extremity. The entrance was marked at first only by a line drawn on the
sand, from side to side of the stadium. To prevent any unfair advantage
being taken by the more vigilant or alert candidates, a cord was at
length stretched in front of the horses or men that were to run; and
sometimes the space was railed in with wood. The opening of this
barrier, was the signal for the racers to start. The middle of the
stadium was remarkable, only by the circumstance of having the prizes
allotted to the victors set up there. From this custom, Crysostom draws
a fine comparison: “As the judges in the races and other games, expose
in the midst of the stadium, to the view of the champions, the crowns
which they were to receive; in like manner, the Lord, by the mouth of
his prophets, has placed the prizes in the midst of the course, which he
designs for those who have the courage to contend for them.” At the
extremity of the stadium was a goal, where the foot races ended; but in
those of chariots and horses, they were to run several times round it
without stopping, and afterward conclude the race by regaining the other
extremity of the lists from whence they started. It is therefore to the
foot race the Apostle alludes, when he speaks of the race set before the
Christian, which was a straight course, to be run only once, and not, as
in the other, several times without stopping.
6. According to some writers, it was at the goal, and not in the middle
of the course, that the prizes were exhibited; and they were placed in a
very conspicuous situation, that the competitors might be animated by
having them always in their sight. This accords with the view which the
Apostle gives of the Christian life: “Brethren, I count not myself to
have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which
are behind, and reaching forth unto those things, which are before, I
press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus,” Phil. iii, 13, 14. L’Enfant thinks, the Apostle here alludes to
those who stood at the elevated place at the end of the course, calling
the racers by their names, and encouraging them by holding out the
crown, to exert themselves with vigour. Within the measured and
determinate limits of the stadium, the _athletæ_ were bound to contend
for the prize, which they forfeited without hope of recovery, if they
deviated ever so little from the appointed course.
7. The honours and rewards granted to the victors were of several kinds.
They were animated in their course by the rapturous applauses of the
countless multitudes that lined the stadium, and waited the issue of the
contest with eager anxiety; and their success was instantly followed by
reiterated and long continued plaudits; but these were only a prelude to
the appointed rewards, which, though of little value in themselves, were
accounted the highest honour to which a mortal could aspire. These
consisted of different wreaths of wild olive, pine, parsley, or laurel,
according to the different places where the games were celebrated. After
the judges had passed sentence, a public herald proclaimed the name of
the victor; one of the judges put the crown upon his head, and a branch
of palm into his right hand, which he carried as a token of victorious
courage and perseverance. As he might be victor more than once in the
same games, and sometimes on the same day, he might also receive several
crowns and palms. When the victor had received his reward, a herald,
preceded by a trumpet, conducted him through the stadium, and proclaimed
aloud his name and country; while the delighted multitudes, at the sight
of him, redoubled their acclamations and applauses.
8. The crown in the Olympic games was of wild olive; in the Pythian, of
laurel; in the Isthmian or Corinthian, of pine tree; and in the Nemæan,
of smallage or parsley. Now, most of these were evergreens; yet they
would soon grow dry, and crumble into dust. Elsner produces many
passages in which the contenders in these exercises are rallied by the
Grecian wits, on account of the extraordinary pains they took for such
trifling rewards; and Plato has a celebrated passage, which greatly
resembles that of the Apostle, but by no means equals it in force and
beauty: “Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an
incorruptible.” The Christian is thus called to fight the good fight of
faith, and to lay hold of eternal life; and to this he is more
powerfully stimulated by considering that the ancient _athletæ_ took all
their care and pains only for the sake of obtaining a garland of
flowers, or a wreath of laurel, which quickly fades and perishes,
possessed little intrinsic value, and only served to nourish their pride
and vanity, without imparting any solid advantage to themselves or
others; but that which is placed in the view of the spiritual
combatants, to animate their exertions, and reward their labours, is no
less than a crown of glory which never decays; “an inheritance
incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven
for them,” 1 Pet. i, 4; v, 4. But the victory sometimes remained
doubtful, in consequence of which a number of competitors appeared
before the judges, and claimed the prize. The candidates who were
rejected on such occasions by the judge of the games, as not having
fairly merited the prize, were called by the Greeks ἀδοκιμοί, or
_disapproved_, which we render _cast away_, in a passage already quoted
from St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians: “But I keep under my
body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have
preached to others, I myself should be, ἀδόκιμος, cast away,” rejected
by the Judge of all the earth, and disappointed of my expected crown.
What has been observed concerning the spirit and ardour with which the
competitors engaged in the race, and concerning the prize they had in
view to reward their arduous contention, will illustrate the following
sublime passage of the same sacred writer in his Epistle to the
Philippians: “Not as though I had already attained, either were already
perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also
I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have
apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press
toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus,” Phil. iii, 12–14. The affecting passage, also, of the same
Apostle, in the Second Epistle of Timothy, written a little before his
martyrdom, is beautifully allusive to the above-mentioned race, to the
crown that awaited the victory, and to the Hellanodics or judges who
bestowed it: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I
have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at
that day: and not to me only, but to all them also that love his
appearing,” 2 Tim. iv, 8.
GARDENS. In the language of the Hebrews, every place where plants and
trees were cultivated with greater care than in the open field, was
called a garden. The idea of such an enclosure was certainly borrowed
from the garden of Eden, which the bountiful Creator planted for the
reception of our first parents. Beside, the gardens of primitive nations
were commonly, if not in every instance, devoted to religious purposes.
In these shady retreats were celebrated, for a long succession of ages,
the rites of Pagan superstition. Thus Jehovah calls the apostate Jews,
“a people that provoketh me continually to anger to my face, that
sacrificeth in gardens,” Isa. lxv, 3. And in a preceding chapter, the
prophet threatens them in the name of the Lord: “They shall be ashamed
of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the
gardens which ye have chosen.” The oriental gardens were either open
plantations, or enclosures defended by walls or hedges. Some fences in
the Holy Land, in later times, are not less beautiful than our living
fences of white thorn; and perfectly answer the description of ancient
Jewish prophets, who inform us that the hedges in their times consisted
of thorns, and that the spikes of these thorny plants were exceedingly
sharp. Doubdan found a very fruitful vineyard, full of olives, fig
trees, and vines, about eight miles south-west from Bethlehem, enclosed
with a hedge; and that part of it adjoining to the road, strongly formed
of thorns and rose bushes, intermingled with pomegranate trees of
surpassing beauty and fragrance. A hedge composed of rose bushes and
wild pomegranate shrubs, then in full flower, mingled with other thorny
plants, adorned in the varied livery of spring, must have made at once a
strong and beautiful fence. The wild pomegranate tree, the species
probably used in fencing, is much more prickly than the other variety;
and when mingled with other thorny bushes, of which they have several
kinds in Palestine, some of whose prickles are very long and sharp, must
form a hedge very difficult to penetrate. These facts illustrate the
beauty and force of several passages in the sacred volume: thus, in the
Proverbs of Solomon, “The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of
thorns,” Prov. xv, 19; it is obstructed with difficulties, which the
sloth and indolence of his temper represent as galling or insuperable;
but which a moderate share of resolution and perseverance would easily
remove or surmount. In the prophecies of Hosea, God threatens his
treacherous and idolatrous people with many painful embarrassments and
perplexities, which would as effectually retard or obstruct their
progress in the paths of wickedness, as a hedge of thorny plants
stretching across the traveller’s way, the prosecution of his journey:
“Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a
wall, that she shall not find her paths,” Hosea ii, 6. In the days of
Micah, the magistrates of Judah had become exceedingly corrupt: “The
best of them is a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn
hedge;” to appear before their tribunal, or to have any dealings with
them, was to involve one’s self in endless perplexities, and to be
exposed to galling disappointments, if not to certain destruction. They
resembled those thorny plants which are twisted together, whose spines
point in every direction, and are so sharp and strong that they cannot
be touched without danger, and so entangling that when the traveller has
with much pain and exertion freed himself from one, he is instantly
seized by another. “But the sons of Belial,” said the king of Israel,
“shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be
taken with hands: but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with
iron, and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with
fire in the same place,” 2 Sam. xxiii, 6, 7. Other enclosures had fences
of loose stones, or mud walls, some of them very low, which often
furnished a retreat to venomous reptiles. To this circumstance the royal
preacher alludes, in his observations of wisdom and folly: “He that
diggeth a pit, shall fall into it: and whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent
shall bite him,” Eccles. x, 8. The term which our translators render
_hedge_ in this passage, they might with more propriety have rendered
_wall_, as they had done in another part of the writings of Solomon: “I
went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void
of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles
had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken
down,” Proverbs xxiv, 30.
2. The land of promise has been, from the earliest ages, an unenclosed
country, with a few spots defended by a hedge of thorny plants, or a
stone wall built without any cement. At Aleppo, most of the vineyards
are fenced with stone walls; for in many parts of Syria a hedge would
not grow for want of moisture. But, as their various esculent vegetables
are now not unfrequently planted in the open fields, both in Syria and
Palestine, so Chardin seems to suppose they were often unfenced in
ancient times; and, on this account, those lodges and booths, to which
Isaiah refers, in the first chapter of his prophecy, were built. In
Hindostan they follow the same custom. At the commencement of the rainy
season, the peasants plant abundance of melons, cucumbers, and gourds,
which are then the principal food of the inhabitants. They are planted
in the open fields and extensive plains, and are therefore liable to the
depredations of men and beasts. In the centre of the field is an
artificial mount, with a hut on the top, sufficiently large to shelter a
single person from the inclemency of the weather. There, amid heavy
rains and tempestuous winds, a poor solitary being is stationed day and
night to protect the crop. From thence he gives an alarm to the nearest
village. Few situations can be more unpleasant than a hovel of this
kind, exposed for three or four months to wind, lightning, and rain. To
such a cheerless station the prophet no doubt alludes, in that passage
where he declares the desolations of Judah: “The daughter of Zion is
left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,”
Isa. i, 8. If such watch houses were necessary in those gardens which
were defended by walls or hedges, some of which, indeed, it was not
difficult to get over, they must have been still more necessary in those
which were perfectly open.
3. The oriental garden displays little method, or design; the whole
being commonly no more than a confused medley of fruit trees, with beds
of esculent plants, and even plots of wheat and barley sometimes
interspersed. The garden belonging to the governor of Eleus, a Turkish
town on the western border of the Hellespont, which Dr. Chandler
visited, consisted only of a very small spot of ground, walled in, and
containing only two vines, a fig and a pomegranate tree, and a well of
excellent water. And, it would seem, the garden of an ancient Israelite
could not boast of greater variety; for the grape, the fig, and the
pomegranate, are almost the only fruits which it produced. This fact may
perhaps give us some insight into the reason of the sudden and
irresistible conviction which flashed on the mind of Nathanael, when our
Saviour said to him, “When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.”
The good man seems to have been engaged in devotional exercises in a
small retired garden, walled in, and concealed from the scrutinizing
eyes of men. The place was so small, that he was perfectly certain no
man but himself was there; and so completely defended, that none could
break through, or look over, the fence; and, by consequence, that no eye
was upon him, but the all-seeing eye of God; and, therefore, since
Christ saw him there, Nathanael knew he could be no other than the Son
of God, and the promised Messiah.
GARLICK, שום. As this word occurs only in Numbers xi, 5, some doubts
have arisen respecting the plant intended. From its being coupled with
leeks and onions, there can be but little doubt that the garlick is
meant. The Talmudists frequently mention the use of this plant among the
Jews, and their fondness for it. That garlicks grew plenteously in
Egypt, is asserted by Dioscorides: there they were much esteemed, and
were both eaten and worshipped:--
“Then gods were recommended by their taste.
Such savoury deities must needs be good,
Which served at once for worship and for food.”
GARMENT. See HABITS.
GATE is often used in Scripture to denote a place of public assembly,
where justice was administered, Deut. xvii, 5, 8; xxi, 19; xxii, 15;
xxv, 6, 7, &c. One instance of these judgments appears in that given at
the gate of Bethlehem, between Boaz and a relation of Naomi, on the
subject of Ruth, chap. iv, 2; another in Abraham’s purchase of a field
to bury Sarah, Gen. xxiii, 10, 18. The gate of judgment is a term still
common to the Arabians to express a court of justice, and even
introduced by the Saracens into Spain. “I had several times,” says
Jacob, “visited the Alhambra, the ancient palace and fortress of the
Moorish kings: it is situated on the top of a hill, overlooking the
city, and is surrounded by a wall of great height and thickness. The
entrance is through an archway, over which is carved a key, the symbol
of the Mohammedan monarchs. This gate, called the gate of judgment,
according to eastern forms, was the place where the kings administered
justice.” In Morocco, the gate is still the place where judgment is
held. “All complaints,” says Host, “are brought, in the first instance,
to the cadi, or governor, who, for that purpose, passes certain hours of
the day in the gate of the city, partly for the sake of the fresh air,
and partly to see all those who go out; and, lastly, to observe a custom
which has long prevailed, of holding judgment there. The gate is
contrived accordingly, being built like a square chamber, with two
doors, which are not directly opposite to each other, but on two
adjoining sides, with seats on the other sides. In this manner David sat
between two gates,” 2 Sam. xviii, 24. Gate sometimes signifies power,
dominion, almost in the same sense as the Turkish emperor’s palace is
called the _Porte_. God promises Abraham that his posterity shall
possess the gates of their enemies, their towns, their fortresses,
Genesis xxii, 17. Jesus Christ says to Peter, “Thou art Peter; and on
this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it,” Matt. xvi, 18. This may mean either the powers of
hell, or invisible spirits; or simply death,--the church shall be
replenished by living members from generation to generation, so that
death shall never annihilate it.
Solomon says, “He that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction.” The Arabs
are accustomed to ride into the houses of those they design to harass.
To prevent this, Thevenot tells us that the door of the house in which
the French merchants live at Rama was not three feet high, and that all
the doors of that town are equally low. Agreeably to this account, the
Abbé Mariti, speaking of his admission into a monastery near Jerusalem,
says, “The passage is so low, that it will scarcely admit a horse; and
it is shut by a gate of iron, strongly secured in the inside. As soon as
we entered, it was again made fast with various bolts and bars of iron:
a precaution extremely necessary in a desert place, exposed to the
incursions, and insolent attacks of the Arabs.” Mr. Drummond says, that
in the country about Roudge, in Syria, “the poor miserable Arabs are
under the necessity of hewing their houses out of the rock, and cutting
very small doors or openings to them, that they may not be made stables
for the Turkish horse, as they pass and repass.” And thus, long before
him, Sandys, at Gaza, in Palestine: “We lodged under an arch in a little
court, together with our asses; the door exceeding low, as are all that
belong unto Christians, to withstand the sudden entrance of the insolent
Turks.” “To exalt the gate,” would consequently be to court destruction.
Morier says, “A poor man’s door is scarcely three feet in height; and
this is a precautionary measure to hinder the servants of the great from
entering it on horseback; which, when any act of oppression is intended,
they would make no scruple to do. But the habitation of a man in power
is known by his gate, which is generally elevated in proportion to the
vanity of its owner. A lofty gate is one of the insignia of royalty:
such is the _Allan Capi_, at Ispahan, and _Bob Homayan_, or the _Sublime
Porte_, at Constantinople. It must have been the same in ancient days;
the gates of Jerusalem, Zion, &c, are often mentioned in the Scripture,
with the same notion of grandeur annexed to them.”
GATH, the fifth of the Philistine cities. It was a place of strength in
the time of the prophets Amos and Micah, and is placed by Jerom on the
road between Eleutheropolis and Gaza. It appears to have been the
extreme boundary of the Philistine territory in one direction, as Ekron
was on the other. Hence the expression, “from Ekron even unto Gath,” 1
Sam. vii, 14.
GAULAN, or GOLAN, a city beyond Jordan, from which the small province
called Gaulonitis took its name. It was given to the half tribe of
Manasseh, on the other side Jordan, Deut. iv, 43; and became a city of
refuge, Joshua xxi, 27.
GAZA, a city of the Philistines, made by Joshua part of the tribe of
Judah. It was one of the five principalities of the Philistines,
situated toward the southern extremity of the promised land, 1 Sam. vi,
17, between Raphia and Askelon. The advantageous situation of Gaza was
the cause of the numerous revolutions which it underwent. It first of
all belonged to the Philistines, and then to the Hebrews. It recovered
its liberty in the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, and was reconquered by
Hezekiah, 2 Kings xviii, 8. It was subject to the Chaldeans, who
conquered Syria and Phenicia. Afterward, it fell into the hands of the
Persians. It must have been a place of considerable strength. For two
months it baffled all the efforts of Alexander the Great, who was
repeatedly repulsed, and wounded in the siege; which he afterward
revenged in a most infamous manner on the person of the gallant defender
Betis, whom, while yet alive, having ordered his ankles to be bored, he
dragged round the walls, tied to his chariot wheels, in the barbarous
parade of imitating the less savage treatment of the corpse of Hector by
Achilles.
Dr. Wittman gives the following description of his visit to Gaza: “In
pursuing our route toward this place, the view became still more
interesting and agreeable: the groves of olive trees extending from the
place where we had halted to the town, in front of which a fine avenue
of these trees was planted. Gaza is situated on an eminence, and is
rendered picturesque by the number of fine minarets which rise
majestically above the buildings, and by the beautiful date trees which
are interspersed. The suburbs of Gaza are composed of wretched mud huts;
but within side the town the buildings make a much better appearance
than those we had generally met with in Syria. The streets are of a
moderate breadth. Many fragments of statues, columns, &c, of marble were
seen in the walls and buildings in different parts of the town. The
suburbs and environs of Gaza are rendered infinitely agreeable by a
number of large gardens, cultivated with the nicest care, which lie in a
direction north and south of the town; while others of the same
description run to a considerable distance westward. These gardens are
filled with a great variety of choice fruit trees, such as the fig, the
mulberry, the pomegranate, the apricot, the peach, and the almond;
together with a few lemon and orange trees. The numerous plantations of
olive and date trees which are interspersed contribute greatly to the
picturesque effect of the scene exhibited by the surrounding plains.
These, on our arrival, were overspread with flowers, the variegated
colours of which displayed every tint and every hue. Among these were
the chrysanthemum, scarlet ranunculus, lupin, pheasant-eye, tulip,
china-aster, dwarf-iris, lintel, daisy, &c, all of them growing wild and
abundantly, with the exception of the lupin, which was cultivated in
patches, regularly ploughed and sowed, with a view to collect the seeds,
which the inhabitants employ at their meals, more especially to thicken
their ragouts. The few corn fields, which lay at a distance, displayed
the promise of a rich golden harvest; and the view of the sea, distant
about a league, tended to diversify still more the animated features of
this luxuriant scene.” This and similar descriptions of modern
travellers, which are occasionally introduced into this work, are given
both as interesting in themselves, and to show that relics of the
ancient beauty and fertility of the Holy Land are still to be found in
many parts of it.