performance of these vows. The statutes respecting the Nazareate are related in the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers. Lamy, Calmet, and others have distinguished two classes of Nazarites: first, those who were Nazarites by birth, as Sampson and John the Baptist were; and, secondly, those who were Nazarites by vow and engagement; who followed this mode of living for a limited time, at the expiration of which they cut off their hair at the door of the tabernacle, and offered certain sacrifices. The Nazarites were required to abstain from wine, fermented liquors, and every thing made of grapes, to let their hair grow, and not to defile themselves by touching the dead and if any person had accidentally expired in their presence, the Nazarites of the second class were obliged to recommence their Nazariteship.

Similar to the Nazareate was the vow frequently made by devout Jews, on their recovery from sickness, or deliverance from danger or distress; who, for thirty days before they offered sacrifices, abstained from wine, and shaved the hair of their head. This usage illustrates the conduct of St. Paul, as related in Acts xvii. 18. The apostle, in consequence of a providential deliverance from some imminent peril not recorded by the sacred writer, bound himself by a vow, which the law in this case required him to pay at Jerusalem. In consequence of this transaction St. Luke relates, that he shaved his head at Cenchrea. St. Paul, in his intended journey afterwards to Judæa, says, he must needs go to Jerusalem: for the laws respecting the Nazarite's vow required the person who had entered into this engagement, if he were in a foreign country when he first laid himself under this solemn obligation, to go up to Jerusalem to accomplish it. Here several appointed sacrifices were offered, and a certain course of purifications and religious observances was prescribed and performed. This appears from another passage in the same sacred writer. (Acts xxi. 21 -27.) "We have four men who have a vow on them: them take and PURIFY thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that THEY MAY SHAVE THEIR HEADS. Then Paul took the men: and the next day purifying himself with them, entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification; and that an offering should be offered for every one of them. And when the SEVEN days were almost ended," &c. Josephus presents us with an instance parallel to this of St. Paul, in the person of Bernice, who went to Jerusalem, in order to perform a vow which she had made to God.

1 An usage, similar to the vow of Nazariteship, exists in Persia to this day. It frequently happens after the birth of a son, that if the parent be in distress, or the child be sick, or that there be any cause of grief, the mother makes a vow, that no razor shall come upon the child's head for a certain portion of time, and sometimes for his whole life, as Samuel was. (1 Sam. i. 11.) If the child recovers, and the cause of grief be removed, and if the vow be but for a time, so that the mother's vow be fulfilled, then she shaves his head at the end of the time prescribed, makes a small entertainment, collects money and other things from her relations and friends, which are sent as Netzers or offerings to the mosque at Kerbelah, and are there consecrated. Morier's Second Journey, p. 109.

2 Ibid. See Lamy's Apparatus Biblicus, vol. i. p. 221. Calmet's Dictionary, voce Nazarite. Fleury's Manners of the Israelites, pp. 338, 339. Lardner's Credibility,

SECTION II.

ON THE PURIFICATIONS OF THE JEWS.

I. Materials, with which the Purifications of the Jews were performed. -II. Ceremonies of Purification.-III. Of the Persons lustrated. -IV. Account of the different kinds of legal impurities, particularly 1. The Leprosy of the Person.-2. The Leprosy of Clothes. -3. The House Leprosy.-V. Minor legal impurities, and their lustrations.

IT

was requisite that every one who was about to make any offering to Jehovah should be cleansed from all impurities, or lustrated, -to adopt an expression in common use among the Romans. The materials, form, and ceremonies of these lustrations, which were prescribed by Moses, were various, according to different circumstances. The design of them all was not only to preserve both the health and morals of the Israelites, but also to intimate how necessary it was to preserve inward purity, without which they could not be acceptable to God, though they might approach his sanctuary.

I. The purifications were for the most part performed with water, sometimes with blood (Heb. ix. 21, 22.), and with oil. (Exod. xxxix. 26. Lev. viii. 10, 11.) The water of purification was to be drawn from a spring or running stream, and was either pure, or mixed with blood (Heb. ix. 19.), or with the ashes of the red heifer. For preparing these ashes, a heifer of a red colour was burnt with great solemnity. This ceremony is described at length in the nineteenth chapter of the book of Numbers. As all the people were to be interested in it, the victim was to be provided at their charge. This Jewish rite certainly had a reference to things done under the Gospel, as St. Paul has remarked in his Epistle to the Hebrews. For if the blood of bulls and of goats (alluding to the sin-offerings, and to the scape-goat), and THE ASHES OF A HEIFER, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ. purge (or purify) your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. As the principal stress of allusion in this passage is to the ordinance of the red heifer, we may certainly conclude that it was designed to typify the sacrifice of our adorable Redeemer.

In the ordinance of the red heifer, we may perceive the wisdom of Moses (under the guidance of Jehovah) in taking every precaution that could prevent the Israelites from falling into idolatry. The animal to be selected was a heifer, in opposition to the superstition of the Egyptians, who held these to be sacred, and worshipbook i. c. 9. § 7. (Works, vol. i. pp. 208-212.) Jenning's Jewish Antiquities, book i. c. 8. pp. 214-220. Reland's Antiq. Hebr. part i. c. 10. pp. 284-289. Michaelis's Commentaries on the Law of Moses, vol. ii. pp. 260-271. 280-283. Dr. Randolph's Discourse on Jephthah's Vow, in his View of Christ's Ministry, &c. vol. ii. pp. 166 --272. 1 Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. iii. c. 8. § 6.

ped Isis under the form of a heifer:-it was also to be a red heifer, without spot, that is, altogether red, because red bulls were sacrificed to appease the evil demon Typhon, that was worshipped by the Egyptians; wherein was no blemish, so that it was free from every imperfection;-on which never came yoke, because any animal that had been used for any common purpose, was deemed improper to be offered in sacrifice to God.'

The animal being slain, and her blood sprinkled as directed in Numb. xix. 3, 4., was then reduced to ashes, which were to be collected and mixed with running water (ver. 9. 17.), for the purpose of lustration.

2

II. The Jews had two sorts of washing; one,- of the whole body, by immersion, which was used by the priests at their consecration, and by the proselytes at their initiation ;-the other, of the hands or feet, called dipping or pouring of water, and which was of daily use, not only for the hands and feet but also for the cups and other vessels used at their meals. (Matt. xv. 2. Mark vii. 3, 4.) The six water pots of stone, used at the marriage feast of Cana, in Galilee (John ii. 6.), were set for this purpose. To these two modes of purification Jesus Christ seems to allude in John xiii. 10.; where the being wholly washed implies one who had become a disciple of Christ, and consequently renounced the sins of his former life. He who had so done, was supposed to be wholly washed, and not to need another immersion, in imitation of the ceremony of initiation, which was never repeated among the Jews. All that was necessary in such case was, the dipping or rinsing of the hands and feet, agreeably to the customs of the Jews. Sometimes the lustration was performed by sprinkling blood, or anointing with oil. Sprinkling was performed either with the finger or with a branch of cedar and hyssop tied together with scarlet wool. (Levit. xiv. 4. 6. Numb. xix. 18. Psal. li. 7.)

III. The objects of lustration were either persons or things dedicated to divine worship. The Levites, priests, and above all, the high priest, underwent a purification previously to undertaking their office. In like manner the Israelites were commanded to sanctify themselves by ablutions both of their persons and clothes, &c. previously to receiving the law (Exod. xix. 10, 11. 14, 15. Heb. ix. 19.); and after the giving of the law and the people's assent to the book of the covenant, Moses sprinkled them with blood. (Exod. xxiv. 5-8. Heb. ix. 19.) So also were the tabernacle, and all its

1 This opinion obtained among the antient Greeks. See particularly Homer's Iliad, x. 291-293. and Odyssey, iii. 382., and Virgil's Georgics, iv. 550, 551.

2 While Mr. W. Rae Wilson (who visited Palestine in 1819) was at Cana, "six women, having their faces veiled, came down to the well, each carrying on her head a pot for the purpose of being filled with water. These vessels were formed of stone, and something in the shape of bottles used in our country for containing vitriol, having great bodies and small necks, with this exception, they were not so large; many had handles attached to the sides; and it was a wonderful coincidence with Scripture, that the vessels appeared to contain much the same quantity as those, which the Evangelist informs [us] had been employed on occasion of the nuptial celebration," viz. "three firkins," that is, about twelve gallons each (Wilson's Travels in Egypt and the Holy land, p. 339.)

sacred vessels anointed with oil (Exod. xxx. 26-28. xl. 9-11. Levit. viii. 10, 11.), and as Saint Paul further intimates, were sprin→ kled with the blood of the victims.

Those who were about to offer sacrifice unto Jehovah, were also to be lustrated (1 Sam. xvi. 5. Judith xvi. 22.); as well as those who were repairing to divine worship to offer their prayers (xxiv. 3, 4. xxvi. 6. Judith xii. 7, 8.); and especially the priests and the high priest, before they executed their respective offices. (Exod. Xxx. 20.) Lastly, all who according to the Mosaic law were adjudged impure, were to be purified before they could be admitted into the congregation of the Lord. (Numb. xix. 20.)

IV. In the Mosaic law, those persons are termed unclean, whom others were obliged to avoid touching, or even meeting, unless they chose to be themselves defiled, that is, cut off from all intercourse with their brethren; and who, besides, were bound to abstain from frequenting the place where divine service and the offering-feasts were held, under penalties still more severe.

The duration and degrees of impurity were different. In some instances, by the use of certain ceremonies, an unclean person became purified at sunset; in others, this did not take place, until eight days after the physical cause of defilement ceased. Lepers were obliged to live in a detached situation, separate from other people, and to keep themselves actually at a distance from them. They were distinguished by a peculiar dress; and if any person approached, they were bound to give him warning, by crying out, Unclean! unclean! Other polluted persons, again, could not directly touch those that were clean, without defiling them in like manner, and were obliged to remain without the camp, that they might not be in their way. (Numb. v. 1-4.) Eleven different species of impurity are enumerated in the Levitical law, to which the later Jews added many others. But the severest of all was,

1. The Leprosy, an infectious disease of slow and imperceptible progress, beginning very insidiously and gently, for the most part with one little bright spot, which causes no trouble, though no means will make it disappear but increasing with time into furfuraceous scales that ultimately become a thick scab, it imperceptibly passes into a disease, which, though divested of its deadly nature in our temperate climates and by our superior cleanliness, is in the East attended with the most formidable symptoms: such as mortification and separation of whole limbs, and when arrived at a certain stage, it is altogether incurable. Among the heathens, the leprosy was considered as inflicted by their gods, by whom alone it could be removed, and the same notion appears to have prevailed among the Israelites; for when the king of Syria sent Naaman, his commander in chief, to the king of Israel, to heal him of his leprosy, the latter exclaimed,Am I GOD, to kill and make alive, that this man sent unto ME, to recover a man of his leprosy? (2 Kings v. 7.)

This frightful disease was not peculiar to the Israelites, but antiently was endemic (as it now is in Egypt, and other countries).

The burning ulceration with which the great adversary of man afflicted the venerable patriarch Job (ii. 7.), is generally understood to be the elephantiasis or leprosy of the Arabians; and derives its name from its rendering the skin of the patient, like that of an elephant, scabrous and dark coloured, and furrowed all over with tubercles, loathsome alike to the individual and to the spectators. The Mosaic statutes respecting leprosy are recorded in Lev. xiii. and xiv. Numb. v. 1-4. and Deut. xxiv. 8, 9. They are in substance as follows:

1. The suspected person was to be inspected by a priest, both as acting in a judicial capacity, and as being skilled in medicine. The signs of the disease, which are circumstantially pointed out in the statute itself, accord with those which have been noticed by modern physicians. If, on the first inspection, there remained any doubt as to the spot being really a symptom of leprosy, the suspected person was shut up for seven days, in order that it might be ascertained, whether it spread, disappeared, or remained as it was; and this confinement might be repeated. During this time, it is probable that means were used to remove the spot. If in the mean time it spread, or continued as it was, without becoming paler, it excited a strong suspicion of real leprosy, and the person inspected was declared unclean. If it disappeared, and after his liberation became again manifest, a fresh inspection took place.

2. The unclean were separated from the rest of the people. So early as the second year of the Exodus, lepers were obliged to reside without the camp (Numb. v. 1-4.): and so strictly was this law enforced, that the sister of Moses himself becoming leprous, was expelled from it. (Numb. xii. 14-16.) When the Israelites came into their own land, and lived in cities, the spirit of the law thus far operated, that lepers were obliged to reside in a separate place, which was called (7) BETH CHOPHSCHITH, or the house of uncleanness; and from this seclusion, not even kings, when they became leprous, were exempted. (2 Kings xv. 5.) As, however, a leper cannot always be within doors, and may, consequently, sometimes meet clean persons, he was obliged, in the first place, to make himself known by his dress, and to go about with torn clothes, a bare head, and his chin covered; and, in the next place, when any one came too near him, to cry out that he was Unclean. (Numb. xiii. 45, 46.)

3. Although a leper, merely meeting and touching a person, could not have immediately infected him; yet, as such a rencontre and touch would have rendered him Levitically unclean, in order to prevent leprosy from spreading, in consequence of close communication, it was an established rule to consider a leprous person as likewise unclean in a Levitical or civil sense; and, consequently,

1 In the East, lepers are not at this day absolutely interdicted from going abroad; for they are not considered as pestilential.-Niebuhr says (p. 136.), "I might have seen numbers of them; but whenever I observed any of them meeting me in the streets. I deemed it prudent to avoid them."