ticularly mentioned, that two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken, and the other left. "Most families grind their wheat and barley at home, having two portable grindstones for that purpose. The uppermost is turned round by a smail handle of wood or iron, placed in the edge of it. When this stone is large, or expedition is required, then a second person is called in to assist. It is usual for the women alone to be concerned in this employ, sitting themselves down over against each other, with the mill-stones between them." (SHAW's Travels, p. 297.) Hence also we may learn the propriety of that expression of sitting behind the mill. (Exod. xi. 5.) No. 415.-xxiv. 51. And cut him asunder.] If this expression be understood in its primary and literal sense, it must denote that most horrible punishment of being cut in sunder whilst alive, which there is a tradition that the prophet Isaiah suffered. There are many instances in ancient writers of this method of executing criminals, and it is still practised by some nations, particularly by the western Moors in Barbary, as we are assured by Dr. SHAW, (Trav. p. 254. 2d ed.) Calmet says (Dict. of the Bible, art. sAw) this punishment was not unknown among the Hebrews. It came originally from the Persians or the Chaldeans. It is still in use among the Switzers, and they practised it not many years ago on one of their countrymen, guilty of a great crime, in the plain of Grenelles, near Paris. They put him into a kind of coffin, and sawed him at length, beginning at the head, as a piece of wood is sawn. Parisates, king of Persia, caused Roxana to be sawn in two alive. Valerius Maximus says, that the Thracians sometimes made living men undergo this torture. The laws of the twelve tables, which the Romans had borrowed from the Greeks, condemned certain crimes to the punishment of the saw; but the execution of it was so rare, as Aulus Gellius says, (Noct. Att. lib. xii. cap. 2.) that none remembered to have seen it practised. Herodotus (lib. 6.) relates, that Sabacus, king of Egypt, received an order in a dream to cut in two all the priests of Egypt. Caius Caligula, the emperor, often condemned people of condition to be sawn in two through the middle. Aut medios serrá dissecuit. Sueton. in Caio. No. 416.-xxiv. 51. And appoint him his portion with the hypocrites, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.] In ancient times the stewards of great families were slaves, as well as the servants of the lower class, being raised to that trust on account of their fidelity, wisdom, sobriety, and other good qualities. If any steward, therefore, in the absence of his lord, behaved as is represented in the parable, it was a plain proof that the virtues on account of which he was raised were counterfeited, and by consequence that he was an hypocrite. Slaves of this character, among other chastisements, were sometimes condemned to work in the mines; and as this was one of the most grievous punishments, when they first entered nothing was heard among them but weeping and gnashing of teeth, on account of the intolerable fatigue to which they were subjected in these hideous caves, without hope of release. MACKNIGHT'S Harm, vol. ii. p. 139. No. 417.-xxv. 4. The wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.] Chardin observes, that in many parts of the East, and in particular in the Indies, instead of torches and flambeaux, they carry a pot of oil in one hand, and a lamp full of oily rags in the other. They seldom make use of candles, especially amongst the great, candles casting but little light, and they sitting at a considerable distance from them. HARMER, vol. ii. p. 431. note. No. 418.-xxv. 6. And at midnight there was a cry made, behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him.] It was the custom among the ancient Greeks to conduct the new married couple home with torches or lamps. Thus Homer describes a marriage proces sion. The sacred pomp and genial feast delight, Iliad xviii. lin. 569. A like custom is still observed among the pagan East Indians, "for on the day of their marriage the husband and wife, being both in the same palanquin, go out between seven and eight o'clock at night, accompanied with all their kindred and friends: the trumpets and drums go before them, and they are lighted by a multitude of massals, which are a kind of flambeaux. The new married couple go abroad in this equipage for the space of some hours, after which they return to their own house, where the women and domestics wait for them. The whole house is enlightened with little lamps, and many of those massals already mentioned are kept ready for their arrival, besides those that accompany them, and go before the palanquin." (Agreement of Customs between East Indians and Jews, art. xvii. p. 68.) The Roman ladies were led home to their husbands houses in the evening by the light of torches. (KENNETT'S Roman Antiquities, part ii. b. v. c. 9.) These circumstances strongly illustrate the parable of the ten virgins, especially where it is said that they went out to meet the bridegroom with their lamps. No. 419. xxv. 33. He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.] This seems to allude to the custom in the sanhedrim, where the Jews placed those to be acquitted on the right, and those to receive sentence of condemnation on the left hand. WHITBY, in loc. No. 420.-xxvii. 6. The price of blood.] It was a custom among the Jews, imitated by the first christians, that it should not be lawful for executioners to offer any thing, or for any alms to be received from them. This was also the case with money that came out of the publicans or quæstors exchequer. No money obtained by the blood or life of another was fit to be received or put into the treasury. The field that was bought with it was called the field of blood. No. 421.-xxvii. 26. To be crucified.] When a person was crucified, he was nailed to the cross, as it lay upon the ground, through each hand extended to its utmost stretch, and through both the feet together; the cross was then erected, and the foot of it thrust with violence into a hole prepared in the ground to receive it. By this means the body, whose whole weight hung upon the nails, which went through the hands and feet, was completely disjointed, and the sufferer at last expired by the force of pain. This kind of death, which was the most cruel, shameful, and cursed death, that could be devised, was used only by the Romans for slaves, and the basest of the people, who were capital offenders. Sometimes a fire was kindled at the foot of the cross, that so the sufferer might perish by the smoke and flame. The emperor, Alexander Severus, commanded one to be executed in this manner, who was a cheat, a quack, and a dealer in (as it were) smoke, that hereby there might be some relation between his crime and his penalty. It has been thought, that below the crucified person's feet was a kind of footstool, or piece of wood jutting out, on which his feet were laid and fas tened. Without this the criminal could not long continue nailed to the cross, the whole weight bearing upon his hands. Some assert that there are no traces of this footstool in those descriptions of the cross, which the most ancient Greek and Latin writers have left us; but they speak of a kind of wooden horse, upon which the suffering person was as it were mounted, that so his hands might not be torn asunder by the weight of his body; this was a large peg fixed about half way up the cross, as appears in Justin, Irenæus, and others. Sometimes they who were fastened upon the cross lived long in that condition. Andrew is believed to have lived three days upon it, others nine days. Eusebius (lib. vii. cap. 8.) speaks of certain martyrs in Egypt, who were kept on the cross till they were starved to death. Sometimes they were devoured by birds and beasts of prey: cruxillum tollat in auras, Viventerque oculos offerat alitibus. PRUDENT. And generally they were devoured after death by wolves, dogs, and birds. Guards were appointed to observe that none should take them down and bury them. |