all mere cheats and impostures; either calculated to serve the
avaricious ends of the Heathen priests, or the political views of the
princes. Bayle says positively, they were mere human artificers, in
which the devil had no hand. He was strongly supported by Van Dale and
Fontenelle, who have written expressly on the subject. Father Balthus, a
Jesuit, wrote a treatise in defence of the fathers with regard to the
origin of oracles; but without denying the imposture of the priests,
often blended with the oracles. He maintains the intervention of the
devil in some predictions, which could not be ascribed to the cheats of
the priests alone. The Abbé Banier espouses the same side of the
question, and objects that oracles would not have lasted so long, and
supported themselves with so much splendour and reputation, if they had
been merely owing to the forgeries of the priests. Bishop Sherlock, in
his Discourses concerning the Use and Intent of Prophecy,” expresses his
opinion, that it is impious to disbelieve the Heathen oracles, and to
deny them to have been given out by the devil; to which assertion, Dr.
Middleton, in his Examination,” &c, replies, that he is guilty of this
impiety, and that he thinks himself warranted to pronounce from the
authority of the best and wisest of the Heathens themselves, and the
evidence of plain facts, which are recorded of those oracles, as well as
from the nature of the thing itself, that they were all mere imposture,
wholly invented and supported by human craft, without any supernatural
aid or interposition whatsoever. He alleges, that Cicero, speaking of
the Delphic oracle, the most revered of any in the Heathen world,
declares, that nothing was become more contemptible, not only in his
days, but long before him; that Demosthenes, who lived about three
hundred years earlier, affirmed of the same oracle, in a public speech
to the people of Athens, that it was gained to the interests of King
Philip, an enemy to that city; that the Greek historians tell us, how,
on several other occasions, it had been corrupted by money, to serve the
views of particular persons and parties, and the prophetess sometimes
had been deposed for bribery and lewdness; that there were some great
sects of philosophers, who, on principle, disavowed the authority of all
oracles; agreeably to all which Strabo tells us, that divination in
general and oracles had been in high credit among the ancients, but in
his days were treated with much contempt; lastly, that Eusebius also,
the great historian of the primitive church, declares, that there were
six hundred writers among the Heathens themselves who had publicly
written against the reality of them. Plutarch has a treatise on the
ceasing of some oracles; and Van Dale, a Dutch physician, has a volume
to prove they did not cease at the coming of Christ; but that many of
them ceased long before, and that others held till the fall of Paganism,
under the empire of Theodosius the Great, when Paganism being
dissipated, these institutions could no longer subsist. Van Dale was
answered by a German, one Mœbius, professor of theology at Leipsic,
in 1685. Fontenelle espoused Van Dale’s system, and improved upon it in
his History of Oracles;” and showed the weakness of the argument used by
many writers in behalf of Christianity, drawn from the ceasing of
oracles. Cicero says, the oracles became dumb in proportion as people,
growing less credulous, began to suspect them for cheats. Plutarch
alleges two reasons for the ceasing of oracles: the one was Apollo’s
chagrin; who, it seems, took it in dudgeon to be interrogated about so
many trifles. The other was, that in proportion as the genii, or demons,
who had the management of the oracles, died, and became extinct, the
oracles must necessarily cease. He adds a third and more natural cause
for the ceasing of oracles; namely, the forlorn state of Greece, ruined
and desolated by wars; for, hence, the smallness of the gains let the
priests sink into a poverty and contempt too bare to cover the fraud.
That the oracles were silenced about or soon after the time of our
Saviour’s advent, may be proved, says Dr. Leland, in the first volume of
his learned work on The Necessity and Advantage of Revelation,” &c, from
express testimonies, not only of Christian but of Heathen authors.
Lucan, who wrote his Pharsalia” in the reign of Nero, scarcely thirty
years after our Lord’s crucifixion, laments it as one of the greatest
misfortunes of that age, that the Delphian oracle, which he represents
as one of the choicest gifts of the gods, was become silent.
_Non ullo sæcula dono
Nostra carent majore Deum, quam Delphica sedes
Quod sileat._
_Pharsal._ lib. v, 111.
Of all the wants with which the age is curst,
The Delphic silence surely is the worst.”
ROWE.
In like manner, Juvenal says,
_Delphis oracula cessant,
Et genus humanum damnat caligo futuri._
_Sat._ vi, 554.
Since Delphi now, if we may credit fame,
Gives no responses, and a long dark night
Conceals the future hour from mortal sight.”
GIFFORD.
Lucian says, that when he was at Delphi, the oracle gave no answer, nor
was the priestess inspired. This likewise appears from Plutarch’s
treatise, why the oracles cease to give answers, already cited; whence
it is also manifest, that the most learned Heathens were very much at a
loss how to give a tolerable account of it. Porphyry, in a passage cited
from him by Eusebius, says, The city of Rome was overrun with sickness,
Æsculapius and the rest of the gods having withdrawn their converse with
men; because since Jesus began to be worshipped, no man had received any
public help or benefit from the gods.” With respect to the origin of
oracles, they were probably imitations, first, of the answers given to
the holy patriarchs from the divine presence or Shechinah, and secondly,
of the responses to the Jewish high priest from the mercy seat: for all
Paganism is a parody of the true religion.
ORDINATION, the act of conferring holy orders, or of initiating a person
into the ministry of the Gospel, by prayer and with or without the
laying on of hands. In the church of England, ordination has always been
esteemed the principal prerogative of bishops; and bishops still retain
the function as a mark of their spiritual sovereignty in their diocess.
Without ordination no person can receive any benefice, parsonage,
vicarage, &c. A person must be twenty-three years of age, or near it,
before he can be ordained deacon, or have any share in the ministry; and
full twenty-four before he can be ordained priest, and by that means be
permitted to administer the holy communion. A bishop, on the ordination
of clergymen, is to examine them in the presence of the ministers, who
in the ordination of priests, but not of deacons, assist him at the
imposition of hands; but this is only done as a mark of assent, not
because it is thought necessary. In case any crime, as drunkenness,
perjury, forgery, &c, is alleged against any one that is to be ordained,
either priest or deacon, the bishop ought to desist from ordaining him.
The person to be ordained is to bring a testimonial of his life and
doctrine to the bishop, and to give an account of his faith in Latin;
and both priests and deacons are obliged to subscribe to the thirty-nine
articles. In the ancient discipline there was no such thing as a vague
and absolute ordination; but every one was to have a church, whereof he
was to be ordained clerk or priest. In the twelfth century the bishops
grew more remiss, and ordained without any title or benefice. The
council of Trent, however, restored the ancient discipline, and
appointed that none should be ordained but those who were provided with
a benefice; which practice still obtains in the church of England.
The reformed held the call of the people the only thing essential to the
validity of the ministry; and teach, that ordination is only a ceremony,
which renders the call more august and authentic. Accordingly the
Protestant churches of Scotland, France, Holland, Switzerland, Germany,
Poland, Hungary, Denmark, &c, have no episcopal ordination. For Luther,
Calvin, Bucer, Melancthon, &c, and all the first reformers and founders
of these churches, who ordained ministers among them, were themselves
presbyters, and no other. And though in some of these churches there are
ministers called superintendents, or bishops, yet these are only _primi
inter pares_, the first among equals; not pretending to any superiority
of orders. Having themselves no other orders than what either presbyters
gave them, or what was given them as presbyters, they can convey no
other to those they ordain. On this ground the Protestant Dissenters
plead that their ordination, though not episcopal, is the same with that
of all the illustrious Protestant churches abroad; and object, that a
priest ordained by a popish bishop should be received into the church of
England as a valid minister, rightfully ordained; while the orders of
another, ordained by the most learned religious presbyter, which any
foreign country can boast, are pronounced not valid, and he is required
to submit to be ordained afresh. In opposition to episcopal ordination,
they urge that Timothy was ordained by the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery, 1 Tim. iv, 14; that Paul and Barnabas were ordained by
certain prophets and teachers in the church of Antioch, and not by any
bishop presiding in that city, Acts xiii, 1–3; and that it is a well
known fact, that presbyters in the church of Alexandria ordained even
their own bishops for more than two hundred years in the earliest ages
of Christianity. They farther argue, that bishops and presbyters are in
Scripture the same, and not denominations of distinct orders or offices
in the church, referring to Phil. i, 1; Titus i, 5, 7; Acts xx, 27, 28;
1 Peter v, 1, 2. To the same purpose they maintain, that the superiority
of bishops to presbyters is not pretended to be of divine, but of human,
institution; not grounded on Scripture, but only upon the custom or
ordinances of this realm, by the first reformers and founders of the
church of England; nor by many of its most learned and eminent doctors
since. See Stillingfleet’s _Irenicum_, in which the learned author
affirms and shows this to be the sentiment of Cranmer, and other chief
reformers both in Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth’s reign, of Archbishop
Whitgift, Bishop Bridges, Lee, Hooker, Sutcliff, Hales, Chillingworth,
&c. Moreover, the book entitled, the Institution of a Christian Man,”
subscribed by the clergy in convocation, and confirmed by parliament,
owns bishops and presbyters by Scripture to be the same. Beside, the
Protestant Dissenters allege, that if episcopal ordination be really
necessary to constitute a valid minister, it does not seem to be
enjoined by the constitution of the church of England; because the power
of ordination which the bishops exercise in this kingdom, is derived
entirely and only from the civil magistrate; and he authoritatively
prescribes how, and to whom ordination is to be given: that if an
ordination should be conducted in other manner and form than that
prescribed by him, such ordination would be illegal, and of no authority
in the church. Accordingly the bishop at the ordination of the candidate
asks, Are you called according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
the due order of this realm?” The constitution and law of England seem
to know nothing of uninterrupted lineal descent, but considers the king
vested, by act of parliament, or the suffrage of the people, with a
fulness of all power ecclesiastical in these realms, as empowering and
authorizing bishops to ordain: and this power of ordination was once
delegated to Cromwell, a layman, as vicegerent to the king. They farther
think it strange, that the validity of orders and ministrations should
be derived, as some have contended, from a succession of popish bishops;
bishops of a church, which, by the definition of the nineteenth article
of the church, can be no part of the true visible church of Christ, and
bishops, likewise, who consider the Protestant clergy, although ordained
by Protestant bishops, as mere common unconsecrated laymen.
On reviewing the whole of this controversy, says Dr. Watts, that since
there are some texts in the New Testament, wherein single persons,
either Apostles, as Paul and Barnabas, ordained ministers in the
churches, or evangelists, as Timothy and Titus; and since other missions
or ordinations are intimated to be performed by several persons, namely,
prophets, teachers, elders, or a presbytery, Acts xiii, 1; 1 Timothy iv,
14; since there is sometimes mention made of the imposition of hands in
the mission of a minister, and sometimes no mention is made of it; and
since it is evident that in some cases popular ordinations are and must
be valid without any bishop or elder,--I think none of these differences
should be made a matter of violent contest among Christians; nor ought
any words to be pronounced against each other by those of the episcopal,
presbyterian, or independent way. Surely all may agree thus far, that
various forms or modes, seeming to be used in the mission or ordination
of ministers in primitive times, may give a reasonable occasion or
colour for sincere and honest searchers after truth to follow different
opinions on this head, and do therefore demand our candid and charitable
sentiments concerning those who differ from us. Among the Wesleyan
Methodists, the ordination of their ministers is in the annual
conference, with a president at its head, and is by prayer without
imposition of hands. The latter they hold to be a circumstance of
ordination, not an essential. They sometimes therefore use it, and at
others omit it. The missionaries sent out by that body, if not
previously ordained by the conference, are set apart by a few senior
ministers; and ordinarily in this case, the service of the church of
England, with some alterations, is used, with imposition of the hands of
the ministers present.
OSSIFRAGE, פרס, Lev. xi, 13; Deut. xiv, 12. Interpreters are not agreed
on this bird; some read vulture,” others the black eagle,” others the
falcon.” The name _peres_, by which it is called in Hebrew, denotes to
crush, to break;” and this name agrees with our version, which implies
the bone-breaker,” which name is given to a kind of eagle, from the
circumstance of its habit of breaking the bones of its prey, after it
has eaten the flesh: some say also, that he even swallows the bones thus
broken. Onkelos uses a word which signifies naked,” and leads us to the
vulture: indeed, if we were to take the classes of birds in any thing
like a natural order in the passages here referred to, the vulture
should follow the eagle as an unclean bird. The Septuagint interpreter
also renders vulture; and so do Munster, Schindler, and the Zurick
versions.
OSTRICH, יענה; in Arabic _neamah_; in Greek ϛρȣθοκάμηλος, _the camel
bird_; and still in the east, says Niebuhr, it is called _thar
edsjammel_, the camel bird,” Lev. xi, 16; Deut. xiv, 15; Job xxx, 29;
Isaiah xiii, 21; xxxiv, 13; xliii, 20; Jer. 1, 39; Lam. iv, 3; Micah i,
8; רננים, Job xxxix, 13. The first name in the places above quoted is,
by our own translators, generally rendered owls.” “Now it should be
recollected,” says the author of Scripture Illustrated,” “that the owl
is not a desert bird, but rather resides in places not far from
habitations, and that it is not the companion of serpents; whereas, in
several of these passages, the _joneh_ is associated with deserts, dry,
extensive, thirsty deserts, and with serpents, which are their natural
inhabitants. Our ignorance of the natural history of the countries which
the ostrich inhabits has undoubtedly perverted the import of the above
passages; but let any one peruse them afresh, and exchange the owl for
the ostrich, and he will immediately discover a vigour of description,
and an imagery much beyond what he had formerly perceived.” The Hebrew
phrase בת היענה, means the daughter בת היענה of vociferation,” and is
understood to be the female ostrich, probably so called from the noise
which this bird makes. It is affirmed by travellers of good credit, that
ostriches make a fearful, screeching, lamentable noise.
Ostriches are inhabitants of the deserts of Arabia, where they live
chiefly upon vegetables; lead a social and inoffensive life, the male
assorting with the female with connubial fidelity. Their eggs are very
large, some of them measuring above five inches in diameter, and
weighing twelve or fifteen pounds. These birds are very prolific, laying
forty or fifty eggs at a clutch. They will devour leather, grass, hair,
stones, metals, or any thing that is given to them; but those substances
which the coats of the stomach cannot act upon pass whole. It is so
unclean an animal as to eat its own ordure as soon as it voids it. This
is a sufficient reason, were others wanting, why such a fowl should be
reputed unclean, and its use as an article of diet prohibited. The
ostrich,” says M. Buffon, was known in the remotest ages, and mentioned
in the most ancient books. How indeed could an animal so remarkably
large, and so wonderfully prolific, and peculiarly suited to the climate
as is the ostrich, remain unknown in Africa, and part of Asia, countries
peopled from the earliest ages, full of deserts indeed, but where there
is not a spot which has not been traversed by the foot of man? The
family of the ostrich, therefore, is of great antiquity. Nor in the
course of ages has it varied or degenerated from its native purity. It
has always remained on its paternal estate; and its lustre has been
transmitted unsullied by foreign intercourse. In short, it is among the
birds what the elephant is among the quadrupeds, a distinct race, widely
separated from all the others by characters as striking as they are
invariable.” “On the least noise,” says Dr. Shaw, “or trivial occasion,
she forsakes her eggs, or her young ones; to which perhaps she never
returns; or if she does, it may be too late either to restore life to
the one, or to preserve the lives of the others. Agreeably to this
account the Arabs meet sometimes with whole nests of these eggs
undisturbed: some of them are sweet and good, others are addle and
corrupted; others again have their young ones of different growth,
according to the time, it may be presumed, they have been forsaken of
the dam. The Arabs often meet with a few of the little ones no bigger
than well grown pullets, half starved, straggling and moaning about like
so many distressed orphans for their mother. In this manner the ostrich
may be said to be hardened against her young ones as though they were
not hers; her labour, in hatching and attending them so far, being vain,
without fear, or the least concern of what becomes of them afterward.
This want of affection is also recorded, Lam. iv, 3, ‘the daughter of my
people is become cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness;’ that is, by
apparently deserting their own, and receiving others in return.” Natural
affection and sagacious instinct are the grand instruments by which
providence continues the race of other animals: but no limits can be set
to the wisdom and power of God. He preserveth the breed of the ostrich
without those means, and even in a penury of all the necessaries of
life. Notwithstanding the stupidity of this animal, its Creator hath
amply provided for its safety, by endowing it with extraordinary
swiftness, and a surprising apparatus for escaping from its enemy. They,
when they raise themselves up for flight, laugh at the horse and his
rider.” They afford him an opportunity only of admiring at a distance
the extraordinary agility and the stateliness likewise of their motions,
the richness of their plumage, and the great propriety there was in
ascribing to them an expanded quivering wing. Nothing certainly can be
more entertaining than such a sight, the wings, by their rapid but
unwearied vibrations, equally serving them for sails and oars; while
their feet, no less assisting in conveying them out of sight, seem to be
insensible of fatigue.
[Illustration:
MAP OF
PALESTINE.
_Illustrating the_
NEW TESTAMENT.
]
OWL. There are several varieties of this species, all too well known to
need a particular description. They are nocturnal birds of prey, and
have their eyes better adapted for discerning objects in the evening or
twilight than in the glare of day. 1. כוס, Lev. xi, 17; Deut. xiv, 16;
Psalm cii, 6, is in our version rendered the little owl.” Aquila,
Theodotion, Jerom, Kimchi, and most of the older interpreters, are
quoted to justify this rendering. Michaëlis, at some length, supports
the opinion that it is the horned owl. Bochart, though with some
hesitation, suspected it to be the _onocrotalus_, a kind of pelican,
because the Hebrew name signifies _cup_, and the pelican is remarkable
for a pouch or bag under the lower jaw; but there are good reasons for
supposing that bird to be the קאת of the next verse. Dr. Geddes thinks
this bird the cormorant; and as it begins the list of water fowl, and is
mentioned always in the same contexts with קאת, confessedly a water
bird, his opinion may be adopted. 2. קאת, Lev. xi, 17; Deut. xiv, 16;
Isaiah xxxiv, 11. In the two first places our translators render this
the great owl,” which is strangely placed after the little owl, and
among water birds. Our translators,” says the author of Scripture
Illustrated,” “seem to have thought the owl a convenient bird, as we
have three owls in two verses.” Some critics think it means a species of
night bird, because the word may be derived from נשף, which signifies
_the twilight_, the time when owls fly about. But this interpretation,
says Parkhurst, seems very forced; and since it is mentioned among water
fowls, and the LXX. have, in the first and last of those texts, rendered
it by ἴβις, _the ibis_, we are disposed to adopt it here, and think the
evidence strengthened by this, that in a Coptic version of Lev. xi, 17,
it is called _ip_ or _hip_, which, with a Greek termination, would very
easily make ιβις. 3. קפון, which occurs only in Isaiah xxxiv, 15, is in
our version rendered the great owl.” 4. לילית, Isa. xxxiv, 14, in our
version the screech owl.” The root signifies _night_; and as undoubtedly
a bird frequenting dark places and ruins is referred to, we must admit
some kind of owl.
A place of lonely desolation, where
The screeching tribe and pelicans abide,
And the dun ravens croak mid ruins drear,
And moaning owls from man the farthest hide.
OX, בקר, in Arabic _bœkerre_ and _bykar_, the male of horned cattle
of the beeve kind, at full age, when fit for the plough. Younger ones
are called bullocks. Michaëlis, in his elaborate work on the laws of
Moses, has proved that castration was never practised. The rural economy
of the Israelites led them to value the ox as by far the most important
of domestic animals, from the consideration of his great use in all the
operations of farming. In the patriarchal ages, the ox constituted no
inconsiderable portion of their wealth. Thus Abraham is said to be very
rich in cattle, Gen. xxiv, 35. Men of every age and country have been
much indebted to the labours of this animal. So early as in the days of
Job, who was probably contemporary with Isaac, the oxen were ploughing,
and the asses were feeding beside them,” when the Sabeans fell upon
them, and took them away. In times long posterior, when Elijah was
commissioned to anoint Elisha, the son of Shaphat, prophet in his stead,
he found him ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, 1 Kings xix, 19. For
many ages the hopes of oriental husbandmen depended entirely on their
labours. This was so much the case in the time of Solomon, that he
observes, in one of his proverbs, Where no oxen are, the crib is clean,”
or rather empty; but much increase is by the strength of the ox,” Prov.
xiv, 4. The ass, in the course of ages was compelled to bend his
stubborn neck to the yoke, and share the labours of the ox; but still
the preparation of the ground in the time of spring depended chiefly on
the more powerful exertions of the latter. When this animal was employed
in bringing home the produce of the harvest, he was regaled with a
mixture of chaff, chopped straw, and various kinds of grain, moistened
with acidulated water. But among the Jews, the ox was best fed when
employed in treading out the corn; for the divine law, in many of whose
precepts the benevolence of the Deity conspicuously shines, forbad to
muzzle him, and, by consequence, to prevent him from eating what he
would of the grain he was employed to separate from the husks. The ox
was also compelled to the labour of dragging the cart or wagon. The
number of oxen commonly yoked to one cart appears to have been two, Num.
vii, 3, 7, 8; 1 Sam. vi, 7; 2 Sam. vi, 3, 6.
The _wild ox_, תאן, Deut. xiv, 5, is supposed to be the oryx of the
Greeks, which is a species of large stag.
PADAN-ARAM, called also Sedan-Aram in Hosea; both names denoting _Aram_
or _Syria the fruitful_, or _cultivated_, and apply to the northern part
of Mesopotamia, in which Haran or Charran was situated. See MESOPOTAMIA.
PAGANS, Heathens, and particularly those who worship idols. The term
came into use after the establishment of Christianity, the cities and
great towns affording the first converts. The Heathens were called
Pagans, from _pagus_, a village,” because they were then found chiefly
in remote country places; but we use the term commonly for all who do
not receive the Jewish, Christian, or Mohammedan religions.
PAINTING THE FACE, 2 Kings ix, 30. See EYES.
PALESTINE, taken in a limited sense, denotes the country of the
Philistines or Palestines, including that part of the land of promise
which extended along the Mediterranean Sea, from Gaza south to Lydda
north. The LXX. were of opinion that the word _Philistiim_, which they
generally translate _Allophyli_, signified strangers,” or men of another
tribe. Palestine, taken in a more general sense, signifies the whole
country of Canaan, the whole land of promise, as well beyond as on this
side Jordan, though pretty frequently it is restrained to the country on
this side that river; so that in later times the words Judea and
Palestine were synonymous. We find, also, the name of Syria Palestina
given to the land of promise, and even sometimes this province is
comprehended in Cœlo-Syria, or the Lower Syria. Herodotus is the most
ancient writer we know that speaks of Syria Palestina. He places it
between Phenicia and Egypt. See CANAAN.