smell; but this opinion evidently attributes to the words "for a sweet odour" a material and external sense, which they do not possess in the Pentateuch. 13 Philo believes the honey to have been objectionable because the bee is not a "clean" animal; since "it derives its birth from the putrefaction and corruption of dead oxen, just as drones and wasps spring from the bodies of horses." This fiction, entertained by classical writers also, 15 is overthrown by the familiar fact that the bee has a natural aversion to lifeless bodies, to meat, blood, and fat, and eagerly shuns repulsive places. 16 "The bee", says Aristotle, "is the only insect that never touches anything putrid"; 17 and the swarm carefully removes the dead bodies of its own species. 18 Its nature is clean. 19 It was hence extensively honoured with the epithets pure and wise. It was so regarded by the Pythagoraeans, because it does not settle on beans looked upon them with dislike. 20 The Pythian priestess was described as "the bee of Delphi."21 It was called the best animal, and therefore sacred to Zeus Aristaeus (agiotos). Holy bees watched the grotto where Jupiter was born. Melissa was his nurse, and Melitaeus one of his sons; 22 the former was the earliest discoverer and preparer of pure and innocent human food, and especially introduced and taught the cultivation of fruit-trees. 23 Luna also, presiding over births, was called Melissa, and so every priestess of Ceres, as guardian of the mysteries of the earthly goddess. 13 See p. 8. 14 Philo, De Victim. c. 6. 15 Comp. Virg. Georg. IV. 550--558 (Adspiciunt liquefacta boum per viscera toto Stridere apes utero, et ruptis effervere costis); IV. 168; Servius ad Virg. Aen. I. 435; Ovid, Metam. XV. 364-367; Varro, R. R. II. 3; III. 16; Plin. XI. 20 or 23 (comp. X. 66 or 86); Plut. Cleom. c. 39; Aelian. H. N. II. 57; Porphyr. De Antr. Nymph. 15 (äs, sc. μελίττας, βουγενεῖς εἶναι συμβέβηκεν); Orig. c. Cels. IV (in ßoòs yiyvɛtai péλισσα καὶ ἐξ ἵππου σφήξ). The passage Judg. XIV. 8 does not prove that a similar notion was entertained by the Hebrews; for it says merely that a swarm of bees was found, not that it was generated, in the dry and inodorous skeleton of the carcase. 16 Varr. R. R. III. 16, nulla harum assidit in loco inquinato, etc. 17 Aristot. Hist. An. VIII. 13; comp. Plin. XI. 21 or 24 (omnes vespae carne vescuntur contra quam apes quae nullum corpus attingunt.) 18 Virg. Georg. IV. 255, 256 (corpora luce carentum exportant tectis, etc.); Plin. H. N. XI. 18 or 20; Ael. H. N. V. 49; comp. Boch. 1. c. IV. 10, 11; pp. 503, 504, 515. 19 Quod sequuntur omnia pura, Varro, l. c. 20 Porphyr. De Antro Nymph. c. 19; comp. Plut. De Amor. Prol. c. 2 (Tyv μέλιτταν ἡμεῖς σοφὴν καλοῦμεν καὶ vopicoμer); Phile, De Ape, c. 28 (xai ζῇ μὲν ἁγνὸν ἡ σοφὴ σχεδὸν βίον); Iucian, Halcyon, c. 5 (σοφὴν θείου μέλιτος ἐργάτιν). 21 Pind. Pyth. IV. 106 (60). 22 Antonin. Liber. c. 13.. 23 Schol. Pindar. Pyth. IV. 106; comp. Creuzer, Symb. II. 585, 586. 5 3 1 The bee was the emblem of the Muses; it was the symbol of the struggle between virtue and vice; of the mind which governs matter; of the soul which returns to its divine origin; and among the Egyptians, of royal dignity. The Hindoos frequently represented the god Krishnu with a bee hovering over his head. Its wonderful habits and instincts were the types of domestic and social order, of the foundation of states and colonies, of blessings and plenty secured by judicious industry, and even of the manifest working of the divine spirit. The very belief of the birth of the bee from the decaying body of the bull, was converted into a fine allegory of the soul emerging and rising from the depths of terrestrial matter, and soaring to its celestial home, where it rejoins the deity of which it is a part; for the bee is a "home-loving animal." Bacchus, the dispenser of sustenance and joy, was termed "the father of the bees" or Brisaeus. § From all these facts it will naturally appear that honey itself was not considered unclean; it was presented as a firstfruit-offering; it could be mixed with those oblations which were permitted to be "leavened"; 1o and it was freely allowed by Jewish tradition. 11 Leaven, though prepared from the very mass, of which the bloodless offering consisted, was forbidden to be burnt on the altar: it is therefore evident, that it was not the origin of leaven and honey which caused their exclusion. In fact, 1 Philostrat. Icon. II. 8; Varro, l. c.; comp. Creuzer, l. c. 2 Comp. Creuzer, l. c. IV. 351. 3 Ammian. Marcell. XVII. iv. 11; Creuzer, 1. c. II. 213. The Hebrew name , however, is scarcely traceable to 7 in the sense of guiding and ruling (Ps. XVIII. 48; XLVII. 4; so Boch. Hieroz. II. 502), but if not to to flutter (Fürst, Lex. I. 285), to 77 in the meaning of leading or being led, so that it properly means swarm; comp. agmen and agere, and the Arabic S 4 W. Menzel, Mythol. Forsch. I. 194 sqq. 5 Aristot. Hist. Anim. IX. 27; Virg. Georg. IV. 219, 220 (esse apibus partem divinae mentis, et haustus Aetherios dixere); Ovid, Fast. III. 736; Plin. H. N. XI. 18, 20 (19) sqq.; Aelian. Hist. An. V. 12, 13; XVII. 35; Varro, R. R. III. 16; Menzel, l. c. I. 171–234. 6 Pilóorgogov Loov; comp. Creuzer, Symb. IV. 353; II. 586, 587. 7 Nonn. Dionys. V. 215 sqq., 265 sqq.; comp. Ovid, Fast. III. 735, 736; Tibull. I. vii. 53, 54. 8 From βλίττειν (for μελίττειν) το cut out the comb of bees, to take the -honey (u); Plat. Rep. VIII. 15, p. 564 E. (comp. Steph. Byz. v. ẞgioa); hardly from the Chaldaean the flow of honey from the comb (Boch. 1. c. p. 520). 9 Lev. II. 12. Therefore, not even the idea, harmonizing indeed with the sacrificial regulation that nothing was to be employed that was not the produce of human labour (so Theodoret; see pp. 78, 81), can have guided the legislator; nor would it apply to all honey, a large part of which was gained by cultivation. 10 See p. 85. 11 Targ. Jon. in Lev. XI. 20, .Talm.Bechor ;דובשא דזיבורא יתאכיל 15 some ancient philosophers and theologians ascribed to the honey itself purifying and preserving power capable of healing old wounds, removing dimness of sight, 12 and preventing putrefaction, whence it was used for embalming and instilled into the noses of the dead to shield the bodies from decomposition. 13 Accordingly, honey was understood as a symbol of rectitude and integrity of life. 14 It was supposed to have been the sole sustenance of the earliest men in their golden age of innocence and perfect virtue. Bread and honey were the ordinary food of the kings and priests of Persia; of Pythagoras and his followers, of the rigid Jewish sect of the Essenes, and hence also of John the Baptist. 16 At the initiation in certain rites, the hands were washed with honey, not with water, to indicate that they ought to be clean from all wickedness and pollution. Honey was eaten to purify the tongue from sin. 17 The libations of honey 18 were described as sober, 19 in contradistinction to those of wine. 20 The Persians offered honey to Mithras, because it symbolised this god most clearly as the guardian and preserver of fruits. It was holy to the Naiades, because their element, the water, is purifying, not liable to putrefaction, and, as was considered, conducive to generation. Therefore, bees were believed to deposit their honey in bowls and jars, because these vessels typify fountains. As if aware of the insufficiency of his first reason, Philo adds another one, hardly more convincing; the laws, he observes, interdicted honey in order to indicate that "all superfluous pleasure is unholy, making indeed the things that are eaten sweet to the taste, but later inflicting bitter and incurable pains, by which the soul must, of necessity, be agitated and thrown into confusion"; and this opinion, variously modified, recurs repeatedly. The Talmud commenting on those verses of the Proverbs which advise a moderate use of honey,2 applies them figuratively to all kinds of intemperance, even to excesses in spiritual matters and in speculation. 22 Theodoret 23 deemed it unfit for the altar as a symbol of sensual enjoyment, since, in primitive times, 7b; comp. Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmud §§ 89, 403. 12 Dioscor. II. 101; Plin. XXIX. 6 (38). 13 Herod. I. 198; Lucret. III. 904; Plin. VII. 3; XXII. 24 or 50 (mellis quidem ipsius natura talis est ut putrescere corpora non sinat). 14 Comp. Porphyr. Ant. Nymph. c. 15. 15 Athen. X, 13; Diog. Laert. Pyth. VIII. i. 18. 16 Matth. III. 4; Mark I. 6; comp. Creuz. Symb. IV. 361. 21 11 Porph. 1. c. (xaSaipoune đề nà Plut. Symp. IV. vi. fin. 21 Prov. XXV. 16, 27; comp. Pind. and before the cultivation of the vine, it was a luxury of the dissipated, was believed to lead to wild indulgences and carnal desires, to indolence and thoughtlessness, and being effervescent, symbolised haughtiness and contumacy; it was, in fact, used as an emblem of death, or of secret corruption by sin,2 "because the life of the soul perishes by pleasure": it was designed to teach that whoever is intent upon good works, must shun sensuality and exercise rigid severity towards himself. Hence Jerome believes that nothing that is merely sweet, without having in it an element of pungent truth, was to be offered in the sanctuary; and Nachmanides declared that everything sweet must be tempered with bitterness, just as God, in creating the world, coupled mercy and judgment. These opinions disregard the unmistakeable hints of the Hebrew text, which forbids honey, not because it is sweet, but because it is "fermenting" (pp), and which fixes for the exclusion no other reason than for the prohibition of leaven. 9 6 It may be curious to notice Plutarch's statements on the subject. He is notorious for his inveterate tendency to compare the institutions of the Hebrews with the rites of the worship of Bacchus. Thus he contends, the name Levites was derived from Lysius (Avσios) or Euius (Evos), and that of Sabbath from the Sabbae, or Bacchantes; the Feast of Tabernacles was a festival of Bacchus, when the people entered the temple with "thyrsi" in their hands; the mitre of the High-priest 10 resembled the tiara worn by Bacchus; and the bells of his robe11 were imitations of the timbrels and drums used at the nocturnal celebrations of the same god, to increase the mirthful noise. Pursuing his selfchosen path, Plutarch dogmatically asserts that the Jews originally employed honey for their drink-offerings; that later, however, they substituted wine, which had been prosented to them by Bacchus; but they carefully avoided to mix it with honey, which would have spoiled the gift of the god; just as the Greeks honoured him with libations consisting of honey alone, without any wine, because both, if mixed, are absolutely opposed to each other. But this view has not even the support of history; for the ancients regarded the compound of wine and honey 12 as most delicious, as Plutarch himself remarks in the very same work. 13 Besides, the prohibition of Leviticus relates to honey as a separate substance, not to its mixture with wine. Maimonides 14 asserts that honey was forbidden to the Israelites, because it was commonly used at the sacrifices of the heathens. It is true that it was dedicated to nearly all gods, 15 among others to Janus, when he was implored to grant "a sweet" or happy year, 16 and especially to the evil deities and those of the lower world, to Pluto and Proserpine, Hecate and the Furies. 17 But the Pentateuch, though opposing pagan notions, left untouched innocuous pagan customs, which it readily employed if capable of embodying useful religious ideas. 19 If it had meant consistently to carry out the principle of opposition, it would have rejected the domestic animals for victims, flour, incense, oil, and salt, nay the sacrifices themselves, which yet Maimonides regards as an accommodation to deep-rooted pagan usages. 19 Again, it has been supposed that honey was looked upon with disfavour, because it was largely employed at the libations for the dead, 20 which the Hebrews were to hold in abhorrence;21 but such libations frequently consisted of oil and wine, which were not excluded from the offerings of the Hebrews. 22 Some imagined that the bloodless oblations were to be pure and unmixed flour; others, that being pleasant to the taste, honey might mislead to the belief that offerings are agreeable to God in proportion to their palatableness; and others again, 23 that, being a later and artificial innovation, perhaps combined with idolatrous mysteries, it was banished by a legislator desirous to restore the old and patriarchal simplicity in the sacrificial service: but the bloodless offerings contained, besides flour, also salt, oil, and wine; and the Levitical rites, in point of simplicity, differed vastly from primeval practices. Polyb. XII. 2; Dioscor. V. 15, 16; Plaut. 16 Ovid, Fast. I. 185-188 (ut res sapor ille sequatur, Et peragat coeptum dulcis ut annus iter). 17 Apoll. Rhod. III. 1034, 1035; comp. also Virg. VI. 417; etc. Proserpine herself bore the name μελιτώδης (Theocr. XV. 94). 18 See Comm. on Exod. pp. 184, 221. 19 See pp. 56, 57. 20 Comp. Hom. II. XXIII. 170; Od. XXIV. 68; Eurip. Iphig. Taur. 165, 166 (ἃ νεκροῖς θελκτήρια κεῖται), 634, 635. 21 Spencer, De Legg. Ritt. II. ix. 2, so that the honey was "diabolo jure quasi peculiari vindicatum". 22 See Sect. XX. 23 As Spencer, Legg. Ritt. II. ix. 2; III. ii. 2. |