wall of Bethshan, the nature or design of which seems to be doubtful; since, after they had undergone the disagreeableness of conveying the corrupting bodies so many miles from Bethshan to Jabesh-Gilead, the place designed for their interment, it could not then be necessary to burn the flesh from the bones, on account of the ill scent they might by that time have contracted. The mere laying those corrupted bodies in the grave could be nothing, compared with the carrying them along so many miles. It might be to honour them; it might be to prevent any attempt of the Philistines to hang them up a second time.

с

Answerable to this account of honouring the grave of Abraham, with burning perfumes in or near it, I know a gentleman of great ingenuity and learning, who is disposed to believe, the odours the women carried to the sepulchre of our LORD, were designed to perfume that sepulchral cave by burning them there, which would be doing it honour: but it is to be remembered that the intention of them which the Evangelist gives an account of, was for the anointing him. To which may be added, that St. Luke expressly calls the things they prepared, spices and ointments, or spices made into ointments.

But still it may be enquired in what sense they proposed to anoint him: whether they meant to anoint the whole body; or only a part of it; or merely the linen vestment in which it was wrapped.

Mark. xvi. 1.

Ch. xxiii. 56.

The first cannot be admitted, as it is not agreeable to the rules of Eastern decency for women to perform the office of purifying by washing, and consequently of anointing the body of one of the other sex. The rules now observed in Persia, with regard to what is done for the dead, of which Sir John Chardin has given an account at large, demonstrate this. Which is confirmed by the observation, that these good women were in no wise concerned in the preparing the body of our LORD for interment; that appears to have been entirely in the hands of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, with their attendants. The women were unconcerned.

As to the second-the anointing a part of the body, the head or the feet, it could be of little or no consequence, when he was wrapped up in such a large quantity of spices, or at least laid in a bed of them, according to the Jewish mode of burial.

The same may be said of the anointing the corpse as it lay wrapped up; in which case it would not have been, rigidly speaking, the anointing of him, but of his winding-sheet. This however might be admitted, as to the sense of the words, which oftentimes are to be understood with considerable degrees of latitude. So we find, in some particular cases, when none of the same sex were to be had, a relation of the other sex, if pretty near to the

Tome 2, p. 367. See also Dean Addison's account of the Jews of Barbary, p. 219, 220, who observe the same rules of decency.

deceased, may be permitted, according to the Persian rules, to administer purification to a corpse, provided it be closely covered up, so as no part of the flesh be touched. In that case it is the enveloping linen, strictly speaking, to which the purifying water is applied, and which is rubbed with the hand, yet still the dead body is considered as purified.' The anointing then the winding sheet of our LORD might have been called anointing him; but this would have been to very little purpose, when he was buried in such a quantity of myrrh

and aloes.

And if the anointing the linen cloth in which he was wrapped might be called the anointing him, the anointing his sepulchre might, in like manner, be called anointing him, as it was anointing the place in which he was laid.

. And when we consider this was an ancient practice, and particularly performed by the women, in their mourning for the dead from time to time, it may probably be what was meant by St. Mark.

It is certain the Greeks of those times, with whom the Jews then had considerable connexions, anointed the grave stones of the dead; and it seems those that live farther East than Judea still practise it. The good women of Judea, the intermediate country, may naturally be supposed not to have neglected this testimony of regard.

So Archbishop Potter, in his Antiquities of

f Chardin in the same page.

Greece, has shown, by apposite quotations, not only from poets, but historians, that the ancient Greeks were wont to anoint the nonuments of the dead with fragrant oils, or ointments, as well as to lay sweet-smelling flowers upon them; and though I do not remember to have remarked the continuance of the custom, as to anointing tombs in those countries the Greeks formerly inhabited, yet it seems it is not lost in the East.

For Inatulla, an Indian writer, represents this custom as existing in the East still and though his Tales are of a romantic kind, they appear to be founded on the real practice of those places, and the genuine occurrences of human life there. "Immediately she fainted away; and when she recovered her senses again, she found herself seated upon a tomb-stone.

"The sad reflection immediately recurred, that she had lost her beloved father; so drowning his lamp with her tears, she sat in the shades of horror, conscious that her undutiful conduct had brought a virtuous parent to an untimely

end.

In a short time, she beheld her mother, with a weeping train in the robes of mourning, carrying jars of perfumed oil, and baskets of flowers to strew the tomb; so joining their tears in one stream of affliction, she related her tale in the ears of astonishment." &c.

8 Tales, vol. 2, p. 101, 102.

The translator remarks, in a note, that the "Mohammedans burn lamps to the dead." As a civil honour paid them, I presume he means, not idolatrously.

Here we see the modern Indian joins perfumed oil with flowers, in his description of the rites of bewailing the dead, as did the ancient Greeks.

As to the Greeks, Potter gives us Cowley's translation of some verses of Anacreon in proof of this point:

66

Why do we precious ointments show'r,
"Nobler wines why do we pour,
"Beauteous flow'rs why do we spread
"Upon the mon'ments of the dead?
"Nothing they but dust can show,
"Or bones that hasten to be so ;

"Crown me with roses while I live."

To which he adds, from Plutarch, that Alexander arriving at Troy, honoured the memories of the heroes buried there with solemn libations, and that he anointed Achilles' gravestone.i

In like manner these female disciples of our LORD might propose to begin those visits to the sepulchre of our LORD, which they designed to continue from time to time, by anointing the niche in which he lay with fragrant ointments, which, probably, they could better apply than flowers; and which are often mingled with them, when flowers could be, and were, in fact, used.

i Vol. 2, book 4, ch. 8.