Greeks and Romans: neither was that kind of adoption in- children of God. Thus St. Paul writes (Rom. viii. 15.), Ye tended by Sarah, Leah, and Rachel; when they gave their have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, handmaidens to their husbands. (Gen. xvi. 2. xxx. 3.) Father. We wait for the adoption of the children of God. And 2. Various instances of another kind of adoption are re-(Gal. iv. 4, 5.) God sent forth his Son to redeem them that corded in the Old Testament, viz. that of a father having a were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. daughter only, and adopting her children. Thus, in 1 Chron. Among the Mohammedans the ceremony of adoption is ii. 21, 22., Machir the grandson of Joseph, who is called performed, by causing the adopted to pass through the shirt of father of Gilead (that is, chief of that town), gave his daugh- the person who adopts him. For this reason, to adopt among ter to Hezron, who married her when he was threescore years the Turks is expressed by saying-to draw any one through old, and she bare him Segub. And Segub begat Jair, who one's shirt; and an adopted son is called by them Akietogli, had three-and-twenty cities in the land of Gilead. Jair the son of another life because he was not begotten in this. acquired a number of other cities, which made up his posses- Something like this is observable among the Hebrews: Elisions to threescore cities. (Josh. xiii. 30. 1 Kings iv. 13.) jah adopted the prophet Elisha, by throwing his mantle over However, both he and his posterity, instead of being reckoned him (1 Kings xix. 19.); and when Elijah was carried off in to the family of Judah as they ought to have been by their a fiery chariot, his mantle, which he let fall, was taken up by paternal descent from Hezron, are reckoned as sons of Ma- Elisha his disciple, his spiritual son, and adopted successor chir the father of Gilead. It further appears from Num. xxxii. in the office of prophet. (2 Kings ii. 15.) 41. that this very Jair, who was in fact the son of Segub, the son of Hezron, the son of Judah, is expressly called Jair the son of Manasseh, because his maternal great-grandfather was Machir, the son of Manasseh. In like manner, we read that Mordecai adopted Esther his niece: when her father and mother were dead, he took her for his own daughter. So the daughter of Pharaoh adopted Moses, and he became her son. (Exod. ii. 10.) So we read in Ruth iv. 17. that Naomi had a son: a son is born to Naomi: when, indeed, it was the son of Ruth, and only a distant relation (or, in fact, none at all)| to Naomi, who was merely the wife of Elimelech, to whom Boaz was kinsman. By the propitiation of our Saviour, and the communication of the merits of his death, penitent sinners become the adopted This circumstance seems to be illustrated by the conduct of Moses, who dressed Eleazar in Aaron's sacred vestments, when that high-priest was about to be gathered to his fathers indicating thereby, that Eleazar succeeded in the functions of the priesthood, and was, in some sort, adopted to exercise that dignity. The Lord told Shebna, the captain of the temple, that he would deprive him of his honourable station, and substitute Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, in his room. (Isa. xxii. 21.) I will CLOTHE HIM WITH THY ROBE, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand. St. Paul, in several places, says, that real Christians put on the Lord Jesus; and that they put on the new man, in order to denote their adoption as sons of God. (Rom. xiii. 14. Gal. iii. 26, 27.) CHAPTER V. ON THE CONDITION OF SLAVES AND OF SERVANTS, AND THE CUSTOMS RELATING TO THEM, MENTIONED OR ALLUDED TO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT I. Slaves, how acquired.-II. Their Condition among the Hebrews.-III. And among other Nations.-IV. Of hired Servants -Customs relating to them and to Slaves alluded to in the New Testament.-V. Different Kinds of Slaves or Servants mentioned in the Scriptures. I. SLAVERY is of very remote antiquity; and when Moses gave his laws to the Jews, finding it already established, though he could not abolish it, yet he enacted various salutary laws and regulations. The Israelites, indeed, might have Hebrew servants or slaves, as well as alien-born persons, but these were to be circumcised, and were required to worship the only true God (Gen. xvii. 12, 13.), with the exception of the Canaanites. 2 II. Slaves received both food and clothing, for the most part of the meanest quality, but whatever property they acquired belonged to their lords: hence they are said to be worth double the value of a hired servant. (Deut. xv. 18.) They formed marriages at the will of their master, but their children were slaves, who, though they could not call him a father (Gal. iv. 6. Rom. viii. 15.), yet were attached and faithful to him as to a father, on which account the patriarchs trusted them with arms. (Gen. xiv. 14. xxxii. 6. xxxiii. 1.) If a married Hebrew sold himself, he was to serve for six trade by name, as sinful in a very high degree. The apostle, St. Paul, having spoken of persons that were lawless and disobedient, ungodly and ral characters and descriptions of men to whom he applies those very sinners, unholy and profane, proceeds to specify and distinguish the seve general epithets; and they are these,—' murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, man-slayers, they that defile themselves with mankind, menat least of its most productive modes. But I go further; I maintain that "This text condemns and prohibits the slave-trade in one this text, rightly interpreted, condemns and prohibits the slave-trade gene rally in all its modes: it ranks the slave-trade in the descending scale of English Bible gives men-stealers, is pains. Our translators have crime, next after parricide and homicide. The original word, which the taken the word in its restricted sense which it bears in the Attic law; in which the x avôрadioμυ was a criminal prosecution for the specific ology of the Holy Scripture, especially in the preceptive part, is a popular crime of kidnapping, the penalty of which was death. But the phrasephraseology; and pairs, in its popular sense, is a person who deals in men,' literally, a slave-trader. That is the English word literally and exactly corresponding to the Greek." ...... "The Greek word is so explained by the learned grammarian Eustathius, and by other grammarians of the first authority. Although the Athenians scrupled not to possess themselves of slaves, yet the trade in slaves among them was infamous." modern critic is too important to be withheld from the reader:-"By (Speeches in Parliament, p. 539.) The following observation of a learned stealers." Slaves were acquired in various ways; 1. By Captivity, which is supposed to have been the first origin of slavery (Gen. xiv. 14. Deut. xx. 14. xxi. 10, 11.); 2. By Debt, when persons being poor were sold for payment of their debts (2 Kings iv. I. Matt. xviii. 25.); 3. By committing a Theft, without the power of making restitution (Exod. xxii. 2, 3. Neh. v. 4, 5.); 4. By Birth, when persons were born of married slaves. These are termed born in the house (Gen. xiv. 14. xv. 3. xvii. 23. xxi. 10.), home-born (Jer. ii. 14.), and the sons or children of handmaids. (Psal. lxxxvi. 16. cxvi. 16.) Abraham had three hundred and eighteen slaves of this description; 5. Man-stealing was another mode by which persons were reduced into slavery. The seizing or stealing of a freeborn Israelite, either to treat him as a slave or to sell him as a slave to others, was absolutely and irremissibly punished with death by the law of Moses. (Exod. xxi. 16. Deut. xxiv. 7.) Although the Gospel is intended to make no change or difference in the civil circumstances of mankind who are converted from paganism to Christianity, the master and the slave being equally called, as St. Paul argues at length in 1 Cor. vii. 17-24.; yet the same apostle (1 Tim. i. 9, 10.), when enumerating various classes of offenders who are obnox-Ts the best commentators are agreed is meant, those who ious to law, expressly denounces men-stealers, àvdgarodi, those who kidnap men, to sell them for slaves: in other words slave-traders.3 kidnapped and sold into slavery free persons. Now this was regarded by And as all the crimes here mentioned are of the most heinous kind, and as the law as felony of the deepest dye, and was always punished with death. robbery does not elsewhere occur in the list, so vpadoras seems as put for robbery of the worst sort. Let then the slave-traders (Christians, alas!) of our times tremble: for all, who in any way participate in that abo minable traffic, are para; since they thereby uphold a system, which perpetually engenders man-stealing." (Bloomfield's Annotations on the New Test. vol. viii. p. 201.)-By the act of parliament 3 & 4 Gul. iv. chap. 73. slavery was ABOLISHED throughout the British Colonies. : and on no account to be given up to his master. (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.)2 years, and in the seventh he was to go out free, together with his wife and children; but if his master had given one of his slaves to him as a wife, she was to remain, with her children, III. Although Moses inculcated the duty of humanity toas the property of his master. (Exod. xxi. 2-4.) The duty wards slaves, and enforced his statutes by various strong of slaves was to execute their lord's commands, and they sanctions, yet it appears from Jer. xxxiv. 8—22. that their were for the most part employed in tending cattle or in rural condition was sometimes very wretched. It cannot, howaffairs; and though the lot of some of them was sufficiently ever, be denied that their situation was much more tolerable hard, yet under a mild and humane master it was tolerable. among the Hebrews than among other nations, especially (Job xxxi. 13.) When the eastern people have no male issue, the Greeks and Romans. Nor is this a matter of astonishthey frequently marry their daughters to their slaves; and the ment: for the Israelites were bound to exercise the duties same practice appears to have obtained among the Hebrews, of humanity towards these unhappy persons by weighty sancas we read in 1'Chron. ii. 34, 35. Now Sheshan had no sons, tions and motives, which no other nation had, whose slaves but daughters; and Sheshan had a servant (slave), an Egyp-had no Sabbath, no day of rest, no legal protection, and who tian, whose name was Jarha; and Sheshan gave his daughter to were subject to the cruel caprice of their masters, whose abJaruha his servant to wife. In Barbary, the rich people when solute property they were, and at whose mercy their lives childless have been known to purchase young slaves, to edu- every moment lay. "For the slightest and most trivial cate them in their own faith, and sometimes to adopt them for offences they were cruelly scourged and condemned to hard their own children. The greatest men of the Ottoman empire labour; and the petty tyrant of his family, when exasperated are well known to have been originally slaves brought up in by any real or apprehended injury, could nail them to a cross, the seraglio and the Mameluke sovereigns of Egypt were and make them die in a lingering and most miserable manoriginally slaves. Thus the advancement of the Hebrew cap-ner. These slaves, generally, were wretched captives, who tive Joseph to be viceroy of Egypt, and of Daniel, another had been taken prisoners in unfortunate battles, or had falHebrew captive, to be chief minister of state in Babylon, len into their enemies' hands in the siege of cities. These corresponds with the modern usages of the East. miserable captives, ancient history informs us, were either butchered in cold blood, or sold by auction for slaves to the highest bidder. The unhappy prisoners thus bought and enslaved were sometimes thrust into deep mines, to be drudges through life in darkness and despair: sometimes were pent up in private workhouses, and condemned to the most laborious and ignoble occupations: frequently the toils of agriculture were imposed upon them, and the severest task unmercifully exacted from them: most commonly they were employed in the menial offices and drudgery of domestic life, and treated with the greatest inhumanity. As the last insult upon their wretchedness, they were branded in the forehead, and a note of eternal disgrace and infamy publicly and indelibly impressed upon them! One cannot think of this most contumelious and reproachful treatment of a fellow-creature without feeling the acutest pain and indignation. To the above-mentioned customs in the treatment of slaves, which obtained among the ancients, there are several allusions in the New Testament. Thus St. Paul, in reference to the custom of purchasing slaves, on whose heads a price was then fixed, just as upon any other commodity, and who, when bought, were the entire and unalienable property of the purchaser, by a very beautiful and expressive similitude represents Christians as the servants of Christ; informs them that an immense price had been paid for them: that they were not at their own disposal; but in every respect, both as to body and mind, were the sole and absolute property of God. Ye are not your own : for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. (1 Cor. vi. 20.) So also again: Ye are bought with a price: be not ye the servants of men.” (1 Cor. vii. In order to mitigate the conditions of slaves, various statutes were enacted by Moses. Thus, 1. They were to be treated with humanity: the law in Lev. xxv. 39-53., it is true, speaks expressly of slaves who were of Hebrew descent; but, as alien-born slaves were engrafted into the Hebrew church by circumcision, there is no doubt but that it applied to all slaves.-2. If a man struck his servant or maid with a rod or staff, and he or she died under his hand, he was to be punished by the magistrate; if, however, the slave survived for a day or two, the master was to go unpunished, as no intention of murder could be presumed, and the loss of the slave was deemed a sufficient punishment. (Exod. xxi. 20, 21.)—3. A slave who lost an eye or a tooth by a blow from his or her master, acquired his or her liberty in consequence. (Exod. xxi. 26, 27.)-4. All slaves were to rest from their labours on the Sabbath, and on the great festivals. (Exod. xx. 10. Deut. v. 14.)-5. They were to be invited to certain feasts. (Deut. xii. 17, 18. xvi. 11.)-6. A master who had betrothed a female slave to himself, if she did not please him, was to permit her to be redeemed, and was prohibited from selling her to a strange nation, seeing he had dealt deceitfully with her. If he had betrothed her to his son, he was to deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he took another wife, her food, raiment, and duty of marriage, he was not to diminish. And if he did not these three unio her, then she was to go out free without money. (Exod. xxi. 7-11.)-7. Hebrew slaves were to continue in slavery only till the year of jubilee, when they might return to liberty, and their masters could not detain them against their wills. If they were desirous of continuing with their masters, they were to be brought to the judges, before whom they were to make a declaration that for this time they disclaimed the privilege of this law; and had their ears bored through with an awl against the door-posts of their master's house,' after which they had no longer any power of recovering their liberty until the next year of jubilee, after forty-nine years. (Exod. xxi. 5, 6.) This very significant ceremony implied that they were closely attached to that house and family; and that they were bound to hear, and punctually to obey, all their master's orders.-8. If a Hebrew by birth was sold to a stranger or alien dwelling in the vicinity of the land of Israel, his relations were to redeem him, and such slave was to make good the purchase-money if he were able, paying in proportion to the number of years that remained, until the year of jubilee. (Lev. xxv. 47-55.) Lastly, if a slave of another nation fled to the Hebrews, he was to be received hospitably, 2 Jahn, Archæol. Biblica, § 171. Among the Romans more particularly, slaves were held-pro nullis— pro mortuis-pro quadrupedibus-for no men-for dead men for beasts; nay, were in a much worse state than any cattle whatever. They had no head in the state, no name, no tribe or register. They were not capable no heirs, and could make no will. Exclusive of what was called their of being injured, nor could they take by purchase or descent; they had peculium, whatever they acquired was their master's; they could neither plead nor be pleaded, but were entirely excluded from all civil concerns were not entitled to the rights of matrimony, and, therefore, had no relief in case of adultery; nor were they proper objects of cognation nor affinity. They might be sold, transferred, or pawned, like other goods or personal estate; for goods they were, and as such they were esteemed. Taylor's Elements of the Roman Civil Law, p. 429. 4to. Adam's Summary of Roman Antiquities, pp. 38, 39. 4 Jahn, Archaeol. Bibl. § 172. The following passage from Mr. Jowett's Christian Researches in the Mediterranean will give an idea of the rigour with which slaves are treated to this day in the East. The conductor of a nitre factory for the Pasha of Egypt having received commands to prepare a large quantity of nitre in great haste,-"for this purpose he was building small reservoirs and ducts, with old picked bricks, gathered from ruins; and which are better 1 Boring of the ear was an ancient custom in the East: it is thus refer than the modern baked bricks. A great number of young persons of both red to by Juvenal: Libertinus prior est: "Prior," inquit, "Ego adsum, Cur timeam, dubitemve locum defendere ? quamvis Natus ad Euphratem, molles quod in AURE FENESTRÆ Arguerint, licet ipse negem." Sat. i. 102-105. sexes were engaged in the work, carrying burdens. To give vivacity to 66 23.) St. Paul usually styles himself the servant of Christ; | Friend, I do thee no injustice; was not our agreement for a and in a passage in his epistle to the Galatians, alluding to denarius? Take what justice entitles thee to, without rethe signatures with which slaves in those days were branded, pining, and calmly acquiesce in the faithful performance of he tells them that he carried about with him plain and indeli- our original agreement a principle of benevolence disposes ble characters impressed in his body, which evinced him to me freely to bestow upon the last persons I hired what equity be the servant of his master Jesus. From henceforth let no obliged me to give to you. man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord It has been observed that slaves were condemned to the Jesus." (Gal. vi. 17.)1 It was a doctrine of the pharisaic mines, where their uncomfortable lives were consumed in the Jews, that proselytes were released from all antecedent, most rigorous and servile drudgery. It is natural to suppose civil, and even natural relations; and it is not improbable that these wretches, born to better hopes, upon their first that some of the Jewish converts might carry the same prin- entrance into these dismal subterraneous abodes of darkness ciple into the Christian community, and teach that, by the pro- and despair, with such doleful prospects before them, would fession of Christianity, slaves were emancipated from their be transfixed with the acutest distress and anguish, shed Christian masters. In opposition to this false notion, the bitter unavailing tears, gnash their teeth for extreme misery, same great apostle requires that all who are under the yoke and fill these gloomy caverns with piercing cries and loud of servitude be taught to yield due obedience to their mas- lamentations. Our Lord seems to allude to this, and, conters, and animadverts with great severity upon those false sidered in this view, the imagery is peculiarly beautiful and teachers, who, from mercenary views, taught a different doc-expressive, when he represents the wicked servant and untrine. (1 Tim. vi. 1-10.) Against this principle of the faithful steward bound hand and foot and cast into utter judaizing zealots, St. Paul always enters his strong protest, darkness, where there would be weeping, wailing, and and teaches that the profession of Christianity makes no dif- gnashing of teeth! (Matt. viii. 12. xxii. 13.) The reader will ference in the civil relations of men. See 1 Cor. vii. 17-24. be pleased with the ingenious remarks of the learned and judiIV. Though slavery was tolerated and its horrors were cious Dr. Macknight on this passage:In ancient times the mitigated by the wise and humane enactments of Moses, yet stewards of great families were slaves as well as the servants in the progress of time as hired servants would be necessary, of a lower class, being raised to that trust on account of their various regulations were in like manner made by him, to fidelity, wisdom, sobriety, and other good qualities. If any ensure them from being oppressed. Like slaves, hired steward, therefore, in the absence of his lord, behaved as is labourers were to partake of the rest of the Sabbath, and also represented in the parable, it was a plain proof, that the virto share in the produce of the sabbatical year: their hire was tues on account of which he was raised were counterfeit, and to be paid every day before sunset (Lev. xix. 13. Deut. xxiv. by consequence that he was a hypocrite. Slaves of this 14, 15.); but what that hire was to be, the Hebrew legisla- character, among other chastisements, were sometimes contor has not determined, because the price of labour must demned to work in the mines. And as this was one of the have varied according to circumstances. From the parable most grievous punishments, when they first entered, nothing of the proprietor of a vineyard and his labourers, which is was heard among them but weeping and gnashing of teeth, related in Matt. xx. 1-15.," we learn these three particu-on account of the intolerable fatigue to which they were sublars concerning the servants in Judæa, or at least in Jerusa-jected in these hideous caverns without hope of release. lem :-That early in the morning they stood in the market There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'3 place to be hired-that the usual wages of a day-labourer "Crucifixion was a servile punishment, and usually inwere at that time a denarius, or about seven-pence halfpenny flicted on the most vile, worthless, and abandoned of slaves. of our money-and that the customary hours of working In reference to this it is that St. Paul represents our Lord were till six in the evening. Early in the morning the mas- taking upon him the form of a servant, and becoming subject to ter of a family rose to hire day-labourers to work in his vine-death, even the death of the CROSS (Phil. ii. 8.); crucifixion yard. Having found a number he agreed to pay them a was not only the most painful and excruciating, but the most DENARIUS for the WAGES of the DAY, and sent them into his reproachful and ignominious death that could be suffered. vineyard. About nine o'clock he went again into the MARKET- Hence it is that the apostle so highly extols the unexampled PLACE, and found several others unemployed, whom he also love for man and magnanimity of Jesus, who for the joy set ordered into his vineyard, and promised to pay them what before him endured the CROSS, despising the shame (Heb. xii. was reasonable. At twelve and three in the afternoon, he 2.) and infamy even of such a death. It was this exit which went and made the same proposals, which were in the same Jesus made, that insuperably disgusted so many among the manner accepted. He went likewise about five o'clock, and heathens; who could never prevail with themselves to believe found a number of men sauntering about the market in idle- that religion to be divine, whose founder had suffered such ness, and he said to them, Why do you consume the whole an opprobrious and infamous death from his countrymen. day in this indolent manner? There is no one hath thought And for men to preach in the world a system of truths as a fit to give us any employment, they replied. Then go you revelation from the Deity, which were first delivered to maninto the vineyard among my other labourers, and you shall kind by an illiterate and obscure Jew, pretending to a divine receive what is just. In the evening the proprietor of the mission and character, and who was for such a pretension vineyard ordered his steward to call the workmen together, crucified, appeared to the heathens the height of infatuation beginning from the last to the first, to pay them their wages and religious delusion. The preaching of the CROSS was to without any partiality or distinction. When those, therefore, them foolishness (1 Cor. i. 23.); and the religion of a crucified came, who had been employed about five in the afternoon, leader, who had suffered in the capital of his own country they received a denarius a piece. When those, who had been the indignities and death of a slave, carried with it, in their hired in the morning, saw them return with such great wages, estimation, the last absurdity and folly, and induced them to they indulged the most extravagant joy, imagining that their look upon the Christians, and the wretched cause in which pay would vastly exceed that of the others; but how great they were embarked, with pity and contempt. Hence St. was their disappointment, when they received from the stew-Paul speaks of the offence of the cross, the great and invinard each man a denarius! This supposed injurious treatment cible disgust conceived by the men of those times against a caused them to raise loud clamours against the master. And religion whose founder was crucified! Hence he speaks of they complained to him of his usage of them, saying, the last not being ashamed of the Gospel from the circumstance labourers you hired only worked a SINGLE HOUR, and you have which made such numbers ashamed of it, nay, of glorying given them the same wages as you have given us, who have in the cross of Christ; though the consideration of the ignobeen scorched with excessive heat, and sustained the long minious and servile death he suffered was the very obstacle and rigorous toil of the whole day. He turned to one who that made the heathens stumble at the very threshold of appeared the most petulant of them, and directed this reply, Christianity, and filled them with insurmountable prejudices 1 Harwood's Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 144-146. against it."% The same custom obtains to this day in Persia. In the city of Hama 4 V. Among the Greeks slaves were commonly termed found, dan there is a maidan or square in front of a large mosque. "Here," says in opposition to the s, or those who were free born; and, Mr. Morier, we observed every morning before the sun rose, that a Lumerous band of peasants were collected with spades in their hands, by some of the comic writers, xeral. They were also frewaiting, as they informed us, to be hired for the day to work in the sur:quently termed us. These appellations also occur in the rounding fields. This custom, which I have never seen in any other part New Testament, where we find them characterized by difof Asia, forcibly struck me as a most happy illustration of our Saviour's parable of the labourers in the vineyard in the 20th chapter of Matthew, ferent names, according to the nature of the services which particularly when passing by the same place late in the day, we still found others standing idle, and remembered his words, Why stand ye here all the day idle? as most applicable to their situation; for, in putting the very same question to them, they answered us, Because no man hath hired Morier's Second Journey through Persia. p. 265 3 Dr. Macknight's Harmony, p. 522. 2d edit. 1763. 4 Σκανδάλου του σταυρού, Gal. v. 11. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gal. vi. 14. • Harwood's Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 147–152. they performed. Thus in Acts xii. 20. we meet with a cham-| berlain; ... Blastus, i ini Tōu xataves, who had charge of the royal bedchamber, or, in modern language, the royal chamberlain. These persons often had great influence with their masters. Those, who had large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, which they intrusted to us, inferior shepherds, appointed a chief shepherd, ap, to superintend them. In 1 Pet. v. 4. this appellation is applied to the chief teacher of religion, that is, Jesus Christ, who is to come as judge. Kings are often termed i Tv Azev, because they watch for the safety and welfare of their subjects; and the same figure is transferred to religious teachers, who strive by their instructions and exhortations to promote the highest interests of mankind. The ire and incress appear to be synonymous terms for him who had the chief charge or oversight of the property or domestic affairs of any one. This class of men had authority over the slaves of a family, and seem to have sometimes been slaves themselves. (Luke xii. 42. 1 Cor. iv. 2.) Besides the general care of affairs, the boys of a family also appear to have been intrusted to their charge; at least in regard to pecuniary matters. (Gal. iv. 4.) Schleusner considers the rps in this passage as the guardian appointed by the law or by the magistrate, and the oixorous as one who was appointed by will. Opposed to slaves were the 'Er or hired labourers (Matt. xx. 1.), whether they were po, or cultivators of the soil (Luke xx. 9, 10.), Auxoupy, or vine-dressers (Luke xiii. 7.); or upp, or door-keepers. (Mark xiii. 34. John xviii. 16, 17.) But, whatever was the nature of their service, each was required to prosecute that particular work which was deemed most suitable for him by his master or lord, whether the latter was at home or abroad (Mark xiii. 34. Luke xii. 42. xiv. 17. xvii. 7, 8.), with all honesty and fidelity. (Tit. ii. 9, 10.)2 Among the Greeks those slaves who had conducted themselves well were manumitted, or released from bondage. The Greeks termed those who were thus liberated are depous, or freed men; which word is applied by St. Paul to him who is called into the church of Christ, while a slave, in order to denote that he is free indeed, as being made by Christ a partaker of all the privileges of the children of God. (1 Cor. vii. 22.) In some of the Grecian states, the son and heir was permitted to adopt brethren, and communicate to them the same privileges which he himself enjoyed. To this some commentators have supposed that Jesus Christ refers in John viii. 32. Lastly, when slaves proved ungrateful to their former masters or patrons, they might be again reduced into bondage, both among the Greeks and Romans. To this usage St. Paul may refer when he exhorts the Galatian believers in Christ not to suffer the judaizing teachers again to entangle them in the yoke of bondage. (Gal. v. 1.)3 CHAPTER VI. DOMESTIC CUSTOMS AND USAGES OF THE JEWS. I. Forms of Salutation and Politeness.—Reverence to Superiors.—II. Mode of receiving Guests or Visitors.—III. Conversation and Bathing.-IV. Food and Entertainments.-V. Mode of Travelling.-VI. Hospitality a sacred Duty among the Jews.— Account of the Tessera Hospitales of the Greeks and Romans. I." VARIOUS are the modes of address and politeness which custom has established in different nations. The Orientals were very exact in the observances of outward decorum and we may collect, from several passages in the Old and New Testament, that their salutations and expressions of regard on meeting each other were extremely tedious and tiresome, containing many minute inquiries concerning the person's welfare, and the welfare of his family and friends; and when they parted, concluding with many reciprocal wishes of happiness and benediction on each other."4 The ordinary formulæ of salutation were-The Lord be with thee!-The Lord bless thee!—and Blessed be thou of the Lord! but the most common salutation was Peace (that is, may all manner of prosperity) be with thee! (Ruth ii. 4. Judg. xix. 20. 1 Sam. xxv. 6. Psal. cxxix. 8.) In the latter ages of the Jewish polity, much time appears to have been spent in the rigid observance of these ceremonious forms, for which the modern inhabitants of the East continue to be remarkable.5 "When our Lord, therefore, in his commission to the seventy, whom he despatched into the towns and villages of Judæa to publish the Gospel, strictly ordered them to salute no man by the way (Luke x. 4.), he designed only by this prohibition that they should employ the utmost expedition; that they should suffer nothing to retard and impede them in their progress from one place to another; and should not lavish those precious moments, which ought to be devoted to the sacred and arduous duties of their office, in observing the irksome and unmeaning modes of ceremonious intercourse. Not that our Lord intended that his disciples should studiously violate all common civility and decency, and industriously offend against all the rules of courteousness and decorum, since he commanded them upon their entrance into any house to salute it (Matt. x. 12.), and observe the customary form of civility in wishing it peace (Luke x. 5.) or universal happiness. This injunction, to salute no one on the road, means only that they should urge their course with speed, and not suffer their attention to be diverted from the duties of their commission. There is a passage in the Old Testament parallel to this, and which beautifully illustrates it. Elisha, despatching his servant Gehazi to recover the son of the Shunamite, strictly enjoins him to make all the expedition possible, which is thus expressed: Gird up thy loins and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way. If thou meet any man, salute him not, and if any salute thee, an See Adam's Roman Antiquities, p. 488. Robinson's Gr. Lexicon, in vocibus; Stosch's Compendium Archæo-swer him not again. (2 Kings iv. 29.) logiæ Novi Testamenti, pp. 45, 46. Bruning, Compendium Græcarum à profanis Sacrarum, p. 86. Kuinöel, on John viii. 32. Of the minute, not to say frivolous, inquiries and salutations above mentioned, the following is a striking illustration:-"Every passer by, says the Rev. Mr. Jowett, "has his Alla ybarakek,'-'God bless you' Conversation is sometimes among strangers made up of a very large proportion of these phrases; for example, Good morning.' Answer, May your day be enriched!'-'By seeing you.'-'You have enlightened the house by your presence.'-Are you happy?'-'Happy; and you, also. You are confortable, I am comfortable; meaning I am comfortable, if you are. These sentences are often repeated; and, after any pause, it is usual to turn to your neighbour and resume these courtesies many times." Jowett's Christian Researches in Syria, p. 90. Serious and taciturn as the natives of the East usually are, they grow talkative when they meet an acquaintance, and salute him. This custom has come from Asia with the Arabs, and spread over the north coast of Africa. A modern traveller relates the reciprocal salutations with which those are received who return with the caravans. "People go a great way to meet them: as soon as they are perceived, the questioning and salutation begins, and continues with the repetition of the same phrases: 'How do you do? God be praised that you are come in peace! God give you peace! How fares it with you? The higher the rank of the person returning home, the longer does the salutation last." See Horneman's Journal. Stolberg's History of Religion, vol. iii. p. 183. Burder's Oriental Literature, vol. i. p. 486. "In all countries these modes of address and politeness, though the terms are expressive of the profoundest respect and homage, yet through constant use and frequency of repe tition soon degenerate into mere verbal forms and words of course, in which the heart has no share. They are a frivolous unmeaning formulary, perpetually uttered without the mind's ever annexing any idea to them. To these empty, insignificant forms, which men mechanically repeat at meeting or taking leave of each other, there is a beautiful allusion in the following expression of our Lord in that consolatory discourse which he delivered to his apostles when he saw them dejected and disconsolate, on his plainly assuring them that he would soon leave them and go to the Father. I leave with you: my peace I give unto you:-not as the world giveth, give I unto you. (John xiv. 27.) Since I must shortly be taken from you, I now bid you adieu, sincerely wishing you every happiness; not as the world giveth, give I unto you; not in the unmeaning ceremonial manner the world repeats this salutation: for my wishes of peace and happiness Peace to you are sincere, and my blessing and benediction will derive upon you every substantial felicity. This sheds light and lustre upon one of the finest and most beautiful pieces of imagery which the genius and judgment of a writer ever created. In the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author informs us with what warm, anticipating hopes of the Messiah's future kingdom those great and good men, who adorned the annals of former ages, were animated. These all, says he, died in faith, they closed their eyes upon the world, but they closed them in the transporting assurance that God would accomplish his promises. They had the firmest persuasion that the Messiah would bless the world. By faith they antedated these happy times, and placed themselves, in idea, in the midst of all their fancied blessedness. They hailed this most auspicious period: saluted it, as one salutes a friend whose person we recognise, at a distance. These all died in faith, died in the firm persuasion that God would accomplish these magnificent promises, though they themselves had not enjoyed them, but only had seen them afar off: God had only blessed them with a remote prospect of them. They were, therefore, persuaded of them, they had the strongest conviction of their reality-they embraced them with transport saluted' them at a distance, confessing that they were but strangers and pilgrims upon earth, but were all travelling towards a CITY which had foundations, whose builder and maker is God."2 that the inhabitants of the oriental countries have always used more illiberal and humiliating forms of address and homage than ever obtained in Europe. "It was also customary in those times, whenever a popular harangue was about to be delivered, and the people stood convened, for the orator, before he entered on his discourse, to stretch forth his hand towards the multitude as a token of respect to his audience, and to engage their candid attention. Frequent instances of this polite address of an orator to the assembled multitude occur in the classics. In like manner we read that St. Paul, before he commenced his public apology to the multitude, bespoke their respect and candour by beckoning with his hand to them. Paul said, 'I am a man who am a Jew of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city; and I beseech thee suffer me to speak unto the people.' And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs and beckoned with his hand unto the people. Thus, also, in the account of the tumult which happened at Ephesus, when the whole city was filled with confusion, some clamouring one thing, some another, and the mob which Demetrius had raised were instigated to the last excesses of violence and fury, though, as is usual in mobs, the majority of them, as the sacred historian tells us, knew not what it was that had brought them together; in the midst of this confused scene we read that the Jews pushed forward and placed one Alexander on an eminence. He, being exalted above the crowd, intended in a formal harangue to exculpate the Jews from any concern in the present disturbance. Accordingly he beckoned to them with his hand-making use of this respectful customary address to ensure their favourable regard, before he delivered his designed apology. But this specious and popular artifice, it seems, did not avail the orator; for the moment the mob understood he was a Jew, they pierced the air with their confused cries, repeating, for two hours together, Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Respect was shown to persons on meeting, by the salutation of Peace be with you! and laying the right hand upon the bosom: but if the person addressed was of the highest rank, they bowed to the earth. Thus Jacob bowed to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother Esau. (Gen. xxxiii. 3.) Such was the piety of ancient times, that masters saluted their labourers with "The Lord be with you!" to which they answered, “The Lord bless thee!" Sometimes the hem of the person's garment was kissed, and even the dust on which he had to tread. (Zech. viii. 23. Luke viii. 44. "From time immemorial it has also been the universal Acts x. 26. Psal. lxxii. 9.) Near relations and intimate custom in the East to send presents one to another. No one acquaintances kissed each other's hands, head, neck, beard waits upon an eastern prince, or any person of distinction, (which on such occasions only could be touched without without a present. This is a token of respect which is never affront), or shoulders. (Gen. xxxiii. 4. xlv. 14. 2 Sam. xx. 9. dispensed with. How mean and inconsiderable soever the Luke xv. 20. Acts xx. 37.) The modern Arabs salute their gift, the intention of the giver is accepted. Plutarch informs chiefs by kissing either cheek alternately. Whenever the us that a peasant happening to fall in the way of Artaxerxes common people approach their prince, or any person of the Persian monarch in one of his excursions, having nothing superior rank, it was customary for them to prostrate them- to present to his sovereign, according to the oriental custom, selves before him. "In particular, this homage was univer- the countryman immediately ran to an adjacent stream, filled sally paid to the monarchs of Persia by those who were admit- both his hands, and offered it to his prince. The monarch, ted into their presence; a homage, in which some of the Greek says the philosopher, smiled and graciously received it, highly commanders, possessed of a truly liberal and manly spirit, pleased with the good dispositions this action manifested. peremptorily refused to gratify them. In imitation of these All the books of modern travellers into the East, Sandys, proud sovereigns, Alexander the Great exacted a similar pros- Thevenot, Maundrell, Shaw, Pococke, Norden, Hasselquist,' tration. This mode of address obtained also among the Jews. Light, Clarke, Morier, Ouseley, Buckingham, and others, When honoured with admittance to their sovereign, or intro-" abound with numberless examples of this universally preduced to illustrious personages, they fell down at their feet, valent custom of waiting upon great men with presentsand continued in this servile posture till they were raised. unaccompanied with which, should a stranger presume to There occur many instances of this custom in the New Tes-enter their houses, it would be deemed the last outrage and tament. The wise men who came from the East, when violation of politeness and respect. It was, therefore, agreethey saw the child Jesus with his mother Mary, fell down ably to this oriental practice which obtains in all these counand worshipped him. Great numbers of those who approached tries to this day, that the wise men, when they entered the our Saviour fell down at his feet. We read of several of the house to which the star had directed them, and saw the child common people who prostrated themselves before him and and his mother, after they had prostrated themselves before worshipped him. Cornelius, at his first interview with him, and paid him the profoundest homage, as the evangelist Peter, when he met him, fell down before him and worshipped informs us, opened their treasures, and testified their sense him, and remained in this submissive attitude till Peter took of the dignity of his person, by respectfully making him rich him up; saying, Stand up: I also am a man. In the Old presents, consisting of gold, frankincense, and myrrh." Testament we read that Esther fell down at the feet of Ahasuerus. These prostrations among the eastern people appear to us to the last degree unmanly and slavish ; but it seems 1 'Ac=araμivos. The word always used in salutations. See Romans xvi. passim. Harwood's Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 279-283. * Not unlike the above, are the salutations in use at this time among the Turks. "Say to a Turk, according to custom, 'May your morning be propitious" he replies, 'May you be the pledge of God! Ask a Turk, 'Is your health good?' he answers, Glory be to God! Salute him as you pass him rapidly in travelling, he exclaims, 'May God be merciful to you! At parting he addresses you, To God I commend you ! and is answered, May God be with you."-Hartley's Researches in Greece, p. 233. • Irby's and Mangles' Travels, p. 262. Vereor ne civitati meæ sit opprobrio, si quum ex ea sim profectus, quæ cæteris gentibus imperare consueverit, potius barbarorum quam ibus more fungar? C. Nepos. Conon. p. 153. The Athenians punished a person with death for submitting to this slavish prostration. Athenienses autem Timagoram inter officium salutationis Darium regem more gentis illius adulatum, capitali supplicio affecerunt; unius civis humilibus blanditas totius urbis suæ decus Persicæ dominationi summissum graviter ferentes. Valerius Maximus, lib. vi. cap. 3. p. 561. Torrenii, Leidæ, 1726. • Qui ubi in castra Romana et prætorium pervenerunt, more adulantium, accepto, credo, ritu ex eâ regione ex quâ oriundi erant, procubuerunt. Conveniens oratio tam humili adulationi. Livius, lib. xxx. cap. 16. tom. ii. p. 130. edit. Ruddiman. VOL. II. Y II. When any person visited another, he stood at the gate (as is still usual in India)10 and knocked, or called aloud, until the person on whom he called admitted him. (2 Kings v. 9 -12. Prov. viii. 34. Acts x. 17. xii. 13. 16.) If the visitor was a person of extraordinary dignity, it was customary to send persons of rank, who were followed by others of still greater rank, to meet him, and do him honour. Thus Balak sent princes more and more honourable to meet Balaam (Num. xxii. 15.), and the same custom obtains to this day in Persia." Visitors were always received and dismissed with great respect. On their arrival water was brought to wash their feet, water was also poured upon their hands (2 Kings iii. Plutarch's Morals, vol. p. i. 299. edit. Gr. Stephani. The common present now inade to the great in these countries is a horse: an ass might formerly answer the same purpose, and to this Moses probably alludes in Num. xvi. 15. as well as Samuel (1 Sam. xii. 3.), particularly as asses were then deemed no dishonourable beast for the saddle. See Burder's Oriental Literature, vol. i. p. 243. • Harwood's Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 284-289. |