actually had the disorder, and got rid of it, the law required him to make certain offerings, in the course of which he was pronounced clean.” 2 (5.) The leprous person was to use every effort in his power to be healed; and, therefore, was strictly to follow the directions of the priests. This, Michaelis is of opinion, may fairly be inferred from Deut. xxiv. 8. (6.) When healed of his leprosy, the person was to go 1 Mr. Barker, the agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, when at Damascus in the year 1825, describing the hospital of Christian lepers, says, "How afflicting was their situation and appearance! Some were without noses and fingers, being eaten up by the disease, and others were differently disfigured." Twenty-sixth Report of the Bible Society, App. p. 111. 2 Michaelis's Commentaries, vol. iii. pp. 278-287. 2. The DISEASE with which the patriarch Joв was afflicted (ii. 7.) has greatly exercised the ingenuity of commentators, who have supposed it to be the contagious leprosy, the small pox, and the ELEPHANTIASIS, or Leprosy of the Arabians. The last opinion is adopted by Drs. Mead and Good, and by Michaelis, and appears to be best supported. This dreadful malady, which the ancient medical writer Paul of Ægineta has accurately characterized as an universal ulcer, was named elephantiasis by the Greeks, from its rendering the skin of the patient like that of an elephant, scabrous and dark coloured, and furrowed all over with tubercles, loathsome alike to the individual and to the spectators. When it attains a certain height, as it appears to have done in this instance, it is incurable, and, consequently, affords the unhappy patient no prospect but that of long-continued misery. 3. The DISEASE OF THE PHILISTINES, mentioned in 1 Sam. v. 6. 12. and vi. 17., has been supposed to be the dysentery; but it was most probably the hæmorrhoids or bleeding piles, in a very aggravated degree. Jahn, however, considers it as the effect of the bite of venomous solpugas. 4. The DISEASE OF SAUL (1 Sam. xvi. 14.) appears to have been a true madness, of the melancholic or attrabila rious kind, as the ancient physicians termed it; the fits of which returned on the unhappy monarch at uncertain periods, as is frequently the case in this sort of malady. The remedy applied, in the judgment of experienced physicians, was an extremely proper one, viz. playing on the harp. The cha racter of the modern oriental music is expression, rather than science and it may be easily conceived how well adapted the unstudied and artless strains of David were to soothe the perturbed mind of Saul; which strains were bold and free from his courage, and sedate through his piety." 5. The DISEASE OF JEHORAM KING OF ISRAEL.-This sovereign, who was clothed with the double infamy of being at once an idolater and the murderer of his brethren, was diseased internally for two years, as had been predicted by the prophet Elijah; and his bowels are said at last to have fallen out by reason of his sickness. (2 Chron. xxi. 12—15. 18, 19.) This disease, Dr. Mead says, beyond all doubt was the dysentery, and though its continuance so long a time was very uncommon, it is by no means a thing unheard of. The intestines in time become ulcerated by the operation of this disease. Not only blood is discharged from them, but a sort of mucous excrements likewise is thrown off, and sometimes small pieces of the flesh itself; so that apparently the intestines are emitted or fall out, which is sufficient to account for the expressions that are used in the statement of king Jehoram's disease." 6. The DISEASE WITH WHICH HEZEKIAH WAS AFFLICTED (2 Kings xx. 7. Isa. xxxviii. 21.) has been variously sup posed to be a pleurisy, the plague, the elephantiasis, and the quinsey. But Dr. Mead is of opinion that the malady was a fever which terminated in an abscess; and for promoting its suppuration a cataplasm of figs was admirably adapted. The case of Hezekiah, however, indicates not only the limited knowledge of the Jewish physicians at that time, but also that though God can cure by a miracle, yet he also gives sagacity to discover and apply the most natural remedies. 7. Concerning the nature of NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S MALADY (Dan. iv. 25, 26. 31–33.) learned men are greatly divided, but the most probable account of it is that given by Dr. Mead; who remarks that all the circumstances of it, as related by Daniel, so perfectly agree with hypochondriacal madness, that to him it appears evident that Nebuchadnezzar was seized with this distemper, and under its influence ran wild into the fields; and that fancying himself transformed into an ox, he fed on grass in the manner of cattle. For 3 Mead's Medica Sacra, pp. 1-11. (London, 1755.) Good's translation of Job, p. 22. 4 Archæol. Bibl. § 185. Mead's Medica Sacra, p. 20-33. Mead's Medica Sacra, p 35. Jahn's Archæol. Bibl. § 187. Medica Sacra, p. 37. known to require any explanation. Physicians confess it to be a disorder which is very difficult of cure. (Mark v. 26.)9 How does this circumstance magnify the benevolent miracle, wrought by Jesus Christ on a woman who had laboured under it for twelve years! 10. The BLINDNESS of the sorcerer Elymas (Acts xiii. 6— every sort of madness is a disease of a disturbed imagination; under which this unhappy man laboured full seven years. And through neglect of taking proper care of himself, his hair and nails grew to an excessive length; by which the latter, growing thicker and crooked, resembled the claws of birds. Now, the ancients called persons affected with this species of madness ur‡púra (wolf-men) or xuvav-12.) is in the Greek denominated axxus, and with great proSpra (dog-men); because they went abroad in the night imitating wolves or dogs; particularly intent upon opening the sepulchres of the dead, and had their legs much ulcerated, either by frequent falls, or the bites of dogs. In like manner are the daughters of Proetus related to have been mad, who, as Virgil says, Implerunt falsis mugitibus agros. With mimick'd mooings filled the fields. For, as Servius observes, Juno possessed their minds with such a species of madness, that fancying themselves cows, they ran into the fields, bellowed often, and dreaded the plough. But these, according to Ovid, the physician Melampus, per carmen el herbas Eripuit furiis.3 Snatch'd from the furies by his charms and herbs. priety, being rather an obscuration than a total extinction of sight. It was occasioned by a thin coat or tunicle of hard substance, which spread itself over a portion of the eye, and interrupted the power of vision. Hence the disease is likewise called oxers, or darkness. It was easily cured, and sometimes even healed of itself, without resorting to any medical prescription. Therefore St. Paul added in his denunciation, that the impostor should not see the sun for a season. But the blindness of the man, of whose miraculous restoration to sight we have so interesting an account in John ix., was total, and being inveterate from his birth, was incurable by any human art or skill. See an examination of this miracle in Vol. I. pp. 104, 105. 11. Lastly, in the New Testament we meet with repeated instances of what are termed DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. The reality of such possessions indeed has been denied by some authors, and attempts have been made by others to account for them, either as the effect of natural disease, or the influence of imagination on persons of a nervous habit. But it is manifest, that the persons who in the New Testament are said to be possessed with devils (more correctly with demons) cannot mean only persons afflicted with some strange disease; for they are evidently here as in other places-particularly in Luke iv. 33-36. 41.-distinguished from the diseased. Further, Christ's speaking on various occasions to these evil spirits, as distinct from the persons possessed by them, his commanding them and asking them questions, and receiving answers from them, or not suffering them to speak, and several circumstances relating to the terrible preternatural effects which they had upon the possessed, and to the manner of Christ's evoking them,particularly their requesting and obtaining permission to enter the herd of swine (Matt. viii. 31, 32.) and precipitating them into the sea; all these circumstances can never be accounted for by any distemper whatever. Nor is it any reasonable objection that we do not read of such frequent possessions before or since the appearance of our Redeemer upon earth. It seems, indeed, to have been ordered by a special providence that they should have been permitted to have then been more common; in order that He, who came to destroy the works of the Devil, might the more remarkably and visibly triumph over him; and that the machinations and devices of Satan might be more openly defeated, at a time when their power was at its highest, both in the souls and bodies of men; and also, that plain facts might be a sensible confutation of the Sadducean error, which denied the existence of angels or spirits (Acts xxiii. 8.), and prevailed among the principal men both for rank and learning in those days. The cases of the demoniacs expelled by the apostles were cases of real possession; and it is a well known fact, that in the second century of the Christian æra, the apologists for the persecuted professors of the faith of Christ appealed to their ejection of evil spirits as a proof of the divine origin of their religion. Hence it is evident that the demoniacs were not merely insane or epileptic patients, but persons really and truly vexed and convulsed by unclean demons.7 Nor was this disorder unknown to the moderns; for Schenckius records a remarkable instance of it in a husbandman of Padua, who, imagining that he was a wolf, attacked, and even killed several persons in the fields; and when at length he was taken, he persevered in declaring himself a real wolf, and that the only difference consisted in the intersion of his skin and hair. But it may be objected to this opinion, that this misfortune was foretold to the king, so that he might have prevented it by correcting his morals; and, therefore, it is not probable that it befell him in the course of nature. But we know that those things, which God executes either through clemency or vengeance, are frequently performed by the assistance of natural causes. Thus, having threatened Hezekiah with death, and being afterwards moved by his prayers, he restored him to life, and made use of figs laid on the tumour, as a medicine for his disease. He ordered king Herod, upon account of his pride, to be devoured by worms. And no one doubts but that the plague, which is generally attributed to the divine wrath, most commonly owes its origin to corrupted air. 8. The PALSY of the New Testament is a disease of very wide import, and the Greek word, which is so translated, comprehended not fewer than five different maladies, viz. (1.) Apoplexy, a paralytic shock, which affected the whole body—(2.) Hemiplegy, which affects and paralyzes only one side of the body; the case mentioned in Matt. ix. 2. appears to have been of this sort ;-(3.) Paraplegy, which paralyzes all parts of the system below the neck;-(4.) Catalepsy, which is caused by a contraction of the muscles in the whole or part of the body; the hands, for instance. This is a very dangerous disease; and the effects upon the parts seized are very violent and deadly. Thus, when a person is struck with it, if his hand happens to be extended, he is unable to draw it back: if the hand be not extended, when he is so struck, he is unable to extend it. It seems to be diminished in size, and dried up in appearance; whence the Hebrews were accustomed to call it a withered hand. The impious Jeroboam was struck with catalepsy (1 Kings xiii. 4-6.); the prophet Zechariah, among the judgments he was commissioned to denounce against the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock, threatens that his arm shall be dried up. (Zech. xi. 17.) Other instances of this malady occur in Matt. xii. 10. and John v. 3. 5.-(5.) The Cramp. This, in oriental countries, is a fearful malady, and by no means unfrequent. It originates from the chills of the night: the limbs, when seized with it, remain immoveable, sometimes turned in and sometimes out, in the very same position as I. when they were first seized. The person afflicted resembles a man undergoing the torture, Bacau, and experiences early the same sufferings. Death follows this disease a few days. Alcimus was struck with it (1 Macc. ix. 5-58.), as also was the centurion's servant. (Matt. vii. 6.) 9. The disease, which in Matt. ix. 20. Mark v. 25. and Leke viii. 43. is denominated an ISSUE OF BLOOD, is too well See Aetius, Lib. Medicin. lib. vi. and Paul. Ægineta, lib. iii. c. 16. SECTION II. TREATMENT OF THE DEAD.-FUNERAL RITES. Jewish notions of death.-II. Mosaic laws relating to the dead.—III. Preparations for interment.-IV. Rites of sepulture.-Lamentations for the dead.-V. Notice of the tombs of the Jews.-Monumental inscriptions.-VI. Funeral feasts. -Duration of mourning. So strong was the love of life among the Hebrews, that instances of suicide are of extremely rare occurrence in the Jahn's Archeologia Biblica, § 199. For a summary of the evidence that the demoniacs, mentioned in the New Testament, were persons really possessed by evil spirits, see Bp. Newton's Works, vol. Iv. pp. 526-304, and Mr. Townsend's Harmony of the New Test. vol. i. pp. 157-160. Thus we [PART IV. CHAP.IX 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 long as possible from putrefaction and decay. themselves, in a fit of desperation. (1 Sam. xxxi. 4, 5. read that Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, 2 Sam. xvii. 23. Matt. xxvii. 3-5.) In the last period of about a hundred pounds weight, to perform the customary the Jewish state, however, the custom of the Romans ap- office to the dear deceased. This embalming was usually pears to have greatly lessened the horror of suicide among repeated for several days together, that the drugs and spices the Jews; but that inost terrible of all diseases, the leprosy, thus applied might have all their efficacy in the exsiccation seems to have rendered its victims utterly regardless of life. of the moisture and the future conservation of the body. (Job vii. 15.) They then swathed the corpse in linen rollers or bandages, closely enfolding and wrapping it in that bed of aromatic drugs with which they had surrounded it. Thus we find that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took the body of Jesus and wrapt it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manbehold also in the Egyptian mummies, round which, Thevenot informs us, the Egyptians have sometimes used above a thousand ells of filleting, besides what was wrapped about the head. Thus, when our Lord had cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth it is said, the dead came forth, bound hand and foot in grave-clothes. (John xi. 44.) We learn from Scripture, also, that about the head and face of the corpse was folded a napkin, which was a separate thing, and did not communicate with the other bandages in which the 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 I. The Hebrews, in common with many other ancient nations, especially in the East, were accustomed to represent death by various terms which were calculated to mitigate the appalling image inspired by that last enemy of mankind. 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. vi. 6. Luke il. 29.) Frequently also they compared it to sleep, and to rest after the toils of life were over (Gen. xlvii. 30. Job iii. 13. 17-19. Isa. xiv. 8. lvii. 2. Matt. ix. 29. xxvii. 52. John xi. 11. Acts vii. 60. 1 Cor. xi. 30. 1 Thess. iv. 13. 2 Pet. iii. 4. Rev. xiv. 13.); and it was a very common expression to say, that the party deceased had gone, or was gathered to his fathers or to his people. (Gen. xv. 15. xxv. 8. 17. xxxv. 29. xlix. 29. 33. Num. xx. 24. xxvii. 13. xxxi. 2. Deut. xxxii. 50. Judg. ii. 10. 2 Kings xxii. 20.)2 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. I. 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. 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 "empalmed 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. 2 Pareau, Antiquitas Hebr. pp. 468, 469. a 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. 4 Sophoclis Electra, verse 1143. Virgil, Æneid. lib. vi. 218, 219. Herodotus, lib. ii. cc. 86-88. toin. ii. 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 funerandum me, po to ErTapiatas μs. sepeliendum, malé. Vulg. et Erasutus, ad me Nam aliud est STY quam ; ut Latinis sepelire est sepulchro condere: funerare vero pollincire, cadaver sepul chro mandandum prius curare. Beza ad Matt. xxvi. 12. ENTROI. 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 diebus, donec exsiccato, et absorpto vi aromatum omni reliquo humore, immo tabefactà carne arida, et quasi ænea reddità, diu servari possint integra et immunia a putrefactione. Lucas Brugensis, in Marc. xvi. • Dedamevos-xapiais. Phavorinus explains Kipia by calling them επιταφίοι δεσμοι, sepulchral bandages. Κείρια σημαίνει τα σχοινια τα TC. Etymol. 10 He went into the sepulchre, and then he plainly saw the linen clothes, μova, alone, or without the body, and x 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 Tirukavov, 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 To Taσ μs, to embalm me. The word-137. |