Roman citizens, that they could not be capitally convicted, but by the
suffrage of the people; and in whatever provinces they happened to
reside, if the governor showed a disposition to condemn them to death,
to scourge, or deprive them of their property, they had liberty to
appeal from his jurisdiction to the judgment of the people. This law,
which was enacted under the republican form of government, continued in
force under the emperors; so that if any freeman of Rome thought himself
ill used and aggrieved by the presidents in any of the provinces, he
could, by appeal, remove his cause to Rome, to the determination of the
emperor. A number of persons, we are told, were delegated by Augustus,
all of consular rank, to receive the appeals of the people in the
provinces. These observations will explain the nature of St. Paul’s
appeal in the Acts of the Apostles.
APPII FORUM, a place about fifty miles from Rome, near the modern town
of Piperno on the road to Naples. It probably had its name from the
statue of Appius Claudius, a Roman consul, who paved the famous way from
Rome to Capua, and whose statue was set up here. To this place some
Christians from Rome came to meet St. Paul, Acts xxviii, 15.
APPLE TREE, תפוח, Prov. xxv, 11; Cant. ii, 3, 5; vii, 8; viii, 5; Joel
i, 12. As the best apples of Egypt, though ordinary, are brought thither
by sea from Rhodes, and by land from Damascus, we may believe that
Judea, an intermediate country between Egypt and Damascus, has none that
are of any value. Can it be imagined, then, that the apple trees of
which the Prophet Joel speaks, i, 12, and which he mentions among the
things that gave joy to the inhabitants of Judea, were those that we
call by that name? Our translators must surely have been mistaken here,
since the apples which the inhabitants of Judea eat at this day are of
foreign growth, and at the same time but very indifferent.
There are five places, beside this in Joel, in which the word occurs;
and from them we learn that it was thought the noblest of the trees of
the wood, and that its fruit was very sweet or pleasant, Cant. ii, 3; of
the colour of gold, Prov. xxv, 11; extremely fragrant, Cant. vii, 8; and
proper for those to smell that were ready to faint, Cant. ii, 5. We may
be sure that the _taphuach_ was very early known in the holy land, as it
is mentioned in the book of Joshua as having given name to a city of
Manasseh and one of Judah. Several interpreters and critics render פר עץ
הדר, Lev. xxiii, 40, _branches_, or fruit, _of the beautiful tree_; and
understand it of the citron; and it is known that the Jews still make
use of the fruit of this tree at their yearly feast of tabernacles.
Citron trees are very noble, being large, their leaves beautiful, ever
continuing on the trees, of an exquisite smell, and affording a most
delightful shade. It might well, therefore, be said, “As the citron tree
is among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.” This
is a delicate compliment, comparing the fine appearance of the prince,
amid his escort, to the superior beauty with which the citron tree
appears among the ordinary trees of the forest; and the compliment is
heightened by an allusion to the refreshing shade and the exhilarating
fruit.
The exhilarating effects of the fruit are mentioned Cant. ii, 5,
“Comfort me with citrons.” Egmont and Heyman tell us of an Arabian who
was in a great measure brought to himself, when overcome with wine, by
the help of citrons and coffee.
To the manner of serving up these citrons in his court, Solomon seems to
refer, when he says, “A word fitly spoken is like golden citrons in
silver baskets;” whether, as Maimonides supposes, in baskets wrought
with open work, or in salvers curiously chased, it nothing concerns us
to determine; the meaning is, that an excellent saying, suitably
expressed, is as the most acceptable gift in the fairest conveyance. So
the rabbins say, that the tribute of the first ripe fruits was carried
to the temple in silver baskets.
APRIES, a king of Egypt, called in the sacred writings Pharaoh Hophrah,
Jer. xliv, 30. Apries was the son of Psammis, and grandson of Necho, or
Nechao, who waged war against Josiah, king of the Jews. He reigned
twenty-five years, and was long considered as one of the happiest
princes in the world; but having equipped a fleet for the reduction of
the Cyrenians, he lost in this expedition almost the whole of his army.
The Egyptians resolved to make him responsible for this ill success,
rebelled, and pretended that he undertook the war only to get rid of his
subjects, and that he might govern the remainder more absolutely. Apries
deputed Amasis, one of his officers, to suppress the rebellion, and
induce the people to return to their allegiance. But, while Amasis was
haranguing them, one of the multitude placed a diadem about his helmet,
and proclaimed him king. The rest applauded him; and Amasis having
accepted their offer, continued with them, and confirmed them in their
rebellion. Amasis put himself at the head of the rebels, and marched
against Apries, whom he defeated and took prisoner. Amasis treated him
with kindness; but the people were not satisfied till they had taken him
from Amasis and strangled him. Such was the end of Apries, according to
Herodotus. Jeremiah threatened this prince with being delivered into the
hands of his enemies, as he had delivered Zedekiah, king of Judah, into
the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
Apries had made a league with Zedekiah, and promised him assistance,
Ezek. xvii, 15. Zedekiah, therefore, relying on his forces, revolted
from Nebuchadnezzar, in the year of the world 3414, and before Jesus
Christ 590. Early in the year following, Nebuchadnezzar marched against
Hezekiah; but as other nations of Syria had shaken off their obedience,
he first reduced them to their duty, and toward the end of the year
besieged Jerusalem, 2 Kings xxv, 5; 2 Chron. xxxvi, 17; Jer. xxxix, 1;
lii, 4. Zedekiah defended himself in Jerusalem, long and obstinately,
that he might give time to Pharaoh Hophrah, or Apries, to come to his
assistance. Apries advanced with a powerful army; and the king of
Babylon raised the siege, and marched to meet him. But Apries not daring
to hazard a battle against the Chaldeans, retreated into Egypt, and
abandoned Zedekiah. Ezekiel reproaches Egypt severely with this
baseness, and says that it had been a staff of reed to the house of
Israel, and an occasion of falling; for when they took hold of it by the
hand, it broke and rent all their shoulder. He therefore prophesies that
Egypt should be reduced to a solitude, and that God would send against
it the sword, which would destroy in it man and beast, Ezek. xxix. This
was afterward accomplished, first, in the time of Apries; and secondly,
in the conquest of Egypt by the Persians.
AQUILA. This person was a native of Pontus in Asia Minor, and was
converted by St. Paul, together with his wife Priscilla, to the
Christian religion. As Aquila was by trade a tentmaker, Acts xviii, 2,
3, as St. Paul was, the Apostle lodged and wrought with him at Corinth.
Aquila came thither, not long before, from Italy, being obliged to leave
Rome upon the edict which the emperor Claudius had published, banishing
the Jews from that city. St. Paul afterward quitted Aquila’s house, and
abode with Justus, near the Jewish synagogue at Corinth; probably, as
Calmet thinks, because Aquila was a converted Jew, and Justus was a
convert from Paganism, that in this case the Gentiles might come and
hear him with more liberty. When the Apostle left Corinth, Aquila and
Priscilla accompanied him as far as Ephesus, where he left them with
that church while he pursued his journey to Jerusalem. They rendered him
great service in that city, so far as to expose their own lives to
preserve his. They had returned to Rome when St. Paul wrote his Epistle
to the Romans, xvi, 4, wherein he salutes them with great kindness.
Lastly, they were come back to Ephesus again, when St. Paul wrote his
Second Epistle to Timothy, iv, 19, wherein he desires him to salute them
in his name. What became of them after this time is not known.
AR, the capital city of the Moabites, situated in the hills on the south
of the river Arnon. This city was likewise called Rabbah or Rabbath
Moab, to distinguish it from the Ammonite Rabbah. It was afterward
called by the Greeks Areopolis; and is at present termed El-Rabba. See
MOAB.
ARABIA. A vast country of Asia, extending one thousand five hundred
miles from north to south, and one thousand two hundred from east to
west; containing a surface equal to four times that of France. The near
approach of the Euphrates to the Mediterranean constitutes it a
peninsula, the largest in the world. It is called Jezirat-el-Arab by the
Arabs; and by the Persians and Turks, Arebistan. This is one of the most
interesting countries on the face of the earth. It has, in agreement
with prophecy, never been subdued; and its inhabitants, at once
pastoral, commercial, and warlike, are the same wild, wandering people
as the immediate descendants of their great ancestor Ishmael are
represented to have been.
Arabia, or at least the eastern and northern parts of it, were first
peopled by some of the numerous families of Cush, who appear to have
extended themselves, or to have given their name as the land of Cush, or
Asiatic Ethiopia, to all the country from the Indus on the east, to the
borders of Egypt on the west, and from Armenia on the north to Arabia
Deserta on the south. By these Cushites, whose first plantations were on
both sides of the Euphrates and Gulf of Persia, and who were the first
that traversed the desert of Arabia, the earliest commercial
communications were established between the east and the west. But of
their Arabian territory, and of the occupation dependent on it, they
were deprived by the sons of Abraham, Ishmael, and Midian; by whom they
were obliterated in this country as a distinct race, either by
superiority of numbers after mingling with them, or by obliging them to
recede altogether to their more eastern possessions, or over the Gulf of
Arabia into Africa. From this time, that is, about five hundred and
fifty years after the flood, we read only of Ishmaelites and Midianites
as the shepherds and carriers of the deserts; who also appear to have
been intermingled, and to have shared both the territory and the
traffic, as the traders who bought Joseph are called by both names, and
the same are probably referred to by Jeremiah, xxv, as “the mingled
people that dwell in the desert.” But Ishmael maintained the
superiority, and succeeded in giving his name to the whole people.
Arabia, it is well known, is divided by geographers into three separate
regions, called Arabia Petræa, Arabia Deserta, and Arabia Felix.
The first, or Arabia Petræa, is the north-western division, and is
bounded on the north by Palestine and the Dead Sea, on the east by
Arabia Deserta, on the south by Arabia Felix, and on the west by the
Heroopolitan branch of the Red Sea and the Isthmus of Suez. The greater
part of this division was more exclusively the possession of the
Midianites, or land of Midian; where Moses, having fled from Egypt,
married the daughter of Jethro, and spent forty years keeping the flocks
of his father-in-law: no humiliating occupation in those days, and
particularly in Midian, which was a land of shepherds; the whole people
having no other way of life than that of rearing and tending their
flocks, or in carrying the goods they received from the east and south
into Phenicia and Egypt. The word flock, used here, must not convey the
idea naturally entertained in our own country of sheep only, but,
together with these or goats, horned cattle and camels, the most
indispensable of animals to the Midianite. It was a mixed flock of this
kind which was the sole care of Moses, during a third part of his long
life; in which he must have had abundance of leisure, by night and by
day, to reflect on the unhappy condition of his own people, still
enduring all the rigours of slavery in Egypt. It was a similar flock
also which the daughters of Jethro were watering when first encountered
by Moses; a trifling event in itself, but important in the history of
the future leader of the Jews; and showing, at the same time, the simple
life of the people among whom he was newly come, as well as the scanty
supply of water in their country, and the strifes frequently occasioned
in obtaining a share of it. Through a considerable part of this region,
the Israelites wandered after they had escaped from Egypt; and in it
were situated the mountains Horeb and Sinai. Beside the tribes of
Midian, which gradually became blended with those of Ishmael, this was
the country of the Edomites, the Amalekites, and the Nabathæi, the only
tribe of pure Ishmaelites within its precincts. But all those families
have long since been confounded under the general name of Arabs. The
greater part of this district consists of naked rocks and sandy and
flinty plains; but it contained also some fertile spots, particularly in
the peninsula of Mount Sinai, and through the long range of Mount Seir.
[Illustration:
Map of the
JOURNEYINGS & ENCAMPMENTS
_of the_ ISRAELITES _from_
EGYPT TO CANAAN
Through the Desert of
_Arabia Petræa_
]
The second region, or Arabia Deserta, is bounded on the north and
north-east by the Euphrates, on the east by a ridge of mountains which
separates it from Chaldea, on the south by Arabia Felix, and on the west
by Syria, Judea, and Arabia Petræa. This was more particularly the
country first of the Cushites, and afterward of the Ishmaelites; as it
is still of their descendants, the modern Bedouins, who maintain the
same predatory and wandering habits. It consists almost entirely of one
vast and lonesome wilderness, a boundless level of sand, whose dry and
burning surface denies existence to all but the Arab and his camel. Yet,
widely scattered over this dreary waste, some spots of comparative
fertility are to be found, where, spread around a feeble spring of
brackish water, a stunted verdure, or a few palm trees, fix the
principal settlement of a tribe, and afford stages of refreshment in
these otherwise impassable deserts. Here, with a few dates, the milk of
his faithful camel, and perhaps a little corn, brought by painful
journeys from distant regions, or plundered from a passing caravan, the
Arab supports a hard existence, until the failure of his resources
impels him to seek another _oasis_, or the scanty herbage furnished on a
patch of soil by transient rains; or else, which is frequently the case,
to resort, by more distant migration, to the banks of the Euphrates; or,
by hostile inroads on the neighbouring countries, to supply those wants
which the recesses of the desert have denied. The numbers leading this
wandering and precarious mode of life are incredible. From these deserts
Zerah drew his army of a million of men; and the same deserts, fifteen
hundred years after, poured forth the countless swarms, which, under
Mohammed and his successors, devastated half of the then known world.
The third region, or Arabia Felix, so denominated from the happier
condition of its soil and climate, occupies the southern part of the
Arabian peninsula. It is bounded on the north by the two other divisions
of the country; on the south and south-east by the Indian Ocean; on the
east by part of the same ocean and the Persian Gulf; and on the west by
the Red Sea. This division is subdivided into the kingdoms or provinces
of Yemen, at the southern extremity of the peninsula; Hejaz, on the
north of the former, and toward the Red Sea; Nejed, in the central
region; and Hadramant and Oman, on the shores of the Indian Ocean. The
four latter subdivisions partake of much of the character of the other
greater divisions of the country, though of a more varied surface, and
with a larger portion capable of cultivation. But Yemen seems to belong
to another country and climate. It is very mountainous, is well watered
with rains and springs, and is blessed with an abundant produce in corn
and fruits, and especially in coffee, of which vast quantities are
exported. In this division were the ancient cities of Nysa, Musa or
Moosa, and Aden. This is also supposed to have been the country of the
queen of Sheba. In Hejaz are the celebrated cities of Mecca and Medina.
Arabia Felix is inhabited by a people who claim Jotkan for their father,
and so trace their descent direct from Shem, instead of Abraham and Ham.
They are indeed a totally different people from those inhabiting the
other quarters, and pride themselves on being the only pure and unmixed
Arabs. Instead of being shepherds and robbers, they are fixed in towns
and cities; and live by agriculture and commerce, chiefly maritime. Here
were the people who were found by the Greeks of Egypt enjoying an entire
monopoly of the trade with the east, and possessing a high degree of
wealth and consequent refinement. It was here, in the ports of Sabæa,
that the spices, muslins, and precious stones of India, were for many
ages obtained by the Greek traders of Egypt, before they had acquired
skill or courage sufficient to pass the straits of the Red Sea; which
were long considered by the nations of Europe to be the produce of
Arabia itself. These articles, before the invention of shipping, or the
establishment of a maritime intercourse, were conveyed across the
deserts by the Cushite, Ishmaelite, and Midianite carriers. It was the
produce partly of India, and partly of Arabia, which the travelling
merchants, to whom Joseph was sold, were carrying into Egypt. The balm
and myrrh were probably Arabian, as they are still the produce of the
same country; but the spicery was undoubtedly brought farther from the
east. These circumstances are adverted to, to show how extensive was the
communication, in which the Arabians formed the principal link: and that
in the earliest ages of which we have any account, in those of Joseph,
of Moses, of Isaiah, and of Ezekiel, “the mingled people” inhabiting the
vast Arabian deserts, the Cushites, Ishmaelites, and Midianites, were
the chief agents in that commercial intercourse which has, from the most
remote period of antiquity, subsisted between the extreme east and west.
And although the current of trade is now turned, caravans of merchants,
the descendants of these people, may still be found traversing the same
deserts, conveying the same articles, and in the same manner as
described by Moses!
The singular and important fact that Arabia has never been conquered,
has already been cursorily adverted to. But Mr. Gibbon, unwilling to
pass by an opportunity of cavilling at revelation, says, “The perpetual
independence of the Arabs has been the theme of praise among strangers
and natives; and the arts of controversy transform this singular event
into a prophecy and a miracle in favour of the posterity of Ishmael.
Some exceptions, that can neither be dissembled nor eluded, render this
mode of reasoning as indiscreet as it is superfluous. The kingdom of
Yemen has been successively subdued by the Abyssinians, the Persians,
the Sultans of Egypt, and the Turks; the holy cities of Mecca and Medina
have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the Roman province of
Arabia embraced the peculiar wilderness in which Ishmael and his sons
must have pitched their tents in the face of their brethren.” But this
learned writer has, with a peculiar infelicity, annulled his own
argument; and we have only to follow on the above passage, to obtain a
complete refutation of the unworthy position with which it begins: “Yet
these exceptions,” says Mr. Gibbon, “are temporary or local; the body of
the nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the
arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey, and Trajan, could never achieve
the conquest of Arabia; the present sovereign of the Turks may exercise
a shadow of jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the
friendship of a people whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to
attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are inscribed on the
character and country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mohammed, their
intrepid valour had been severely felt by their neighbours, in offensive
and defensive war. The patient and active virtues of a soldier are
insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life. The
care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe; but
the martial youth, under the banner of the emir, is ever on horseback
and in the field, to practise the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and
the scimitar. The long memory of their independence is the firmest
pledge of its perpetuity; and succeeding generations are animated to
prove their descent, and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic
feuds are suspended on the approach of a common enemy; and in their last
hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was attacked and
pillaged by four score thousand of the confederates. When they advance
to battle, the hope of victory is in the front, in the rear the
assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels, who in eight or ten
days can perform a march of four or five hundred miles, disappear before
the conqueror; the secret waters of the desert elude his search; and his
victorious troops are consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the
pursuit of an invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes
in the heart of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the
Bedouins are not only the safeguards of their own freedom, but the
barriers also of the happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote from war,
are enervated by the luxury of the soil and climate. The legions of
Augustus melted away in disease and lassitude; and it is only by a naval
power that the reduction of Yemen has been successfully attempted. When
Mohammed erected his holy standard, that kingdom was a province of the
Persian empire; yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the
mountains; and the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget his
distant country and his unfortunate master.”
Yemen was the only Arabian province which had the appearance of
submitting to a foreign yoke; but even here, as Mr. Gibbon himself
acknowledges, seven of the native princes remained unsubdued: and even
admitting its subjugation to have been complete, the perpetual
independence of the Ishmaelites remains unimpeached. For this is not
their country. Petra, the capital of the Stony Arabia, and the principal
settlement of the Nabathæi, it is true, was long in the hands of the
Persians and Romans; but this never made them masters of the country.
Hovering troops of Arabs confined the intruders within their walls, and
cut off their supplies; and the possession of this fortress gave as
little reason to the Romans to exult as the conquerors of Arabia Petræa,
as that of Gibraltar does to us to boast of the conquest of Spain.
The Arabian tribes were confounded by the Greeks and Romans under the
indiscriminate appellation of Saracens; a name whose etymology has been
variously, but never satisfactorily, explained. This was their general
name when Mohammed appeared in the beginning of the seventh century.
Their religion at this time was Sabianism, or the worship of the sun,
moon, &c; variously transformed by the different tribes, and
intermingled with some Jewish and Christian maxims and traditions. The
tribes themselves were generally at variance, from some hereditary and
implacable animosities; and their only warfare consisted in desultory
skirmishes arising out of these feuds, and in their predatory
excursions, where superiority of numbers rendered courage of less value
than activity and vigilance. Yet of such materials Mohammed constructed
a mighty empire; converted the relapsed Ishmaelites into good Musselmen;
united the jarring tribes under one banner; supplied what was wanting in
personal courage by the ardour of religious zeal; and out of a banditti,
little known and little feared beyond their own deserts, raised an armed
multitude, which proved the scourge of the world.