a'-nab (`anabh, "grapes"; Codex Vaticanus, Anon or Anob): Mentioned in the list of cities which fell to Judah (Josh 15:50). In the list it follows Debir, from which it was a short distance to the Southwest. It lay about twelve males to the Southwest of Hebron. It was a city of the Anakim, from whom Joshua took it (Josh 11:21). Its site is now known as the rum `Anab.
an'-a-el (Anael): A brother of Tobit mentioned once only (Tobit 1:21) as the father of Achiacharus, who was an official in Nineveh under Esar-haddon.
a'-na (`anah, meaning uncertain; a Horite clan-name (Gen 36)):
(1) Mother of Aholibamah, one of the wives of Esau and daughter of Zibeon (compare Gen 36:2,14,18,25). The Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Peshitta read "son," identifying this Anah with number 3 (see below); Gen 36:2, read (ha-chori), for (ha-chiwwi).
(2) Son of Seir, the Horite, and brother of Zibeon; one of the chiefs of the land of Edom (compare Gen 36:20,21 = 1 Ch 1:38). Seir is elsewhere the name of the land (compare Gen 14:6; Isa 21:11); but here the country is personified and becomes the mythical ancestor of the tribes inhabiting it.
(3) Son of Zibeon, "This is Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness" (compare Gen 36:24 = 1 Ch 1:40,41) The word ha-yemim, occurs only in this passage and is probably corrupt. Ball (Sacred Books of the Old Testament, Genesis, critical note 93) suggests that it is a corruption of we-hemam (compare Gen 36:22) in an earlier verse. Jerome, in his commentary on Gen 36:24, assembles the following definitions of the word gathered from Jewish sources. (1) "seas" as though yammim; (2) "hot springs" as though hammim; (3) a species of ass, yemim; (4) "mules." This last explanation was the one most frequently met with in Jewish lit; the tradition ran that Anah was the first to breed the mule, thus bringing into existence an unnatural species. As a punishment, God created the deadly water-snake, through the union of the common viper with the Libyan lizard (compare Gen Rabbah 82 15, Yer. Ber 1 12b; Babylonian Pes 54a, Ginzberg, Monatschrift, XLII, 538-39).
The descent of Anah is thus represented in the three ways pointed out above as the text stands. If, however, we accept the reading ben, for bath, in the first case, Aholibamah will then be an unnamed daughter of the Anah of Gen 36:24, not the Aholibamah, daughter of Anah of 36:25 (for the Anah of this verse is evidently the one of 36:20, not the Anah of 36:24). Another view is that the words, "the daughter of Zibeon," are a gloss, inserted by one who mistakenly identified the Anah of 36:25 with the Anah of 36:24; in this event, Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, will be the one mentioned in 36:25.
The difference between (2) and (3) is to be explained on the basis of a twofold tradition. Anah was originally a sub-clan of the clan known as Zibeon, and both were "sons of Seir"--i.e. Horites.
H. J. Wolf
a-na'-ha-rath ('ana-charath, meaning unknown): A place which fell to the tribe of Issachar in the division of the land (Josh 19:19). Located in the valley of Jezreel toward the East, the name and site being preserved as the modern en-Na`-ura. BDB is wrong in assigning it to the tribe of Naphtali.
an-a-i'-a, a-ni'-a (`anayah, "Yah has answered"): (1) a Levite who assisted Ezr in reading the law to the people (Neh 8:4), perhaps the person called Ananias in Esdras 9:43. (2) One of those who sealed the covenant (Neh 10:22). He may have been the same as Anaiah (1).
an'-nak.
See ANAKIM .
an'-a-kim (`anaqim; Enakim, or Enakeim; also called "sons of Anak" (Nu 13:33), and "sons of the Anakim" (Dt 1:28)): The spies (Nu 13:33) compared them to the Nephilim or "giants" of Gen 6:4, and according to Dt 2:11 they were reckoned among the REPHAIM (which see). In Nu 13:22 the chiefs of Hebron are said to be descendants of Anak, while "the father of Anak" is stated in Josh (15:13; 21:11) to be Arba after whom Hebron was called "the city of Arba." Josh "cut off the Anakim .... from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, .... and from all the hill-country of Israel," remnants of them being left in the Philistine cities of Gaza, Gath and Ashdod (Josh 11:21,22). As compared with the Israelites, they were tall like giants (Nu 13:33), and it would therefore seem that the "giant" Goliath and his family were of their race. At Hebron, at the time of the Israelite conquest, we may gather that they formed the body-guard of the Amorite king (see Josh 10:5) under their three leaders Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai (Nu 13:22; Josh 15:14; Jdg 1:20). Tell el-Amarna Letters show that the Canaanite princes were accustomed to surround themselves with bodyguards of foreign mercenaries. It appears probable that the Anakim came from the Aegean like the Philistines, to whom they may have been related. The name Anak is a masculine corresponding with a feminine which we meet with in the name of the goddess Onka, who according to the Greek writers, Stephanus of Byzantium and Hesychius, was the "Phoen," i.e. Syrian equivalent of Athena. Anket or Anukit was also the name of the goddess worshipped by the Egyptians at the First Cataract. In the name Ahi-man it is possible that "-man" denotes a non-Semitic deity.
A. H. Sayce
an'-a-mim (`anamim): Descendants of Mizraim (Gen 10:13; 1 Ch 1:11).
See TABLE OF NATIONS .
a-nam'-e-lek (`anammelekh = Assyrian Anu-malik, "Anu is the prince"): A Babylonian (?) deity worshipped by the Sepharvites in Samaria, after being transported there by Sargon. The worship of Adrammelech (who is mentioned with Anammelech) and Anammelech is accompanied by the sacrifice of children by fire: "The Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim" (2 Ki 17:31). This passage presents two grave difficulties. First, there is no evidence in cuneiform literature that would point to the presence of human sacrifice, by fire or otherwise, as part of the ritual; nor has it been shown that the sculptures or bas-reliefs deny this thesis. Much depends upon the identification of "Sepharvaim"; if, as some scholars hold, Sepharvaim and Sippar are one and the same cities, the two deities referred to are Babylonian. But there are several strong objections to this theory. It has been suggested that Sepharvaim (Septuagint, seppharin, sepphareimi) is rather identical with "Shabara'in," a city mentioned in the Babylonian Chronicle as having been destroyed by Shalmaneser IV. As Sepharvaim and Arpad and Hamath are grouped together (2 Ki 17:24; 18:34) in two passages, it is probable that Sepharvaim is a Syriac city. Sepharvaim may then be another form of "Shabara'in," which, in turn, is the Assyrian form of Sibraim (Ezek 47:16), a city in the neighborhood of Damascus (of Halevy, ZA, II, 401 ff). One objection to this last is the necessity for representing "c" by "sh"; this is not necessarily insurmountable, however. Then, the attempt to find an Assyrian etymology for the two god-names falls to the ground. Besides, the custom of sacrifice by fire was prevalent in Syria. Secondly, the god that was worshipped at Sippar was neither Adrammelech nor Anammelech but Samas. It is improbable, as some would urge, that Adrammelech is a secondary title of the tutelary god of Sippar; then it would have to be shown that Anu enjoyed special reverence in this city which was especially consecrated to the worship of the Sun-god. (For "Anu" see ASSYRIA .) It may be that the text is corrupt.
See also ADRAMMELECH .
H. J. Wolf
a'-nan (`anan, "cloud"): (1) One of those who, with Nehemiah, sealed the covenant (Neh 10:26). (2) A returned exile (1 Esdras 5:30). He is called Hanan in Ezr 2:46 and Neh 7:49.
a-na'-ni `anani, perhaps a shortened form of Ananiah, "Yah has covered"): A son of Elioenai of the house of David, who lived after the captivity (1 Ch 3:24).
an-a-ni'-a `ananyah, "Yah has covered"): (1) Grandfather of Azariah. He assisted in repairing the walls of Jerusalem after his return from the exile (Neh 3:23). (2) A town of Benjamin mentioned in connection with Nob and Hazor (Neh 11:32). It is commonly identified with Beit Hanina, between three and four miles North-Northwest from Jerusalem.
an-a-ni'-as (Ananias; Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek, Hananias; chananyah, "Yah has been gracious"): The name was common among the Jews. In its Hebrew form it is frequently found in the Old Testament (e.g. 1 Ch 25:4; Jer 28:1; Dan 1:6).
See HANANIAH .
Husband of Sapphira (Acts 5:1-10). He and his wife sold their property, and gave to the common fund of the church part of the purchase money, pretending it was the whole. When his hypocrisy was denounced by Peter, Ananias fell down dead; and three hours later his wife met the same doom. The following points are of interest. (1) The narrative immediately follows the account of the intense brotherliness of the believers resulting in a common fund, to which Barnabas had made a generous contribution (Acts 4:32-37). The sincerity and spontaneity of the gifts of Barnabas and the others set forth in dark relief the calculated deceit of Ananias. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. (2) The crime of Ananias consisted, not in his retaining a part, but in his pretending to give the whole. He was under no compulsion to give all, for the communism of the early church was not absolute, but purely voluntary (see especially Acts 5:4) Falsehood and hypocrisy ("lie to the Holy Spirit" Acts 5:3), rather than greed, were the sins for which he was so severely punished. (3) The severity of the Judgment can be justified by the consideration that the act was "the first open venture of deliberate wickedness" (Meyer) within the church. The punishment was an "awe-inspiring act of Divine church-discipline." The narrative does not, however, imply that Peter consciously willed their death. His words were the occasion of it, but he was not the deliberate agent. Even the words in Acts 5:9b are a prediction rather than a judicial sentence.
A disciple in Damascus, to whom the conversion of Saul of Tarsus was made known in a vision, and who was the instrument of his physical and spiritual restoration, and the means of introducing him to the other Christians in Damascus (Acts 9:10-19). Paul makes honorable mention of him in his account of his conversion spoken at Jerusalem (Acts 22:12-16), where we are told that Ananias was held in high respect by all the Jews in Damascus, on account of his strict legal piety. No mention is made of him in Paul's address before Agrippa in Caesarea (Acts 26). In late tradition, he is placed in the list of the seventy disciples of Jesus, and represented as bishop of Damascus, and as having died a martyr's death.
3. A High Priest at Jerusalem:
A high priest in Jerusalem from 47-59 AD. From Josephus (Ant., XX, v, 2; vi, 2; ix, 2; BJ, II, xvii, 9) we glean the following facts: He was the son of Nedebaeus (or Nebedaeus) and was nominated to the high-priestly office by Herod of Chalcis. In 52 AD he was sent to Rome by Quadratus, legate of Syria, to answer a charge of oppression brought by the Samaritans, but the emperor Claudius acquitted him. On his return to Jerusalem, he resumed the office of high priest. He was deposed shortly before Felix left the province, but continued to wield great influence, which he used in a lawless and violent way. He was a typical Sadducee, wealthy, haughty, unscrupulous, filling his sacred office for purely selfish and political ends, anti-nationalist in his relation to the Jews, friendly to the Romans. He died an ignominious death, being assassinated by the popular zealots (sicarii) at the beginning of the last Jewish war. In the New Testament he figures in two passages. (1) Acts 23:1-5, where Paul defends himself before the Sanhedrin. The overbearing conduct of Ananias in commanding Paul to be struck on the mouth was characteristic of the man. Paul's ire was for the moment aroused, and he hurled back the scornful epithet of "whited wall." On being called to account for "reviling God's high priest," he quickly recovered the control of his feelings, and said "I knew not, brethren, that he was high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of a ruler of thy people." This remark has greatly puzzled the commentators. The high priest could have been easily identified by his position and official seat as president of the Sanhedrin. Some have wrongly supposed that Ananias had lost his office during his trial at Rome, but had afterward usurped it during a vacancy (John Lightfoot, Michaelis, etc.). Others take the words as ironical, "How could I know as high priest one who acts so unworthily of his sacred office?" (so Calvin). Others (e.g. Alford, Plumptre) take it that owing to defective eyesight Paul knew not from whom the insolent words had come. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that Paul meant, "I did not for the moment bear in mind that I was addressing the high priest" (so Bengel, Neander, etc.). (2) In Acts 24:1 we find Ananias coming down to Caesarea in person, with a deputation from the Sanhedrin, to accuse Paul before Felix.
D. Miall Edwards
(Apocrypha), an-a-ni'-as: (1) Ananias, the Revised Version (British and American) Annis, the Revised Version, margin, Annias (1 Esdras 5:16). See ANNIS . (2) A son of Emmer (1 Esdras 9:21) = Hanani, son of Immer in Ezr 10:20. (3) A son of Bebai (1 Esdras 9:29) = Hananiah in Ezr 10:28. The two last are mentioned in the list of priests who were found to have strange wives. (4) One of those who stood by Esdras while he read the law to the people (1 Esdras 9:43) = Anaiah in Neh 8:4. (5) One of the Levites who explained the law to the people (1 Esdras 9:48) = Hanan in Neh 8:7. (6) Ananias the Great, son of Shemaiah the Great; a kinsman of Tobit, whom Raphael the angel, disguised as a man, gave out to be his father (Tobit 5:12 f). (7) Son of Gideon, mentioned as an ancestor of Judith (Judith 8:1). (8) Another Ananias is mentioned in The Song of the Three Children (Azariah) (verse 66).
D. Miall Edwards
a-nan'-i-el (Ananiel, "God is gracious"): An ancestor of Tobit (Tobit 1:1).
a'-nath (`anath): Father of Shamgar (Jdg 3:31; 5:6). This name is connected with the Phoenician and Canaanite goddess `Anat, which was also worshipped in Egypt. She is mentioned in monuments of the 18th Dynasty, coupled with the war-goddess Astart (Moore, Judges, 105-896; DB; EB).
a-nath'-e-ma (anathema): This word occurs only once in the King James Version, namely, in the phrase "Let him be anathema. Maranatha" (1 Cor 16:22); elsewhere the King James Version renders anathema by "accursed" (Rom 9:3; 1 Cor 12:3; Gal 1:8,9), once by "curse" (Acts 23:12). Both words--anathema and anathema--were originally dialectical variations and had the same connotation, namely, offering to the gods. The non-Attic form--anathema--was adopted in the Septuagint as a rendering of the Hebrew cherem (see ACCURSED ), and gradually came to have the significance of the Hebrew word--"anything devoted to destruction." Whereas in the Greek Fathers anathema--as cherem in rabbinic Hebrew--came to denote excommunication from society, in the New Testament the word has its full force. In common speech it evidently became a strong expression of execration, and the term connoted more than physical destruction; it invariably implied moral worthlessness. In Rom 9:3 Paul does not simply mean that, for the sake of his fellow-countrymen, he is prepared to face death, but to endure the moral degradation of an outcast from the kingdom of Christ. In 1 Cor 12:3 the expression, "Jesus is anathema"--with its suggestion of moral unfitness--reaches the lowest depths of depreciation, as the expression, "Jesus is Lord," reaches the summit of appreciation.
Thomas Lewis
an'-a-thoth (`anathoth; Anathoth): A town which lay between Michmash and Jerusalem (Isa 10:30), in the territory of Benjamin, assigned to the Levites (Josh 21:18). It was the native place of Abiathar (1 Ki 2:26), and of the prophet Jer (Jer 1:1; 11:21 ff, etc.). Here lay the field which, under remarkable circumstances, the prophet purchased (Jer 32:7 ff). Two of David's distinguished soldiers, Abiezer (2 Sam 23:27) and Jehu (1 Ch 12:3), also hailed from Anathoth. It was again occupied by the Benjamites after the return from the Exile (Neh 11:32, etc.). It is identified with `Anata, two and a quarter miles Northeast of Jerusalem, a small village of some fifteen houses with remains of ancient walls. There are quarries in the neighborhood from which stones are still carried to Jerusalem. It commands a spacious outlook over the uplands to the North, and especially to the Southeast, over the Jordan valley toward the Dead Sea and the mountains of Moab. There is nothing to shelter it from the withering power of the winds from the eastern deserts (Jer 4:11; 18:17, etc.).
W. Ewing
an'-a-thoth-it (ha-`annethothi): the Revised Version (British and American) form of the King James Version Anethothite, Anetothite, Antothite. An inhabitant of Anathoth, a town of Benjamin assigned to the Levites. The Anathothites are (1) Abiezer, one of David's thirty heroes (2 Sam 23:27; 1 Ch 11:28; 27:12), and (2) Jehu who came to David at Ziklag (1 Ch 12:3).
an'-ses-ters (ri'shonim, "first ones"): The word ancestor appears in the English Bible only once (Lev 26:45). The Hebrew word, the ordinary adjective "first," occurs more than 200 times, and in a few places might fairly be rendered ancestors (e.g. Dt 19:14; Jer 11:10). In speaking of ancestors the Old Testament ordinarily uses the word for "fathers" ('abhoth).
an'-ker.
See SHIPS AND BOATS .
an'-shent: This word renders several Hebrew words: (1) qedhem, which denotes "beforetime," "yore"; generally the remote past (compare Dt 33:15, "ancient mountains"; Jdg 5:21, Kishon, the "ancient river"; Isa 19:11 "ancient kings"). (2) zaqen, "old" in years. Whereas the King James Version generally renders the word by "old" (or "elders" when the plural form is found) in six cases "ancient" is used and "ancients" in nine cases. See ANCIENTS . (3) `olam, which denotes "long duration" --past or future. In regard to the past it suggests remote antiquity. The connotation may be discovered in such expressions as: "the years of ancient times" (Ps 77:5); "ancient land-mark" or "paths" (Prov 22:28; Jer 18:15); "ancient people" or "nation" (Isa 44:7; Jer 5:15); "ancient high places" (Ezek 36:2). (4) `attiq. This word--really Aramaic--comes from a stem which means "to advance," i.e. in age; hence old, aged (1 Ch 3:22). (5) yashish, literally, "weak," "impotent," hence decrepit aged; a rare and poetical word, and found only in Job. It is rendered "ancient" only in one instance (Job 12:12 the King James Version).
Thomas Lewis
(`attiq yomin, = Aramaic): On `attiq, see ANCIENT (4). The expression is used in reference to God in Dan (7:9,13,22) and is not intended to suggest the existence of God from eternity. It was the venerable appearance of old age that was uppermost in the writer's mind. "What Daniel sees is not the eternal God Himself, but an aged man, in whose dignified and impressive form God reveals Himself (compare Ezek 1:26)" (Keil).
an-shents: This word (except in one instance) renders the Hebrew word zeqenim, (pl of zaqen), which should always be translated "old men" or "elders." The Hebrew word never has the connotation which "ancients" has in modern English. The words "I understand more than the ancients" (Ps 119:100 the King James Version) do not mean that the Psalmist claims greater wisdom than his distant forbears but than his contemporaries with all their age and experience. In the parallel clause "teachers" is the corresponding word. In such phrases as "ancients of the people" (Jer 19:1 the King James Version), "ancients of the house of Israel" (Ezek 8:12), "elders" would obviously be the correct rendering, as in the Revised Version (British and American). Even in Isa 24:23 ("before his ancients gloriously" the English Revised Version) "elders" is the right translation (American Revised Version). The writer probably alludes to the Sinaitic; theophany witnessed by the "seventy .... elders" (Ex 24:9-18) Generally speaking the word suggests the experience, insight and practical acquaintance with life which age ought to bring with it (Ps 119:100; Ezek 7:26). In one instance (1 Sam 24:13) "ancients" is the right rendering for the Hebrew word qadhmonim, which means "men of former times."
Thomas Lewis
an'-k'-l.
See ANKLE .
an'-droo (Andreas, i.e. "manly." The name has also been interpreted as "the mighty one, or conqueror"): Andrew was the first called of the Twelve Apostles.
1. Early History and First Call:
Andrew belonged to Bethsaida of Galilee (compare Jn 1:44). He was the brother of Simon Peter and his father's name was John (compare Jn 1:42; 21:15,16,17). He occupies a more prominent place in the Gospel of Jn than in the synoptical writings, and this is explicable at least in part from the fact that Andrew was Greek both in language and sympathies (compare infra), and that his subsequent labors were intimately connected with the people for whom Jn was immediately writing. There are three stages in the call of Andrew to the apostleship. The first is described in Jn 1:35-40. Andrew had spent his earlier years as a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, but on learning of the fame of John the Baptist, he departed along with a band of his countrymen to Bethabara (the Revised Version (British and American) "Bethany") beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing (Jn 1:28). Possibly Jesus was of their number, or had preceded them in their pilgrimage. There Andrew learned for the first time of the greatness of the "Lamb of God" and "followed him" (Jn 1:40). He was the means at this time of bringing his brother Simon Peter also to Christ (Jn 1:41). Andrew was probably a companion of Jesus on his return journey to Galilee, and was thus present at the marriage in Cana of Galilee (Jn 2:2), in Capernaum (Jn 2:12), at the Passover in Jerusalem (Jn 2:13), at the baptizing in Judea (Jn 3:22), where he himself may have taken part (compare Jn 4:2), and in Samaria (Jn 4:5).
2. Second Call and Final Ordination:
On his return to Galilee, Andrew resumed for a time his old vocation as fisherman, till he received his second call. This happened after John the Baptist was cast into prison (compare Mk 1:14; Mt 4:12) and is described in Mk 1:16-18; Mt 4:18,19. The two accounts are practically identical, and tell how Andrew and his brother were now called on definitely to forsake their mundane occupations and become fishers of men (Mk 1:17). The corresponding narrative of Luke varies in part; it does not mention Andrew by name, and gives the additional detail of the miraculous draught of fishes. By some it has been regarded as an amalgamation of Mark's account with Jn 21:1-8 (see JAMES ). After a period of companionship with Jesus, during which, in the house of Simon and Andrew, Simon's wife's mother was healed of a fever (Mk 1:29-31; compare Mt 8:14,15; Lk 4:38,39); the call of Andrew was finally consecrated by his election as one of the Twelve Apostles (Mt 10:2; Mk 3:18; Lk 6:14; Acts 1:13).
Further incidents recorded of Andrew are: At the feeding of the five thousand by the Sea of Galilee, the attention of Jesus was drawn by Andrew to the lad with five sequent barley loaves and two fishes (Jn 6 History 8.9). At the feast of the Passover, the Greeks who wished to "see Jesus" inquired of Philip, who turned for advice to Andrew, and the two then told Jesus (Jn 12:20-36). On the Mount of Olives, Andrew along with Peter, James and John, questioned Jesus regarding the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world (Mk 13:3-23; compare also Mt 24:3-28; Lk 21:5-24).
The name of Andrew's mother was traditionally Joanna, and according to the "Genealogies of the Twelve Apostles" (Budge, Contendings of the Apostles, II, 49) he belonged to the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of his father. A fragment of a Coptic gospel of the 4th or 5th century tells how not only Thomas (Jn 20:27), but also Andrew was compelled, by touching the feet of the risen Saviour, to believe in the bodily resurrection (Hennecke, Neutestamentlichen Apokryphen, etc., 38, 39). Various places were assigned as the scene of his subsequent missionary labors. The Syriac Teaching of the Apostles (ed Cureton, 34) mentions Bithynia, Eusebius gives Scythia (Historia Ecclesiastica, III, i, 1), and others Greece (Lipsius, Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten, I, 63). The Muratorian Fragment relates that John wrote his gospel in consequence of a revelation given to Andrew, and this would point to Ephesus (compare Hennecke id, 459). The Contendings of the Twelve Apostles (for historicity, authorship, etc., of this work, compare Budge, Contendings of the Apostles, Intro; Hennecke, Handbuch zu den neutestamentlichen Apokryphen, 351-58;RE , 664-66) contains several parts dealing with Andrew: (1) "The Preaching of Andrew and Philemon among the Kurds" (Budge,II 163 ff) narrates the appearance of the risen Christ to His disciples, the sending of Andrew to Lydia and his conversion of the people there. (2) The "Preaching of Matthias in the City of the Cannibals" (Budge, II, 267 ff; REH, 666) tells of how Matthias, on being imprisoned and blinded by the Cannibals, was released by Andrew, who had been brought to his assistance in a ship by Christ, but the two were afterward again imprisoned. Matthias then caused the city to be inundated, the disciples were set free, and the people converted. (3) "The Acts of Andrew and Bartholomew" (Budge, II, 183 ff) gives an account of their mission among the Parthians. (4) According to the "Martyrdom of Andrew" (Budge, II, 215) he was stoned and crucified in Scythia.
According to the surviving fragments of "The Acts of Andrew," a heretical work dating probably from the 2nd century, and referred to by Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica, III, ii, 5), the scene of Andrew's death was laid in Achaia. There he was imprisoned and crucified by order of the proconsul Eges (or Aegeates), whose wife had been estranged from him by the preaching of Andrew (compare Hennecke, 459-73; Pick, Apocryphal Acts, 201-21; Lipsius, I, 543-622). A so-called "Gospel of Andrew" mentioned by Innocent I (Ep, I, iii, 7) and Augustine (Contra Advers. Leg. et Prophet., I, 20), but this is probably due to a confusion with the above-mentioned "Acts of Andrew."
The relics of Andrew were discovered in Constantinople in the time of Justinian, and part of his cross is now in Peter's, Rome. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, whither his arm is said to have been transferred by Regulus. The ascription to him of the decussate cross is of late origin.
There is something significant in Andrew's being the first called of the apostles. The choice was an important one, for upon the lead given by Andrew depended the action of the others. Christ perceived that the soul's unrest, the straining after higher things and a deeper knowledge of God, which had induced Andrew to make the pilgrimage to Bethany, gave promise of a rich spiritual growth, which no doubt influenced Him in His decision. His wisdom and insight were justified of the after event. Along with a keenness of perception regarding spiritual truths was coupled in Andrew a strong sense of personal conviction which enabled him not only to accept Jesus as the Messiah, but to win Peter also as a disciple of Christ. The incident of the Feeding of the Five Thousand displayed Andrew in a fresh aspect: there the practical part which he played formed a striking contrast to the feeble-mindedness of Philip. Both these traits--his missionary spirit, and his decision of character which made others appeal to him when in difficulties--were evinced at the time when the Greeks sought to interview Jesus. Andrew was not one of the greatest of the apostles, yet he is typical of those men of broad sympathies and sound common sense, without whom the success of any great movement cannot be assured.
C. M. Kerr
an-dro-ni'-kus (Andronikos):
(1) A deputy of Antiochus Epiphanes, who, while ruling at Antioch, excited the Jews by the murder of Onias, and, upon their formal complaint, was executed by his superior (2 Macc 4:32-38); generally distinguished from another officer of the same name, also under Antiochus (2 Macc 5:23).
(2) A kinsman of Paul, residing at Rome (Rom 16:7). He had been converted to Christianity before Paul, and, like Paul, had suffered imprisonment, although when and where can only be surmised. When he and Junias, another kinsman of Paul, are referred to as "of note among the apostles," this may be interpreted as either designating the high esteem in which they were held by the Twelve, or as reckoning them in the number of apostles. The latter is the sense, if "apostle" be understood here in the more general meaning, used in Acts 14:14 of Barnabas, in 2 Cor 8:23 of Titus, in Phil 2:25 of Epaphroditus, and in the Didache of "the traveling evangelists or missionaries who preached the gospel from place to place" (Schaff, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 67; see also Lightfoot on Philippians, 196). On this assumption, Andronicus was one of the most prominent and successful of the traveling missionaries of the early church.
H. E. Jacobs
a'-nem (`anem, "two springs"; Anam): Anem is mentioned with Ramoth among the cities of Issachar assigned to the priests, the sons of Gershom (1 Ch 6:73). In the parallel list (Josh 21:29), there are mentioned Jarmuth and En-gannim, corresponding to Ramoth and Anim, therefore Anim and En-gannim (Jenin) are identical. As the name denotes (Anem = "two springs"; En-gannim = "the spring of gardens"), it was well watered. Anem is identified by Eusebius with Aner, but Conder suggests the village of "Anim," on the hills West of the plain of Esdraelon which represents the Anea of the 4th century AD (Onom under the word "Aniel" and "Bethara"), a city lying 15 Roman miles from Caesarea, which had good baths.
M. O. Evans
a'-ner (`aner; Septuagint Aunan; Samaritan Pentateuch, `anram, "sprout," "waterfall"): One of the three "confederates" of Abraham in his pursuit after the four kings (Gen 14:13,14). Judging from the meanings of the two other names, Mamre being the name of the sacred grove or tree (Jahwist) and synonymous with Hebron (Priestly Code); and Eschol--a name of a valley (lit. "grape cluster") from which the personal names are derived--it may be expected to explain the name Aner in a similar way. Dillmann suggested the name of a range of mountains in that vicinity (Comm. at the place and Rosen in ZDMG, XII, 479; Skinner, Genesis, 365).
S. Cohon
a'-ner (`aner, meaning doubtful): A Levitical town in Manasseh, West of the Jordan (1 Ch 6:70). Gesenius and others identified it with Taanach of Josh 21:25. There is, however, no agreement as to its location.
an'-e-thoth-it: the King James Version form of Anathothite (thus the Revised Version (British and American) 2 Sam 23:27).
an'-e-toth-it: the King James Version form of Anathothite (thus the Revised Version (British and American) 1 Ch 27:12).
an'-jel (mal'akh; Septuagint and New Testament, aggelos):
I. DEFINITION AND SCRIPTURE TERMS
1. Nature, Appearances and Functions
2. The Teaching of Jesus about Angels
3. Other New Testament References
IV. DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOCTRINE
LITERATURE
I. Definition and Scripture Terms.
The word angel is applied in Scripture to an order of supernatural or heavenly beings whose business it is to act as God's messengers to men, and as agents who carry out His will. Both in Hebrew and Greek the word is applied to human messengers (1 Ki 19:2; Lk 7:24); in Hebrew it is used in the singular to denote a Divine messenger, and in the plural for human messengers, although there are exceptions to both usages. It is applied to the prophet Haggai (Hag 1:13), to the priest (Mal 2:7), and to the messenger who is to prepare the way of the Lord (Mal 3:1). Other Hebrew words and phrases applied to angels are bene ha-'elohim (Gen 6:2,4; Job 1:6; 2:1) and bene 'elim (Ps 29:1; 89:6), i.e. sons of the 'elohim or 'elim; this means, according to a common Hebrew usage, members of the class called 'elohim or 'elim, the heavenly powers. It seems doubtful whether the word 'elohim, standing by itself, is ever used to describe angels, although Septuagint so translates it in a few passages. The most notable instance is Ps 8:5; where the Revised Version (British and American) gives, "Thou hast made him but little lower than God," with the English Revised Version, margin reading of "the angels" for "God" (compare Heb 2:7,9); qedhoshim "holy ones" (Ps 89:5,7), a name suggesting the fact that they belong to God; `ir, `irim, "watcher," "watchers" (Dan 4:13,17,23). Other expressions are used to designate angels collectively: codh, "council" (Ps 89:7), where the reference may be to an inner group of exalted angels; `edhah and qahal, "congregation" (Ps 82:1; 89:5); and finally tsabha', tsebha'oth, "host," "hosts," as in the familiar phrase "the God of hosts."
In New Testament the word aggelos, when it refers to a Divine messenger, is frequently accompanied by some phrase which makes this meaning clear, e.g. "the angels of heaven" (Mt 24:36). Angels belong to the "heavenly host" (Lk 2:13). In reference to their nature they are called "spirits" (Heb 1:14). Paul evidently referred to the ordered ranks of supra-mundane beings in a group of words that are found in various combinations, namely, archai, "principalities," exousiai, "powers," thronoi, "thrones," kuriotetes, "dominions," and dunameis, also translated "powers." The first four are apparently used in a good sense in Col 1:16, where it is said that all these beings were created through Christ and unto Him; in most of the other passages in which words from this group occur, they seem to represent evil powers. We are told that our wrestling is against them (Eph 6:12), and that Christ triumphs over the principalities and powers (Col 2:15; compare Rom 8:38; 1 Cor 15:24). In two passages the word archaggelos, "archangel" or chief angel, occurs: "the voice of the archangel" (1 Thess 4:16), and "Michael the archangel" (Jude 1:9).
1. Nature, Appearances and Functions:
Everywhere in the Old Testament the existence of angels is assumed. The creation of angels is referred to in Ps 148:2,5 (compare Col 1:16). They were present at the creation of the world, and were so filled with wonder and gladness that they "shouted for joy" (Job 38:7). Of their nature we are told nothing. In general they are simply regarded as embodiments of their mission. Though presumably the holiest of created beings, they are charged by God with folly (Job 4:18), and we are told that "he putteth no trust in his holy ones" (Job 15:15). References to the fall of the angels are only found in the obscure and probably corrupt passage Gen 6:1-4, and in the interdependent passages 2 Pet 2:4 and Jude 1:6, which draw their inspiration from the Apocryphal book of Enoch. Demons are mentioned (see DEMON ); and although Satan appears among the sons of God (Job 1:6; 2:1), there is a growing tendency in later writers to attribute to him a malignity that is all his own (see SATAN ).
As to their outward appearance, it is evident that they bore the human form, and could at times be mistaken for men (Ezek 9:2; Gen 18:2,16). There is no hint that they ever appeared in female form. The conception of angels as winged beings, so familiar in Christian art, finds no support in Scripture (except, perhaps Dan 9:21; Rev 14:6, where angels are represented as "flying"). The cherubim and seraphim (see CHERUB ;SERAPHIM ) are represented as winged (Ex 25:20; Isa 6:2); winged also are the symbolic living creatures of Ezek (Ezek 1:6; compare Rev 4:8).
As above stated, angels are messengers and instruments of the Divine will. As a rule they exercise no influence in the physical sphere. In several instances, however, they are represented as destroying angels: two angels are commissioned to destroy Sodom (Gen 19:13); when David numbers the people, an angel destroys them by pestilence (2 Sam 24:16); it is by an angel that the Assyrian army is destroyed (2 Ki 19:35); and Ezekiel hears six angels receiving the command to destroy those who were sinful in Jerusalem (Ezek 9:1,5,7). In this connection should be noted the expression "angels of evil," i.e. angels that bring evil upon men from God and execute His judgments (Ps 78:49; compare 1 Sam 16:14). Angels appear to Jacob in dreams (Gen 28:12; 31:11). The angel who meets Balaam is visible first to the ass, and not to the rider (Nu 22 ff). Angels interpret God's will, showing man what is right for him (Job 33:23). The idea of angels as caring for men also appears (Ps 91:11 f), although the modern conception of the possession by each man of a special guardian angel is not found in Old Testament.
The phrase "the host of heaven" is applied to the stars, which were sometimes worshipped by idolatrous Jews (Jer 33:22; 2 Ki 21:3; Zeph 1:5); the name is applied to the company of angels because of their countless numbers (compare Dan 7:10) and their glory. They are represented as standing on the right and left hand of Yahweh (1 Ki 22:19). Hence God, who is over them all, is continually called throughout Old Testament "the God of hosts," "Yahweh of hosts," "Yahweh God of hosts"; and once "the prince of the host" (Dan 8:11). One of the principal functions of the heavenly host is to be ever praising the name of the Lord (Ps 103:21; 148:1 f). In this host there are certain figures that stand out prominently, and some of them are named. The angel who appears to Joshua calls himself "prince of the host of Yahweh" (Josh 5:14 f). The glorious angel who interprets to Daniel the vision which he saw in the third year of Cyrus (Dan 10:5), like the angel who interprets the vision in the first year of Belshazzar (Dan 7:16), is not named; but other visions of the same prophet were explained to him by the angel Gabriel, who is called "the man Gabriel," and is described as speaking with "a man's voice" (Dan 9:21; 8:15 f). In Daniel we find occasional reference made to "princes": "the prince of Persia," "the prince of Greece" (10:20). These are angels to whom is entrusted the charge of, and possibly the rule over, certain peoples. Most notable among them is Michael, described as "one of the chief princes," "the great prince who standeth for the children of thy people," and, more briefly, "your prince" (Dan 10:13; 12:1; 10:21); Michael is therefore regarded as the patron-angel of the Jews. In Apocrypha Raphael, Uriel and Jeremiel are also named. Of Raphael it is said (Tobit 12:15) that he is "one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of the saints" to God (compare Rev 8:2, "the seven angels that stand before God"). It is possible that this group of seven is referred to in the above-quoted phrase, "one of the chief princes". Some (notably Kosters) have maintained that the expressions "the sons of the 'elohim," God's "council" and "congregation," refer to the ancient gods of the heathen, now degraded and wholly subordinated to Yahweh. This rather daring speculation has little support in Scripture; but we find traces of a belief that the patron-angels of the nations have failed in establishing righteousness within their allotted sphere on earth, and that they will accordingly be punished by Yahweh their over-Lord (Isa 24:21 f; Ps 82; compare Ps 58:1 f the Revised Version, margin; compare Jude 1:6).
3. The Angel of the Theophany:
This angel is spoken of as "the angel of Yahweh," and "the angel of the presence (or face) of Yahweh." The following passages contain references to this angel: Gen 16:7 ff--the angel and Hagar; Gen 18--Abraham intercedes with the angel for Sodom; Gen 22:11 ff--the angel interposes to prevent the sacrifice of Isaac; Gen 24:7,40--Abraham sends Eliezer and promises the angel's protection; Gen 31:11 ff--the angel who appears to Jacob says "I am the God of Beth-el"; Gen 32:24 ff--Jacob wrestles with the angel and says, "I have seen God face to face"; Gen 48:15 f--Jacob speaks of God and the angel as identical; Ex 3 (compare Acts 7:30 ff)--the angel appears to Moses in the burning bush; Ex 13:21; 14:19 (compare Nu 20:16)--God or the angel leads Israel out of Egypt; Ex 23:20 ff--the people are commanded to obey the angel; Ex 32:34 through 33:17 (compare Isa 63:9)--Moses pleads for the presence of God with His people; Josh 5:13 through 6:2--the angel appears to Joshua; Jdg 2:1-5--the angel speaks to the people; Jdg 6:11 ff--the angel appears to Gideon.
A study of these passages shows that while the angel and Yahweh are at times distinguished from each other, they are with equal frequency, and in the same passages, merged into each other. How is this to be explained? It is obvious that these apparitions cannot be the Almighty Himself, whom no man hath seen, or can see. In seeking the explanation, special attention should be paid to two of the passages above cited. In Ex 23:20 ff God promises to send an angel before His people to lead them to the promised land; they are commanded to obey him and not to provoke him "for he will not pardon your transgression: for my name is in him." Thus the angel can forgive sin, which only God can do, because God's name, i.e. His character and thus His authority, are in the angel. Further, in the passage Ex 32:34 through 33:17 Moses intercedes for the people after their first breach of the covenant; God responds by promising, "Behold mine angel shall go before thee"; and immediately after God says, "I will not go up in the midst of thee." In answer to further pleading, God says, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." Here a clear distinction is made between an ordinary angel, and the angel who carries with him God's presence. The conclusion may be summed up in the words of Davidson in his Old Testament Theology: "In particular providences one may trace the presence of Yahweh in influence and operation; in ordinary angelic appearances one may discover Yahweh present on some side of His being, in some attribute of His character; in the angel of the Lord He is fully present as the covenant God of His people, to redeem them." The question still remains, Who is theophanic angel? To this many answers have been given, of which the following may be mentioned: (1) This angel is simply an angel with a special commission; (2) He may be a momentary descent of God into visibility; (3) He may be the Logos, a kind of temporary preincarnation of the second person of the Trinity. Each has its difficulties, but the last is certainly the most tempting to the mind. Yet it must be remembered that at best these are only conjectures that touch on a great mystery. It is certain that from the beginning God used angels in human form, with human voices, in order to communicate with man; and the appearances of the angel of the Lord, with his special redemptive relation to God's people, show the working of that Divine mode of self-revelation which culminated in the coming of the Saviour, and are thus a fore-shadowing of, and a preparation for, the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Further than this, it is not safe to go.
Nothing is related of angels in New Testament which is inconsistent with the teaching of Old Testament on the subject. Just as they are specially active in the beginning of Old Testament history, when God's people is being born, so they appear frequently in connection with the birth of Jesus, and again when a new order of things begins with the resurrection. An angel appears three times in dreams to Joseph (Mt 1:20; 2:13,19). The angel Gabriel appears to Zacharias, and then to Mary in the annunciation (Lk 1). An angel announces to the shepherds the birth of Jesus, and is joined by a "multitude of the heavenly host," praising God in celestial song (Lk 2:8 ff). When Jesus is tempted, and again during the agony at Gethsemane, angels appear to Him to strengthen His soul (Mt 4:11; Lk 22:43). The verse which tells how an angel came down to trouble the pool (Jn 5:4) is now omitted from the text as not being genuine. An angel descends to roll away the stone from the tomb of Jesus (Mt 28:2); angels are seen there by certain women (Lk 24:23) and (two) by Mary Magdalene (Jn 20:12). An angel releases the apostles from prison, directs Philip, appears to Peter in a dream, frees him from prison, smites Herod with sickness, appears to Paul in a dream (Acts 5:19; 8:26; 10:3; 12:7 ff; 12:23; 27:23). Once they appear clothed in white; they are so dazzling in appearance as to terrify beholders; hence they begin their message with the words "Fear not" (Mt 28:2-5).
2. The Teaching of Jesus about Angels:
It is quite certain that our Lord accepted the main teachings of Old Testament about angels, as well as the later Jewish belief in good and bad angels. He speaks of the "angels in heaven" (Mt 22:30), and of "the devil and his angels" (Mt 25:41). According to our Lord the angels of God are holy (Mk 8:38); they have no sex or sensuous desires (Mt 22:30); they have high intelligence, but they know not the time of the Second Coming (Mt 24:36); they carry (in a parable) the soul of Lazarus to Abraham's bosom (Lk 16:22); they could have been summoned to the aid of our Lord, had He so desired (Mt 26:53); they will accompany Him at the Second Coming (Mt 25:31) and separate the righteous from the wicked (Mt 13:41,49). They watch with sympathetic eyes the fortunes of men, rejoicing in the repentance of a sinner (Lk 15:10; compare 1 Pet 1:12; Eph 3:10; 1 Cor 4:9); and they will hear the Son of Man confessing or denying those who have confessed or denied Him before men (Lk 12:8 f). The angels of the presence of God, who do not appear to correspond to our conception of guardian angels, are specially interested in God's little ones (Mt 18:10). Finally, the existence of angels is implied in the Lord's Prayer in the petition, "Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth" (Mt 6:10).
3. Other New Testament References:
Paul refers to the ranks of angels ("principalities, powers" etc.) only in order to emphasize the complete supremacy of Jesus Christ. He teaches that angels will be judged by the saints (1 Cor 6:3). He attacks the incipient Gnosticism of Asia Minor by forbidding the, worship of angels (Col 2:18). He speaks of God's angels as "elect," because they are included in the counsels of Divine love (1 Tim 5:21). When Paul commands the women to keep their heads covered in church because of the angels (1 Cor 11:10) he probably means that the angels, who watch all human affairs with deep interest, would be pained to see any infraction of the laws of modesty. In Heb 1:14 angels are (described as ministering spirits engaged in the service of the saints. Peter also emphasizes the supremacy of our Lord over all angelic beings (1 Pet 3:22). The references to angels in 2 Peter and Jude are colored by contact with Apocrypha literature. In Revelation, where the references are obviously symbolic, there is very frequent mention of angels. The angels of the seven churches (Rev 1:20) are the guardian angels or the personifications of these churches. The worship of angels is also forbidden (Rev 22:8 f). Specially interesting is the mention of elemental angels--"the angel of the waters" (Rev 16:5), and the angel "that hath power over fire" (Rev 14:18; compare Rev 7:1; 19:17). Reference is also made to the "angel of the bottomless pit," who is called ABADDON or APOLLYON (which see), evidently an evil angel (Rev 9:11 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "abyss"). In Rev 12:7 ff we are told that there was war between Michael with his angels and the dragon with his angels.
IV. Development of the Doctrine.
In the childhood of the race it was easy to believe in God, and He was very near to the soul. In Paradise there is no thought of angels; it is God Himself who walks in the garden. A little later the thought of angels appears, but, God has not gone away, and as "the angel of Yahweh" He appears to His people and redeems them. In these early times the Jews believed that there were multitudes of angels, not yet divided in thought into good and bad; these had no names or personal characteristics, but were simply embodied messages. Till the time of the captivity the Jewish angelology shows little development. During that dark period they came into close contact with a polytheistic people, only to be more deeply confirmed in their monotheism thereby. They also became acquainted with the purer faith of the Persians, and in all probability viewed the tenets of Zoroastrianism with a more favorable eye, because of the great kindness of Cyrus to their nation. There are few direct traces of Zoroastrianism in the later angelology of the Old Testament. It is not even certain that the number seven as applied to the highest group of angels is Persian in its origin; the number seven was not wholly disregarded by the Jews. One result of the contact was that the idea of a hierarchy of the angels was more fully developed. The conception in Dan of angels as "watchers," and the idea of patron-princes or angel-guardians of nations may be set down to Persian influence. It is probable that contact with the Persians helped the Jews to develop ideas already latent in their minds. According to Jewish tradition, the names of the angels came from Babylon. By this time the consciousness of sin had grown more intense in the Jewish mind, and God had receded to an immeasurable distance; the angels helped to fill the gap between God and man.
The more elaborate conceptions of Daniel and Zechariah are further developed in Apocrypha, especially in 2 Esdras, Tobit and 2 Macc.
In the New Testament we find that there is little further development; and by the Spirit of God its writers were saved from the absurdly puerile teachings of contemporary Rabbinism. We find that the Sadducees, as contrasted with the Pharisees, did not believe in angels or spirits (Acts 23:8). We may conclude that the Sadducees, with their materialistic standpoint, and denial of the resurrection, regarded angels merely as symbolical expressions of God's actions. It is noteworthy in this connection that the great priestly document (Priestly Code, P) makes no mention of angels. The Book of Revelation naturally shows a close kinship to the books of Ezekiel and Daniel.
Regarding the rabbinical developments of angelology, some beautiful, some extravagant, some grotesque, but all fanciful, it is not necessary here to speak. The Essenes held an esoteric doctrine of angels, in which most scholars find the germ of the Gnostic eons.
A belief in angels, if not indispensable to the faith of a Christian, has its place there. In such a belief there is nothing unnatural or contrary to reason. Indeed, the warm welcome which human nature has always given to this thought, is an argument in its favor. Why should there not be such an order of beings, if God so willed it? For the Christian the whole question turns on the weight to be attached to the words of our Lord. All are agreed that He teaches the existence, reality, and activity of angelic beings. Was He in error because of His human limitations? That is a conclusion which it is very hard for the Christian to draw, and we may set it aside. Did He then adjust His teaching to popular belief, knowing that what He said was not true? This explanation would seem to impute deliberate untruth to our Lord, and must equally be set aside. So we find ourselves restricted to the conclusion that we have the guaranty of Christ's word for the existence of angels; for most Christians that will settle the question.
The visible activity of angels has come to an end, because their mediating work is done; Christ has founded the kingdom of the Spirit, and God's Spirit speaks directly to the spirit of man. This new and living way has been opened up to us by Jesus Christ, upon whom faith can yet behold the angels of God ascending and descending. Still they watch the lot of man, and rejoice in his salvation; still they join in the praise and adoration of God, the Lord of hosts, still can they be regarded as "ministering spirits sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation."
LITERATURE.
All Old Testament and New Testament theologies contain discussions. Among the older books Oehler's Old Testament Theology and Hengstenberg's Christology of Old Testament (for "angel of Yahweh") and among modern ones Davidson's Old Testament Theology are specially valuable. The ablest supporter of theory that the "sons of the Elohim" are degraded gods is Kosters. "Het onstaan der Angelologie onder Israel," TT 1876. See also articles on "Angel" inHDB (by Davidson),EB ,DCG , Jew Encyclopedia,RE (by Cremer). Cremer's Biblico-Theological New Testament Lexicon should be consulted under the word "aggelos." For Jewish beliefs see also Edersheim's Life and Times of Jesus,II , Appendix xiii. On the Pauline angelology see Everling, Die paulinische Angelologie. On the general subject see Godet, Biblical Studies; Mozley, The Word, chapter lix, and Latham,A Service of Angels.
John Macartney Wilson
See ANGEL .
See ANGEL (II , 3).
It is evident from the contexts of the various Biblical passages in which the word "angel" appears, that the word does not always represent the same idea. In such passages as Dan 12:1 and Acts 12:15 it would seem that the angel was generally regarded as a superhuman being whose duty it was to guard a nation or an individual, not unlike the jenei of the Arabs. However, in Mal 2:7 and 3:1 (Hebrew) the word is clearly used to represent men. In the New Testament also, there are passages, such as Jas 2:25 (Greek), in which the word seems to be applied to men. The seven angels of the seven churches (Rev 1:20) received seven letters, figurative letters, and therefore it would seem that the seven angels are also figurative and may refer to the seven bishops who presided over the seven churches of Asia. Or the angels may be regarded as the personifications of the churches.
E. J. Banks
an'-ger: In the Old Testament, the translation of several Hebrew words, especially of 'aph (lit. "nostril," "countenance"), which is used some 45 times of human, 177 times of Divine, anger (OHL). The word occurs rarely in the New Testament (Mk 3:5; Eph 4:31; Col 3:8; Rev 14:10), its place being taken by the word "wrath" (see WRATH ). As a translation of words denoting God's "anger," the English word is unfortunate so far as it may seem to imply selfish, malicious or vindictive personal feeling. The anger of God is the response of His holiness to outbreaking sin. Particularly when it culminates in action is it rightly called Has "wrath." The Old Testament doctrine of God's anger is contained in many passages in the Pentateuch, Psalms and the Prophets. In Proverbs men are dissuaded from anger (15:1; 27:4), and the "slow to anger" is commended (15:18; 16:32; 19:11). Christians axe enjoined to put away the feeling of self-regarding, vindictive anger (Eph 4:31; Col 3:8), and to cherish no desire of personal revenge (Eph 4:26).
F. K. Farr
an'-g'-l: Used in Isa 19:8 for a Hebrew noun that is rendered "hook" in Job 41:1: "The fishers shall lament, and all they that cast angle (hook) into the Nile shall mourn." For a striking figurative use of it see Hab 1:15 where, speaking of the wicked devouring the righteous, "making men as the fishes of the sea," the prophet says: "They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net" (the Revised Version (British and American) uses singular).
an'-gling: Angling, i.e. fishing with a hook or angle, was little known among the ancients. The fish were chiefly taken by casting nets, etc. (see Mt 13:47). Compare e.g. "Then did Deucalion first the art invent of angling" (Davors, Secret of Angling, I).
See NET .
an-glo-sax'-on vur'-shuns.
See ENGLISH VERSIONS .
an'-gwish: Extreme distress of body, mind or spirit; excruciating pain or suffering of soul, e.g. excessive grief, remorse, despair. Chiefly expressed in Old Testament, by four derivatives of tsuq, "straitened," "pressed," and tsar, and two derivatives signifying "straitness," "narrowness," hence distress; also shabhats, "giddiness," "confusion of mind"; hul "to twist" with pain, "writhe." So in the New Testament, thlipsis, "a pressing together," hence affliction, tribulation, stenochoria, "narrowness of place," hence extreme affliction; sunoche, "a holding together," hence distress. The fundamental idea in these various terms is pressure--being straitened, compressed into a narrow place, or pain through physical or mental torture. Used of the physical agony of child-birth (Jer 4:31; 6:24; 49:24; 50:43; Jn 16:21); of distress of soul as the result of sin and wickedness (Job 15:24; Prov 1:27; Rom 2:9); of anguish of spirit through the cruel bondage of slavery (Ex 6:9) and Assyrian oppression (Isa 8:22); of the anxiety and pain of Christian love because of the sins of fellow-disciples (2 Cor 2:4).
Dwight M. Pratt
a-ni'-am (`ani`am, "lament of the people"): A son of Shemidah of Manasseh (1 Ch 7:19).
a'-nim (`anim, "springs"): One of the cities of the hill country of Judah mentioned immediately after Eshtemoa (Josh 15:50). It is probably represented by the double ruin of el Ghuwein situated South of es Semu`a. The surface remains are Byzantine--a Christian town called Anem was here in the 4th century, but it is clearly an ancient site of importance (PEF, III, 408, Sh, XXV).
an'-i-mal:
See under the various names and also the general article onZOOLOGY .
an'-is, or dil; (RVm, anethon): Not the true anise, Pimpinella anisum, as was supposed by the King James Version translators, but Dill, Anethum graveolens. This is an annual or biennial herb of NO Umbelliferae, growing from one to three feet high, with small yellow flowers and brownish, flattened, oval fruits 1/5 inch long. It grows wild in lands bordering on the Mediterranean. The seeds have an aromatic flavor and are used as condiment in cooking, as carminative in medicine. "Dill water" is a favorite domestic remedy. Jesus said (Mt 23:23): "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law," etc. In the tract, Ma`aseroth (4 5) it is mentioned that this plant (Hebrew shabhath), its stem, leaves and seed, was subject to tithe.
See CUT .
E. W. G. Masterman
an'-k'-l (in older editions of the King James Version, ancle): From Hebrew me'aphecayim literally, "water of ankles," i.e. shallow water (Ezek 47:3); "anklebones" (Acts 3:7) from sphudron "ankle chains" (the King James Version "chains"), from a Hebrew root meaning "to walk about proudly" (Nu 31:50). The same Hebrew word is translated "bracelet" (2 Sam 1:10), but in Isa 3:20 another word from the same root "ankle chains" (the King James Version "ornaments of the legs"). Compare ANKLET (Isa 3:18).
an'-klet, an'-k'-l-chan: "Anklets" is rightly found in Isa 3:18 the Revised Version (British and American), and "ankle-chains" in Nu 31:50 the Revised Version (British and American). A cognate word of essentially the same meaning is used in Isa 3:20, and is rendered by the King James Version "ornaments of the legs." It was these "anklets" that Isaiah represented the ladies of Jerusalem as "rattling" as they walked (Isa 3:16 to end), "making a tinkling with their feet"; and a part of the punishment threatened is, "The Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet" (Isa 3:16 the King James Version).
an'-a (Anna (Westcott-Hort, Hanna; see Intro, 408); Hebrew equivalent channah, signifying "grace" 1 Sam 1:2):
(1) The wife of Tobit (Tobit 1:9).
(2) A "prophetess," daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, and thus a Galilean, living in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' birth (Lk 2:36-38). "Of a great age," she must have been considerably over 100 years, having been a widow 84 years after a short married life of seven (see the Revised Version (British and American)). Exceptionally devout and gifted in spirit, she worshipped so constantly "with fastings and supplications night and day," that she is said to have "departed not from the temple." Some have mistakenly supposed that this signified permanent residence in the temple. The fact that her lineage is recorded indicates the distraction of her family. Tradition says that the tribe of Asher was noted for the beauty and talent of its women, who for these gifts, were qualified for royal and high-priestly marriage. While the tribe of Asher was not among the tribes that returned from the Babylonian exile to Palestine, many of its chief families must have done so as in the case of the prophetess. The period of war and national oppression, through which Anna's early life was passed, created in her, as in the aged Simeon, an intense longing for the "redemption" promised through the Messiah. See SIMEON . This hope of national deliverance sustained her through more than four decades of patient waiting. In the birth of Jesus her faith was abundantly rewarded, and she became a grateful and ceaseless witness "to all them that were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem," that the day of their spiritual deliverance had come.
LITERATURE.
See Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, I, 200-201, Gelkie, Life and Words of Christ, I, 133-34.
Dwight M. Pratt
an'-a-as (Sanaas, 1 Esdras 5:23, the Revised Version (British and American) SANAAS): The Senaah of Ezr 2:35.
an'-as (Annas; Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek Hannas; Josephus Ananos, the Greek form of Hebrew chanan; "merciful," "gracious"; compare Neh 8:7, etc.):
(1) A high priest of the Jews, the virtual head of the priestly party in Jerusalem in the time of Christ, a man of commanding influence. He was the son of Seth (Josephus: Sethi), and was elevated to the high-priesthood by Quirinius, governor of Syria, 7 AD. At this period the office was filled and vacated at the caprice of the Roman procurators, and Annas was deposed by Valerius Gratus, 15 AD. But though deprived of official status, he continued to wield great power as the dominant member of the hierarchy, using members of his family as his willing instruments. That he was an adroit diplomatist is shown by the fact that five of his sons (Ant., XX, ix, 1) and his son-in-law Caiaphas (Jn 18:13) held the high-priesthood in almost unbroken succession, though he did not survive to see the office filled by his fifth son Annas or AnanusII , who caused Jas the Lord's brother to be stoned to death (circa 62AD ). Another mark of his continued influence is, that long after he had lost his office he was still called "high priest," and his name appears first wherever the names of the chief members of the sacerdotal faction are given. Acts 4:6, "And Annas the high priest was there, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest." Annas is almost certainly called high priest in Jn 18:19,22, though in 18:13,24 Caiaphas is mentioned as the high priest. Note especially the remarkable phrase in Lk 3:2, "in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas," as if they were joint holders of the office. The cases In which Josephus gives the title "high-priest" to persons who no longer held the office afford no real parallel to this. The explanation seems to be that owing to age, ability and force of character Annas was the virtual, though Caiaphas the titular, high priest. He belonged to the Sadducean aristocracy, and, like others of that class, he seems to have been arrogant, astute, ambitious and enormously wealthy. He and his family were proverbial for their rapacity and greed. The chief source of their wealth seems to have been the sale of requisites for the temple sacrifices, such as sheep, doves, wine and oil, which they carried on in the four famous "booths of the sons of Annas" on the Mount of Olives, with a branch within the precincts of the temple itself. During the great feasts, they were able to extort high monopoly prices for theft goods. Hence, our Lord's strong denunciation of those who made the house of prayer "a den of robbers" (Mk 11:15-19), and the curse in the Talmud, "Woe to the family of Annas! Woe to the serpent-like hisses" (Pes 57a). As to the part he played in the trial and death of our Lord, although he does not figure very prominently in the gospel narratives, he seems to have been mainly responsible for the course of events. Renan's emphatic statement is substantially correct, "Annas was the principal actor in the terrible drama, and far more than Caiaphas, far more than Pilate, ought to bear the weight of the maledictions of mankind" (Life of Jesus). Caiaphas, indeed, as actual high priest, was the nominal head of the Sanhedrin which condemned Jesus, but the aged Annas was the ruling spirit. According to Jn 18:12,13, it was to him that the officers who arrested Jesus led Him first. "The reason given for that proceeding ("for he was father-in-law of Caiaphas") lays open alike the character of the man and the character of the trial" (Westcott, in the place cited). Annas (if he is the high priest of Jn 18:19-23, as seems most likely) questioned Him concerning His disciples and teaching. This trial is not mentioned by the synoptists, probably because it was merely informal and preliminary and of a private nature, meant to gather material for the subsequent trial. Failing to elicit anything to his purpose from Jesus, "Annas therefore sent him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest" (Jn 18:24 the King James Version is incorrect and misleading) for formal trial before the Sanhedrin, "but as one already stamped with a sign of condemnation" (Westcott). Doubtless Annas was present at the subsequent proceedings, but no further mention is made of him in New Testament, except that he was present at the meeting of the Sanhedrin after Pentecost when Peter and John defended themselves for preaching the gospel of the resurrection (Acts 4:6).
(2) Head of a family who returned with Ezra (1 Esdras 9:32), called "Harim" in Ezr 10:31.
D. Miall Edwards
an'-is (the King James Version Ananias; the Revised Version, margin Annias, Anneis Codex Vaticanus, Annias Codex Alexandrinus): The name of a family in the list of the returning exiles (1 Esdras 5:16). The name is not given in the parallel list in Ezra and Nehemiah.
a-nul', dis-a-nul': God, as the Supreme Ruler, can disannul His covenant for cause (Isa 28:18); man, through willfulness and transgression, as party of the second part, may break the contract and thus release Yahweh, as party of the first part (Job 40:8; Isa 14:27), though there are some purposes and laws which the Almighty will carry out in spite of ungodly rage and ravings (Gal 3:15 the King James Version); or an old law or covenant might be conceived as disannulled by a new one (Gal 3:17), or because of its becoming obsolete and ineffective (Heb 7:18). For the first idea, the Hebrew employs kaphar = "to cover," "to expiate," "condone," "placate," "cancel," "cleanse," "disannul," "purge," "put off" (Isa 28:18); and the Greek (Gal 3:15), atheteo = "to set aside," "disesteem," "neutralize," "violate," "frustrate." One covenant disannulling another by "conflict of laws" is expressed by akuroo, "to invalidate," "disannul," "make of no effect." Atheteo is employed to express also the disannulling through age and disuse (Heb 7:18).
Frank E. Hirsch
an'-us (A, Annous, B, Anniouth; the King James Version Anus = Bani, Neh 8:7): One of the Levites who interpreted the law to the people (1 Esdras 9:48).
an'-u-us (Announos): Returned with Ezra from Babylon to perform the functions of a priest in Jerusalem (1 Esdras 8:48). Omitted in Ezr 8:19.
a-noint', a-noint'-ed (aleipho, chrio): Refers to a very general practice in the East. It originated from the relief from the effect of the sun that was experienced in rubbing the body with oil or grease. Among rude people the common vegetable or animal fat was used. As society advanced and refinement became a part of civilization, delicately perfumed ointments were used for this purpose. Other reasons soon obtained for this practice than that stated above. Persons were anointed for health (Mk 6:13), because of the widespread belief in the healing power of oil. It was often employed as a mark of hospitality (Lk 7:46); as a mark of special honor (Jn 11:2); in preparation for social occasions (Ruth 3:3; 2 Sam 14:2; Isa 61:3). The figurative use of this word (chrio) has reference strictly to the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the individual (Lk 4:18; Acts 4:27; 10:38). In this sense it is God who anoints (Heb 19; 2 Cor 1:21). The thought is to appoint, or qualify for a special dignity, function or privilege. It is in this sense that the word is applied to Christ (Jn 1:41 m; Acts 4:27; 10:38; Heb 1:9; compare Ps 2:2; Dan 9:25).
See also ANOINTING .
Jacob W. Kapp
a-noint'-ing: A distinction was made by the ancient Hebrews between anointing with oil in private use, as in making one's toilet (cukh), and anointing as a religious rite (mashach).
(1) As regards its secular or ordinary use, the native olive oil, alone or mixed with perfumes, was commonly used for toilet purposes, the very poor naturally reserving it for special occasions only (Ruth 3:3). The fierce protracted heat and biting lime dust of Palestine made the oil very soothing to the skin, and it was applied freely to exposed parts of the body, especially to the face (Ps 104:15).
(2) The practice was in vogue before David's time, and traces of it may be found throughout the Old Testament (see Dt 28:40; Ruth 3:3; 2 Sam 12:20; 14:2; 2 Chron 28:15; Ezek 16:9; Mic 6:15; Dan 10:3) and in the New Testament (Mt 6:17, etc.). Indeed it seems to have been a part of the daily toilet throughout the East.
(3) To abstain from it was one token of mourning (2 Sam 14:2; compare Mt 6:17), and to resume it a sign that the mourning was ended (2 Sam 12:20; 14:2; Dan 10:3; Judith 10:3). It often accompanied the bath (Ruth 3:3; 2 Sam 12:20; Ezek 16:9; Susanna 17), and was a customary part of the preparation for a feast (Eccl 9:8; Ps 23:5). One way of showing honor to a guest was to anoint his head with oil (Ps 23:5; Lk 7:46); a rarer and more striking way was to anoint his feet (Lk 7:38). In Jas 5:14, we have an instance of anointing with oil for medicinal purposes, for which see OIL .
Anointing as a religious rite was practiced throughout the ancient East in application both to persons and to things.
(1) It was observed in Canaan long before the Hebrew conquest, and, accordingly, Weinel (Stade's Zeutschrift, XVIII, 50 ff) holds that, as the use of oil for general purposes in Israel was an agricultural custom borrowed from the Canaanites, so the anointing with sacred oil was an outgrowth from its regular use for toilet purposes. It seems more in accordance with the known facts of the case and the terms used in description to accept the view set forth by Robertson Smith (Religion of the Semites, 2nd ed., 233, 383 ff; compare Wellhausen, Reste des arabischen Heidenthums, 2nd ed., 125 ff) and to believe that the cukh or use of oil for toilet purposes, was of agricultural and secular origin, and that the use of oil for sacred purposes, mashach, was in origin nomadic and sacrificial. Robertson Smith finds the origin of the sacred anointing in the very ancient custom of smearing the sacred fat on the altar (matstsebhah), and claims, rightly it would seem, that from the first there was a distinct and consistent usage, distinguishing the two terms as above.
(2) The primary meaning of mashach in Hebrew, which is borne out by the Arabic, seems to have been "to daub" or "smear." It is used of painting a ceiling in Jer 22:14, of anointing a shield in Isa 21:5, and is, accordingly, consistently applied to sacred furniture, like the altar, in Ex 29:36 and Dan 9:24, and to the sacred pillar in Gen 31:13: "where thou anointedst a pillar."
(3) The most significant uses of mashach, however, are found in its application, not to sacred things, but to certain sacred persons. The oldest and most sacred of these, it would seem, was the anointing of the king, by pouring oil upon his head at his coronation, a ceremony regarded as sacred from the earliest times, and observed religiously not in Israel only, but in Egypt and elsewhere (see Jdg 9:8,15; 1 Sam 9:16; 10:1; 2 Sam 19:10; 1 Ki 1:39,45; 2 Ki 9:3,6; 11:12). Indeed such anointing appears to have been reserved exclusively for the king in the earliest times, which accounts for the fact that "the Lord's anointed" became a synonym for "king" (see 1 Sam 12:3,5; 26:11; 2 Sam 1:14; Ps 20:6). It is thought by some that the practice originated in Egypt, and it is known to have been observed as a rite in Canaan at a very early day. Tell el-Amarna Letters 37 records the anointing of a king.
(4) Among the Hebrews it was believed not only that it effected a transference to the anointed one of something of the holiness and virtue of the deity in whose name and by whose representative the rite was performed, but also that it imparted a special endowment of the spirit of Yahweh (compare 1 Sam 16:13; Isa 61:1). Hence the profound reverence for the king as a sacred personage, "the anointed" (Hebrew, meshiach YHWH), which passed over into our language through the Greek Christos, and appears as "Christ".
(5) In what is known today as the Priestly Code, the high priest is spoken of as "anointed" (Ex 29:7; Lev 4:3; 8:12), and, in passages regarded by some as later additions to the Priestly Code, other priests also are thus spoken of (Ex 30:30; 40:13-15). Elijah was told to anoint Elisha as a prophet (1 Ki 19:16), but seems never to have done so. 1 Ki 19:16 gives us the only recorded instance of such a thing as the anointing of a prophet. Isa 61:1 is purely metaphorical (compare Dillmann on Lev 8:12-14 with ICC on Nu 3:3; see also Nowack, Lehrbuch der hebraischen Archaologie,II , 124).
LITERATURE.
Jewish Encyclopedia, article "Anointing"; BJ, IV, ix, 10, DB, article "Anointing," etc.
George B. Eager
a-non' (eutheos, euthus): In the King James Version of Mk 1:30; Mt 13:20, for "straightway" of the Revised Version (British and American), i.e. "without delay," "immediately."
a'-nos (Anos = Vaniah (Ezr 10:36): A son of Bani who put away his "strange wife" (1 Esdras 9:34).
an'-ser: In our English Bible the word "answer" does not always mean a simple reply to a question.
Six different words are translated by answer. (1) It is frequently used where no question has been asked and in such cases it means a word, a statement. (2) It also means a response (Job 21:34; 34:36). (3) It often means a declaration or proclamation from God where no question has been asked. See the many passages that read: "The Lord answered and said." (4) The other words translated "answer" or "answered" in the Old Testament are unimportant shadings and variations.
The words translated "answer" are not so varied. (1) It sometimes means an apology, a defense (1 Pet 3:15; Acts 24:10,25). (2) It may mean simply "to say" (Mk 9:6). (3) It may mean a revelation from God (Rom 11:4). (4) It is also used to apply to unspoken thoughts of the heart, especially in the sayings of Jesus; also by Peter to Sapphira (Acts 5:8).
G. H. Gerberding
an'-ser-a-bl: This word is found in the Old Testament only. Moses and Ezekiel alone use it (Ex 38:18; Ezek 40:18; 45:7; 48:13,18). It is used in the Old English sense of "corresponding to," "in harmony with." Bunyan uses it in the same sense (Holy War, Clar. Press ed., 92).
(nemalah = Arabic namalah): The word occurs only twice in the Bible, in the familiar passages in Prov (6:6; 30:25) in both of which this insect is made an example of the wisdom of providing in the summer for the wants of the winter. Not all ants store up seeds for winter use, but among the ants of Palestine there are several species that do so, and their well-marked paths are often seen about Palestinian threshing-floors and in other places where seeds are to be obtained. The path sometimes extends for a great distance from the nest.
Alfred Ely Day
an-te-di-lu'-vi-an pa'-tri-arks.
1. The Ten Antediluvian Patriarchs:
Ten patriarchs who lived before the Flood are listed in the genealogical table of Gen 5, together with a statement of the age of each at the birth of his son, the number of years that remained to him till death, and the sum of both periods or the entire length of his life. The first half of the list, from Adam to Mahalalel inclusive, together with Enoch and Noah is the same in the three texts, except that the Septuagint has 100 years more in the first column in each case save that of Noah, and 100 years less in the second column.
See CHRONOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT .
2. Divergences between the Three Texts:
Divergence exists in the case of Jared, Methuselah and Lamech only. Even here the longevity of Jared and Methuselah is given similarly in the Hebrew and the Septuagint; and probably represents the reading of the source, especially since the different data in the Samaritan text bear evidence of adjustment to a theory. The customary excess of 100 years in the Septuagint over the other texts for the age of the patriarch at the birth of the son, and the variously divergent data for the total age of Jared, Methuselah and Lamech are, therefore, the matters that await explanation.
The general superiority of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch as a whole to the Samaritan text and the Septuagint is no longer questioned by Biblical scholars. But whether the superiority obtains in this particular passage has given rise to long and earnest discussion. Keil and Delitzsch in their commentaries on Genesis, Preuss (Zeitrechnung der Septuaginta, 1859, 30ff), Noldeke (Untersuchung zur Kritik des Altes Testament, 1869, 112), and Eduard Konig (ZKW, 1883, 281 ff), hold to the originality of the Hebrew data. Bertheau (Jahrbucher fur deutsche Theologie, XXIII, 657 ff) and Dillmann ascribe prior authority to the Samaritan numbers in Gen 5, but to the Hebrew numbers in Gen 11. Klostermann argues for the originality of the Septuagint (Pentateuch, Neue Folge, 1907, 37-39).
3. Divergences not Accidental:
It is agreed by all that the divergences between the texts are mainly due, not to accidental corruption, but to systematic alteration. Accordingly, two tasks devolve upon the investigator, namely (1) the removal of accidental corruptions from the numerical data in the several texts and (2) the discovery of a principle that underlies and explains the peculiarities in each one or in two of the three sets of data.
On the interpretation that the names denote individuals and that no links have been omitted in the genealogy, readers of the Septuagint noticed that according to its data Methuselah survived the flood, and in order to avoid this incongruity a scribe changed the 167 years, ascribed to his age at the birth of his son, to 187 years. This reading was early in existence, and was followed by Josephus. Holding the same theory regarding the genealogy, the Samaritans noticed that by their data three men, Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech, survived the Flood. To correct the apparent mistake, without tampering with the age of these three men at parenthood, their longevity was reduced sufficiently to enable them to die in the year of the Deluge. If the Hebrew text in its present form is not original, and is to be emended from the Samaritan and Septuagint, the same difficulty inhered in it. To overcome this difficulty, perhaps, 100 years were borrowed from the years that elapsed between parenthood and death and were added to the age of the three men at the time of begetting a son. This relieved the matter as far as Jared was concerned and perhaps in the case of Lamech also, and the borrowing of an additional 20 years set Methuselah right also. If the original number for Lamech was 53 in the Hebrew, as in the Samaritan, then it was necessary to increase the time between Methuselah's birth and the Flood not 20, but 49 years. These 49 years could not be added directly to either Methuselah's or Lamech's age at begetting a son without making this age exceed 200 years, and thus be out of proportion; and accordingly the 49 years were distributed.
The difference of a century in the age assigned to the patriarchs at the son's birth which distinguishes the data of the Hebrew in most cases from the Septuagint, and likewise from the Samaritan in several instances, in Gen 5 and regularly until Nahor in Gen 11:10-26, is commonly explained in the following manner or in a similar way: namely, when any of these long-lived patriarchs was found recorded as having begotten a son at a more youthful age than 150 years, the translators of the Septuagint added 100 years; on the other hand the Samaritan struck off 100 years when necessary in order that no one save Noah might be recorded as reaching 150 years of age before entering upon parenthood, and added 100 years when the record made a patriarch become father of a son before attaining even 50 years. A different explanation is, however, attempted, and the reason for the constant variant is sought in the purpose to construct an artificial chronology; for on interpreting the names as denoting individual persons and the genealogy as proceeding from father to son without break, a method employed as early as the 1st century of the Christian era (Ant., I, iii, 3), the time that elapsed between the creation of man and the Deluge was 1,656 years according to the Hebrew text, 1,307 according to the Samaritan text, and 2,242 according to the Septuagint; and numerous attempts have been made to bring one or other of these totals into arithmetical relation with some conceivable larger chronological scheme. A conspectus of these studies is furnished by Delitzsch (Neuer Commentar uber die Genesis, 136-39), Dillmann (Genesis, 6te Aufl, 111-13), and most recently by Skinner (Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, 135, 136, 234). The different explanations that are offered naturally vary in plausibility; but all possess the common fault of lacking cogency at critical points and somewhere doing violence to the data.
5. The Relation of the Cainite and Sethite Genealogies:
In Gen 4 there are two distinct genealogies, one proceeding through Cain and the other through Seth. Since Hupfeld, the representative critics who partition Genesis have generally reached the conclusion that both of these genealogies were found in the primary document of J or in an ancient recension of it (Wellhausen, Composition des Hexateuchs 3, 8-14; Delitzsch, Neuer Commentar, etc., 126; Kautzsch und Socin; Dillmann, Genesis 6, 104, 116; Budde, Urgeschichte, 182, 527-31; Driver, Introduction 10, 14, 21; Strack, Genesis 2, 23; Gunkel, Genesis, 49; Skinner, Genesis, 2, 14, 99 (4); Stade on the other hand regards Gen 4:25,26; 5:29 as the compilation of a redactor, ZATW, XIV, 281). In Gen 5 there is also a genealogy through Seth to Noah.
6. Resemblances and Differences in the Two Lists:
By removing Gen 4:25 and 26 from their present position and placing them before 4:1 or, as Guthe does, before 4:17; and by exscinding the word "Eve" from 4:1 and understanding "the man" (ha-'adham) to be Enosh; and by exscinding from 4:25 the words "again," "another," and "instead of Abel, for Cain slew him"; and by introducing the words "and Lamech begat" before "a son" in Gen 5:28,29 and inserting this material in between Gen 4:18 and 4:19 or after 4:24: then the two genealogies of chapter 4 are reduced to one and, so far as the names are concerned, have become almost identical with the Sethite genealogy contained in Gen 5. In fact the resemblances between the six names in 4:17,18 with six in chapter 5 have from the first been the basis of every attempt to identify the two genealogies (Buttmann, Mythologus, 170-72). The procedure is violent (see strictures, Skinner, Genesis, 99). It is a serious objection also that the work of reconstruction has been conducted without thought of the possible bearing of the tribal theory of the genealogies on this problem.
It is important to note that the number of links in the two genealogies may indicate that Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain, who mark stages of developing culture, lived several generations before Noah. It was ancient Semitic belief that civilization was far advanced before the Flood, and was continued in its various forms by the survivors (Berosus; and inscription 13, col. i. 18 in Lehmann's Shamash-shumukin). However, for the sake of comparison, the six links in the genealogical chain of the Cainites are placed side by side with those of the Sethites so as the better to reveal the resemblances and differences
Of these names two, Enoch and Lamech, occur in each genealogy, though Enoch does not occupy the same place in both lists. Kenan is readily derived from the same root as Kain. Instead of `Irad the original Hebrew text may have been `Idad, as was read by the Septuagint, Codex Alexandrinus and Lucian. But, accepting `Irad as original, `Irad and Jared may conceivably have been distorted in the oral tradition; yet as they stand they are radically different, and one might as well compare Prussia and Russia, Swede and Swiss, Austria and Australia. Methushael is written in the Septuagint exactly as is Methuselah; but both names are fully established by textual evidence and are fine Semitic names. Methushael particularly is of good Babylonian form, meaning "man of God"; archaic in Hebrew or smacking of the northern dialect, but quite intelligible to the Israelite.
The resemblance between the six consecutive names in the two lists is indeed striking, but the differences are also great; and the wisdom of caution in pronouncing judgment is suggested and emphasized by a comparison of two lists from the later history of the people of Israel. The twelve kings of Judah compared with their nineteen contemporaries in northern Israel show almost as many resemblances as the ten Cainites to the twelve Sethites, Adam as the common ancestor not being reckoned. The two series begin with Rehoboam and Jeroboam, names as similar externally as `Irad and Jared. Ahaziah of Israel was almost contemporary with Ahaziah of Judah; Jehoram was on the throne of Judah while Jehoram ruled over Israel, the reign of Jehoash of Judah overlapped that of Jehoash of Israel, and Jehoahaz of Israel preceded about half a century Ahaz, or, as his name appears In Assyrian inscriptions, Jehoahaz of Judah. If there can be two contemporary dynasties with these coincidences, surely there could be two antediluvian races with an equal similarity in the names. Then, too, the material differences between the Cainite and Sethite lines are great. Cain is the son of Adam; whereas Kenan is the third remove, being descended through Seth and Enosh. The two Enochs seem to have nothing in common save the name (Gen 4:17,18; 5:22,23). The character of the two Lamechs is quite different, as appears from their speeches (Gen 4:19,23; 5:28,29). The line of Cain terminated in Lamech and his four children, of whom the three sons became of note in the annals of civilization; whereas the line of Seth continued through Noah, the hero of the Flood, and his three sons who were known only as the ancestors of peoples. Moreover, even excluding the section of Genesis assigned to the Priestly Code (P), the two lines were distinguished from each other, and most of the characteristic differences between them were clearly set forth, in the most ancient form of the Hebrew tradition, as it is actually known (Green, Unity of Genesis, 43-49; Delitzsch, Neuer Commentar, etc., 126, 127, 132, 140; Strack, Genesis 2, 22, 23, section III).
The order of narration in the Book of Genesis is also significant. It indicates the writer's perception of a profound difference between the two races. The narrative regarding Cain and his descendants is completed, according to invariable custom in the Book of Genesis, before the line of Seth, in which eventually Abraham appeared, is taken up and its history recorded (Green, Unity of Genesis, 49; Delitzsch, Neuer Commentar, etc., 126). Thus at each stage of the history the story of the branch line is told before the fortunes are recited of the direct line of promise.
8. The Register of Gen 5 and Berosus' List of Antediluvian Kings:
Berosus, a priest of Marduk's temple at Babylon about 300 BC, in the second book of his history tells of the ten kings of the Chaldeans who reigned before the Deluge. He says that
The first king was ALOROS of (the city) Babylon, a Chaldean. (He gave out a report about himself that God had appointed him to be shepherd of the people.) He reigned ten sars. (A sar is thirty-six hundred years.)
And afterward ALAPAROS (his son reigned three sars).
And (after him) AMELON (a Chaldean), who was of (the city of) Pautibibla (reigned thirteen sars).
Then AMMENON the Chaldean (of Pautibibla reigned twelve sars).
Then MEGALAROS of the city of Pautibibla, and he reigned eighteen sars.
And after him DAONOS the shepherd of Pautibibla reigned ten sars.
Then EUEDORACHOS of Pautibibla reigned eighteen sars.
Then AMEMPSINOS, a Chaldean of Laraucha, reigned; and he, the eighth, was king ten sars. Next OTIARTES a Chaldean of Laraucha, reigned; and he (the ninth) was king eight sars.
And (last of all), upon the death of Otiartes, his son Xisouthros reigned eighteen sars. In his time the great deluge occurred. Thus, when summed up, the kings are ten; and the sars are one hundred and twenty (or four hundred and thirty-two thousand years, reaching to the Flood1).
@@(NOTE: 1Syncellus quoting Alexander Polyhistor. 2Syncellus quoting Apollodorus. 3Syncellus quoting Abydenus. 4Syncellus quoting Abydenus concerning the deluge. 5Eusebius, Armenian Chronicle, quoting Alexander Polyhistor. 6Eusebius, Armenian Chronicle, quoting Abydenus. The royal names have been transmitted with substantial uniformity, except the third, fifth, seventh and ninth. Amelon (2) is given as Amillaros (3) and Almelon (5, 6); Megalaros (2, 3) appears also as Amegalarus (5, 6); Euedorachos (2) as Eudoreschos (3), Edoranchus (5), and Edoreschus (6); and Ardates (1) as Otiartes (2, 5). For texts and readings see Richter, Berosi Chaldaeorum Historiae, 52-56; Migne, Patrologia Graeca,XIX , "Eusebii Chronicorum," Lib. I, cap. i et vi, pp. 106, 121; Schoene, Eusebii Chronicorum, Lib. I, pp. 7, 31.)
The original Babylonian form of seven of these ten names has been determined with a fair degree of certainty. Alaparos is in all probability a misreading by a copyist of the Greek Adaparos (Hommel, PSBA, XV, 243 ff; Zimmern, KAT3, 530 ff), and accordingly represents Adapa, followed perhaps by another element beginning with the letter "r"; Amelon and Ammenon are equivalent to the Babylonian nouns amelu (Delitzsch Wo lag das Paradies? S 149; Hommel, PSBA, XV, 243 ff; Zimmern, KAT3, 530 ff), man, and ummanu (Hommel, PSBA, XV, 243 ff; Zimmern, KAT3, 530 ff), workman; Euedorachos is Enmeduranki (pronounced Evveduranki) (Zimmern, KAT3, 530 ff); Amempsinos is probably Amelu-Sin (Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? 149; Hommel, PSBA, XV, 243 ff; Zimmern, KAT3, 530 ff), servant of the moon-god; Otiartes, a misreading of the Greek Opartes, is Ubara-Tutu (Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradues? 149; Hommel, PSBA, XV, 243 ff; Zimmern, KAT3, 530 ff), meaning servant of Marduk; and Xisouthros is Chasis-atra (Haupt, KAT2, 503; Zimmern, KAT3, 530 ff), equivalent to Atra-chasis, an epithet given to the hero of the Flood.
Several of these names are well known in Babylonian literature: Adapa was a human being, a wise man, a wizard, who failed to obtain immortality. He was an attendant at the temple of Ea in the town of Eridu, prepared bread and water for the sanctuary and provided it with fish. Perhaps it was his connection with the temple that led to his being called son of Ea, and described as created or built by Ea (Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, VI, 91-101). Similarly King Esarhaddon calls himself the faithful son, child of Beltis; and Ashurbanipal claims to have been created or built by the gods Ashur and Sin in the womb of his mother (compare Adam, the son of God, Lk 3:38). Enmeduranki, whose name has been interpreted as possibly meaning chief priest of Duranki, the meeting place of sky and earth, was a king of Sippar, a city whose patron deity was the sun-god Shamash. He was a notable wise man who, it seems, was reputed to have been taken by the gods Shamash and Ramman into their fellowship and made acquainted with the secrets of heaven and earth (KAT3, 530 f). As among the Hebrews the priests were descended from Aaron, so among the Babylonians Enmeduranki was regarded as the ancestor of the wizards and sooth-sayers or the founder of their guild. Amel-Sin is elsewhere mentioned as the wise one of Ur (KAT3, 537). In the Babylonian account of the Flood the hero is addressed as son of Ubara-Tutu. It is worth mention that legends grew up about the hero of the Flood, as they have about other historical personages since; and he even appears like some ancient kings, with the determinative for god before his name. Adapa also, who was classed with the wizards, early came to have a place in story.
The first name in the list of Berosus is Aloros. Professor Hommel would understand the original Babylonian form to have been Aruru, a goddess. The identification is precarious, to say the least; and evidently it was not the conception of the Babylonian priest, for it makes his line of kings begin with a goddess. He should have called Aloros a queen. Professor Hommel regards Adapa also as a deity, contrary to the statements of the tale itself; thus holding that the second Babylonian king like the first was a Divine being. On such an interpretation the Babylonian and Hebrew lists are not identical, for the Hebrew genealogy commences in Adam, human being. With the third name, however, certain remarkable correspondences begin to appear. The third Babylonian king is Amelu, man, and the third patriarch is Enosh, also meaning man; the fourth king is Ummanu, artificer, and the fourth patriarch is Kenan, a name derived from a root meaning to form or fabricate. The seventh king is Enmeduranki, who apparently was reputed to have been summoned by the gods Shamash and Ramman into their fellowship and made acquainted with the secrets of heaven and earth; and the seventh patriarch was Enoch who walked with God (like Noah, Gen 6:9; see KAT 3, 540). The tenth king, like the tenth patriarch, was the hero of the Flood. These facts are capable of two interpretations: either the two catalogues are fundamentally different, having been constructed for different purposes, yet as they deal with prominent persons belonging to the same period of history and to the same country, cross each other at various points and culminate in the same individual (as do the genealogies of Mt 1 and Lk 3); or else when the unexplained names of both lists shall have been finally interpreted, the two catalogues will be found to represent the same tradition.
Differences between the catalogues exist, which in some instances may be more apparent than real. (1) In the Babylonian hat the descent of the government from father to son is asserted in two instances only, namely, from the first king to the second and from the ninth to the tenth. The Hebrew asserts kinship, however remote, between the successive links. Yet the two records are quite compatible with each other in this respect on theory (see below) that the Hebrew genealogy was shortened by omissions in order to name but ten generations. (2) Each of the ten patriarchs is assigned a long life; each of the ten kings has a greatly longer reign. The contrast is twofold: between the number of years in corresponding cases, and between length of life and length of reign. But instead of this difference indicating non-identity of the two lines, it may be found, when the Semitic tradition is fully known, to afford the explanation for the duration of life which is assigned to the patriarchs. (3) There is no arithmetical ratio between the years connected with the corresponding names of the two lists. And the symmetry of the numbers in the Bah transmission is open to the suspicion of being artificial. The number of kings is ten; the sum of their united reigns is one hundred and twenty sars, a multiple of ten and of the basal number of the Babylonian duodecimal system. There are three reigns of ten sars each, and three successive reigns which taken together, 3 plus 13 plus 12, make ten and eighteen sars. Taking the reigns in the order in which they occur, we have as their duration the series 10, 18 plus 10, 18, 10, 18, 10, 8, and 18 (Davis, Genesis and Semitic Tradition, 96-100; Strack, Genesis 2, 24).
11. The Interpretation of the Genealogy in Gen 5:
Three explanations of the genealogy in Gen 5 may be mentioned. (1) An interpretation, current at the time of Josephus (Ant., I, iii, 4) and adopted by Archbishop Usher in 1650 in his attempt to fix the dates of the events recorded in the Scriptures, assumes an unbroken descent from father to son, during ten generations, from Adam to Noah. On this theory the time from the creation of man to the Flood is measured by the sum of the years assigned to the patriarchs at the birth of the son and successor, together with Noah's age when he entered the Ark; so that all the years from the creation of Adam to the Flood were 1,656 years. The extraordinary longevity of these patriarchs is accounted for by the known physical effects of sin. Sin works disease and death. Man was not as yet far removed from his state of sinlessness. The physical balance between man sinless and man the sinner had not been attained (compare Delitzsch, Genesis 3, 139; see Ant, I, iii, 9). But after all are we really justified in supposing that the Hebrew author of these genealogies designed to construct a chronology of the period? He never puts them to such a use himself. He nowhere sums these numbers. No chronological statement is deduced from them. There is no computation anywhere in Scripture of the time that elapsed from the Creation or from the Deluge, as there is from the descent into Egypt to the Exodus (Ex 12:40), or from the Exodus to the building of the temple (1 Ki 6:1; Green, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1890, 296). (2) A second method of interpretation assumes that links of the genealogy have been intentionally omitted in order that exactly ten may be named. It is based on the phenomena presented by other Hebrew genealogical registers. Matthew, for example, has outlined the lineage of Christ from Abraham. The history naturally divides into three sections, and to give the tabulation symmetry Matthew names twice seven generations in each division, in one instance omitting three famous kings of Judah and saying "Joram begat Uzziah." As Joram is said to have begotten Uzziah, his grandson's grandson, so Enoch may be said to have begotten Methuselah, although the latter may have been Enoch's great-grandson or remoter descendant. The book of Genesis is divided by its author into ten sections, each introduced by the same formula (Gen 2:4; 5:1; 6:9, etc.). In the period from the creation of man to the birth of Abraham the crisis of the history was the Flood. Twice ten generations are named in the symmetrical register, ten before the Flood, Adam to Noah, and ten after the Flood, Shem to Abraham; and the latter period in its turn is divided into two equal parts, and five generations are named for the time to, and five for the time after, the birth of Peleg, in whose days `the earth was divided' (Gen 11:10-26; 10:25; compare perhaps 11:1-9). On this conception of the tables, which is fully justified, there is no basis in the genealogy from Adam to Noah for the calculation of chronology. The table was constructed for a different purpose, and the years are noted for another reason than chronology (Green, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1890, 285-303; Warfield, Princeton Theological Review, 1911, 2-11; compare Dillmann, Genesis 6, 106 "dritte Absicht"). The longevity is explained as it is on Usher's interpretation of the data (see above). (3) A third method of interpretation understands the patriarchal name to denote the individual and his family spoken of collectively. The person and tribe form one conception. This method also agrees with the phenomena presented by Hebrew genealogical registers. Thus, Keturah bears to Abraham Jokshan, and Jokshan begat Sheba and Dedan, tribes and the countries they inhabited (Gen 25:1-5). Mizraim, as Egypt was called by the Hebrews, begat the Lydians and other ancient peoples (Gen 10:13); and Canaan begat the town of Sidon and such famous tribes as the Jebusite and the Amorite (Gen 10:15-18). Similarly, countries like Media, Ionia (Javan), Tubal and Meshech, and peoples named by Gentileadjectives in the plural number, like Kittim and Dodanim, are hated as sons of Japheth; and Ethiopia, Egypt, Punt and Canaan, and districts in Arabia like Sheba and Havilah are recorded as descendants of Ham (Gen 10:2-7). Moreover, outside of genealogies, in common parlance Israel denotes a man and the tribe that sprang from him; David, the king of that name and the dynasty he founded (1 Ki 12:16; compare Jer 30:9); Nebaioth, a people and its prince (Gen 25:13,16; 28:9). Sometimes the family takes its name from its progenitor or later leading member; sometimes the name of the tribe or of the country it inhabits is given to its chief representative, as today men are constantly addressed by their family name, and nobles are called by the name of their duchy or county. It is quite in accordance with usage, therefore, that Noah, for example, should denote the hero of the Flood and the family to which he belonged. The longevity is the period during which the family had prominence and leadership; the age at the son's birth is the date in the family history at which a new family originated that ultimately succeeded to the dominant position. If no links have been omitted in constructing the register, the period from the creation of man to the Flood is measured by the sum of the ages of Adam and his successors to Noah and 600 years of the life of Noah, amounting to 8,225 years. Thus, the family of Seth originated when Adam was 130 years old (Gen 5:3). Adam and his direct line were at the head of affairs for 930 years (5), when they were superseded by the family of Seth. In Seth, 105 years after it attained headship, the family of Enosh took Its rise (6). Seth, after being at the head of affairs for 912 years (8) was succeeded by the family of Enosh, in the year of the world 1842. And so on.
John D. Davis
an-te-di-lu'-vi-ans.
According to the ordinary interpretation of the genealogical tables in Gen 5 the lives of the antediluvians were prolonged to an extreme old age, Methuselah attaining that of 969 years. But before accepting these figures as a basis of interpretation it is important to observe that the Hebrew, the Samaritan and the Septuagint texts differ so radically in their sums that probably little confidence can be placed in any of them. The Septuagint adds 100 years to the age of six of the antediluvian patriarchs at the birth of their eldest sons. This, taken with the great uncertainty connected with the transmission of numbers by the Hebrew method of notation, makes it unwise to base important conclusions upon the data accessible. The most probable interpretation of the genealogical table in Gen 5 is that given by the late Professor William Henry Green, who maintains that it is not Intended to give chronology, and does not give it, but only indicates the line of descent, as where (1 Ch 26:24) we read that "Shebuel the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was ruler over the treasures"; whereas, while Gershom was the immediate son of Moses, Shebuel was separated from Gershom by several generations. According to the interpretation of Professor Green all that we can certainly infer from the statement in Hebrew that Adam was 130 years old when he begat Seth, is that at that age the line branched off which culminated in Seth, it being permitted, according to Hebrew usage, to interpolate as many intermediate generations as other evidence may compel.
As in the genealogies of Christ in the Gospels, the object of the tables in Genesis is evidently not to give chronology, but the line of descent. This conclusion is supported by the fact that no use is made afterward of the chronology, whereas the line of descent is repeatedly emphasized. This method of interpretation allows all the elasticity to prehistoric chronology that any archaeologist may require. Some will get further relief from the apparent incredibility of the figures by the Interpretation of Professor A. Winchell, and T. P. Crawford (Winchell, Pre-adamites, 449 ff) that the first number gives the age of actual life of the individual while the second gives that of the ascendancy of his family, the name being that of dynasties, like Caesar or Pharaoh.
The nephilim (giants) and the mighty men born of "the sons of God" and the "daughters of men" (Gen 6:4,5) are according to the best interpretation "giants in wickedness," being the fruit of intermarriage between the descendants of Seth ("sons of God" who called on the name of Yahweh, Gen 4:26), and the "daughters of men." The idea that "sons of God" refers to angels or demigods has no support in Scripture. On this familiar designation of the worshippers of the true God see Ex 4:22; Dt 14:1; 32, repeatedly; Isa 1:2; 43:6; 45:11; Hos 1:10; 11:1. Intermarriage with depraved races such as is here intimated produced the results which were guarded against in the Mosaic law prohibiting marriages with the surrounding idolatrous nations. The word Nephilim in Gen 6:4 occurs again only in Nu 13:33 (the King James Version "giants"). But the word is more probably a descriptive term than the name of a race. In the older Greek versions it is translated "violent men."
The antediluvians are, with great probability, identified by some geologists (Sir William Dawson, e.g.) with glacial or paleolithic man, whose implements and remains are found buried beneath the deposits of glacial floods in northern France, southern England, southern Russia, and in the valleys of the Delaware, Ohio and Missouri rivers in America. The remains of "paleolithic" men reveal only conditions of extreme degradation and savagery, in which violence reigned. The sparse population which was spread over the northern hemisphere during the closing floods of the Glacial period lived in caves of the earth, and contended with a strange variety of gigantic animals which became extinct at the same time with their human contemporaries.
See DELUGE OF NOAH .
LITERATURE.
Green, "Primeval Chronology," Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1890; Dawson, Modern Science in Bible Lands; B. B. Warfield, "On the Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race," Princeton Theol. Review, January, 1911; Winchell, Pre-adamites; Wright, Ice Age in North America, 5th ed.; Man and the Glacial Period, and Scientific Confirmations of Old Testament History.
George Frederick Wright
an'-te-lop (RV; the King James Version "wild ox," te'o (Dt 14:5), and "wild bull," to (Isa 51:20); orux (The Septuagint in Codex Vaticanus has hos seutlion hemiephthon, literally, "like a half-cooked beet-root"): The dorcas gazelle (Gazella dorcas) is widely distributed in Syria, Palestine and Arabia. The recently discovered Merrill's gazelle (Gazella Merrilli) inhabits the hilly country near Jerusalem and is not commonly distinguished from the dorcas gazelle. Probably the only other antelope within this range is the Arabian oryx (Oryx beatrix). Tristram cites two African species (the bubaline antelope, Bubalis mauretanica, and the addax, Addax nasomaculatus) as existing in the Sinaitic peninsula, southern Palestine and Arabia, but he did not collect specimens of either and was probably misled by statements of the Arabs which in both cases really referred to the oryx. The only naturalist who has ever penetrated into Northwest Arabia is Mr. Douglas Carruthers, who went in 1909 on a collecting expedition for the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, his object being to obtain the oryx and any other large antelopes which might be found there. Through observation and repeated inquiry he became convinced that neither the addax nor the bubaline antelope is found in Arabia. Tristram says the addax is called maha' and the bubaline antelope baqar-ul-wachsh, both of which names are in fact used by the Arabs for the oryx, which is also according to Doughty called wadichah.
Tsebhi in the list of clean animals in Dt 14:5 (the King James Version "roebuck"; the Revised Version (British and American) "gazelle") is quite certainly gazelle, Arabic zabi (which see), so it is quite possible that te'o may be the oryx. It is noteworthy that it is rendered oryx (orux) in the Septuagint. It must be borne in mind that re'm or re'em, rendered "unicorn" (which see) in the King James Version and "wild ox" in the Revised Version (British and American), may perhaps also be the oryx. That the oryx should be called by two names in the Bible need not be considered strange, in view of the indefiniteness of Semitic ideas of natural history, which is directly evidenced by the three names now used for this animal by the Arabs.
The slightly different form [to'] (the King James Version "wild bull"; the Revised Version (British and American) "antelope") found in Isa 51:20 ("Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an antelope in a net") may quite as well refer to the oryx as to any other animal. According to Gesenius the word is derived from the verb ta'ah, "to outrun," which would be appropriate for this or any antelope.
The accompanying illustration is from a photograph of a well-grown female oryx in the zoological gardens at Cairo, which is 35 inches high at the shoulder and whose horns are 21 inches long. An adult male measures 40 inches at the shoulders, 59 inches from tip of nose to root of tail, and the longest horns known measure 27 1/4 inches. The color is pure white with dark brown or black markings. It is a powerful animal and its horns may inflict dangerous wounds. It inhabits the deserts of Arabia and its remarkably large hoofs seem well adapted to traversing the sands. It feeds upon grasses and upon certain succulent roots, and the Bedouin declare that never drinks. Under its name of maha' it is celebrated in Arabic poetry for the beauty of its eyes. Compare the Homeric "ox-eyed goddess Hera" (Boopis potnia Ere). Baqar-ul-wachsh, the name most commonly used by the Bedouin, means "wild cow" or "wild ox," which is identical with the translation of te'o in the King James Version.
Alfred Ely Day
an-the'-don: A city of Palestine, rebuilt along with Samaria, Ashdod, Gaza, and other cities, at Gabinius' command (Josephus, Ant, XIV, v, 3).
an-tho-thi'-ja (`anthothiyah, "belonging to Anathoth"(?)): A son of Shasak of Benjamin (1 Ch 8:24), written in the King James Version Antothijah.
an-thro-pol'-o-ji:
II. NATURE OF MAN BIBLICAL CONCEPTION
III. ORIGIN OF MAN FROM SCRIPTURE ACCOUNT: NARRATIVES OF CREATION
IV. UNITY OF THE RACE: VARIOUS THEORIES
V. EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AS TO ORIGIN OF MAN
VI. PRIMITIVE AND PRESENT CONDITIONS OF MAN: ANTIQUITY OF MAN
LITERATURE
Under this heading is grouped whatever the Bible has to say regarding man's origin, nature, destiny and kindred topics. No systematized doctrine concerning man is found in Scripture; but the great facts about human nature and its elements are presented in the Bible in popular language and not in that of the schools. Delitzsch has well said: "There is a clearly defined psychology essentially proper to Holy Scripture, which underlies all the Biblical writers, and intrinsically differs from that many formed psychology which lies outside the circle of revelation. .... We do not need first of all to force the Biblical teaching: it is one in itself" (Biblical Psychology, 17, 18). What is said of the psychology of Scripture may with good reason be applied to its anthropology.
Several words are used in the Old Testament for our word "Man."
'adham, either as the name of the first man, (compare Lk 3:38; Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 15:45); or as an appellative--the man; or, as the generic name of the human race (Septuagint: anthropos; Vulgate: homo). The origin of the name is obscure. In Gen 2:7 Adam is connected with 'adhamah, from the earthly part of man's nature (dust out of the 'adhamah), as the earth-born one. The derivation of Adam from 'adhamah, however, is disputed--among others by Dillmann: "Sprachlich lasst sich die Ableitung aus Adamah nicht vertheidigen" (Genesis, 53). Delitzsch refers to Josephus (Ant., I, i, 2), who maintained that Adam really meant purrhos ("red as fire"), in reference to the redness of the earth, out of which man was formed. "He means," adds Delitzsch, "the wonderfully fruitful and aromatic red earth of the Hauran chum of mountains, which is esteemed of marvelously strong and healing power, and which is believed to be self-rejuvenescent" (N. Commentary on Gen, 118). The connection with Edom in Gen 25:30 may perhaps point in the same direction. A connection has also been sought with the Assyrian admu ("child"), especially the young of the bird, in the sense of making or producing (Delitzsch; Oxford Dictionary); while Dillmann draws attention to an Ethiopic root adma, "pleasant," "agreeable," "charming"--a derivation, however, which he rejects. Suffice it to say, that no certain derivation has yet been found for the term (thus Dillmann, "ein sicheres Etymon fur Adam ist noch nicht gefunden," Gen, 53). Evidently in the word the earthly side of man's origin is indicated.
The phrase ben-'adham, "son of man" (Nu 23:19; Job 25:6; Ezek 2:3) is frequently found to denote man's frailty and unworthiness in the sight of God. So in the much-disputed passage in Gen 6:2, where the "sons of God" are contrasted with the degenerate "daughters of men" (benoth ha-adham). See also Ps 11:4; 12:1,8; 14:2. On the other hand the dignity of man is sometimes indicated in the word Adam. Thus in Eccl 7:28, "One man ('adham) among a thousand have I found: but a woman among all those have I not found."
'enosh (Ps 8:4; 10:18; 90:3; 103:15; frequently in Job and Ps), man in his impotence, frailty, mortality (like the Greek brotos) as against 'ish, man in his strength and vigor. In Gen 4:26 the word becomes a proper name, applied to the son of Seth. Delitzsch derives it from a root 'anash (related to the Arabic and Assyrian), signifying "to be or become frail." To intensify this frailty, we have the phrase in Ps 10:18, "'enosh (man) who is of the earth."
('ish), Septuagint aner, Vulg, vir, male as against female, even among lower animals (Gen 7:2); husband as contrasted with wife ('ishshah, Gen 2:23,24); man in his dignity and excellence (Jer 5:1: "seek, .... if ye can find a man"); persons of standing (Prov 8:4, where 'ish is contrasted with bene 'adham, "Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of men")--"like the Attic andres and anthropoi, wisdom turning her discourse to high and low, to persons of standing and to the proletariat" (Delitzsch on Prov). Delitzsch maintains, that 'ish points to a root 'osh "to be strong," and 'ishshah to 'anash, as designating woman in her weakness (compare 1 Pet 3:7: "the weaker vessel"). "Thus 'ishshah and 'enosh come from a like verbal stem and fundamental notion" (Delitzsch, A New Commentary on Gen, 145). The term 'ish is sometimes used generally, as the Greek tis, the French on, to express "anyone," as in Ex 21:14; 16:29.
gebher, gibbor, man in his strength. The term is applied to men as contrasted with women and children (Job 3:3), "a male child," in opposition to a female (Septuagint: arsen); also in contrast to non-combatants (Ex 10:11) and in New Testament, see Mt 8:9; Jn 1:6, where anthropos is used. Thus we read: "Neither shall a man (gebher) put on a woman's garment" (Dt 22:5). Heroes and warriors are specially indicated by the term in such phrases as "mighty man of valor" (Jdg 6:12). Sometimes animals are denoted by the term, as in Prov 30:30 ("mightiest among beasts"); sometimes it is applied to God (Isa 10:21) and to the Messiah (Isa 9:6). In combination with 'ish it gives intensity to the meaning, as in 1 Sam 14:52 "any mighty man."
Of the Greek terms anthropos stands for man(kind) generally--a human being (Mt 12:12; Mk 10:27); though it is sometimes used to indicate man in his imperfection and weakness (1 Cor 3:3,4), in such expressions as "to speak as a man" (Rom 3:5 the King James Version), gospel "after man" (Gal 1:11), "after the manner of men" (1 Cor 15:32) etc.; or as showing the contrast between the perishable and the imperishable (2 Cor 4:16, where the "outward man" is represented as slowly dying, while the "inward man" is being renewed from day to day). Thus Paul contrasts the "natural man" (1 Cor 2:14), the "old man," with the "new" (Rom 6:6; Col 3:9,10).
Aner, Latin: vir--man in his vigor as contrasted with woman in her weakness (1 Cor 11:3; 1 Pet 3:7): sometimes, however, standing for "men in general" (Mk 6:44: "They that ate the loaves were five thousand men"--andres).
II. The Nature of Man: Biblical Conception:
The Biblical idea of man's nature may be summed up in the words of Paul, "of the earth, earthy" (1 Cor 15:47), as compared and contrasted with the statement in Gen 1:27: "God created man in his own image." This act of creation is described as the result of special deliberation on the part of God--the Divine Being taking counsel with Himself in the matter (verse 26). Man therefore is a creature, formed, fashioned, shaped out of "earth" and made after the "image of God." More than one word is employed in the Old Testament to express His idea: (1) bara', "create," a word of uncertain derivation, occurring five times in Gen 1, to indicate the origin of the universe (verse 1), the origin of life in the waters (verse 24), the origin of man (verse 27), and always in connection with God's creative work, never where "second causes" are introduced. (2) yatsar, "fashion," "form," "knead" (Gen 2:7), "of the dust of the ground." (3) banah, "build," in special reference to the creation of woman, "built out of the rib" (Gen 2:22).
By God's special interposition man becomes a nephesh chayyah ("a living soul"), where evidently there is a reference to the breath of life, which man shares with the animal world (Gen 1:20,21,24); yet with this distinction, that "God Himself breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life" (literally, "breath of lives," nishmath chayyim). With a single exception, that of Gen 7:22, the word neshamah, "breath," is confined to man. In Job reference is made to his creative act, where Elihu says: "There is a spirit in man, and the breath (nishmath) of the Almighty (shaddai) giveth them understanding" (Job 32:8); compare also Isa 42:5: "He .... giveth breath (neshamah) unto the people." Man therefore is a being separated from the rest of creation and yet one with it.
This distinction becomes more clear in the declaration that man was made in the "image" (tselem, eikon, imago), and after the likeness (demuth, homoiosis, similitudo) of God. The question has been asked whether the two terms differ essentially in meaning; some maintaining that "image" refers to the physical, "likeness" to the ethical side of man's nature; others holding that "image" is that which is natural to man, was created with him, was therefore as it were stamped upon him (concreata), and "likeness" that which was acquired by him (acquisita); while others again declare that "image" is the concrete and "likeness" the abstract for the same idea. There is very little scriptural ground for these assertions. Nor can we accept the interpretation of the older Socinians and some of the Remonstrants, that God's image consisted in dominion over all creatures, a reference to which is made in Gen 1:28.
Turning to the narrative itself, it would appear that the two terms do not denote any real distinction. In Gen 1:27 tselem ("image") alone is used to express all that separates man from the brute and links him to his Creator. Hence, the expression "in our image." In 1:26, however, the word demuth ("similitude") is introduced, and we have the phrase "after our likeness," as though to indicate that the creature bearing the impress of God's "image" truly corresponded in "likeness" to the original, the ectype resembling the archetype. Luther has translated the clause: "An image which is like unto us"--ein Bild das uns gleich sei--and in the new Dutch (Leyden) of the Old Testament by Kuenen, Hooijkaas and others, it is rendered: "as our image, like unto us"--als ons evenbeeld ons gelijkende. The two words may therefore be taken as standing to each other in the same relation in which copy or model stands to the original image. "The idea in tselem--says Delitzsch--is more rigid, that of demuth more fluctuating and so to speak more spiritual: in the former the notion of the original image, in the latter that of the ideal predominates." At any rate we have scriptural warrant (see especially, Gen 9:6; Jas 3:9) for the statement, that the image is the inalienable property of the race (Laidlaw), so that offense against a fellow-man is a desecration of the Divine image impressed upon man. Calvin has put it very clearly: Imago Dei est integra naturae humanae praestantia ("The image of God is the complete excellence of human nature").
Other questions have been asked by early Church Fathers and by Schoolmen of later days, which may here be left out of the discussion. Some, like Tertullian, considered the "image" to be that of the coming Christ (Christi futuri); others have maintained that Adam was created after the image of the Logos (the Word, the second person in the Trinity), which was impressed upon man at his creation. Of all this Scripture knows nothing. There man is represented as made after the image of "Elohim," of the Godhead and not of one person of the Trinity. Paul calls man "the image and glory (eikon kai doxa) of God" (1 Cor 11:7). We may safely let the matter rest there. The strange theory, that the image of God indicates the sphere or element into which man was created, may be mentioned without further discussion (on this see Bohl, Dogmatik, 154 and Kuijper, De vleeschwording des Woords).
In what then does this image or likeness consist? Certainly in what is inalienably human--a body as the temple of the Holy Ghost (the "earthly house" of 2 Cor 5:1), and the rational, inspiring, inbreathed spirit. Hence man's personably, linking into to what is above, separating him from what is beneath, constitutes him a being apart--a rational, self-conscious, self-determining creature, intended by his Creator for fellowship with Himself. "The animal feels the Cosmos and adapts himself to it. Man feels the Cosmos, but also thinks it" (G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind). Light is thrown on the subject by the New Testament, and especially by the two classical texts: Eph 4:24 and Col 3:10, where the "new man" is referred to as "after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth" and "renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him." Knowledge, righteousness and holiness may fully be considered elements in the character of man as originally designed by God. Likeness to God therefore is man's privilege above all created beings. What was said of the Son of God absolutely, "He is the express image (character) of God," is applied to man relatively the created son is not the only-begotten Son. The created son was "like unto God" (homoiosis; 1 Jn 3:2), and even in his degradation there is the promise of renewal after that image: the eternal, only-begotten Son is God's equal (Phil 2:6,7), though he became a servant and was made in the likeness (homoiomati) of men.
This likeness of man with God is not merely a Scriptural idea. Many ancient nations seem to have grasped this thought. Man's golden age was placed by them in a far-off past, not in a distant future. Paul quotes a pagan poet in Acts 17:28, "We are also his offspring" (Aratus of Soli, in Cilicia, a countryman of the apostle). This statement also occurs in the beautiful hymn to Jupiter, ascribed to Cleanthes, a Stoic native of Assos in the Troad, and contemporary of Aratus. Psychologically and historically therefore, the Bible view is justified.
III. Origin of Man from Scripture Account: Narratives of Creation.
The Divine origin of man is clearly taught in the early chapters of Gen, as has lust been seen.
Two narratives from different sources are supposed to have been combined by an unknown editor to form a not very harmonious whole. It is the purpose of criticism to determine the relationship in which they stand to each other and the dates of their composition. In both accounts man is the crowning glory of creation. The first account (Gen 1:1 through 2:3) is general, the second particular (Gen 2:4-25); in the first we have an account of man's appearance on a prepared platform--a gradual rise in the scale of organized existence from chaos upward to the climax, which is reached in man. There is recognized order in the whole procedure, represented by the writer as a process which occupied six days, or periods, measured by the appearance and dissipation of darkness. In the first period, chaotic disturbance is succeeded by the separation of light from darkness, which in its turn is followed by the separation of water from dry land, and to this a second period is assigned. Then gradually in the next four periods we have in orderly sequence the rise of vegetable life, the formation of the creatures of the deep, of the air, of the dry land. When all is prepared man is called into being by a special fiat of the Almighty. Moreover, while other creatures were produced "after their kind," man alone as a unique conception of the Divine Intelligence is made to appear upon the scene, called into existence by direct Divine interposition, after a Divine type, and in distinction of sex; for both man and wife, in a later chapter, are called by the same name: Adam (Gen 5:2). Such is the scope of the first narrative. No wonder, then, that Scripture elsewhere calls the first man "the son of God" (Lk 3:38). It need not be determined here, whether the account is strictly chronological, whether the "days" are interludes between successive periods of darkness and not periods of twenty-four hours regulated by the rising and setting of the sun, or whether the whole narrative is but a prose poem of creation, not strictly accurate, or strictly scientific.
In the second narrative (Gen 2:2-25) the order of procedure is different. Man here is not the climax, but the center. He is a creature of the dust, but with the breath of God in his nostrils (Gen 2:7), holding sway over all things, as God's vice-gerent upon earth, creation circling around him and submitting to his authority. To this is added a description of man's early home and of his home-relationships. The second narrative therefore seems on the face of it to be supplementary to the first, not contradictory of it: the agreements indeed are far greater than the differences. "The first may be called typical, the second, physiological. The former is the generic account of man's creation--of man the race, the ideal; the latter is the production of the actual man, of the historic Adam" (Laidlaw).
The differences between the two narratives have been magnified by supporters of the various documentary hypotheses. They are supposed to differ in style--the first "displaying clear marks of study and deliberation," the second being "fresh spontaneous, primitive" (Driver, Genesis). They differ also in representation, i.e. in detail and order of events--the earth, in the second narrative not emerging from the waters as in the first, but dry and not fitted for the support of vegetation, and man appearing not last but first on the scene, followed by beasts and birds and lastly by woman. The documents are further supposed to differ in their conception of Divine interposition and a consequent choice of words, the first employing words, like "creating," "dividing," "making," "setting," which imply nothing local, or sensible in the Divine nature, the second being strongly anthropomorphic--Yahweh represented as "moulding," "placing," "taking," "building," etc--and moreover locally determined within limits, confined apparently to a garden as His accustomed abode. Without foreclosing the critical question, it may be replied that the first narrative is as anthropomorphic as the second, for God is there represented as "speaking," "setting," (Gen 1:17; 2:17), "delighting in" the work of His hands (Gen 1:31), "addressing" the living creatures (Gen 1:22), and "resting" at the close (Gen 2:2). As to the home of Yahweh in a limited garden, we are expressly told, not that man was admitted to the home of his Maker, but that Yahweh specially "planted a garden" for the abode of man. The order of events may be different; but certainly the scope and the aim are not.
More serious have been the objections raised on scientific grounds. The cosmogony of Gen has been disputed, and elaborate comparisons have been made between geological theories as to the origin of the world and the Mosaic account. The points at issue are supposed to be the following: geology knows of no "periods" corresponding to the "days" of Genesis; "vegetation" in Gen appears before animal life, geology maintains that they appear simultaneously; "fishes and birds" in Genesis preceded all land animals; in the geological record "birds" succeed "fishes" and are preceded by numerous species of land animals (so Driver, Genesis). To this a twofold reply has been given: (1) The account in Genesis is not scientific, or intended to be so: it is a prelude to the history of human sin and of Divine redemption, and gives a sketch of the world's origin and the earth's preparation for man as his abode, with that one object in view. The starting-point of the narrative is the creation of the universe by God; the culminating point is the creation of man in the image of God. Between these two great events certain other acts of creation in orderly sequence are presented to our view, in so far as they bear upon the great theme of sin and redemption discussed in the record. The aim is practical, not speculative; theological, not scientific. The whole creation-narrative must be judged from that point of view. See COSMOGONY . (2) What has struck many scientists is not so much the difference or disharmony between the Mosaic and the geological record, as the wonderful agreements in general outline apart from discrepancies in detail. Geologists like Dana and Dawson have expressed this as clearly as Haeckel. The latter, e.g., has openly given utterance to his "just and sincere admiration of the Jewish lawgiver's grand insight into nature and his simple and natural hypothesis of creation .... which contrasts favorably with the confused mythology of creation current among most of the ancient nations" (History of Creation, I, 37, 38). He draws attention to the agreement between the Mosaic account, which accepts "the direct action of a constructive Creator," and the non-miraculous theory of development, inasmuch as "the idea of separation and differentiation of the originally simple matter and of a progressive development" is to be found in the "Jewish lawgiver's" record.
Latterly it has been maintained that Israel was dependent upon Babylon for its creation-narrative; but even the most serious supporters of this view have had to concede that the first introduction of Babylonian myth into the sacred narrative "must remain a matter of conjecture," and that "it is incredible, that the monotheistic author of Gen 1, at whatever date he lived, could have borrowed any detail, however slight, from the polytheistic epic of Marduk and Tiamat" (Driver, Gen, 31). The statement of Bauer in his Hebraische Mythologie, 1802: "Es ist heut zu Tage ausser allen Zweifel gesetzt, dass die ganze Erzahlung ein Mythus ist" (It is beyond all doubt, that the whole narrative is a myth), can no longer be satisfactorily maintained; much less the assertion that we have here an introduction of post-exilic Babylonian or Persian myth into the Hebrew narrative (compare Van Leeuwen, Anthropologie).
Whether the division of the narrative into Elohistic and Jehovistic documents will stand the test of time is a question which exercises a great many minds. Professor Eerdmans of Leyden, the present occupant of Kuenen's chair, has lately maintained that a "thorough application of the critical theories of the school of Graf-Kuenen-Wellhausen leads to highly improbable results," and that "the present Old Testament criticism has to reform itself" (HJ, July, 1909). His own theory is worked out in his Alttestamentliche Studien, to which the reader is referred.
IV. Unity of the Race: Various Theories.
The solidarity of the race may be said to be as distinctly a doctrine of science as it is of Scripture. It is implied in the account of the Creation and of the Deluge. It is strongly affirmed by Paul in his address to the Athenians (Acts 17:26), and is the foundation of the Biblical scheme of redemption (Jn 3:16). The human race in the Old Testament is described as "sons of Adam" (Dt 32:8 the King James Version), as derived from one pair (Gen 1:27; 3:20), as having its origin in one individual (Gen 2:18; cf, 1 Cor 11:8, where woman is described as derived `from man'). Hence the term "Adam" is applied to the race as well as to the individual (Gen 1:26; 2:5,7; 3:22,24; 5:2); while in the New Testament this doctrine is applied to the history of redemption--Christ as the "second Adam" restoring what was lost in the "first Adam" (1 Cor 15:21,22,47-49).
Outside of Holy Scripture various theories have been held as to the origin, antiquity and primeval condition of the human race. That of polygenism (plurality of origin) has found special favor, partly as co-Adamitism, or descent of different races from different progenitors (Paracelsus and others), partly as pre-adamitism, or descent of dark-colored races from an ancestor who lived before Adam--the progenitor of the Jews and the light-colored races (Zanini and especially de la Peyrere). But no serious attempts have yet been made to divide the human race among a number of separately originated ancestors.
The Biblical account, however, has been brought into discredit by modern theories of evolution. Darwinism in itself does not favor polygenism; though many interpreters of the evolutionary hypothesis have given it that application. Darwin distinctly repudiates polygenism. He says: "Those naturalists who admit the principle of evolution will feel no doubt, that all the races of man are descended from a single primitive stock" (Descent of Man, second ed., 176); and on a previous page we read: "Man has been studied more carefully than any other animal, and yet there is the greatest possible diversity amongst capable judges, whether he should be classed as a single species, or race, or as two (Verey), as three (Jacquinot), as four (Kant), five (Blumenbach), six (Buffon), seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz), eleven (Pickering), fifteen (Bory Vincent), sixteen (Desmoulins), twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawford), or as sixty-three, according to Burke" (p. 174).
V. Evolutionary Theory as to Origin of Man.
Modern science generally accepts theory of evolution. Darwin gave to the hypothesis a character it never had before; but since his day its application has been unlimited. "From the organic it is extended to the inorganic world; from our planet and the solar system to the cosmos, from nature to the creations of man's mind--arts, laws, institutions, religion. We speak in the same breath of the evolution of organic beings and of the steam engine, of the printing-press, of the newspaper, now even of the atom" (Orr, God's Image in Man, 84). And yet, in spite of this very wide and far-reaching application of theory, the factors that enter into the process, the method or methods by which the great results in this process are obtained, may still be considered as under debate. Its application to the Bible doctrine of man presents serious difficulties.
Darwin's argument may be presented in the following form. In Nature around us there is to be observed a struggle for existence, to which every organism is exposed, whereby the weaker ones are eliminated and the stronger or best-fitted ones made to survive. Those so surviving may be said metaphorically to be chosen by Nature for that purpose--hence the term "natural selection," assisted in the higher forms of life by "sexual selection," under the influence of which the best-organized males are preferred by the females, and thus as it were selected for propagation of the species. The properties or characteristics of the organisms so chosen are transmitted to their descendants, so that with indefinite variability "from a few forms or from one, into which life has been originally breathed, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, or are being evolved" (Origin of Species, 6th ed., 429). Applying this mode of procedure to the origin of man, the strength of the argument is found to lie in the analogies between man and the brute, which may be summed up as follows: (1) morphological peculiarities in the structure of the bodily organs, in their liability to the same diseases, in their close similarity as regards tissues, blood, etc.; (2) embryological characteristics, in the development of the human being, like the brute, from an ovule, which does not differ from and passes through the same evolutionary process as that of any other animal; (3) the existence of rudimentary organs, which are considered to be either absolutely useless, in some cases harmful, often productive of disease, or in any case of very slight service to the human being, pointing back therefore--so it is maintained--to an animal ancestry, in which these organs may have been necessary; (4) mental peculiarities of the same character, but perhaps not of the same range, in the brute as in man though the differences between the two may be as great as between "a terrier and a Hegel, a Sir William Hamilton, or a Kant"; (5) paleontological agreements, to show that a comparison of fossil remains brings modern civilized man and his primeval, anthropoid ancestor into close correspondence. Latterly Friedenthal's experiments, in regard to blood-transfusion between man and the ape, have been introduced into the argument by evolutionists.
The difficulties which beset theory are so great that naturalists of repute have subjected it to very severe criticism, which cannot be disregarded. Some, like Du Bois-Reymond, have openly declared that supernaturalism has gained the day ("es scheint keine andere Ausnahme ubrig zu sein, als sich dem Supranaturalismus in die Arme zu werfen" (compare Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatik,II , 548). Others, like Virchow, have to the last pronounced against Darwinism as an established hypothesis, and a simian ancestry as an accepted fact ("auf dem Wege der Speculation ist man zu der Affen-Theorie gekommen: man hatte eben so gut zu anderen theromorphischen Theorien kommen konnen, z. B. zu einer Elefanten-Theorie, oder zu einer Schaf-Theorie"--i.e. one might as well speak of an elephant-theory or a sheep-theory or any other animal-theory as of an ape-theory). This was in 1892. When two years later the discovery of the so-called pithecanthropus erectus, supposed to be the "missing link" between man and the lower animals, came under discussion, Virchow held as strongly, that "neither the pithecanthropus nor any other anthropoid ape showed any of the characteristics of primeval man." This was in 1896.
The difference of opinion among scientists on this point seems to be great. While Darwin himself uncompromisingly held to the simian ancestry of man, several of his followers reject that line of descent altogether. This may be seen in the Cambridge volume, dedicated to the memory of the British naturalist. Schwalbe, while instancing Cope, Adloff, Klaatsch and others as advocating a different ancestry for man, acknowledges, though reluctantly, that "the line of descent disappears in the darkness of the ancestry of the mammals," and is inclined to admit that "man has arisen independently" (Darwinism and Modern Science, 134). Two things therefore are clear, namely, that modern science does not endorse the favorite maxim of Darwin, Natura non facit saltum, "Nature does not make a jump," with which according to Huxley he "has unnecessarily hampered himself" (Lay Sermons, 342), and that "man probably arose by a mutation, that is, by a discontinuous variation of considerable magnitude" (J. A. Thomson, Darwinism and Human Life, 123). Granted therefore an ascent In the scale of evolution by "leaps" or "lifts," the words of Otto (Naturalism and Religion, 133) receive a new meaning for those who accept as historic the tradition recorded in the early chapters of Genesis: "There is nothing against the assumption, and there is much to be said in its favor, that the last step, or leap, was such an immense one, that it brought with it a freedom and richness of psychical life incomparable with anything that had gone before."
The objections raised against the Darwinian theory are in the main threefold: (1) its denial of teleology, for which it substitutes natural selection; (2) its assumption, that the evolutionary process is by slow and insensible gradations; (3) its assertion, that organic advance has been absolutely continuous from the lowest form to the highest (Orr, God's Image in Man, 108). This may be illustrated a little more fully:
The denial of teleology is clear and distinct, though Professor Huxley has spoken of a "wider teleology," by which however he simply meant (Critiques and Addresses, 305) that the teleologist can defy his opponent to prove that certain changes in structure were not intended to be produced. In Darwinism the choice seems to he between chance and creation. Mind, purpose, forethought, intention, Divine guidance and super-intendence are banished from the evolutionary process. Darwin himself, though originally inclined to call in the aid of a creator (Origin of Species, 6th edition, 429), regretted afterward, that he "had truckled to public opinion and used the pentateuchal term, by which he really meant appearance by some wholly unknown process" (Life and Letters, III, 18).
Admittedly, Darwin attributed too great a power to natural selection. He himself in the Descent of Man considered it "one of the greatest oversights" in his work, that "he had not sufficiently considered the existence of many structures which are neither beneficial nor injurious," and that he had "probably attributed too much to the action of natural selection on the survival of the fittest" (Descent of Man (2nd ed.), 61). Dr. A. R. Wallace, though like Darwin acknowledging the potency of natural selection, considers its operations to be largely negative. Writing to his friend he says: "Nature does not so much select special varieties, as exterminate unfavorable ones" (Darwin's Life and Letters, III, 46). It is this very insistence on a method of advance by slow and imperceptible gradations that has met with strong opposition from the very beginning. "Natural selection" Darwin writes, "acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations; it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can only act by short and slow steps" (Origin of Species (6th ed.), chapter 15). The process therefore according to Darwin is wholly fortuitous. This non-teleological aspect of Darwinism is characteristic of many treatises on evolution. Weismann states with great clearness and force, that the philosophical significance of theory lies in the fact that "mechanical forces" are substituted for "directive force" to explain the origin of useful structures. Otto speaks of its radical opposition to teleology. And yet an ardent supporter of Darwinism, Professor J. A. Thomson, admits that "there is no logical proof of the doctrine of descent" (Darwinism and Human Life, 22)--a statement which finds its counterpart in Darwin's letters: "We cannot prove that a single species has changed" (Life and Letters, III, 25). Still more clearly, almost epigrammatically this is endorsed by Professor J. A. Thomson: "The fact of evolution forces itself upon us: the factors elude us" (Bible of Nature, 153), and again: "Natural selection explains the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fit" (ib 162). Still more extraordinary is the view expressed by Korchinsky that struggle "prevents the establishment of new variations and in reality stands in the way of new development. It is rather an unfavorable than advantageous factor" (Otto, Nature and Religion, 182). We are in fact being slowly led back to the teleology which by Darwin was considered fatal to his theory. Scientists of some repute are fond of speaking of directive purpose. "Wherever we tap organic nature," says Professor J. A. Thomson, "it seems to flow with purpose" (Bible of Nature, 25); and again, "If there is Logos at the end (of the long evolutionary process ending in man) we may be sure it was also at the beginning" (ib 86). Where there is purpose there must be mind working with purpose and for a definite end; where there is mind there may be creation at the beginning; where creation is granted, an overruling Providence may be accepted. If natural selection "prunes the growing tree"; if it be "a directive, not an originative factor" (J. A. Thomson, Darwinism and Human Life, 193); if it produces nothing, and the evolutionary process is dependent upon forces which work from within and not from without, then surely the Duke of Argyll was right in maintaining (Unity of Nature, 272) that "creation and evolution, when these terms have been cleared from intellectual confusion, are not antagonistic conceptions mutually exclusive. They are harmonious and complementary." The ancient narrative, therefore, which posits God at the beginning, and ascribes the universe to His creative act, is after all not so unscientific as some evolutionists are inclined to make out.
Indefinite variability, assumed by theory, is not supported by fact. Development there doubtless is, but always within carefully defined limits: at every stage the animal or plant is a complete and symmetrical organism, without any indication of an everlasting progression from the less to the more complex. Reversion to type seems ever to have a development proceeding indefinitely, and the sterility of hybrids seems to be Nature's protest against raising variability into a law of progression. It has been repeatedly pointed out, that variations as they arise in any organ are not of advantage to its possessor: "A very slight enlarged sebaceous follicle, a minute pimple on the nose of a fish, a microscopic point of ossification or consolidation amongst the muscles of any animal could (hardly) give its possessor any superiority over its fellows" (Elam, Winds of Doctrine, 128).
Nor can it be denied that no theory of evolution has been able to bridge the chasms which seem to exist between the various kingdoms in Nature. A gradual transition from the inorganic to the organic, from the vegetable to the animal kingdom, from one species of plant or animal to another species, from the animal to man, is not found in Nature. This is acknowledged by scientists of repute. Du Bois-Reymond has maintained that there are seven great enigmas, indicating a sevenfold limit to investigation, namely, (a) the existence of matter and force; (b) the origin of motion; (c) the origin of life; (d) the appearance of design in Nature; (e) the existence of consciousness; (f) intelligent thought and the origin of speech; (g) the question of freewill. Others have found equally serious difficulties in a theory of descent which ignores the existence of such gaps. Thus, Dr. A. R. Wallace--a strong upholder of theory of natural selection--allows that "there are at least three stages in the development of the organic world, when some new cause or power must necessarily have come into action," namely, at the introduction of life, at the introduction of sensation and consciousness and at the introduction of man" (Darwinism, 474-75).
When theory is applied to the human species the difficulties are enormously increased. Psychically, man is akin to, yet vastly different from, the brute. Consciousness, thought, language (called by Max Muller "the Rubicon" between the human and the animal world), morality, religion cannot easily be explained under any theory of evolution. The recognition of moral obligations, the freedom of choice between moral alternatives, the categorical imperative of conscience, the feeling of responsibility and the pain of remorse are unaccounted for by the doctrine of descent. Man stands apart, forming psychologically a kingdom by himself, "infinitely divergent from the simian stirps" (Huxley, Man's Place in Nature, 103)--the riddle of the universe, apart from the Biblical narrative. In the very nature of things the conscious and the unconscious he far apart. "The assertion of the difference between them does not rest on our ignorance, but on our knowledge of the perceived distinction between material particles in motion and internal consciousness related to a self" (Orr, Homiletic Review, August, 1907). There can be no transition from the one to the other. The "gulf" remains in spite of all attempts to bridge it. Strong supporters of Darwinism have acknowledged this. Thus Dr. A. R. Wallace, though vigorously maintaining the "essential identity of man's bodily structure with that of the higher mammals and his descent from some ancestral form common to man and the anthropoid apes," discards theory that "man's entire nature and all his faculties, moral, intellectual, spiritual, have been derived from their rudiments in lower animals"--a theory which he considers unsupported by adequate evidence and directly opposed to many well-ascertained facts (Darwinism, 461; Natural Selection, 322 ff).
(5) Transitional Forms Absent.
The absence of transitional forms is another difficulty which strikes at the very root of Darwinism. Zittel, a paleontologist of repute, endorsed the general opinion, when in 1895 at Zurich he declared, that the extinct transitional links are slowly not forthcoming, except in "a small and ever-diminishing number." The derivation of the modern horse from the "Eohippus," on which great stress is sometimes laid, can hardly be accepted as proved, when it is maintained by scientists of equal repute, that no "Eohippus," but Palaeotherium was the progenitor of the animal whose ancestry is in dispute. And as for man, the discovery by Dr. E. Du Bois, in the island of Java, of the top of a skull, the head of a leg bone, few teeth of an animal supposed to be a man-like mammal, does not convey the absolute proof demanded. From the very first, opinion was strangely divided among naturalists. Virchow doubted whether the parts belonged to the same individual, and considered Du Bois' drawings of the curves of a skull-outline to prove the gradual transition from the skull of a monkey to that of a man as imaginary. Of twenty-four scientists, who examined the remains when originally presented, ten thought they belonged to an ape, seven to a man, seven to some intermediate form (Otto, Naturalism and Religion, 110). At the Anthropological Congress held at Lindau in September, 1899, "Dr. Bumiller read a paper in which he declared that the supposed `pithecanthropus erectus' is nothing but a gibbon, as Virchow surmised from the first" (Orr, in The Expositor, July, 1910).
Evolutionism apparently is undergoing a great change. Among others Fleischmann, and Dennert in Germany have submitted Darwinism to a keen and searching criticism. The latter especially, as a scientist, raises a strong protest against the acceptance of the Darwinian theory, He closes his researches with the remarkable words: "The theory of descent is accepted by nearly all naturalists. But in spite of assertions to the contrary, theory has not yet been fully (ganz unzweifelhaft) proved. .... Darwinism on the other hand, i.e. the doctrine of natural selection through struggle for existence, has been forced back all along the line" (vom Sterbelager des Darwinismus, 120). With equal vigor Professor Hugo de Vries, of Amsterdam, has recently taught a "theory of mutation," a term applied by him to "express the process of origination of a new species, or of a new specific character, when this takes place by the discontinuous method at a single step" (Lock, Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, 113). New species, according to De Vries, may arise from old ones by leaps, and this not in long-past geological times, but in the course of a human life and under our very eyes. This theory of "halmatogenesis," or evolution by leaps and not by insensible gradations, was not unknown to scientists. Lyell, who was a slow convert to Darwinism, in his Antiquity of Man, admitted the possibility of "occasional strides, breaks in an otherwise continuous series of psychical changes, mankind clearing at one bound the space which separated the highest stage of the unprogressive intelligence of inferior animals from the first and lowest form of improvable reason of man." Even Professor Huxley, one of the staunchest supporters of Darwinism, acknowledged that "Nature does make jumps now and then," and that "a recognition of the fact is of no small importance in disposing of many minor objections to the doctrine of transmutation" (Orr, God's Image in Man, 116). Less conciliatory than either De Vries or Huxley is Eimer, who, while repudiating the "chance" theory of Darwinism, sets against it "definitely directed evolution," and holds that "natural selection is insufficient in the formation of species" (Otto, Naturalism and Religion, 174). Evidently the evolution theory is undergoing modifications, which may have important bearing on the interpretation of the Mosaic narrative of creation and especially on the descent of man. Man may therefore, from a purely scientific point of view, be an entirely new being, not brought about by slow and gradual ascent from a simian ancestry. He may have been introduced at a bound, not as a semi-animal with brute impulses, but as a rational and moral being, "internally harmonious, with possibilities of sinless development, which only his free act annulled." If the new theory of "mutational" evolution be accepted, the scriptural view of man's origin will certainly not be discredited.
This much may fairly be granted, that within certain limits Scripture accepts an evolutionary process. In regard to the lower animals the creating (Gen 1:21), or making (Gen 1:28), is not described as an immediate act of Almighty Power, but as a creative impulse given to water and earth, which does not exclude, but rather calls into operation the powers that are in the sea and dry land (Gen 1:11,20,24 the King James Version): "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass .... Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature." It is only in the creation of man that God works immediately: "And God said, Let us make man in our image .... And God created man" (Gen 1:26,27). The stride or jump of Lyell and Huxley, the "halmatogenesis" of De Vries are names which in the simple narrative disappear before the pregnant sentence: "And God said." Theologians of repute have given a theistic coloring to the evolution theory (compare Flint, Theism, 195 ff), inasmuch as development cannot be purposeless or causeless, and because "Nature is but effect whose cause is God." The deathblow which, according to Professor Huxley, the teleological argument has received from Darwin, may after all not be so serious. At any rate Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson) in 1871 before the British Association openly pleaded for "the solid and irrefragable argument so well put forward by Paley .... teaching us, that all living things depended upon an everacting Creator and Ruler."
See EVOLUTION .
VI. Primitive and Present Conditions of Man: Antiquity of Man.
1. The Time-Distance of Man's Origin:
The newer anthropology has carried the human race back to a remote antiquity. Ordinary estimates range between 100,000 and 500,000 years. Extraordinary computations go far beyond these numbers. Haeckel, e.g. speaks of "Sirius distances" for the whole evolutionary process; and what this means may easily be conjectured. The sun is 92,700,000 miles away from the earth, and Sirius
is a million times as far from us as we are from the sun, so that the time-distance of man from the very lowest organisms, from the first germ or seed or ovule, is according to Haeckel almost incalculable. The human race is thus carried back by evolutionists into an immeasurable distance from the present inhabitants of the earth. Several primeval races are by some declared to have existed, and fossil remains of man are supposed to have been found, bringing him into touch with extinct animals. The time-computations of evolutionists, however, are not shared by scientists in general. "These millionaires in time have received a rude blow, when another Darwin, Sir G. H. Darwin of Cambridge, demonstrated that the physical conditions were such that geology must limit itself to a period of time inside of 100,000 years" (Orr, God's Image, etc., 176). Professor Tait of Edinburgh limited the range to no more than 10,000,000 years and he strongly advised geologists to "hurry up their calculations." "I dare say," he says, "many of you are acquainted with the speculations of Lyell and others, especially of Darwin, who tells us, that even for a comparatively brief portion of recent geological history, three hundred millions of years will not suffice! We say, so much the worse for geology as at present understood by its chief authorities" (Recent Advances in Physical Science, 168). Recently, however, attention has been drawn to new sources of energy in the universe as the result of radio-activity. Duncan, in The New Knowledge, contrasts the old conception, according to which God made the universe and started it at a definite time to run its course, with the need, which though it does not distinctly teach, at least is inclined to maintain, that the universe is immortal or eternal, both in the future and the past (p. 245). If this view be correct the Darwinian "eons" of time may be considered restored to the evolutionist. On the other hand it appears that Lord Kelvin seriously doubted the validity of these speculations. Professor Orr writes: "In a personal communication Lord Kelvin states to me that he thinks it `almost infinitely improbable' that radium had any appreciable effects on the heat and light of the earth or sun, and suggests it as `more probable that the energy of radium may have come originally in connection with the excessively high temperatures' produced by gravitational action" (Homiletic Review, August, 1906).
In regard to primeval man there is no agreement among scientists. Some, like Delaunay, de Mortillet, Quatrefages, believed that man existed in the Tertiary; while others, such as Virchow, Zittel, Prestwich, Dawson, maintain that man appeared on the scene only in the Quaternary. As the limits between these periods are not well defined a decision is by no means easy. Even if man be found to have been a contemporary of extinct animals, such as the mammoth, the inference from this fact would be equally just, not that man is as old as the extinct animal, but that the animal is as young as man and that the period assigned to these fossil remains must be brought considerably nearer to present-day life.
Calculations based on the gravels of the Somme, on the cone of the Tiniere, on the peat-bogs of France and Denmark, on fossil bones discovered in caves of Germany and France, on delta-formations of great rivers like the Nile and the Mississippi, on the "kitchen middings" of Denmark, and the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, must be carefully scrutinized. Sir J. W. Dawson, a geologist of great repute, has made the deliberate statement, that "possibly none of these reach farther back than six or seven thousand years, which according to Dr. Andrews have elapsed since the close of the boulder-clay in America," and that "the scientific pendulum must swing backward in this direction" (Story of the Earth and Man, 293). The "ice-age," formerly hypothetically calculated, has latterly been brought within calculable distance. G. F. Wright, Winchell and others have arrived at the conclusion that the glacial period in America, and consequently in Europe, does not lie more than some eight or ten thousand years behind us. If such be the case, the antiquity of man is brought within reasonable limits, and may consequently not be in contradiction to the Biblical statements on this point. If the careful and precise calculations of Dr. Andrews on the raised beaches of Lake Michigan are accepted, then North America must have risen out of the waters of the Glacial period some 5,500 or 7,500 years ago; and if so, the duration of the human period in that continent is fixed and must be considerably reduced (Dawson, Story, etc., 295). One of the latest deliverances on this subject is that of Professor Russell of the University of Michigan (1904), who maintains that "we find no authentic and well-attested evidence of the presence of man in America either previous to or during the Glacial period." He is confident, that "all the geological evidence thus far gathered bearing on the antiquity of man in America points to the conclusion that he came after the Glacial epoch." Where all is vague and experts differ great caution is necessary in the arrangement of dates and periods of time. If moreover a comparatively rapid post-glacial submergence and reelevation is accepted, as some naturalists hold, and man were then on the earth, the question may fairly be asked, whether this subsidence did not "constitute the deluge recorded in that remarkable `log-book' of Noah preserved to us in Gen" (Dawson, op. cit., 290).
The chronology of ancient nations--China, Babylon, Egypt--has been considered as subversive of the scriptural view as to the age of the human race. But it is a well-known fact, that experts differ very seriously upon the point. Their calculations range, for Egypt--starting from the reign of King Menes--from 5,867 (Champollion) to 4,455 (Brugsch), and from 3,892 (Lepsius) to 2,320 (Wilkinson). As to Babylon Bunsen places the starting-point for the historic period in 3,784, Brandis in 2,458, Oppert in 3,540--a difference of thousands of years (compare Bavinck, Geref. Dogmatik, II, 557). Perhaps here, too, future research will bring the scientific and the Biblical view into fuller harmony. At any rate, Hommel's words on all these calculations require careful study: "The chronology for the first thousand years before Christ is fairly fixed: in the second thousand BC some points seem to be fixed: in the third thousand, i.e. before 2000 BC, all is uncertain." In this connection it may be mentioned, that attempts have frequently been made to cast discredit on the chronology of the early chapters of Genesis. Suffice it to say that the calculations are based on the genealogies of the patriarchs and their descendants, and that the generally accepted dates assigned to them by Archbishop Ussher and introduced into the margins of some editions of the Bible are not to be trusted. The Septuagint differs in this respect from the Hebrew text by more than 1,500 years: precise chronological data are not and cannot be given. The basis of calculation is not known. Perhaps we are not far wrong in saying that, "if we allow, say, from 12,000 to 15,000 years since the time of man's first appearance on the earth, we do ample justice to all the available facts" (Orr, God's Image, etc., 180).
See CHRONOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT .
That all these discussions have a bearing upon our view of man's primitive conditions can easily be understood. According to Scripture man's destiny was to `replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over fish, fowl and every living thing' (Gen 1:28), as God's steward (oikonomos, Titus 1:7), as fellow-laborer with God (sunergos, 1 Cor 3:9). Hence he was placed by God in the garden of Eden (gan be`edhen; Septuagint paradeisos tes trophes; Vulgate paradisus voluptatis, "paradise of delight"). The situation of that garden is carefully described, though the proper site remains unknown (Gen 2:14,15). Some, like Driver, consider this an ideal locality (Genesis, 57); others take a very wide range in fixing upon the true site. Every continent has been chosen as the cradle of the race--Africa, among others, as the home of the gorilla and the chimpanzee--the supposed progenitors of humanity. In America, Greenland and the regions around the North Pole have had their supporters. Certain parts of Europe have found favor in some quarters. An imaginary island--Lemuria--situated between the African and Australian continents--has been accepted by others. All this, however, lies beyond the scope of science, and beyond the range of Scripture. Somewhere to the east of Palestine, and in or near Babylonia, we must seek for the cradle of humanity. No trace of primeval man has been found, nor has the existence of primeval races been proved. The skulls which have been found (Neanderthal, Engis, Lansing) are of a high type, even Professor Huxley declaring of the first, that "it can in no sense be regarded as the intermediate between Man and the Apes," of the second, that it is "a fair, average skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage" (Man's Place in Nature, 156, 157). Of the Lansing skeleton found in Kansas, in 1902, this may at least be said--apart from the question as to its antiquity--that the skull bears close resemblance to that of the modern Indian. Even the skull of the Cro-Magnon man, supposed to belong to the paleolithic age, Sir J. W. Dawson considers to have carried a brain of greater size than that of the average modern man (Meeting-Place of Geology and History, 54). Primeval man can hardly be compared to the modern savage; for the savage is a deteriorated representative of a better type, which has slowly degenerated. History does not know of an unaided emergence from barbarism on the part of any savage tribe; it does know of degradation from a better type. Whatever view we take of the original state of man, the following points must be borne in mind: we need not suppose him to have been a humanized ape, rising into true manhood by a slow and gradual process; nor need we picture him either as a savage of pronounced type, or as in every sense the equal of modern man, "the heir of all the ages." Scripture represents him to us as a moral being, "with possibilities of sinless development, which his own free act annulled." There the matter may rest, and the words of a non-canonical Scripture may fitly be applied to him: "God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity" (The Wisdom of Solomon 2:23, the King James Version).
See also PSYCHOLOGY .
LITERATURE.
Darwin, Origin of Species, Descent of Man; Lock, Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, etc.; A. R. Wallace, Darwinism, Natural Selection; Sir J. W. Dawson, Story of the Earth and Man, Origin of World according to Revelation and Science, Meeting-Place of Geology and History; R. Otto, Naturalism and Religion; Cambridge Memorial vol, Darwin and Modern Science; J. H. Stirling, Darwinianism; J. Young, Evolution and Design; J. Orr, God's Image in Man; J. A. Thomson, Bible of Nature, Darwinism and Human Life; Weismann, Essays on Heredity; Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatik; Van Leeuwen. Bijbelsche Anthropologie; Laidlaw, Bible Doctrines of Man; O. Zockler, Vom Urstand des Menschen; A. Fleischmann; Die Darwin'sche Theorie; E. Dennert, Vom Sterbelager des Darwinismus, Bibel und Naturwissenschaft; Huxley, Man's Place in Nature; Herzog, RE, articles "Geist" and "Seele"; Driver, Genesis; Delitzsch, Genesis; Dillmann, Die Genesis, etc., etc.
J. I. Marais
an-thro-po-mor'-fiz'-m:
1. Definition of the Term
2. Old Testament Anthropomorphisms
3. In What Senses an Anthropomorphic Element Is Necessary
4. Anthropomorphism and the Exigencies of Human Thinking
5. Anthropomorphism and Theism
6. Symbolic Forms of Thought
7. Philosophic Pantheism
8. Anthropomorphism and Personalized or Mediated Knowledge
9. From Greek Polytheism to Modern Ethical Monotheism
10. Greek Thought
11. Anthropomorphism of Israel
12. Twofold Nature of the Anthropomorphic Difficulty
13. Need of Rising Higher
14. God in Christ the True Solution
By this term is meant, conformably with its etymological signification, i.e. as being in the form or likeness of man, the attribution to God of human form, parts or passions, and the taking of Scripture passages which speak of God as having hands, or eyes, or ears, in a literal sense. This anthropomorphic procedure called forth Divine rebuke so early as Ps 50:21: "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself."
2. Old Testament Anthropomorphisms:
Fear of the charge of anthropomorphism has had a strangely deterrent effect upon many minds, but very needlessly so. Even that rich storehouse of apparently crude anthropomorphisms, the Old Testament, when it ascribes to Deity physical characters, mental and moral attributes, like those of man, merely means to make the Divine nature and operations intelligible, not to transfer to Him the defects and limitations of human character and life.
3. In What Senses an Anthropomorphic Element Is Necessity:
In all really theistic forms of religion, there is an anthropomorphic element present, for they all presuppose the psychological truth of a certain essential likeness between God and man. Nor, perfect as we may our theistic idea or conception of Deity, can we, in the realm of spirit, ever wholly eliminate the anthropomorphic element involved in this assumption, without which religion itself were not. It is of the essence of the religious consciousness to recognize the analogy subsisting between God's relations to man, and man's relations to his fellow. We are warned off from speaking of "the Divine will" or "the Divine purpose," as too anthropomorphic--savoring too much of simple humanity and human psychology--and are bidden speak only of "the Divine immanence" or "the Divine ground of our being."
4. Anthropomorphism and the Exigencies of Human Thinking:
But these speculative objections really spring from a shallow interpretation of the primary facts of human consciousness, which, in the deepest realm of inner experience, claims the indefeasible right to speak of the Divine nature in human terms, as may best be possible to our being. The proper duty or function of philosophy is to take due account of such direct and primary facts of our nature: the basal facts of our being cannot be altered to suit her convenience.
5. Anthropomorphism and Theism:
If we were to interpret the impalpable and omni-present Energy, from which all things proceed, in terms of force, then, as Flake said, "there is scarcely less anthropomorphism lurking in the phrase `Infinite Power,' than in the phrase `Infinite Person.'" Besides which, the soul of man could never be content with the former phrase, for the soul wants more than dynamics. But if we have ascribed to God certain attributes in keeping with the properties of the one Protean force behind all nature-manifestations, it has been to help purge our conception of God of objectionable anthropomorphic elements. The exigencies of human thinking require us to symbolize the nature of Deity in some psychical way whereby He shall have for us some real meaning; hence those quasi-personal or anthropomorphic forms of expression, which inhere in the most perfected conceptions of Deity, as well as in the crude ideas of unreflective spiritism. And if all anthropomorphism could be dissipated by us, we should in the process have demolished theism--a serious enough issue for religion.
Even speech has been declared to be a sensuous symbol, which makes knowledge of God impossible. To such an extent have the hyper-critical objections to anthropomorphism been pressed. Symbol of the Divine, speech may, in this sense, be; but it is a symbol whereby we can mark, distinguish or discern the super-sensible. Thus our abstract conceptions are by no means sensuous, however the language may originally have set out from a sensuous significance. Hence, it would be a mistake to suppose that our knowledge of God must remain anthropomorphic in content, and cannot think the Absolute Being or Essence save in symbolic form. It is a developmental law of religion--as of spirit in general--that the spiritual grows always more clearly differentiated from the symbolic and sensuous. The fact that our knowledge of God is susceptible of advance does not make the idea of God a merely relative one. God's likeness to man, in respect of the attributes and elements essential to personal spirit, must be presupposed as a fundamental reality of the universe. In this way or sense, therefore, any true idea of God must necessarily be anthropomorphic.
We cannot prove in any direct manner--either psychological or historical--that man was really made in God's image. But there is no manner of doubt that, on the other hand, man has always made God in his (man's) own image. Man can do no otherwise. Because he has purged his conceptions of Deity after human pattern, and no longer cares much to speak of God as a jealous or repentant or punitive Deity, as the case may be, it yet by no means follows that "the will of God" and "the love of God" have ceased to be of vital interest or primary importance for the religious consciousness. All man's constructive powers--intellectual, aesthetical, ethical, and spiritual--combine in evolving such an ideal, and believing in it as the personal Absolute, the Ideal-Real in the world of reality. Even in the forms of philosophic pantheism, the factors which play in man's personal life have not ceased to project themselves into the pantheistic conceptions of the cosmic processes or the being of the world.
8. Anthropomorphism and Personalized or Mediated Knowledge:
But man's making of God in his (man's) own image takes place just because God has made man in His own image. For the God, whom man makes for himself, is, before all things, real--no mere construction of his intellect, no figure or figment of his imagination, but the prius of all things, the Primal, Originative Reality. Thus we see that any inadequacy springing out of the anthropomorphic character of our religious knowledge or conceptions is not at all so serious as might at first sight be supposed, since it is due merely to the necessarily personalized or mediated character of all our knowledge whatsoever. For all our experience is human experience, and, in that sense, anthropomorphic. Only the most pitiful timidity will be scared by the word "anthropomorphism," which need not have the least deterrent effect upon our minds, since, in the territory of spirit, our conceptions are purged of anthropomorphic taint or hue, the purer our human consciousness becomes.
9. From Greek Polytheism to Modern Ethical Monotheism.
To say, as we have done, that all knowledge is anthropomorphic, is but to recognize its partial, fallible, progressive or developmental character. It is precisely because this is true of our knowledge of God that our improved and perfected conceptions of God are the most significant feature in the religious progress of humanity. Only in course of the long religious march, wherein thought has shot up through the superincumbent weight of Greek polytheism into monotheism, and emerged at last into the severely ethical monotheism of our time, has religion been gradually stripped of its more crude anthropomorphic vestments. It cannot too clearly be understood that the religious ideal, which man has formed in the conception of the Absolute Personality, is one which is rooted in the realm of actuality. Not otherwise than as a metaphysical unity can God be known by us--intelligible only in the light of our own self-conscious experience.
It is a mere modern--and rather unillumined--abuse of the term anthropomorphic which tries to affix it, as a term of reproach, to every hypothetical endeavor to frame a conception of God. In the days of the Greeks, it was only the ascription to the gods of human or bodily form that led Xenophanes to complain of anthropomorphism. This Xenophanes naturally took to be an illegitimate endeavor to raise one particular kind of being--one form of the finite--into the place of the Infinite. Hence he declared, "There is one God, greatest of all gods and men, who is like to mortal creatures neither in form nor in mind."
11. Anthropomorphism of Israel:
But the progressive anthropomorphism of Greece is seen less in the humanizing of the gods than in the claim that "men are mortal gods," the idea being, as Aristotle said, that men become gods by transcendent merit. In this exaltation of the nature of man, the anthropomorphism of Greece is in complete contrast with the anthropomorphism of Israel, which was prone to fashion its Deity, not after the likeness of anything in the heavens above, but after something in the earth beneath. Certain professors of science have been mainly responsible for the recent and reprehensible use of the term, so familiar to us, for which we owe them no particular gratitude.
12. Twofold Nature of the Anthropomorphic Difficulty:
The anthropomorphic difficulty is a twofold one. Religion, as we have just shown, must remain anthropomorphic in the sense that we cannot get rid of imputing to the universe the forms of our own mind or life, since religion is rooted in our human experience. As we have already hinted, however, religion is in no worse case in that respect than science. For nothing is more idle than the pretension that science is less anthropomorphic than religion--or philosophy either--as if science were not, equally with these, an outcome and manifestation of human thinking! It is surely most obvious that the scientist, in any knowledge of reality he may gain, can, no more than the religionist--or the metaphysician--jump off his own shadow, or make escape from the toils of his own nature and powers. For knowledge of any sort--whether religious or scientific or philosophical--a certain true anthropomorphism is necessary, for it is of the essence of rationality. Nature, of which science professes a knowledge, is really a man-made image, like unto its human maker. Say what science will, this is the objectively real of science--a cognition which, critically viewed, is only subjectively valid. There is no other way by which science can know the being of the world than after the human pattern. It is, however, a serious issue that this human element or factor has often unduly penetrated the realm of the Divine, subordinating it and dragging it down to human aims and conceptions.
Hence arises the second aspect of the anthropomorphic difficulty, which is, the need of freeing religion from anthropomorphic tendency, since it can be no satisfactory revealer of truth, so long as its more or less unrefined anthropomorphism contracts or subjugates reality to the conditions of a particular kind of being. It is perfectly clear that religion, whose every aim is to raise man beyond the limitations of his natural being, can never realize its end, so long as it remains wholly within the human sphere, instead of being something universal, transcendent, and independent. This is precisely why religion comes to give man's life the spiritual uplift whereby it rises to a new center of gravity--a true center of immediacy--in the universe, rises, indeed, beyond time and its own finitude to a participation in the universal and transcendent life of the Eternal. It does so without feeling need to yield to the anthropomorphic tendency in our time to attribute a necessity in God for an object to love, as if His egoistic perfection were not capable of realizing love's infinite ideal in itself, and without dependence upon such object.
14. God in Christ the True Solution:
We affirm that God in Christ, in revealing the fact of the likeness of man being eternal in God, disclosed the true anthropomorphism of our knowledge of God--it is with respect to the essential attributes and elements of personal spirit. It is easy to see how the early ascriptions to God of the form and members of the human body, and other non-essential accompaniments of personality, arose. The scriptural representations as to God's hand, eye, and ear, were declared by Calvin to be but adaptations to the slow spiritual progress of men--an infantile mode of talk, as Calvin puts it, like that of nurses to children. But we have got finely clear of essential anthropomorphism, if, with Isa 55:8, we fully recognize that God's "thoughts are not" our "thoughts," nor God's "ways" our "ways."
LITERATURE.
E. Caird, Evolution of Religion, 1893; J. Martineau, A Study of Religion, 1889; J. Fiske, The Idea of God, 1901; J. Orr, God's Image in Man, 1905; D. B. Purinton, Christian Theism, 1889; J. Lindsay, Recent Advances in Theistic Philosophy of Religion, 1897; Studies in European Philosophy, 1909.
James Lindsay
an-ti-lib'-a-nus.
See LEBANON .
an'-ti-krist (antichristos):
LITERATURE
The word "antichrist" occurs only in 1 Jn 2:18,22; 4:3; 2 Jn 1:7, but the idea which the word conveys appears frequently in Scripture.
Antichrist in the Old Testament:
As in the Old Testament the doctrine concerning Christ was only suggested, not developed, so is it with the doctrine of the Antichrist. That the Messiah should be the divine Logos, the only adequate expression of God, was merely hinted at, not stated: so Antichrist was exhibited as the opponent of God rather than of His anointed. In the historical books of the Old Testament we find "Belial" used as if a personal opponent of Yahweh; thus the scandalously wicked are called in the King James Version "sons of Belial" (Jdg 19:22; 20:13), "daughter of Belial" (1 Sam 1:16), etc. The the Revised Version (British and American) translates the expression in an abstract sense, "base fellows," "wicked woman." In Dan 7:7,8 there is the description of a great heathen empire, represented by a beast with ten horns: its full antagonism to God is expressed in a little eleventh horn which had "a mouth speaking great things" and "made war with the saints" (Dan 7:8,21). Him the `Ancient of Days' was to destroy, and his kingdom was to be given to a `Son of Man' (Dan 7:9-14). Similar but yet differing in many points is the description of Antiochus Epiphanes in Dan 8:9-12,23-25.
In the Gospels the activity of Satan is regarded as specially directed against Christ. In the Temptation (Mt 4:1-10; Lk 4:1-13) the Devil claims the right to dispose of "all the kingdoms of the world," and has his claim admitted. The temptation is a struggle between the Christ and the Antichrist. In the parable of the Tares and the Wheat, while He that sowed the good seed is the Son of Man, he that sowed the tares is the Devil, who is thus Antichrist (Mt 13:37-39). our Lord felt it the keenest of insults that His miracles should be attributed to Satanic assistance (Mt 12:24-32). In Jn 14:30 there is reference to the "Prince of the World" who "hath nothing" in Christ.
The Pauline epistles present a more developed form of the doctrine. In the spiritual sphere Paul identifies Antichrist with Belial. "What concord hath Christ with Belial?" (2 Cor 6:15). 2 Thessalonians, written early, affords evidence of a considerably developed doctrine being commonly accepted among believers. The exposition of 2 Thess 2:3-9, in which Paul exhibits his teaching on the `Man of Sin,' is very difficult, as may be seen from the number of conflicting attempts at its interpretation. See MAN OF SIN . Here we would only indicate what seems to us the most plausible view of the Pauline doctrine. It had been revealed to the apostle by the Spirit that the church was to be exposed to a more tremendous assault than any it had yet witnessed. Some twelve years before the epistle was penned, the Roman world had seen in Caligula the portent of a mad emperor. Caligula had claimed to be worshipped as a god, and had a temple erected to him in Rome. He went farther, and demanded that his own statue should be set up in the temple at Jerusalem to be worshipped. As similar causes might be expected to produce similar effects, Paul, interpreting "what the Spirit that was in him did signify," may have thought of a youth, one reared in the purple, who, raised to the awful, isolating dignity of emperor, might, like Caligula, be struck with madness, might, like him, demand Divine honors, and might be possessed with a thirst for blood as insatiable as his. The fury of such an enthroned maniac would, with too great probability, be directed against those who, like the Christians, would refuse as obstinately as the Jews to give him Divine honor, but were not numerous enough to make Roman officials pause before proceeding to extremities. So long as Claudius lived, the Antichrist manifestation of this "lawless one" was restrained; when, however, the aged emperor should pass away, or God's time should appoint, that "lawless one" would be revealed, whom the Lord would "slay with the breath of his mouth" (2 Thess 2:8).
Although many of the features of the "Man of Sin" were exhibited by Nero, yet the Messianic kingdom did not come, nor did Christ return to His people at Nero's death. Writing after Nero had fallen, the apostle John, who, as above remarked, alone of the New Testament writers uses the term, presents us with another view of Antichrist (1 Jn 2:18,22; 4:3; 2 Jn 1:7). From the first of these passages ("as ye have heard that antichrist cometh"), it is evident that the coming of Antichrist was an event generally anticipated by the Christian community, but it is also clear that the apostle shared to but a limited extent in this popular expectation. He thought the attention of believers needed rather to be directed to the antichristian forces that were at work among and around them ("even now have .... arisen many antichrists"). From 1 Jn 2:22; 4:3; 2 Jn 1:7 we see that the apostle regards erroneous views of the person of Christ as the real Antichrist. To him the Docetism (i.e. the doctrine that Christ's body was only a seeming one) which portended Gnosticism, and the elements of Ebionism (Christ was only a man), were more seriously to be dreaded than persecution.
In the Book of Revelation the doctrine of Antichrist receives a further development. If the traditional date of the Apocalypse is to be accepted, it was written when the lull which followed the Neronian persecution had given place to that under Domitian--"the bald Nero." The apostle now feels the whole imperial system to be an incarnation of the spirit of Satan; indeed from the identity of the symbols, seven heads and ten horns, applied both to the dragon (Rev 12:3) and to the Beast (Rev 13:1), he appears to have regarded the raison d`etre of the Roman Empire to be found in its incarnation of Satan. The ten horns are borrowed from Dan 7, but the seven heads point, as seen from Rev 17:9, to the "seven hills" on which Rome sat. There is, however, not only the Beast, but also the "image of the beast" to be considered (Rev 13:14,15). Possibly this symbolizes the cult of Rome, the city being regarded as a goddess, and worshipped with temples and statues all over the empire. From the fact that the seer endows the Beast that comes out of the earth with "two horns like unto a lamb" (Rev 13:11), the apostle must have had in his mind some system of teaching that resembled Christianity; its relationship to Satan is shown by its speaking "as a dragon" (Rev 13:11). The number 666 given to the Beast (Rev 13:18), though presumably readily understood by the writer's immediate public, has proved a riddle capable of too many solutions to be now readily soluble at all. The favorite explanation Neron Qecar (Nero Caesar), which suits numerically, becomes absurd when it implies the attribution of seven heads and ten horns. There is no necessity to make the calculation in Hebrew; the corresponding arithmogram in the Sib Or, 1 32830, in which 888 stands for Iesous, is interpreted in Greek. On this hypothesis Lateinos, a suggestion preserved by Irenaeus (V, 30) would suit. If we follow the analogy of Daniel, which has influenced the Apocalyptist so much, the Johannine Antichrist must be regarded as not a person but a kingdom. In this case it must be the Roman Empire that is meant.
Antichrist in the Apocalyptic Writings:
Although from their eschatological bias one would expect that the Jewish Apocalyptic Writings would be full of the subject, mention of the Antichrist occurs only in a few of the apocalypses. The earliest certain notice is found in the Sibylline books (1 167). We are there told that "Beliar shall come and work wonders," and "that he shall spring from the Sebasteni (Augusti)" a statement which, taken with other indications, inclines one to the belief that the mad demands of Caligula, were, when this was written, threatening the Jews. There are references to Beliar in the XII the Priestly Code (P), which, if the date ascribed to them by Dr. Charles, i.e. the reign of John Hyrcanus I, be assumed as correct, are earlier. Personally we doubt the accuracy of this conclusion. Further, as Dr. Charles admits the presence of many interpolations, even though one might assent to his opinions as to the nucleus of the XII the Priestly Code (P), yet these Beliar passages might be due to the interpolator. Only in one passage is "Beliar" antichristos as distinguished from antitheos; Dan 5:10,11 (Charles' translation), "And there shall rise unto you from the tribe of Judah and of Levi the salvation of the Lord, and he shall make war against Beliar, and execute everlasting vengeance on our enemies, and the captivity shall he take from Beliar and turn disobedient hearts unto the Lord." Dr. Charles thinks he finds an echo of this last clause in Lk 1:17; but may the case not be the converse?
The fullest exposition of the ideas associated with the antichrist in the early decades of Christian history is to be found in the Ascension of Isaiah. In this we are told that "Beliar" (Belial) would enter into "the matricide king" (Nero), who would work great wonders, and do much evil. After the termination of 1,332 days during which he has persecuted the plant which the twelve apostles of the Beloved have planted, "the Lord will come with his angels and with armies of his holy ones from the seventh heaven, with the glory of the seventh heaven, and he will drag Beliar into Gehenna and also his armies" (Dan 4:3,13, Charles' translation). If the date at which Beliar was supposed to enter into Nero was the night on which the great fire in Rome began, then the space of power given to him is too short by 89 days. From the burning of Rome till Nero's death was 1,421 days. It is to be noted that there are no signs of the writer having been influenced either by Paul or the Apocalypse. As he expected the coming of the Lord to be the immediate cause of the death of Nero, we date the writing some months before that event. It seems thus to afford contemporary and independent evidence of the views entertained by the Christian community as to Antichrist.
Patristic References to Antichrist:
Of the patristic writers, Polycarp is the only one of the Apostolic Fathers who refers directly to Antichrist. He quotes John's words, "Whosoever doth not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is Antichrist" (7), and regards Docetism as Antichrist in the only practical sense. Barnabas, although not using the term, implies that the fourth empire of Daniel is Antichrist; this he seems to identify with the Roman Empire (4:5). Irenaeus is the first-known writer to occupy himself with the number of the Beast. While looking with some favor on Lateinos, he himself prefers Teitan as the name intended (5:30). His view is interesting as showing the belief that the arithmogram was to be interpreted by the Greek values of the letters. More particulars as to the views prevailing can be gleaned from Hippolytus, who has a special work on the subject, in which he exhibits the points of resemblance between Christ and Antichrist (On Christ and Antichrist, 4.14.15. 19.25). In this work we find the assertion that Antichrist springs from the terms of Jacob's blessing to Dan. Among other references, the idea of Commodian (250 AD) that Nero risen from the dead was to be Antichrist has to be noticed. In the commentary on Revelation attributed to Victorinus of Petau there is, inserted by a later hand, an identification of Genseric with the "Beast" of that book. It is evident that little light is to be gained on the subject from patristic sources.
Much time need not be spent on the medieval views of Antichrist in either of the two streams in which it flowed, Christian and Jewish.
The Christian was mainly occupied in finding methods of transforming the names of those whom monkish writers abhorred into a shape that would admit of their being reckoned 666. The favorite name for this species of torture was naturally Maometis (Mohammed). Gregory IX found no difficulty in accommodating the name of Frederic II so as to enable him to identify his great antagonist with "the beast coming up out of the sea": this identification the emperor retorted on the pope. Rabanus Maurus gives a full account of what Antichrist was to do, but without any attempt to label any contemporary with the title. He was to work miracles and to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. The view afterward so generally held by Protestants that the papacy was Antichrist had its representatives among the sects denounced by the hierarchy as heretical, as the Kathari. In various periods the rumor was spread that Antichrist had been already born. Sometimes his birthplace was said to be Babylon, sometimes this distinction was accorded to the mystical Babylon, Rome.
The Jewish views had little effect on Christian speculation. With the Talmudists Antichrist was named Armilus, a variation of Romulus. Rome is evidently primarily intended, but Antichrist became endowed with personal attributes. He makes war on Messiah, son of Joseph, and slays him, but is in turn destroyed by Messiah, Son of David.
Post-Reformation Theories of Antichrist:
In immediately post-Reformation times the divines of the Romish church saw in Luther and the Reformed churches the Antichrist and Beast of Revelation. On the other hand the Protestants identified the papacy and the Roman church with these, and with the Pauline Man of Sin. The latter view had a certain plausibility, not only from the many undeniably antichristian features in the developed Roman system, but from the relation in which the Romish church stood to the city of Rome and to the imperial idea. The fact that the Beast which came out of the earth (Rev 13:11) had the horns of a lamb points to some relation to the lamb which had been slain (Rev 5:6). Futurist interpreters have sought the Antichrist in historical persons, as Napoleon III. These persons, however, did not live to realize the expectations formed of them. The consensus of critical opinion is that Nero is intended by the Beast of the Apocalypse, but this, on many grounds, as seen before, is not satisfactory. Some future development of evil may more exactly fulfill the conditions of the problem.
LITERATURE.
Bousset, Der Antichrist; "The Antichrist Legend," The Expositor T, contains an admirable vidimus of ancient authorities in the subject. See articles on subject in Schenkel's Biblical Lex. (Hausrath); Herzog's RE, 2nd edition (Kahler), 3rd edition (Sieffert); Encyclopedia Biblica (Bousset); with Commentaries on 2 Thess and Revelation. A full account of the interpretations of the "Man of Sin" may be seen in Dr. John Eadie's essay on that subject in his Commentary on Thessalonians.
J. E. H. Thomson
an-ti-le-gom'-e-na.
See BIBLE ;CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ;DEUTERO-CANONICAL .
an'-ti-mo-ni.
See COLOR .
an'-ti-ok, (Antiocheia).
(2) Antioch in Syria.--In 301 BC, shortly after the battle of Ipsus, which made him master of Syria, Seleucus Nicator rounded the city of Antioch, naming it after his father Antiochus. Guided, it was said, by the flight of an eagle, he fixed its site on the left bank of the Orontes (the El-`Asi) about 15 miles from the sea. He also rounded and fortified Seleucia to be the port of his new capital. The city was enlarged and embellished by successive kings of the Seleucid Dynasty, notably by Seleucus Callinicus (246-226 BC), and Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 BC). In 83 BC, on the collapse of the Seleucid monarchy, Antioch fell into the hands of Tigranes, king of Armenia, who held Syria until his defeat by the Romans fourteen years later. In 64 BC the country was definitely annexed to Rome by Pompey, who granted considerable privileges to Antioch, which now became the capital of the Roman province of Syria. In the civil wars which terminated in the establishment of the Roman principate, Antioch succeeded in attaching itself constantly to the winning side, declaring for Caesar after the fall of Pompey, and for Augustus after the battle of Actium. A Roman element was added to its population, and several of the emperors contributed to its adornment. Already a splendid city under the Seleucids, Antioch was made still more splendid by its Roman patrons and masters. It was the "queen of the East," the third city, after Rome and Alexandria, of the Roman world. About five miles distant from the city was the suburb of Daphne, a spot sacred to Apollo and Artemis. This suburb, beautified by groves and fountains, and embellished by the Seleucids and the Romans with temples and baths, was the pleasure resort of the city, and "Daphnic morals" became a by-word. From its foundation Antioch was a cosmopolitan city. Though not a seaport, its situation was favorable to commercial development, and it absorbed much of the trade of the Levant. Seleucus Nicator had settled numbers of Jews in it, granting them equal rights with the Greeks (Ant., XII, iii, 1). Syrians, Greeks, Jews, and in later days, Romans, constituted the main elements of the population. The citizens were a vigorous, turbulent and pushing race, notorious for their commercial aptitude, the licentiousness of their pleasures, and the scurrility of their wit. Literature and the arts, however, were not neglected.
In the early history of Christianity, Antioch occupies a distinguished place. The large and flourishing Jewish colony offered an immediate field for Christian teaching, and the cosmopolitanism of the city tended to widen the outlook of the Christian community, which refused to be confined within the narrow limits of Judaism. Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, was one of the first deacons (Acts 6:5). Antioch was the cradle of GentileChristianity and of Christian missionary enterprise. It was at the instance of the church at Antioch that the council at Jerusalem decided to relieve GentileChristians of the burden of the Jewish law (Acts 15). Antioch was Paul's starting-point in his three missionary journeys (Acts 13:1 ff; 15:36 ff; 18:23), and thither he returned from the first two as to his headquarters (Acts 14:26 ff; 18:22). Here also the term "Christian," doubtless originally a nickname, was first applied to the followers of Jesus (Acts 11:26). The honorable record of the church at Antioch as the mother-church of GentileChristianity gave her a preeminence which she long enjoyed. The most distinguished of her later sons was John Chrysostom. The city suffered severely from earthquakes, but did not lose its importance until the Arab conquest restored Damascus to the first place among Syrian cities. Antioch still bears its ancient name (Antakiyeh), but is now a poor town with a few thousand inhabitants.
C. H. Thomson
an'-ti-ok, pi-sid'-i-a (Antiocheia pros Pisidia, or aAntiocheia he Pisidia = "Pisidian").
(1) Antioch of Pisidia was so called to distinguish it from the many other cities of the same name founded by Seleucus Nicator (301-280 BC) and called after his father Antiochus. It was situated in a strong position, on a plateau close to the western bank of the river Anthios, which flows down from the Sultan Dagh to the double lake called Limnai (Egerdir Gol). It was planted on the territory of a great estate belonging to the priests of the native religion; the remaining portions of this estate belonged later to the Roman emperors, and many inscriptions connected with the cult of the emperors, who succeeded to the Divine as well as to the temporal rights of the god, have survived. (See Sir W. M. Ramsay's paper on "The Tekmoreian Guest-Friends" in Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 1906.) The plateau on which Antioch stood commands one of the roads leading from the East to the Meander and Ephesus; the Seleucid kings regularly founded their cities in Asia Minor at important strategical points, to strengthen their hold on the native tribes. There is no evidence that a Greek city existed on the site of Antioch before the foundation of Seleucus. Ramsay must be right in connecting Strabo's statement that Antioch was colonized by Greeks from Magnesia on the Meander with the foundation by Seleucus; for it is extremely unlikely that Greeks could have built and held a city in such a dangerous position so far inland before the conquest of Alexander. Pre-Alexandrian Greek cities are seldom to be found in the interior of Asia Minor, and then only in the open river valleys of the west. But there must have been a Phrygian fortress at or near Antioch when the Phrygian kings were at the height of their power. The natural boundary of Phrygian territory in this district is the Pisidian Mts., and the Phrygians could only have held the rich valley between the Sultan Dagh and Egerdir Lake against the warlike tribes of the Pisidian mountains on condition that they had a strong settlement in the neighborhood. We shall see below that the Phrygians did occupy this side of the Sultan Dagh, controlling the road at a critical point.
The Seleucid colonists were Greeks, Jews and Phrygians, if we may judge by the analogy of similar Seleucid foundations. That there were Jews in Antioch is proved by Acts 13:14,50, and by an inscription of Apollonia, a neighboring city, mentioning a Jewess Deborah, whose ancestors had held office in Antioch (if Ramsay's interpretation of the inscription, The Cities of Paul, 256, is correct). In 189 BC, after the peace with Antiochus the Great, the Romans made Antioch a "free city"; this does not mean that any change was made in its constitution but only that it ceased to pay tribute to the Seleucid kings. Antony gave Antioch to Amyntas of Galatia in 39 BC, and hence it was included in the province Galatia (see GALATIA ) formed in 25BC out of Amyntas' kingdom. Not much before 6 BC, Antioch was made a Roman colony, with the title Caesareia Antiocheia; it was now the capital of southern Galatia and the chief of a series of military colonies founded by Augustus, and connected by a system of roads as yet insufficiently explored, to hold down the wild tribes of Pisidia, Isauria and Pamphylia.
Much controversy has raged round the question whether Antioch was in Phrygia or in Pisidia at the time of Paul. Strabo defines Antioch as a city of Phrygia toward Pisidia, and the same description is implied in Acts 16:6, and 18:23. Other authorities assign Antioch to Pisidia, and it admittedly belonged to Pisidia after the province of that name was formed in 295 AD. In the Pauline period it was a city of Galatia, in the district of Galatia called Phrygia (to distinguish it from other ethnical divisions of Galatia, e.g. Lycaonia). This view is certain on a study of the historical conditions (see Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 25 f); and is supported by the fact that Phrygian inscriptions (the surest sign of the presence of a Phrygian population, for only Phrygians used the Phrygian language) have been found around Antioch. See PISIDIA . This corner of Phrygia owed its incorporation in the province Galatia to the military situation in 39 BC, when Amyntas was entrusted with the task of quelling the disorderly Pisidian tribes. No scheme of military conquest in the Pisidian mountains could omit this important strategical point on the Northwest. This fact was recognized by Seleucus when he rounded Antioch, by Antony when he gave Antioch to Amyntas, and by Augustus when he made Antioch the chief of his military colonies in Pisidia. A military road, built by Augustus, and called the Royal Road, led from Antioch to the sister colony of Lystra. According to the story preserved in the legend of "Paul and Thekla," it was along this road that Paul and Barnabas passed on their way from Antioch to Iconium (Acts 13:51; compare 2 Tim 3:11; see Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 27-36).
Latin continued to be the official language of Antioch, from its foundation as a Roman colony until the later part of the 2nd century AD. It was more thoroughly Romanized than any other city in the district; but the Greek spirit revived in the 3rd century, and the inscriptions from that date are in Greek. The principal pagan deities were Men and Cybele. Strabo mentions a great temple with large estates and many hierodouloi devoted to the service of the god.
Antioch, as has been shown above, was the military and administrative center for that part of Galatia which comprised the Isaurian, Pisidian and Pamphylian mountains, and the southern part of Lycaonia. It was hence that Roman soldiers, officials, and couriers were dispatched over the whole area, and it was hence, according to Acts 13:49, that Paul's mission radiated over the whole region. (On the technical meaning of "region" here, see PISIDIA .) The "devout and honorable women" (the King James Version) and the "chief men" of the city, to whom the Jews addressed their complaint, were perhaps the Roman colonists. The publicity here given to the action of the women is in accord with all that is known of their social position in Asia Minor, where they were often priestesses and magistrates. The Jews of Antioch continued their persecution of Paul when he was in Lystra (Acts 14:19). Paul passed through Antioch a second time on his way to Perga and Attalia (Acts 14:21). He must have visited Antioch on his second journey (Acts 16:6; Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 74 ff), and on his third (Acts 18:23; ibid., 96).
LITERATURE.
Antioch was identified by Arundel, Discoveries in Asia Minor, I, 281 f, with the ruins north of Yalovadj. A full account of the city in the Greek and Roman periods is given in Ramsay,. The Cities of Paul, 247-314. The inscriptions are published in CIG, 3979-81; LeBas, III, 1189 ff, 1815-25; CIL, III, 289 ff; Sterrett, Epigraphical Journey in Asia Minor, 121 ff; Wolfe Expedition in Asia Minor, 218 ff; Ephem. Epigr., V, 575; Athen. Mirth., XIV, 114. Add to this list (borrowed from Pauly-Wissowa) the inscriptions published in Ramsay's article on "The Tekmoreian Guest-Friends," referred to above. For the Phrygian inscriptions of the Antioch district, see Ramsay's paper in Jahresh. Oest. Arch. Inst., VIII, 85.
W. M. Calder
an-ti-o'-ki-ans (Antiocheis, peculiar to the Apocrypha, 2 Macc 4:9,19): Antiochus Epiphanes was on the throne of Syria from 175 to 164 BC. His determined policy was to Hellenize his entire kingdom. The greatest obstacle to his ambition was the fidelity of the Jews to their historic religion. Many worldly Hebrews, however, for material advantage were willing to apostatize, among them, Jason, the brother of the faithful high priest Onias III. With a large sum of money (2 Macc 4:7-10) he bribed Antiochus to appoint him high priest in his brother's stead. This office, being, since Ezra's time, political as well as religious, made him virtually the head of the nation. He promised, on condition the king would permit him to build a Greek gymnasium at Jerusalem, "to train up the youth of his race in the fashions of the heathen," and to enrol the Hellenized people as Antiochians, i.e. to give all Jews who would adopt Greek customs and the Greek religion the rights and privileges of citizens of Antioch. The granting of this request made Jason the head of the Greek party at Jerusalem. "Such was the height of Greek fashions, and the increase of heathenish manners" under his perverted high-priesthood, that the priests under him lost courage to "serve any more at the altar, but despising the temple and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened" to ally themselves with the Grecians. When the sacrifice of Hercules was observed in connection with the Grecian games at Tyre "Jason sent special messengers from Jerusalem, who were Antiochians" (2 Macc 4:19) with a large contribution of money. This Hellenizing program was supported by a decree of Antiochus which enjoined uniformity of worship throughout his dominions. He forbade the further observance of Jewish festivals, Sabbath, sacrifices in the temple and the rite of circumcision. His ambition included the like subjugation of Egypt, but being thwarted in his expedition thither by Roman envoys, he returned to Jerusalem to vent his anger on the Jews who refused to deny the faith of their fathers. The persecutions inflicted by the king upon these devout Jews abounded in every atrocity. All sacred books of the law that could be found were burned. This attempt to Hellenize the Jews was pushed to every remote rural village of Palestine. The universal peril led the Samaritans, eager for safety, to repudiate all connection and kinship with the Jews. They sent ambassadors and an epistle asking to be recognized as belonging to the Greek party, and to have their temple on Mt. Gerizim named "The Temple of Jupiter Hellenius." The request was granted. This was evidently the final breach between the two races indicated in Jn 4:9, "For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans."
Among those who refused to be enrolled as Antiochians was Mattathias, an aged priest of the order of Joarib. Mourning the terrible profanation of the holy city and temple he retired with his five sons to his ancestral estates among the mountains Northwest of Jerusalem. The emissaries of Antiochus followed him thither and commanded him to offer sacrifices upon a heathen altar. He was promised special royal favor in case of obedience. The indignant priest not only "had no ear for the temptations of an abhorred Hellenism," but in his fury instantly slew the apostate priest who attempted to comply with the command. He killed also the king's commissioner and tore down the detested altar.
This act of heroism became the dawn of a new era. The people rallied to Mattathias' support. The rebellion grew in power. After a year of inspiring leadership "the venerable priest-captain" died, having first committed "the cause of the law" to his sons, henceforth called Maccabees, from Judas Maccabeus, the son to whom he committed his work. Their victorious career brought to an end the Hellenizing process and the Greek party to which the Antiochians belonged.
See also ANTIOCHUS IV .
LITERATURE.
Ant, XII, v; Stanley, History of the Jewish Church, III, section 48; Riggs, History of the Jewish People, chapter ii, sections 15-26 (Kent's Hist. Series, IV).
Dwight M. Pratt
an-ti'-o-kis (Antiochis): A concubine of Antiochus Epiphanes who had presented her with the two Cilician cities, Tarsus and Mallus. Dissatisfied with this the cities made insurrection (2 Macc 4:30).
an-ti'-o-kus (Antiochos; A, Antimachos (1 Macc 12:16)): The father of Numenius, who in company with Antipater, son of Jason, was sent by Jonathan on an embassy to the Romans and Spartans to renew "the friendship" and "former confederacy" made by Judas (1 Macc 12:16; 14:22; Ant, XIII, vi; 8).
an-ti'-o-kus (Antiochos Soter, "savior"): born 323 BC; died 261, son of Seleucus Nicator. He fell in love with his stepmother, Stratonike, and became very ill. His father, when he discovered the cause of his son's illness, gave her to him in 293, and yielded to him the sovereignty over all the countries beyond the Euphrates, as well as the title of king. When Seleucus returned to Macedonia in 281, he was murdered by Ptolemeus Ceraunus. Antiochus thus became ruler of the whole Syrian kingdom. He waged war on Eumenes of Pergamum, but without success. For the victories of his elephant corps over the Gauls, who had settled in Asia Minor, he received the surname of Soter ("Deliverer"). It was in a battle with these inveterate foes of his country that he met his death (261 BC).
See also SELEUCIDAE .
J. E. Harry
Surnamed Theos (Theos, "god"): Son and successor of Antiochus (261-246 BC). He made a successful war on Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt, but was obliged to buy peace in 250 by divorcing his wife, Laodice, and by marrying Ptolemy's daughter, Berenice. After the death of Ptolemy, "the king of the south" (Dan 11:6) 248 BC, he recalled Laodice and named her eldest son (Seleucus Kallinikos) as his successor to the throne; but Laodice (probably because she feared a second repudiation) had Berenice, her child, and Antiochus all murdered (246 BC). The Milesians gave him the surname of Theos in gratitude for his liberating them from the tyranny of Timarchus. (See Arrian, I, 17, 10, and 18, 2; Josephus, Ant,XII , iii, 2; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscr. Graec, 166-71.)
J. E. Harry
(Megas, "The Great," mentioned in 1 Macc 1:10; 8:6-8): Son of Seleucus Kallinikos; succeeded to the throne of Syria in 222 BC; put to death his general, Hermeas, and then led an army against Egypt. Theodotus surrendered to him Tyre, Ptolemais and his naval fleet. Rhodes and Cyzicus, as well as Byzantium and Aetolia, desired peace, but Antiochus declined to accept their terms. He renewed the war, but was defeated at Raphia in 217, and was obliged to give up Phoenicia and Coelesyria; Seleucia, however, he retained. He undertook to bring under his sway again all the territory of the Far East. His expedition against Bactria and Parthia gained for him the surname of "The Great." In 209 he carried away the treasure of the goddess Aine in Ecbatana, defeated the Parthians, and in 208 marched against the Bactrians. Later he made a treaty with an Indian rajah, and then returned to the West by way of Arachosia and Carmania, forcing the Gerraean Arabs to furnish him with frankincense, myrrh and silver. Then he took Ephesus, which he made his headquarters. In 196 he had crossed the Hellespont and rebuilt Lysimachia. Hannibal visited Antiochus in Ephesus the next year and became one of the king's advisers. He sought the friendship also of Eumenes of Pergamum, but without success. Rome now requested the king not to interfere in Europe, or to recognize the right of the Romans to protect the Greeks in Asia. A war broke out in 192, and Antiochus was persuaded to come to Greece. The Aetolians elected him their general, who asked the Acheans to remain neutral. But the patriotic Philopoemen decided that an alliance with Rome was to be preferred. Antiochus first captured Calchis; then succeeded in gaining a footing in Boeotia, and later made an effort to get possession of Thessaly, but retired on the approach of the Macedonian army. In 191 the Romans made a formal declaration of war on Antiochus, who, being at that time in Acarnania, returned to Calchis, and finally sailed back to Ephesus. The Romans regained possession of Boeotia, Euboea and Sestus; but Polyxenidas defeated the Roman fleet near Samos, which island, together with Cyme and Phocaea, fell into the hands of Antiochus. The victorious Polyxenidas, however, soon sustained a crushing defeat at the hands of the Romans, and Antiochus abandoned Lysimachia, leaving an open road to Asia to the Romans. He was finally defeated at Magnesia and sent word to Scipio, who was at Sardis, that he was willing to make peace; but Scipio ordered him to send envoys to Rome. A decision was reached in 189; the Asiatic monarch was obliged to renounce everything on the Roman side of the Taurus; give up all his ships of war but ten and pay 15,000 talents to Rome, and 500 to Eumenes. Antiochus marched against the revolted Armenians in 187. In order to replenish his exhausted treasury, he attempted to plunder a temple and both he and his soldiers were slain by the Elymeans.
LITERATURE.
Polyb. v.40.21; Livy xxxi.14; xxxiii. 19 ff; Josephus, Ant, XII; Heyden, Res ab Ant; Babelon, Rois de Syrie, 77-86; Dan 11:10-19; Tetzlaff, De Antiochi III Magni rebus gestis (Munster, 1874).
J. E. Harry
ANTIOCHUS IV; ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES
(Epiphanes, e-pif'-a-naz, "Illustrious"): Son of Antiochus III who became king after his brother, Seleucus IV, had been murdered by Heliodorus. As a boy Antiochus lived at Rome as a hostage. The Pergamene monarchs, Eumenes and Attalus, succeeded in placing upon the throne the brother of Seleucus, although Heliodorus had wished to ascend the throne himself. The young king was even more enterprising than his father. He was called in to settle a quarrel between Onias III and his brother, Jason, the leader of the Hellenizing faction in Jerusalem, and Onias was driven out (2 Macc 4:4-6). Jason became high priest in his stead (2 Macc 4:9-16; 1 Macc 1:10-15; Ant, XII, v, 1). Antiochus himself afterward visited Jerusalem and was signally honored (2 Macc 4:22). On the death of Ptolemy VI in 173, Antiochus laid claim to Coelesyria, Palestine and Phoenicia; whereupon war broke out between Syria and Egypt. In this war Antiochus was victorious. Ptolemy Philometor was taken prisoner, and Antiochus had himself crowned king of Egypt (171-167 BC) at Memphis; whereupon Alexandria revolted and chose Ptolemy's brother as their king. The Roman ambassador, Popilius Laenas, demanded the surrender of Egypt and the immediate withdrawal of its self-constituted king. Antiochus yielded; gave up Pelusium and withdrew his fleet from Cyprus, but retained Coelesyria, Palestine and Phoenicia.
While Antiochus was on a second campaign in Egypt, he heard of the siege of Jerusalem. He returned immediately, slew many thousands of the inhabitants and robbed the temple of its treasures (1 Macc 1:20-24; 2 Macc 5:11-21). By his prohibition of the Jewish worship and his introduction or substitution of the worship of the Olympian Zeus (1 Macc 1:54; 2 Macc 6:2; Ant, XII, v, 4) he brought about the insurrection of the Jews, under the Maccabees, upon whom he made an unsuccessful war in 167-164 BC. After this war Antiochus retired to the eastern provinces and died, after having failed in an attack on the temple of the Sun in Elymais, in Persia.
See also ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION ;ANTIOCHIANS .
J. E. Harry
(Eupator, "Nobleborn"): Son and successor to Antiochus Epiphanes, ascended the throne as a mere boy (163-161 BC) under the guardianship of Lysias, who led an expedition to the relief of Jerusalem, which had been besieged by Judas Maccabeus (1 Macc 6:18-30; Ant, XII, ix, 4), who was defeated (1 Macc 6:42). Antiochus then besieged Jerusalem. Peace was finally concluded on the condition that the Jews should not be compelled to change any of their national customs (1 Macc 6:55-60; Ant, XII, ix, 7). Philip, the king's foster-brother (2 Macc 9:29), was defeated at Antioch, but soon afterward Lysias and Antiochus were themselves defeated by Demetrius Soter, son of Seleucus Philopator (1 Macc 7:4; 2 Macc 14:2; Ant, XII, x, 1; Polyb. xxxi.19; Livy Epit. 46).
J. E. Harry
(Surnamed Theos (Theos), or, according to coins, Dionysus Epiphanes): Was the son of Alexander Balas, who claimed to be the son of Antiochus Epiphanes. Alexander left the throne to his son in 146 BC. The young king retired to Arabia--perhaps through compulsion. The shrewd diplomatist and skillful general, Tryphon, succeeded first in winning over to his side the two leaders of the Jews, Jonathan and Simon, and then, by force of arms, in making the Syrians recognize his protege. As soon as the monarchy had been firmly established, Tryphon unmasked his projects: he had been ambitious only for himself; Antiochus had been only an instrument in his hands. In 143; after a reign of a little more than three years, Antiochus was assassinated by Tryphon, who ascended the throne himself (1 Macc 13:31; Ant, XIII, vii, 1; Livy Epit. 55).
J. E. Harry
(Surnamed Sidetes, Sidetes, after Sida in Pamphylia, where he was educated): Younger son of Demetrius Soter and brother of Demetrius Nicator, whose wife, Cleopatra, he married when Demetrius was taken prisoner by the Parthians. Antiochus overthrew the usurper, Tryphon, and ascended the throne himself and reigned from 139 to 130 BC. He defeated John Maccabeus and besieged Jerusalem (Ant., XIII, viii, 2), but concluded a favorable peace (Ant., XIII, viii, 3) from fear of Rome. Later he waged war with the Parthians and was slain in battle (1 Macc 15:2-9,28-31).
J. E. Harry
an'-ti-pas (Antipas): The name is an abbreviation of Antipater: (1) A name of Herod "the tetrarch" (in Jos), son of Herod the Great, the brother of Archelaus (Mt 14:1; Lk 3:1; 9:7; Acts 13:1). See HEROD . (2) A martyr of the church of Pergamum, described as "my witness, my faithful one" (Rev 2:13).
an-tip'-a-ter (Antipatros): One of two envoys sent by the senate of the Jews to the Romans and Spartans (1 Macc 12:16; 14:22).
an-tip'-a-tris (Antipatris): Is mentioned in Scripture only once, in connection with the descent of Paul from Jerusalem to Caesarea (Acts 23:31). References will be found in Ant, XIII, xv 1; XVI, v, 2; BJ, I, xxi, 9. It was a town built by Herod the Great, and called after his father Antipater. It is probably identical with the modern Ras el-`Ain, "fountain head," a large mound with ruins at the source of Nahr el`Aujeh, in the plain to the Northeast of Jaffa. There are remains of a crusading castle which may be the Mirabel of those times.
W. Ewing
an-tik'-wi-ti (qadhmah, from qadham, "to precede in time," "to be old"): In Ezek 16:55; 36:11, rendered "former"; in Ps 129:6, "before." Translated "antiquity" only in Isa 23:7 to indicate the primeval age of Tyre, which Strabo terms, "after Sidon," the oldest Phoenician city. Delitzsch renders it "whose origin is from the days of the olden time."
an-to'-ni-a.
See JERUSALEM .
an-to-thi'-ja.
See ANTHOTHIJAH .
an'-toth-it: the King James Version form of ANATHOTHITE (which see) (thus the Revised Version (British and American)) (1 Ch 11:28; 12:3).
a'-nub (`anubh, "ripe"): A descendant of Judah and son of Hakkoz (the King James Version Coz) 1 Ch 4:8.
a'-nus.
See ANNUS (Apocrypha).
an'-vil (pa`am): The word is used only once to mean anvil. The passage (Isa 41:7) refers to the custom still very common of workmen encouraging each other at their work. See CRAFTS . Just how pretentious the anvil of the ancients was we do not know. Most work requiring striking or beating, from the finest wrought jewelry to the largest copper vessels, is now done on an anvil shaped like an inverted letter L which is driven into a block of wood, or into the ground, or into a crack between two of the stone slabs of the workman's floor. The only massive anvils seen in the country today are modern and of foreign make.
James A. Patch