Latin, are as follows: they maintain that the Holy Ghost proceeds from
the Father only, and not from the Father and Son. They disown the
authority of the pope, and deny that the church of Rome is the only true
catholic church. They do not affect the character of infallibility, and
utterly disallow works of supererogation, and indulgences. They admit of
prayers and services for the dead, as an ancient and pious custom; but
they will not admit the doctrine of purgatory, nor determine any thing
dogmatically concerning the state of departed souls. In baptism they
practise triune immersion, or dip three times; but some, as the
Georgians, defer the baptism of their children till they are three,
four, or more years of age. The chrism, or baptismal unction,
immediately follows baptism. This chrism, solemnly consecrated on
Maunday Thursday, is called the unction with ointment, and is a mystery
peculiar to the Greek communion, holding the place of confirmation in
that of the Roman: it is styled, “the seal of the gift of the Holy
Ghost.” They administer the Lord’s Supper in both kinds, dipping the
bread in the cup of wine, in which a small portion of warm water is also
inserted. They give it both to the clergy and laity, and to children
after baptism. They exclude confirmation and extreme unction out of the
number of sacraments; but they use the holy oil, which is not confined
to persons in the close of life, like extreme unction, but is
administered, if required, to all sick persons. Three priests, at least,
are required to administer this sacrament, each priest, in his turn,
anointing the sick person, and praying for his recovery. They deny
auricular confession to be a divine command; but practise confession
attended with absolution, and sometimes penance. Though they believe in
transubstantiation, or rather consubstantiation, they do not worship the
elements. They pay a secondary kind of adoration to the virgin and other
saints. They do not admit of images or figures in bas-relief, or
embossed work; but use paintings and silver shrines. They admit
matrimony to be a sacrament, and celebrate it with great formality.
Their secular clergy, under the rank of bishops, are allowed to marry
once, and laymen twice; but fourth marriages they hold in abomination.
They observe a great number of holy days, and keep four fasts in the
year more solemn than the rest, of which Good Friday is the chief.
3. The service of the Greek church is too long and complicated to be
particularly described in this work; the greater part consists in psalms
and hymns. Five orders of priesthood belong to the Greek church; namely,
bishops, priests, deacons, sub-deacons, and readers; which last includes
singers, &c. The episcopal order is distinguished by the titles of
metropolitan, archbishops, and bishops. The head of the Greek church,
the patriarch of Constantinople, is elected by twelve bishops, who
reside nearest that famous capital. This prelate calls councils by his
own authority to govern the church. The other patriarchs are those of
Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, all nominated by the patriarch of
Constantinople, who enjoys a most extensive jurisdiction. For the
administration of ecclesiastical affairs, a synod, convened monthly, is
composed of the heads of the church resident in Constantinople. In this
assembly, the patriarch of Constantinople presides, with those of
Antioch and Jerusalem, and twelve archbishops. In regard to discipline
and worship, the Greek church has the same division of the clergy into
regular and secular, the same spiritual jurisdiction of bishops and
their officials, the same distinction of ranks and offices, with the
church of Rome.
4. The Greek church comprehends a considerable part of Greece, the
Grecian isles, Wallachia, Moldavia, Egypt, Abyssinia, Nubia, Lybia,
Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Cilicia, and Palestine; Alexandria, Antioch,
and Jerusalem; the whole of the Russian empire in Europe; great part of
Siberia in Asia, Astrachan, Casan, and Georgia.
GRIND. See MILL.
GROVE. It is proper to observe, that in order the more effectually to
guard the Israelites from idolatry, the blessed God, in instituting the
rites of his own worship, went directly counter to the practice of the
idolatrous nations. Thus, because they worshipped in groves, he
expressly forbade “the planting a grove of trees near his altar,” Deut.
xvi, 21. Nor would he suffer his people to offer their sacrifices on the
tops of hills and mountains, as the Heathens did, but ordered that they
should be brought to one altar in the place which he appointed, Deut.
xii, 13, 14. And as for the groves, which the Canaanites had planted,
and the idols and altars which they had erected on the tops of high
mountains and hills for the worship of their gods, the Israelites are
commanded utterly to destroy them, Deut. xii, 2, 3. The groves and high
places do not seem to have been different, but the same places, or
groves planted on the tops of hills, probably round an open area, in
which the idolatrous worship was performed, as may be inferred from the
following words of the Prophet Hosea: “They sacrifice upon the tops of
mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks, and poplars, and
elms,” Hosea iv, 13. The use of groves for religious worship is
generally supposed to have been as ancient as the patriarchal ages; for
we are informed, that “Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called
there on the name of the Lord,” Gen. xxi, 33. However, it is not
expressly said, nor can it by this passage be proved, that he planted
the grove for any religious purpose; it might only be designed to shade
his tent. And this circumstance perhaps is recorded to intimate his
rural way of living, as well as his religious character; that he dwelt
in a tent, under the shade of a grove, or tree, as the word אשל,
_eshel_, may more properly be translated; and in this humble habitation
led a very pious and devout life. The reason and origin of planting
sacred groves is variously conjectured; some imagining it was only
hereby intended to render the service more agreeable to the worshippers,
by the pleasantness of the shade; whereas others suppose it was to
invite the presence of the gods. The one or the other of these reasons
seems to be intimated in the fore-cited passage of Hosea: “They burn
incense under oaks, and poplars, and elms, because the shade thereof is
good,” Hosea iv, 13. Others conceive their worship was performed in the
midst of groves, because the gloom of such a place is apt to strike a
religious awe upon the mind; or else, because such dark concealments
suited the lewd mysteries of their idolatrous worship. Another
conjecture, which seems as probable as any, is, that this practice began
with the worship of demons, or departed souls. It was an ancient custom
to bury the dead under trees, or in woods. “Deborah was buried under an
oak, near Bethel,” Genesis xxxv, 8; and the bones of Saul and Jonathan
under a tree at Jabesh, 1 Samuel xxxi, 13. Now an imagination prevailing
among the Heathen, that the souls of the deceased hover about their
graves, or at least delight to visit their dead bodies, the idolaters,
who paid divine honours to the souls of their departed heroes, erected
images and altars for their worship in the same groves where they were
buried; and from thence it grew into a custom afterward to plant groves,
and build temples, near the tombs of departed heroes, 2 Kings xxiii, 15,
16, and to surround their temples and altars with groves and trees; and
these sacred groves being constantly furnished with the images of the
heroes or gods that were worshipped in them, a grove and an idol came to
be used as convertible terms, 2 Kings xxiii, 6.
HABAKKUK, the author of the prophecy bearing his name, Habakkuk i, 1,
&c. Nothing is certainly known concerning the tribe or birth place of
Habakkuk. He is said to have prophesied about B. C. 605, and to have
been alive at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar. It is generally believed that he remained and died in
Judea. The principal predictions contained in this book are, the
destruction of Jerusalem, and the captivity of the Jews by the Chaldeans
or Babylonians; their deliverance from the oppressor “at the appointed
time;” and the total ruin of the Babylonian empire. The promise of the
Messiah is confirmed; the overruling providence of God is asserted; and
the concluding prayer, or rather hymn, recounts the wonders which God
had wrought for his people, when he led them from Egypt into Canaan, and
expresses the most perfect confidence in the fulfilment of his promises.
The style of Habakkuk is highly poetical, and the hymn in the third
chapter is perhaps unrivalled for sublimity, simplicity, and power.
HABITS. The dress of oriental nations, to which the inspired writers
often allude, has undergone almost no change from the earliest times.
Their stuffs were fabricated of various materials; but wool was
generally used in their finer fabrics; and the hair of goats, camels,
and even of horses, was manufactured for coarser purposes, especially
for sackcloth, which they wore in time of mourning and distress.
Sackcloth of black goat’s hair was manufactured for mournings; the
colour and the coarseness of which being reckoned more suitable to the
circumstances of the wearer, than the finer and more valuable texture
which the hair of white goats supplied. This is the reason why a clouded
sky is represented, in the bold figurative language of Scripture, as
covered with sackcloth and blackness, the colour and dress of persons in
affliction. In Egypt and Syria, they wore also fine linen, cotton, and
byssus, probably fine muslin from India, in Hebrew כוצ, the finest cloth
known to the ancients. In Canaan, persons of distinction were dressed in
fine linen of Egypt; and according to some authors, in silk, and rich
cloth, shaded with the choicest colours, or, as the Vulgate calls it,
with feathered work, embroidered with gold. The beauty of their clothes
consisted in the fineness and colour of the stuffs; and it seems, the
colour most in use among the Israelites, as well as among the Greeks and
Romans, was white, not imparted and improved by the dyer’s art, but the
native colour of the wool. The general use of this colour seems to be
recognized by Solomon in his direction: “Let thy garments be always
white,” Eccles. ix, 8. But garments in the native colour of the wool
were not confined to the lower orders; they were also in great esteem
among persons of superior station, and are particularly valued in
Scripture, as the emblem of knowledge and purity, gladness and victory,
grace and glory. The priests of Baal were habited in black; a colour
which appears to have been peculiar to themselves, and which few others
in those countries, except mourners, would choose to wear. Blue was a
colour in great esteem among the Jews, and other oriental nations. The
robe of the ephod, in the gorgeous dress of the high priest, was made
all of blue; it was a prominent colour in the sumptuous hangings of the
tabernacle; and the whole people of Israel were required to put a fringe
of blue upon the border of their garments, and on the fringe a riband of
the same colour. The palace of Ahasuerus, the king of Persia, was
furnished with curtains of this colour, on a pavement of red, and blue,
and white marble; a proof that it was not less esteemed in Persia than
on the Jordan. And from Ezekiel we learn, that the Assyrian nobles were
habited in robes of this colour: “She doated on the Assyrians, her
neighbours, which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of
them desirable young men.”
2. The Jewish nobles and courtiers, upon great and solemn occasions,
appeared in scarlet robes, dyed, not as at present with madder, with
cochineal, or with any modern tincture, but with a shrub, whose red
berries give an orient tinge to the cloth. Crimson or vermilion, a
colour, as the name imports, from the blood of the worm, was used in the
temple of Solomon, and by many persons of the first quality; sometimes
they wore purple, the most sublime of all earthly colours, says Mr.
Harmer, having the gaudiness of red, of which it retains a shade,
softened with the gravity of blue. This was chiefly dyed at Tyre, and
was supposed to take the tincture from the liquor of a shell fish,
anciently found in the adjacent sea; though Mr. Bruce, in his Travels,
inclines to the opinion, that the murex, or purple fish at Tyre, was
only a concealment of their knowledge of cochineal, as, if the whole
city of Tyre had applied to nothing else but fishing, they would not
have coloured twenty yards of cloth in a year. The children of wealthy
and noble families were dressed in vestments of different colours. This
mark of distinction may be traced to the patriarchal age; for Joseph was
arrayed, by his indulgent and imprudent father, in a coat of many
colours. A robe of divers colours was anciently reserved for the kings’
daughters who were virgins; and in one of these was Tamar, the virgin
daughter of David, arrayed, when she was met by her brother.
3. In these parts of the world, the fashion is in a state of almost
daily fluctuation, and different fashions are not unfrequently seen
contending for the superiority; but in the east, where the people are by
no means given to change, the form of their garments continues nearly
the same from one age to another. The greater part of their clothes are
long and flowing, loosely cast about the body, consisting only of a
large piece of cloth, in the cutting and sewing of which very little art
or industry is employed. They have more dignity and gracefulness than
ours, and are better adapted to the burning climates of Asia. From the
simplicity of their form, and their loose adaptation to the body, the
same clothes might be worn, with equal ease and convenience, by many
different persons. The clothes of those Philistines whom Samson slew at
Askelon required no altering to fit his companions; nor the robe of
Jonathan, to answer his friend. The arts of weaving and fulling seem to
have been distinct occupations in Israel, from a very remote period, in
consequence of the various and skilful operations which were necessary
to bring their stuffs to a suitable degree of perfection; but when the
weaver and the fuller had finished their part, the labour was nearly at
an end; no distinct artizan was necessary to make them into clothes;
every family seems to have made their own. Sometimes, however, this part
of the work was performed in the loom; for they had the art of weaving
robes with sleeves all of one piece: of this kind was the coat which our
Saviour wore during his abode with men. The loose dresses of these
countries, when the arm is lifted up, expose its whole length: to this
circumstance the Prophet Isaiah refers: “To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed?” that is, uncovered: who observes that he is about to exert
the arm of his power?
4. The chosen people were not allowed to wear clothes of any materials
or form they chose; they were forbidden by their law to wear a garment
of woollen and linen. This law did not prevent them from wearing many
different substances together, but only these two; nor did the
prohibition extend to the wool of camels and goats, (for the hair of
these animals they called by the same name,) but only to that of sheep.
It was lawful for any man who saw an Israelite dressed in such a garment
to fall upon him and put him to death. In the opinion of Maimonides,
this was principally intended as a preservative from idolatry; for the
Heathen priests of those times wore such mixed garments of woollen and
linen, in the superstitious hope, it was imagined, of having the
beneficial influence of some lucky conjunction of the planets or stars,
to bring down a blessing upon their sheep and their flax. The second
restraint referred to the sexes, of which one was not to wear the dress
appropriated to the other. This practice is said to be an abomination to
the Lord; which plainly intimates that the law refers to some idolatrous
custom, of which Moses and the prophets always spoke in terms of the
utmost abhorrence. Nothing, indeed, was more common among the Heathen,
in the worship of some of their false deities, than for the males to
assist in women’s clothes, and the females in the dress appropriated to
men; in the worship of Venus, in particular, the women appeared before
her in armour, and the men in women’s apparel; and thus the words
literally run in the original Scriptures, “Women shall not put on the
armour of a man, nor a man the stole of a woman.” Maimonides says he
found this precept in an old magical book, “That men ought to stand
before the star of Venus in the flowered garments of women, and women to
put on the armour of men before the star of Mars.” But whatever there
may be in these observations, it is certain that, if there were no
distinction of sexes made by their habits, there would be danger of
involving mankind in all manner of licentiousness and impurity.
5. The ancient Jews very seldom wore any covering upon the head, except
when they were in mourning, or worshipping in the temple, or in the
synagogue. To pray with the head covered, was, in their estimation, a
higher mark of respect for the majesty of heaven, as it indicated the
conscious unworthiness of the suppliant to lift up his eyes in the
divine presence. To guard themselves from the wind or the storm, or from
the still more fatal stroke of the sun-beam, to which the general custom
of walking bare headed particularly exposed them, they wrapped their
heads in their mantles, or upper garments. But during their long
captivity in Babylon, the Jews began to wear turbans, in compliance with
the customs of their conquerors; for Daniel informs us, that his three
friends were cast into the fiery furnace with their hats, or, as the
term should be rendered, their turbans. It is not, however, improbable,
that the bulk of the nation continued to follow their ancient custom;
and that the compliance prevailed only among those Jews who were
connected with the Babylonish court; for many ages after that, we find
Antiochus Epiphanes introducing the habits and fashions of the Grecians
among the Jews; and as the history of the Maccabees relates, he brought
the chief young men under his subjection, and made them wear a hat, or
turban. Their legs were generally bare; and they never wore any thing
upon the feet, but soles fastened in different ways, according to the
taste or fancy of the wearer.
HADAD, son to the king of East Edom, was carried into Egypt by his
father’s servants, when Joab, general of David’s troops, extirpated the
males of Edom. Hadad was then a child. The king of Egypt gave him a
house, lands, and every necessary subsistence, and married him to the
sister of Tahpenes, his queen. By her he had a son, named Genubath, whom
Queen Tahpenes educated in Pharaoh’s house with the king’s children.
Hadad being informed that David was dead, and that Joab was killed,
desired leave to return into his own country. Pharaoh wished to detain
him, but at last permitted his return to Edom. Here he began to raise
disturbances against Solomon; but the Scripture does not mention
particulars. Josephus says, that Hadad did not return to Edom till long
after the death of David, when Solomon’s affairs began to decline, by
reason of his impieties. He also observes, that, not being able to
engage the Edomites to revolt, because of the strong garrisons which
Solomon had placed there, Hadad got together such people as were
willing, and carried them to Razon, then in rebellion against Hadadezer,
king of Syria. Razon received Hadad with joy, and assisted him in
conquering part of Syria, where he reigned, and from whence he insulted
Solomon’s territories.
HAGAR. After ten years’ residence in the land of Canaan, Abram, by the
persuasion of his wife, who had been barren heretofore, and now
despaired of bearing children herself when she was seventy-five years
old, took, as a second wife, or concubine, her handmaid, Hagar, an
Egyptian. When Hagar conceived, she despised her mistress, who dealt
hardly with her, Abram giving her up to his wife’s discretion; so that
she fled toward Egypt from the face of her mistress, but was stopped in
her flight by the angel of the Lord, who foretold that she should bear a
son called Ishmael, because the Lord heard her affliction, and that his
race should be numerous, warlike, and unconquered; a prediction, as seen
under the article _Arabia_, remarkably fulfilled to the present day.
Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bare Ishmael. When Isaac was
weaned, Ishmael, the son of Hagar, who was now about fifteen years of
age, offended Sarah by some mockery or ill treatment of Isaac; the
original word signifies elsewhere, “to skirmish,” or “fight,” 2 Samuel
ii, 14; and St. Paul represents Ishmael as “persecuting” him, Gal. iv,
29. Sarah therefore complained to Abraham, and said, “Cast out this
bond-woman and her son, for the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir
with my son Isaac. And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight,
because of his son Ishmael;” but God approved of Sarah’s advice, and
again excluded Ishmael from the special covenant of grace: “For in Isaac
shall thy seed be called: nevertheless, the son of the bond-woman will I
make a nation also, because he is thy seed.” God renewed this promise
also to Hagar, during her wanderings in the wilderness of Beersheba,
when she despaired of support: “Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in
thine hands, for I will make him a great nation. And God was with the
lad, and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, and became an
archer. And his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.” See
ABRAHAM and ISHMAEL.
We do not know when Hagar died. The rabbins say she was Pharaoh’s
daughter; but Chrysostom asserts that she was one of those slaves which
Pharaoh gave to Abraham, Gen. xii, 16. The Chaldee paraphrasts, and many
of the Jews, believe Hagar and Keturah to be the same person; but this
is not credible. Philo thinks that Hagar embraced Abraham’s religion,
which is very probable. The Mussulmans and Arabians, who are descended
from Ishmael, the son of Hagar, speak mightily in her commendation. They
call her in eminency, Mother Hagar, and maintain that she was Abraham’s
lawful wife; the mother of Ishmael, his eldest son; who, as such,
possessed Arabia, which very much exceeds, say they, both in extent and
riches, the land of Canaan, which was given to his younger son Isaac.
HAGARENES, the descendants of Ishmael: called also Ishmaelites and
Saracens, or Arabians, from their country. Their name, Saracens, is not
derived, as some have thought, from Sarah, Abraham’s wife, but from the
Hebrew _sarak_, which signifies “to rob” or “to steal;” because they
mostly carry on the trade of thieving: or from Sahara, the desert;
Saracens, inhabitants of the desert. But some writers think Hagarene
imports _south_, conformably to the Arabic; hence Hagar, that is, the
southern woman; and Mount Sinai is called Hagar, that is, the southern
mountain, Gal. iv, 25. But there seems also to have been a particular
tribe who bore this name more exclusively, as the Hagarenes are
sometimes mentioned in Scripture distinct from the Ishmaelites, Psalm
lxxxiii, 6; 1 Chron. v, 19.