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bound and lying quite naked on his side upwards of fifteen years. If all this had occurred only in vision, how could the Jews of the captivity have comprehended what Ezekiel meant to say to them? How would that prophet have been able to execute the divine commands? We must in that case admit likewise that he did not prepare the plan of Jerusalem, that he did not represent the siege, that he was not bound, that he did not eat the bread of different kinds of grain in any other than the same way; namely, that of vision, or ideally."

We cannot but adopt the opinion of the learned Calmet, which is that of the most respectable interpreters. It is evident that the holy scripture recounts the matter as a real truth, and that such truth is the emblem, type, and figure of another truth.

"Take unto thee wheat and barley, and beans and lentiles, and millet and vetches, and make cakes of them for as many days as thou art to sleep on thy side. Thou shalt eat for three hundred and ninety days. thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt cover it with human ordure.+ Thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread defiled."

It is evident that the Lord was desirous that the Israelites should eat their bread defiled. It follows therefore that the bread of the prophet must have been defiled also. This defilement was so real, that Ezekiel expressed actual horror at it. "Alas!" he exclaimed, my life (my soul) has not hitherto been polluted," &c. And the Lord says to him, "I allow thee, then, cow's dung instead of man's, and with that shalt thou prepare thy bread."

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It appears, therefore, to have been absolutely essen

Ezekiel, iv. 9, 12.

It is alleged that God proposes to the prophet merely to bake his bread under the ashes with human or animal fæces. In fact, in some barren and sandy districts where fuel is scarcely procurable, the dry dung of animals is frequently used in dressing food; but it is not bread baked under ashes that is prepared with a fire of this description; and even were we to adopt this explanation of certain commentators, there would remain cause enough for the prophet's disgust.-French Ed.

tial that the food should be defiled in order to its becoming an emblem or type. The prophet in fact put cow-dung with his bread for three hundred and ninety days, and the case includes at once a fact and a .symbol.

Of the Emblem of Aholah and Aholibah.

The holy scripture expressly declares that Aholah is the emblem of Jerusalem.* "Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother was a Hittite." The prophet then, without any apprehension of malignant interpretations or wanton railleries, addresses the young Aholah in the following words :

"Ubera tua intumuerunt, et pilus tuus germinavit: et eras nuda et confusione plena."

Thy breasts were fashioned, and thy hair was grown, and thou wast naked and confused.

"Et transivi per te; et ecce tempus tuum, tempus amantium; et expandi amictum meum superte et operui ignominiam tuam. Et juravi tibi, et ingressus sum pactum tecum, (ait Dominus Deus), et facta es mihi."

I passed by and saw thee; and saw thy time was come, thy time for lovers; and I spread my mantle over thee, and concealed thy shame. And I swore to thee, and entered into a contract with thee, and thou becamest mine.t

"Et habens fiduciam in pulchritudine tua fornicata. es in nomine tuo; et exposuisti fornicationem tuam omni transeunti, ut ejus fieres."

And, proud of thy beauty, thou didst commit fornication without disguise, and hast exposed thy fornication to every passer by, to become his.

"Et ædificavissti tibi lupanar, et fecisti tibi prostibulum in cunctis plateis.'

* Ezekiel, xvi. 2, &c.

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These adventures are not unusual in the streets of the Moors, the actors always being real or pretended ideots, whom the people regard as inspired. The byestanders even lend their mantles.See CHENIER.

*And thou hast built a high place for thyself, and a place of eminence in every public way.

"Et divisisti pedes tuos omni transeunti, et multiplicasti fornicationes tuas."

And thou hast opened thy feet to every passer-by, and hast multiplied thy fornications.

"Et fornicata es cum filiis Egypti vicinis tuis, magnarum carnium; et multiplicasti fornicationem tuam ad irritandum me."

"

And thou hast committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, powerful in the flesh: and thou hast multiplied thy fornication to provoke me.

The article of Aholibah, which signifies Samaria, is much stronger, and still farther removed from the propriety and decorum of modern manners and language.

"Denudavit quoque fornications suas, discooperuit ignominiam suam."

And she has made bare her fornications, and discovered her shame.

"Multiplicavit enim fornicationes suas, recordans dies adolescentiæ suæ.'

For she has multiplied her fornications, remembering the days of her youth.

"Et insanivit libidine super concubitum eorum carnės sunt ut carnes asinorum, et sicut fluxus equorum, fluxus eorum."

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And she has maddened for the embraces of those whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is as the issue of horses.

These images strike us as licentious and revolting. They were at that time simply plain and ingenuous. There are numerous instances of the like in the Song of Songs, intended to celebrate the purest of all possible unions. It must be attentively considered, that these expressions and images are always delivered with seriousness and gravity, and that in no book of equally high antiquity is the slightest jeering or raillery ever applied to the great subject of human production. When dissoluteness is condemned, it is so in natural

and undisguised terms, but such are never used to stimulate voluptuousness or pleasantry.

This high antiquity has not the slightest touch of similarity to the licentiousness of Martial, Catullus, or Petronius.

Of Hosea, and some other Emblems.

We cannot regard as a mere vision, as simply a figure, the positive command given by the Lord to Hosea, to take to himself a wife of whoredoms, and have by her three children. Children are not produced in a dream. It was not in a vision that he made a contract with Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, by whom he had two boys and a girl. It was not in a vision that he afterwards took to himself an adulteress, by the express order of the Lord, giving her fifteen pieces of silver, and a measure and a half of barley. The first of these disgraced women signified Jerusalem, and the second Samaria. But the two unions with these worthless persons, the three children, the fifteen pieces of silver, and the bushel and half of barley, were not the less real for having included or been intended as an emblem.

It was not in a vision that the patriarch Salmon married the harlot Rahab, the grandmother of David. It was not in a vision that Judah committed incest with his daughter-in-law Thamar, from which incest sprang David. It was not in a vision that Ruth, David's other grandmother, placed herself in the bed with Boaz. It was not in a vision that David murdered Uriah, and committed adultery with Bathsheba, of whom was born king Solomon. But, subsequently, all these events became emblems and figures, after the things which they typified were accomplished.

It is perfectly clear, from Ezekiel, Hosea, Jeremiah, and all the Jewish prophets, and all the Jewish books, as well as from all other books which give us any information concerning the usages of the Chaldeans, Persians, Phenicians, Syrians, Indians, and Egyptians:

* See the first chapters of the minor prophet Hosea.

it is, I say, perfectly clear that their manners were very different from ours, and that the ancient world was scarcely in a single point similar to the modern one.

Pass from Gibraltar to Mequinez, and the decencies and decorums of life are no longer the same; you no longer find the same ideas. Two sea leagues have changed everything.

ENCHANTMENT,

MAGIC, CONJURATION, SORCERY,

&c.

Ir is not in the smallest degree probable that all these abominable absurdities are owing, as Pluche would have us believe, to the foliage with which the heads of Isis and Osiris were formerly crowned. What connection can this foliage have with the art of charming serpents, with that of resuscitating the dead, killing men by mere words, inspiring persons with love, or changing men into beasts?

Enchantment (incantatio) comes, say some, from a Chaldee word, which the Greeks translate "productive song." Incantatio comes from the Chaldee. Truly, the Bocharts are great travellers, and proceed from Italy to Mesopotamia in a twinkling! The great and learned Hebrew nation is rapidly explored, and all sorts of books, and all sorts of usages, are the fruits of the journey; the Bocharts are certainly not charlatans.

Is not a large portion of the absurd superstitions which have prevailed to be ascribed to very natural causes? There are scarcely any animals that may not be accustomed to approach at the sound of a bagpipe, or a simple horn, to take their food. Orpheus, or some one of his predecessors, played the bagpipe better than other shepherds, or employed singing. All the domestic animals flocked together at the sound of his voice. It was soon supposed that bears and tigers were among the number collected: this first step accomplished, there was no difficulty in believing that Orpheus made stones and trees dance.

If rocks and pine-trees can be thus made to dance a ballet, it will cost little more to build cities by har

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