they pretended to have priests descended directly from the family of
Aaron. They were chiefly found at Gaza, Neapolis or Shechem, (the
ancient Sichem or Naplouse,) Damascus, Cairo, &c. They had a temple, or
chapel, on Mount Gerizim, where they performed their sacrifices. They
have also synagogues in other parts of Palestine, and also in Egypt.
Joseph Scaliger, being curious to know their usages, wrote to the
Samaritans of Egypt, and to the high priest of the whole sect, who
resided at Neapolis. They returned two answers, dated in the year 998 of
the Hegira of Mohammed. These answers never came to the hands of
Scaliger. They are now in the library at Paris, and have been translated
into Latin by Father Morin, priest of the oratory; and printed in the
collection of letters of that father in England, 1662, under the title
of “_Antiquitates Ecclesiæ Orientalis_.” M. Simon has inserted a French
translation in the first edition of “_Ceremonies et Coutumes des
Juifs_,” in the manner of a supplement to Leo de Modena. In the first of
these answers, written in the name of the assembly of Israel, in Egypt,
they declare that they celebrate the passover every year, on the
fourteenth day of the first month, on Mount Gerizim, and that he who
then did the office of high priest was called Eleazar, a descendant of
Phinehas, son of Aaron. In the second answer, which is in the name of
the high priest Eleazar, and the synagogue of Shechem, they declare,
that they keep the Sabbath in all the rigour with which it is enjoined
in the book of Exodus; none among them stirring out of doors, but to the
synagogue. They add, that they begin the feast of the passover with the
sacrifice appointed for that purpose in Exodus; that they sacrifice no
where else but on Mount Gerizim; that they observe the feasts of
harvest, the expiation, the tabernacles, &c. They add farther, that they
never defer circumcision beyond the eighth day; never marry their
nieces, as the Jews do; have but one wife; and, in fine, do nothing but
what is commanded in the law: whereas the Jews frequently abandon the
law to follow the inventions of their rabbins. At the time when they
wrote to Scaliger, they reckoned one hundred and twenty-two high
priests; affirmed that the Jews had no high priests of the race of
Phinehas; and that the Jews belied them in calling them Cutheans; for
that they are descended from the tribe of Joseph by Ephraim.
SAMSON, son of Manoah, of the tribe of Dan, Judges xiii, 2, &c. We are
no where acquainted with the name of his mother. He was born, A. M.
2849, and was a Nazarite from his infancy, by the divine command. He was
brought up in a place called the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Estaol,
Judges xiii, 25. His extraordinary achievements are particularly
recorded in Judges xiv-xvi. “Faith” is attributed to him by St. Paul,
though whether he retained it to the end of his life may be doubted. He
is not inaptly called by an old writer, “a rough believer.”
SAMUEL, the son of Elkanah and of Hannah, of the tribe of Levi, and
family of Kohath, was born, A. M. 2848. He was an eminent inspired
prophet, historian, and the seventeenth and last Judge of Israel; and
died in the ninety-eighth year of his age, two years before Saul, A. M.
2947, 1 Sam. xxv. To Samuel are ascribed the book of Judges, that of
Ruth, and the first book of Samuel. There is, indeed, great probability
that he composed the first twenty-four chapters of the first book of
Samuel; since they contain nothing but what he might have written, and
such transactions as he was chiefly concerned in. However, in these
chapters there are some small additions, which seem to have been
inserted after his death. Samuel began the order of the prophets, which
was never discontinued till the death of Zechariah and Malachi, Acts
iii, 24. From early youth to hoary years, the character of Samuel is one
on which the mind rests with veneration and delight.
SANBALLAT, the governor of the Cuthites or Samaritans, and an enemy to
the Jews. He was a native of Horon, a city beyond Jordan, in the country
of the Moabites, Neh. ii, 10, 19; iv, vi.
SANCTIFICATION, that work of God’s grace by which we are renewed after
the image of God, set apart for his service, and enabled to die unto sin
and live unto righteousness. Sanctification is either of nature, whereby
we are renewed after the image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and
true holiness, Eph. iv, 24; Col. iii, 19, or of practice, whereby we die
unto sin, have its power destroyed in us, cease from the love and
practice of it, hate it as abominable, and live unto righteousness,
loving and studying good works, Tit. ii, 11, 12. Sanctification
comprehends all the graces of knowledge, faith, repentance, love,
humility, zeal, patience, &c, and the exercise of them in our conduct
toward God or man, Gal. v, 22–24; 1 Peter i, 15, 16; Matt. v, vi, vii.
Sanctification in this world must be complete; the whole nature must be
sanctified, all sin must be utterly abolished, or the soul can never be
admitted into the glorious presence of God, Heb. xii, 14; 1 Peter i, 15;
Rev. xxi, 27; yet the saints, while here, are in a state of spiritual
warfare with Satan and his temptations, with the world and its
influence, 2 Cor. ii, 11; Gal. v, 17, 24; Rom. vii, 23; 1 John ii, 15,
16.
SANCTIFY. In the Old Testament, to sanctify often denotes to separate
from a common to a holy purpose; to set apart or consecrate to God as
his special property, and for his service. Our Lord also uses this term,
when he says, “For their sakes I sanctify myself,” John xvii, 19; that
is, I separate and dedicate myself to be a sacrifice to God for them,
“that they also may be sanctified through the truth;” that is, that they
may be cleansed from the guilt of sin. Under the law of Moses, there was
a church purity, or ceremonial sanctification, which might be obtained
by the observance of external rites and ordinances, while persons were
destitute of internal purity or holiness. Every defiled person was made
“common,” and excluded from the privilege of a right to draw nigh to God
in his solemn worship; but in his purification he was again separated to
him, and restored to his sacred right. Hence St. Paul speaks of “the
blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the
unclean, as sanctifying unto the purifying of the flesh,” Heb. ix, 13.
These things were in reality of no moral worth or value; they were
merely typical institutions, intended to represent the blessings of the
new and better covenant, those “good things that were to come;” and
therefore God is frequently spoken of in the prophets as despising them,
namely, in any other view than that for which his wisdom had ordained
them, Isaiah i, 11–15; Psalm 1, 8, 9; li, 16. But that dispensation is
now at an end; under the New Testament, the state of things is changed,
for now “neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision,
but a new creature.” The thing signified, namely, internal purity and
holiness, is no less necessary to a right to the privileges of the
Gospel, than the observance of those external rites was unto the
privileges of the law.
SANCTUARY. See TEMPLE.
SANDALS, at first, were only soles tied to the feet with strings or
thongs; afterward they were covered; and at last they called even shoes
sandals. When Judith went to the camp of Holofernes, she put sandals on
her feet; and her sandals ravished his eyes, Judith x, 4; xvi, 9. They
were a magnificent kind of buskins proper only to ladies of condition,
and such as dressed themselves for admiration. But there were sandals
also belonging to men, and of mean value. We read, “If the man like not
to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the
gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother will not perform the
duty of a husband’s brother; then shall his brother’s wife come unto
him, in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his
foot, and spit in his face; and shall say, So shall it be done unto that
man that will not build up his brother’s house. And his name shall be
called in Israel, The house of him who hath had his shoe loosed,”
Deuteronomy xxv, 7. A late writer observes that the word rendered
“shoe,” usually means “sandal,” that is, a mere sole fastened on the
foot in a very simple manner; and that the primary and radical meaning
of the word rendered _face_, is surface, the superficies of any thing.
Hence he would submit, that the passage may be to the following purpose:
The brother’s wife shall loose the sandal from off the foot of her
husband’s brother; and shall spit upon its face or surface, (that is, of
the shoe,) and shall say, &c. This ceremony is coincident with certain
customs among the Turks. We are told that in a complaint against her own
husband, for withholding himself from her intimacy, the wife when before
the judge takes off her own shoe, and spits upon it; but in case of
complaint against her husband’s brother, she takes off his shoe and
spits upon it.
The business of untying and carrying the sandals being that of a
servant, the expressions of the Baptist, “whose shoes I am not worthy to
bear,” “whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose,” was an
acknowledgment of his great inferiority to Christ, and that Christ was
his Lord. To pull off the sandals on entering a sacred place, or the
house of a person of distinction, was the usual mark of respect. They
were taken care of by the attendant servant. At the doors of an Indian
pagoda, there are as many sandals and slippers hung up, as there are
hats in our places of worship.
SANHEDRIM, SANHEDRIN, or SYNEDRIUM, among the ancient Jews, the supreme
council, or court of judicature, of that republic; in which were
despatched all the great affairs both of religion and policy. The word
is derived from the Greek συνέδριον, a council, assembly, or company of
people sitting together; from σὺν, _together_, and hήδρα, _a seat_. Many
of the learned agree, that it was instituted by Moses, Numbers xi; and
consisted at first of seventy elders, who judged finally of all causes
and affairs; and that they subsisted, without intermission, from Moses
to Ezra, Deut. xxvii, 1; xxxi, 9; Josh. xxiv, 1, 31; Judg. ii, 7; 2
Chron. xix, 8; Ezek. viii, 11. Others will have it, that the council of
seventy elders, established by Moses, was temporary, and did not hold
after his death; adding, that we find no sign of any such perpetual and
infallible tribunal throughout the whole Old Testament; and that the
sanhedrim was first set up in the time when the Maccabees, or Asmoneans,
took upon themselves the administration of the government under the
title of high priests, and afterward of kings, that is, after the
persecution of Antiochus. This is by far the most probable opinion. The
Jews, however, contend strenuously for the antiquity of their great
sanhedrim: M. Simon strengthens and defends their proofs, and M. Le
Clerc attacks them. Whatever may be the origin and establishment of the
sanhedrim, it is certain that it was subsisting in the time of our
Saviour, since it is spoken of in the Gospels, Matt. v, 21; Mark xiii,
9; xiv, 55; xv, 1; and since Jesus Christ himself was arraigned and
condemned by it; that it was held at Jerusalem; and that the decision of
all the most important affairs among the Jews belonged to it. The
president of this assembly was called _nasi_, or prince; his deputy was
called _abbeth-din_, father of the house of judgment; and the sub-deputy
was called _chacan_, the wise: the rest were denominated _tzekanim_,
elders or senators. The room in which they sat was a rotunda, half of
which was built without the temple, and half within; that is, one
semicircle of the room was within the compass of the temple; and as it
was never allowed to sit down in the temple, they tell us this part was
for those who stood up; the other half, or semicircle, extended without
the holy place, and here the judges sat. The nasi, or prince, sat on a
throne at the end of the hall, having his deputy at his right hand, and
his sub-deputy at his left; the other senators were ranged in order on
each side.
The sanhedrim subsisted until the destruction of Jerusalem, but its
authority was almost reduced to nothing, from the time in which the
Jewish nation became subject to the Roman empire. The rabbins pretend,
that the sanhedrim has always subsisted in their nation from the time of
Moses to the destruction of the temple by the Romans; and they maintain
that it consisted of seventy counsellors, six out of each tribe, and
Moses as president; and thus the number was seventy-one: but six
senators out of each tribe make the number seventy-two, which, with the
president, constitute a council of seventy-three persons, and therefore
it has been the opinion of some authors that this was the number of the
members of the sanhedrim. As to the personal qualifications of the
judges of this court, it was required that they should be of untainted
birth; and they were often of the race of the priests or Levites, or of
the number of inferior judges, or of the lesser sanhedrim, which
consisted of twenty-three judges. They were to be skilful in the written
and traditional law; and they were obliged to study magic, divination,
fortune telling, physic, astrology, arithmetic, and languages. It was
also required, that none of them should be eunuchs, usurers, decrepid or
deformed, or gamesters; and that they should be of mature age, rich, and
of good countenance and body. Thus say the rabbins.
The authority of the sanhedrim was very extensive. This council decided
causes brought before it by appeal from inferior courts. The king, high
priest, and prophets were subject to its jurisdiction. The general
officers of the nation were brought before the sanhedrim. How far their
right of judging in capital cases extended, and how long it continued,
have been subjects of controversy. Among the rabbins it has been a
generally received opinion, that about forty years before the
destruction of Jerusalem, their nation had been deprived of the power of
life and death. And most authors assert, that this privilege was taken
from them ever since Judea was made a province of the Roman empire, that
is, after the banishment of Archelaus. Others, however, maintain that
the Jews had still the power of life and death; but that this privilege
was restricted to crimes committed against their law, and depended upon
the governor’s will and pleasure. In the time of Moses, this council was
held at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony. As soon as the
people were in possession of the land of promise, the sanhedrim followed
the tabernacle, and it continued at Jerusalem, whither it was removed,
till the captivity. During the captivity it was kept at Babylon. After
the return from Babylon, it remained at Jerusalem, as it is said, to the
time of the sicarii or assassins; afterward it was removed to Jamnia,
thence to Jericho, to Uzzah, to Sepharvaim, to Bethsamia, to Sephoris,
and last of all to Tiberias, where it continued till its utter
extinction. Such is the account which the Jews give of their sanhedrim.
But, as stated above, much of this is disputed. Petau fixes the
beginning of the sanhedrim to the period when Gabinius was governor of
Judea, by whom were erected tribunals in the five cities of Judea,
namely, Jerusalem, Gadara, Amathus, Jericho, and Sephoris. Grotius
agrees in the date of its commencement with the rabbins, but he fixes
its termination at the beginning of Herod’s reign. Basnage places it
under Judas Maccabæus and his brother Jonathan. Upon the whole, it may
be observed, that the origin of the sanhedrim has not been
satisfactorily ascertained; and that the council of the seventy elders,
established by Moses, was not what the Hebrews understood by the name of
sanhedrim.
Before the death of our Saviour, two very famous rabbins had been
presidents of the sanhedrim, namely Hillel and Schammai, who entertained
very different opinions on several subjects, and particularly that of
divorce. This gave occasion to the question which the Pharisees put to
Jesus Christ upon that head, Matt. xix, 3. (See _Divorce_.) Hillel had
Menahem for his associate in the presidency of the sanhedrim. But the
latter afterward deserted that honourable post, and joined himself with
a great number of his disciples, to the party of Herod Antipas, who
promoted the levying of taxes for the use of the Roman emperors with all
his might. These were probably the Herodians mentioned in the Gospel,
Matt. xxii, 16. To Hillel succeeded Simeon his son, who by some is
supposed to have been the person who took Jesus Christ in his arms, Luke
ii, 28, and publicly acknowledged him to be the Messiah. If this be the
case, the Jewish sanhedrim had for president a person that was entirely
disposed to embrace Christianity. Gamaliel, the son and successor of
Simeon, seems to have been also of a candid disposition and character.
There were several inferior sanhedrims in Palestine, all depending on
the great sanhedrim at Jerusalem. The inferior sanhedrim consisted each
of twenty-three persons; and there was one in each city and town. Some
say, that to have a right to hold a sanhedrim, it was requisite there
should be one hundred and twenty inhabitants in the place. Where the
inhabitants came short of the number of one hundred and twenty, they
only established three judges. In the great as well as the inferior
sanhedrim were two scribes; the one to write down the suffrages of those
who were for condemnation, the other to take down the suffrages of those
who were for absolution.
SAPPHIRE, ספיר, Exod. xxiv, 10; xxviii, 18; Job xxviii, 6, 16; Cantic.
v, 14; Isa. liv, 11; Ezek. i, 26; x, 1; xxviii, 13, σάϖφειρος, Rev. xxi,
19, only. That this is the sapphire, there can be no doubt. The
Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the general run of commentators, ancient
and modern, agree in this. The sapphire is a pellucid gem. In its finest
state it is extremely beautiful and valuable, and second only to the
diamond in lustre, hardness, and value. Its proper colour is pure blue;
in the choicest specimens it is of the deepest azure; and in others
varies into paleness, in shades of all degrees between that and a pure
crystal brightness, without the least tinge of colour, but with a lustre
much superior to the crystal. The oriental sapphire is the most
beautiful and valuable. It is transparent, of a fine sky colour,
sometimes variegated with veins of a white sparry substance, and
distinct separate spots of a gold colour. Whence it is that the prophets
describe the throne of God like unto sapphire, Ezek. i, 26; x, 1.
Isaiah, liv, 11, 12, prophesying the future grandeur of Jerusalem, says,
“Behold, I lay thy stones in cement of vermilion,
And thy foundations with sapphires:
And I will make thy battlements of rubies,
And thy gates of carbuncles;
And the whole circuit of thy walls shall be of precious stones.”
“These seem,” says Bishop Lowth, “to be general images to express
beauty, magnificence, purity, strength, and solidity, agreeably to the
ideas of the eastern nations; and to have never been intended to be
strictly scrutinized, or minutely and particularly explained, as if they
had each of them some precise moral or spiritual meaning.” Tobit, xiii,
16, 17, in his prophecy of the final restoration of Israel, describes
the New Jerusalem in the same oriental manner: “For Jerusalem shall be
built up with sapphires, and emeralds, and precious stones; thy walls,
and towers, and battlements, with pure gold. And the streets of
Jerusalem shall be paved with the beryl and carbuncle, and with stones
of Ophir,” Rev. xxi, 18–21.
SARAH, the wife of Abraham, and his sister, as he himself informs us, by
the same father, but not the same mother, Gen. xx, 12. See ABRAHAM.
SARDIS, a city of Asia Minor, and formerly the capital of Crœsus,
king of the Lydians. The church of Sardis was one of the seven churches
of Asia, to which the writer of the Apocalypse was directed to send an
epistle, Rev. iii, 1–3.
SARDIUS, אדם, so called from its redness, Exod. xxviii, 17; xxxix, 10;
Ezek. xxviii, 13; σάρδιος, Rev. xxi, 20; a precious stone of a blood-red
colour. It took its Greek name from Sardis, where the best of them were
found.
SARDONYX, σαρδόνυξ, Rev. xxi, 20. A precious stone which seems to have
its name from its resemblance partly to the sardius and partly to the
onyx. It is generally tinged with black and blood colour, which are
distinguished from each other by circles or rows, so distinct that they
appear to be the effect of art.
SATAN signifies an adversary or enemy, and is commonly applied in the
Scriptures to the devil, or the chief of the fallen angels. By
collecting the passages where Satan, or the devil, is mentioned, it may
be concluded, that he fell from heaven with his company; that God cast
him down from thence for the punishment of his pride; that by his envy
and malice, sin, death, and all other evils came into the world; that,
by the permission of God he exercises a sort of government in the world
over subordinate apostate angels like himself; that God makes use of him
to prove good men, and chastise bad ones; that he is a lying spirit in
the mouth of false prophets and seducers; that it is he, or his agents,
that torment or possess men, and inspire them with evil designs, as when
he suggested to David, the numbering of the people, to Judas to betray
his Lord and Master, and to Ananias and Sapphira to conceal the price of
their field; that he is full of rage like a roaring lion, and of
subtlety like a serpent, to tempt, to betray, to destroy, and to involve
us in guilt and wickedness; that his power and malice are restrained
within certain limits, and controlled by the will of God; in a word,
that he is an enemy to God and man, and uses his utmost endeavours to
rob God of his glory, and men of their souls. See DEVIL and DEMONIACS.
SAUL, the son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, the first king of the
Israelites, 1 Sam. ix, 1, 2, &c. Saul’s fruitless journey when seeking
his father’s asses; (See _Ass_;) his meeting the Prophet Samuel; the
particulars foretold to him, with his being anointed as king, about A.
M. 2909; his prophesying along with the young prophets; his appointment
by the lot; his modesty in hiding himself; his first victory over the
Ammonites; his rash sacrifice in the absence of Samuel; his equally rash
curse; his victories over the Philistines and Amalekites; his sparing of
King Agag with the judgment denounced against him for it; his jealousy
and persecution of David; his barbarous massacre of the priests and
people of Nob; his repeated confessions of his injustice to David, &c,
are recorded in 1 Sam. ix-xxxi. He reigned forty years, but exhibited to
posterity a melancholy example of a monarch, elevated to the summit of
worldly grandeur, who, having cast off the fear of God, gradually became
the slave of jealousy, duplicity, treachery, and the most malignant and
diabolical tempers. His behaviour toward David shows him to have been
destitute of every generous and noble sentiment that can dignify human
nature; and it is not an easy task to speak with any moderation of the
atrocity and baseness which uniformly mark it. His character is that of
a wicked man, “waxing worse and worse;” but while we are shocked at its
deformity, it should be our study to profit by it, which we can only do
by using it as a beacon to warn us, “lest we also be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin.”