1. A guidance to the right method of calling forth Christian conviction Finally, Christianity having already existed for very many centuries as a religious institution, it must be for every man, as a man, and more particularly for the thinking Christian, of the highest importance to learn the origin of Christianity, its propagation and vicissitudes until our present times, and the extent and nature of the influence which it has exercised upon its votaries. The science which gives information on all these points is called CHURCH HISTORY, describing all the known facts belonging to the total process of development of Christianity. This science is of such an enormous extent as to compel its division into several departments, which have also been variously treated. Such are the History of the Spread of Christianity; History of Church Doctrine; History of the Moral Influence of Christianity; History of Religious Confusions and Fanaticisms arising out of Christianity; History of Christian Civil Constitutions; History of the Relations of the Church to the State; Ecclesiastical Antiquities or Archeology: History of some Christian Sects, such as, History of the Jewish Christians; History of the Catholics; History of the Protestant Church, of the Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.; Church History of some Countries and Nations; History of Christian Literature. In that part of Church History which describes the vicissitudes of the Church in times long gone by, the question at last suggests itself, What is the present state of Christianity in the world? The science which-far from being as yet sufficiently cultivated-solves this important question, goes by the name of CHURCH STATISTICS, and with it we may regard the sphere of THEOLOGICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA as completed. It cannot lie within the province of the present work as a Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature to embrace in the form of a dictionary all the subjects thus described as appertaining to Christian theology. Passing by systematic theology (which is the object of dogmatic history), practical theology, and church-history, the work comprises those branches of positive knowledge which are indispensable for the understanding of the Bible, and its historical interpretation, including, therefore, Biblical Archæology and Biblical Introduction, but leaving the application itself, together with grammatical criticism, to the department of Biblical Interpretation. The treatment of these matters in the form here adopted has certainly the disadvantage of somewhat obscuring the survey and impeding the systematic development of the whole; but this disadvantage is greatly counterbalanced by the benefits arising from the easy and convenient use which in this form can be made of the abundant and various materials belonging to the subjects discussed: a dictionary of such a character has, moreover, this important advantage, that the subjects embraced in its plan can be handled with such fulness of criticism as the present age requires. Attempts were early made to exhibit information pertaining to the Bible under the alphabetical arrangement of a dictionary. Of the many works of that kind, deserving notice, are: Hierolexicon reale collectum, moderante. Ad. Rechenbergio, Lipsiæ et Francf., 1714, 2 vols.; Aug. Calmet, Dictionnaire Historique, Critique, Chronologique, Géographique, et Littérale de la Bible, Paris, 1722, 2 vols., and (most complete) 1730, 4 vols. fol.; Dictionnaire Universelle, Dogmatique, Canonique, Historique, et Chronologique des Sciences Ecclésiastiques, et avec des Sermons abrégés des plus célèbres Orateurs Chrétiens, par le P. R. Richard et autres Religieux Dominicains, etc., Paris, 1760-64, 5 vols.; W. F. Hezel, Biblisches Real-Lexicon, über Biblische, und die Bibel erlaüternde alte Geschichte, Erdbeschreibung, Zeitrechnung, etc., Leipz., 1783-85, 3 vols., 4to.; F. G. Leun, Bibl. Encyclopædie, oder exegetisches Real-wörterbuch über die Sämmtlichen Hülfswissenschaften des Auslegers, nach den Bedürfnissen jetziger Zeit. Durch eine Gesellschaft von Gelehrten. Gotha, 1793-98, 4 vols., 4to. Although the work of Calmet was the most learned and practically useful of all, the partial standing point of the author rendered it unsuited to the enlarged demands of the present age; which, with the superficiality and want of plan in later works, had brought performances of this kind into some disrepute; and it was reserved for George Benedict Winer, a theologian of Leipsic, to restore them to their former credit by his Biblisches Real-wörterbuch, Leip., 1820, 2 vols., 8vo., of which a second and improved edition was published in 1833-38. The sphere of that work is, however, too narrowly drawn, the critical treatment in it is of a very unequal character, and many of the subjects examined in its pages, especially in the department of natural history, have in reality no relation whatever to the Bible. Similar publications by various other writers have been produced on the Continent, but they cannot be regarded as exhibiting any claims to scientific criticism, or well-considered arrangement." To particularise the works of the kind produced in our own country might appear invidious. It may suffice to say that they have all in their day served purposes of more or less usefulness, for which they are no longer available. All that has been done till now has been in various degrees based upon Calmet's great work; and the present is the only production which can be regarded as even professing to draw its materials from original sources of information. Calmet's own work was composed in a great degree out of the materials already used by him in the notes, dissertations, and prefaces of his great work, the Commentaire Littérale. The first translation of it appeared in 1732, in three large and costly folio volumes, executed by two clergymen, Samuel d'Oyley, M.A., and John Colson, M.A., F.R.S., the former of whom translated to the letter M, and the other to the end of the book. This translation formed the great treasury from which were drawn the materials of the large number of lesser Dictionaries of the Bible which subsequently appeared. These exhibited little more diversity from each other than such as naturally arises where persons of different habits of mind form different abridgments of the same work, the original or new matter being chiefly exhibited by the interspersion of doctrinal articles in support of the particular views which the compiler entertained. At length a new edition of Caimet was undertaken by Mr. Charles Taylor, and appeared in 1795 in four, and in later editions in five, quarto volumes. This was a very eccentric performance, composed thus:-two volumes consisted of an abridgment of Calmet; one volume of engravings; and two volumes of 'Fragments.' These fragments contained a sprinkling of useful matter drawn from histories and travels; but three-fourths of the whole consist of singularly wild and fanciful speculations respecting mythology, ethnology, natural history, antiquities, and sundry other matters, and are replete with unsound learning, outrageous etymologies, and the vagaries of an undisciplined intellect. Calmet, thus transformed, and containing as much of the editor as of the original author, has in its turn formed the basis of the Biblical Dictionaries which have since appeared, including a very painstaking digest of the more useful parts of Taylor's matter incorporated with the Dictionary under one alphabet, the whole abridged into one volume royal 8vo., which appeared in 1832. This work was in the same year reproduced in America under the supervision of Dr. Robinson, who made some few but valuable additions to particular articles. For the sake of these additions, reference has in the present work been occasionally made to that edition, but more in the early than in the latter part, where the sources of such additions were rather sought in the German authorities from which they were found to be derived. This is the sole assistance which has been obtained from any edition of Calmet; and it is so trifling that no notice would have been taken of it here, were it not that Calmet's name has been in this country so much used in connection with such undertakings, that many readers would, without this explanation, be disposed to confound the present work with the numerous compilations based upon or made up out of his folios. Of Winer's Biblisches Real-wörterbuch more frequent use has, in some classes of subjects, been made; but rather as an index than as a direct source of materials; and not to any extent which can impair the claim of this work to be derived from original sources of information, rather than from other productions of the same description. The Editor cannot but regard with peculiar satisfaction the ampie refer ences to books which occur in almost every article, and which indicate to the reader the means of more extensive inquiry into the various subjects which have been noticed with indispensable brevity in this work. The numerous references to Scripture will greatly assist its chief use and design-the illustration of the sacred volume. It is believed that the articles in the departments of Biblical INTRODUCTION and CRITICISM embrace a body of information, respecting the books of Scripture and sacred criticism, such as no work of the kind in any language has hitherto contained. The NATURAL HISTORY of Scripture has now for the first time been examined, and as far as possible settled, not by mere scholars ignorant of natural history, but by naturalists of acknowledged eminence. The SCRIPTURE GEOGRAPHY has, by the help of Dr. Robinson's invaluable Biblical Researches in Palestine, and of other publications less known in this country, assumed in the present work a greatly altered and much more distinct aspect. The ARCHEOLOGICAL articles exhibit an extent of illustration and research which will tend greatly to elucidate the obscurities which the subjects necessarily involve. The HISTORY has been discussed under the influence of those broad principles which constitute its philosophy; and in this, as well as in the BIOGRAPHY, it has not been forgotten that while actions are always to be judged by the immutable standard of right and wrong which the word of God has established, the judg ments which we pass upon men must be qualified by considerations of age, country, situation, and other incidental circumstances. It is hoped that with such claims to attention, and embodying, as it does, the results of great labour and much anxious thought, the work now offered to the public will receive indulgent consideration for the minute errors, defects, and perhaps discrepancies, from which the Editor dares not hope that it is wholly exempt, and which are perhaps inevitable in a work executed by so many different hands, and involving so large a body of references, titles, and proper names. JOHN KITTO. Woking, Oct. 15th, 1845. CYCLOPÆDIA OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. AARON. AARON (, etymology and signification unknown; Sept. 'Aapúv), the eldest son of Amram and Jochebad, of the tribe of Levi, and brother of Moses. He was born BC. 1574 (Hales, B.C. 1730), three years before Moses, and one year before Pharaoh's edict to destroy the male children of the Israelites (Exod. v. 20; vii. 7). His name first occurs in the mysterious interview which Moses had with the Lord, who appeared to him in the burning bush, while he kept Jethro's flock in Horeb. Among other excuses by which Moses sought to evade the great commission of delivering Israel, one was that he lacked that persuasive readiness of speech (literally was not a man of words') which appeared to him essential to such an undertaking. But he was reminded that his brother Aaron possessed in a high degree the endowment which he deemed so needful, and could therefore speak in his name and on his behalf. During the forty years' absence of Moses in the land of Midian, Aaron had married a woman of the tribe of Judah, named Elisheba (or Elizabeth), who had born to him four sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazer, and Ithamar; and Eleazer had, before the return of Moses, become the father of Phinehas (Exod. vi. 23-25). AARON. were permitted to behold afar off the outskirts of that radiant symbol of the Sacred Presence, which Moses was allowed to view more nearly (Exod. xxiv. 1, 2, 9-11). The absence of Moses in the mountain was prolonged for forty days, during which the people seem to have looked upon Aaron as their head, and an occasion arose which first brings the respective characters of the brothers into real comparison, and the result fully vindicates the Divine preference of Moses by showing that, notwithstanding the seniority and greater eloquence of Aaron, he wanted the high qualities which were essential in the leader of the Israelites, and which were possessed by Moses in a very eminent degree. The people grew impatient at the protracted stay of their great leader in the mountain, and at length concluded that he had perished in the devouring fire that gleamed upon its top. The result of this hasty conclusion gives us the first intimation of the extent to which their minds were tainted with the rank idolatries of Egypt. Recognising the authority of their lost chief's brother, they gathered around him, and clamorously demanded that he should provide them with a visible symbolic image of their God, that they might worship him as other gods were worshipped. Either afraid to risk the consequences of a refusal, or imperfectly impressed with the full meaning of the recent and authoritative prohibition of all such attempts to represent or symbolize the Divine Being, Aaron complied with their demand; and with the ornaments of gold which they freely offered, cast the figure of a calf [CALF, GOLDEN], being, probably, no other than that of the Egyptian god Mnevis, whose worship prevailed in Lower Egypt. However, to fix the meaning of this image as a symbol of the true God, Aaron was careful to proclaim a feast to Jehovah for the ensuing day. On that day the people met to celebrate the feast, after the fashion of the Egyptian festivals of the calf-idol, with dancing, with shouting, and with sports. Pursuant to an intimation from God, Aaron went into the wilderness to meet his long-exiled brother, and conduct him back to Egypt. After forty years of separation they met and embraced each other at the mount of Horeb. When they arrived in Goshen, Aaron, who appears to have been well known to the chiefs of Israel, introduced his brother to them, and assisted him in opening and enforcing the great commission which had been confided to him. In the subsequent transactions, from the first interview with Pharaoh till after the delivered nation had passed the Red Sea, Aaron appears to have been almost always present with his more illustrious brother, assisting and supporting him; and no separate act of his own is recorded. This co-operation was ever afterwards maintained. Aaron and Hur were present on the hill from which Moses surveyed the battle Meanwhile Moses had been dismissed from the which Joshua fought with the Amalekites; and mountain, provided with the decalogue, written these two long sustained the weary hands upon by the finger of God,' on two tablets of stone. whose uplifting the fate of the battle was found These, as soon as he came sufficiently near to to depend (Exod. xvii. 10-12). Afterwards, when observe the proceedings in the camp, he cast from Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the tables of the law, Aaron, with his sons and seventy of the elders, accompanied him part of the way up, and, as a token of the Divine favour, him with such force that they brake in pieces. His re-appearance confounded the multitude, who quailed under his stern rebuke, and quietly submitted to see their new-made idol destroyed. For B |