After baptism, the enyrop or chrism is applied, and the forehead, eyes, ears, breast, palms of the hand, and soles of the feet, are anointed with consecrated oil in the form of the cross. They also administer the Eucharist to the child, with which they only rub its lips. The child is then carried home by the godfather, accompanied by the music of drums and trumpets. The mother does not go to church for forty days after delivery. The Eucharist is administered only on Sundays and Festivals. They steep the bread in the wine, and thus the communicant receives both kinds together a form different from the Greek, the Roman, and the Protestant Churches. The rites and ceremonies of the Armenian Church, in short, greatly resemble those of the Greek. Their liturgies are nearly the same, but the fasts they observe are more numerous, and kept with greater austerity. Their monastic discipline is in high repute, and is extremely

severe.

The clergy are allowed to marry once, but the patriarchs and bishops must remain in a state of strict celibacy.

As to the manners and customs of the Armenians, they are to a considerable extent incorporated with those of the Turks and Persians. They have many Jewish observances mingled with their habits. The men generally conform to the peculiar costume of the country; and a traveller has given us a description of the females in their dress and appearance. "The Armenian women," says Mr Morier, "do not wear so entire a veil as the Mahometan. It leaves the eyes at full liberty, and just incloses the nose, by which some general idea may be formed of the features and expression of the face. That which covers the lower part of the face is so very highly compressed, that the nose of every Armenian woman is flattened as broad as a negro's. Their features are broad and coarse, their complexions are fair and ruddy, and their eyes black; but their countenances in general excite little interest. When they go from home, they cover themselves with a large white veil

from head to foot. In the house they. still wear the nose-band, which is never laid aside, even in bed. Their dress consists of a silk shift, a pair of silk trowsers which reach to the ancles, a close garment which fastens at the throat with silver clasps, and an outer garment generally made of padded chintz, and open all the way in front. They wear a silver girdle, which rests on the hips, and is generally curiously wrought. Their feet are naked, and some of them wear silver rings round their ankles. No hair is seen, except a long plaited tail that hangs over the back to the ground. their heads they wear a species of cushion, which expands at the top." See ASIA and PERSIA.

On

ARNON, rejoicing, leaping for joy; or, their ark, or chest, a river, called by some writers a torrent of Palestine, which rises among the mountains of Gilead in Arabia, and after traversing the Desert, running first from north to south, and then from east to west, discharges itself into the Lake Asphaltites, or Dead Sea. In its course it divided the country of the Amorites from that of the Moabites, and subsequently gave its name to a canton of Palestine situated along its banks, on the other side of the Jordan. Balak met Balaam on the borders of the river Arnon, Numb. xxii. 26. Near this river was fought the great battle between the Israelites under Moses, and the Amorites under Sihon their king, in which the latter was defeated and slain, Numb. xxi. 24, 26.

AROER, heath, tamarisk; or, the nakedness of the skin, or, nakedness of the watch, or, of the enemy. There were various cities of this name, of which two, if not three, are specifically mentioned. AROER, a city partly on the north bank of, and partly on an island in, the river Arnon, which originally belonged to the Moabites, but which was taken from them by Sihon, king of the Amorites. Moses took it from that prince, and gave it to the tribe of Gad, who rebuilt it, Numb. xxxii. 34. It was situated at the extremity of the country which the

Hebrews possessed beyond the Jordan. In conjunction with this city, mention is made of "the city that is in the river," and "the city that is in the midst of the river,” Deut. ii. 36; Josh. xiii. 9, 16. Eusebius nevertheless says that in his time Aroer was situated upon a mountain, which probably refers to another place of the same name, a city in the south of Judah, to the inhabitants of which David sent a part of the spoils he took from the Amalekites, 1 Sam. xxx. 28. As it respects the former place on the Arnon, we find that when the tribe of Gad were carried captive into Assyria, the Assyrians took possession of Aroer, but were soon compelled to abandon it to the Moabites, under whom they appear to have rendered it a complete ruin. It recovered only to experience similar treatment from the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar, Jer. xlviii. 20. Reland thinks there was a city of this name near Rabbah, in the country of the Ammonites, sometimes called Philadelphia, and that it is mentioned in the Book of Joshua (xiii. 25), and Judges (iii. 33), as situated near the sources of the Jabok, or Jobaccus, and Arnon; but as its oriental name is Rabbath-Ammon, on which account it must be the same with that city, an ancient geographer (Stephen of Byzantium) alleges that it was the third city of Syria in point of importance; and that it was successively known by the names of Ammana or Ammon, Astarte, and Philadelphia, the last after Ptolemy Philadelphus. It was one of the Decapolis of Palestine. See DECAPOLIS, and RABBATH-AMMON.

ARPAD, or ARPHAD, the light of redemption, or, that lies down, or, that makes his bed, was a city or important town of Syria, which is always placed in connection with Hamath, 2 Kings xviii. 34; xix. 13; Isa. x. 9; xxxvi. 19; xxxvii. 13; Jer. xlix. 23. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, boasts of having reduced Arpad and Hamath, or of having destroyed the idols of those two places. This city is said by some geographers to be the same as Arvad in Phoenicia; but the

probability is, that it was another place situated in the north-east of Bashan, which is called Arphar by Josephus. It was entirely ruined by the Chaldeans, Jer. xlix. 23, but it again revived. Arpad in Phoenicia is situated in Arad, a small island south of Tyre, and about a league from the continent. It is now called Rou-Wadde by the Turks, and lies directly opposite to the Land of Hamath. See ARAD.

ARSAUF, a town of Palestine, in which, according to Josephus, Asa king of Israel was buried.

ARSUF, a sea-port town of Palestine, on the Mediterranean, six miles northeast of Joppa. In its vicinity there is a small island called Arsuffo. The town is now in ruins.

ARUBOTH, or ARABOTH, a city and district belonging to the tribe of Judah, 1 Kings iv. 10. Its exact site and locality are now unknown.

ARUD. See ARAD.

ARUMAH, a city near Sichem where Abimelech resided, Judges ix. 41. ASAMON, a mountain of Galilee, near Sephoris.

ASCALON. See ASHKElon.

ASEMON, ASSEMON, or AZMON, a city in the Wilderness of Maon, to the south of Judah, Josh. xv. 4. Also, an encampment of the Israelites in the Desert, Numb. xxxiii. 29.

ASHAN, a city of the tribe of Judah, Josh. xv. 42.

ASHDOD, inclination, leaning; or, a wild and open place; or, pillage, theft, called Azorus in our New Testament, and AZOTH in the Vulgate translation, is the name of a city which Joshua assigned to the tribe of Judah (xv. 47), but it continued for a long time in the possession of its ancient owners the Philistines. Ashdod was one of their five lordships or satrapies, and was situated about fifteen miles south of Ekron or Accaron, between that and Askelon, and about thirty miles distant from Gaza towards Joppa. This city was reckoned a place of great trade and importance. Here was a celebrated temple erected to the famous Philistine

idol Dagon, into which the ark of God was brought, and triumphed over that idol in a remarkable manner. The citizens of Ashdod, according to the sacred narrative, arose early on the following morning, and resorted to their temple, where to their amazement and horror they found the idol prostrated on the floor, with its face towards the ground, before the ark. They raised it up, and replaced it on its pedestal, leaving it, as they thought, secure; but on the ensuing morning those obstinate idolaters again found the image in the same degraded condition, with its head and hands disjoined from the body, and the stump only remaining. In addition to this, the inhabitants were visited by a disease called emerods, supposed to be the hemorrhoids or piles, which so much alarmed them, that they all exclaimed that the ark of the God of Israel should not remain with them any longer. After a consultation among the chief men of the place, it was resolved to remove the ark to the city of Gath, the capital of another lordship of the Philistines, which was accordingly done, 1 Sam. v. 3-8. Ashdod, under its Greek name of Azotus, is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as the place whither Philip the Deacon was conveyed after he had baptized the Ethiopian eunuch, an event which oc curred either near Old Gaza, or at Gaza of the Desert. From this city Philip proceeded, and preached in all the cities of that district, till he came to Cæsarea, Acts viii. 26-38, 40. King Uzziah de stroyed the walls of Ashdod, and built some forts in its vicinity to command it, 2 Chron. xxvi. 6. It was fortified by the Egyptians, who, under Psammaticus, their king, took it from the Assyrians, after a siege of twenty-nine years, Isa. xx. 1. It was taken and plundered by the troops of Nebuchadnezzar, and it shared the same fate from the forces of Alexander the Great. The city, including the temple of Dagon, was burnt to ashes by one of the Maccabees, and Judas Maccabæus was killed on Mount Azotus. St Jerome tells us that Ashdod

VOL. 1.

was a considerable place in his time. The ravages of the Saracens ruined Ashdod, and it is now a mere village, exhibiting scarcely a memorial of its former importance, called Ashedod or Esdoud. Volney relates, that the whole coast of the Mediterranean about Ashdod is daily accumulating sand, and that when he visited it many places known as sea-ports in ancient times had become inland towns. Ashdod is called Mezdel by its Arab inhabitants.

ASHDOTH-PISGAH, well-watered places, a city belonging to the tribe of Reuben, situated in the fertile plains at the foot of Mount Pisgah, near the springs of Pisgah.

ASHER, blessedness or happiness, the name of a very fertile province in Palestine belonging to the tribe of Asher, one of the Twelve Tribes, known as Phonicia, or the country of the Philistines, bounded on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, on the north by Mount Libanus, on the south by Mount Carmel and the possessions of the tribe of Issachar, and on the east by the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. Of Asher himself, the son of Jacob, and of Zilpah, his wife Leah's servant, or "handmaiden," as she is termed, and who gave his name to this province and to his tribe, we have no particulars either of his life or of his death. We are merely told that he had four sons and one daughter. The tribe never possessed the whole district of country assigned to it. The province produced abundance of grain, and the finest wine and oil. It contained some cities of importance towards the sea, which are enumerated by Joshua (xix. 24-31), and among its seaports were Acre, Achzib, and Tyre. See PALESTINE. ASHER was also the name of two towns, the one between Scythopolis and Shechem; and the other, according to Eusebius, between Ashdod and Askelon.

ASHNAH, a city belonging to the tribe of Judah, Josh. xv. 33.

ASHTAROTH, flocks, the sheep, riches, a strong town of Palestine in the

G

district or territory of Bashan, mentioned as the residence of Og, king of Bashan, Deut. i. 4. It belonged to the half-tribe of Manasseh, on the other side of the Jordan, and was granted to the Levites of the family of Gershom, 1 Chron. vi. 71. Chedorlaomer, one of the five confederated kings, defeated the gigantic race of the Rephaim near this place, Gen. xiv. 5. There is at present a small village on its site.

ASHTAROTH-CARNAIM, the name of a town of Palestine, distant in a south-west direction about nine miles from Adra and Abila. It is supposed to have derived its name from Astarte, a famous idol of the Assyrians and Phoenicians, and Carnaim, signifying horns on a crescent, with which this goddess was represented. Astaroth, or Ashtaroth, is the Hebrew name for Astarte, who was fabulously said to have married Adonis, an Assyrian by birth. After their death, they were thought worthy of divine honours; and as it was the common belief of those times that the souls of distinguished persons inhabited the stars, it has been imagined that Adonis and Astarte made choice of the sun and moon for their residence, and their worship was the same with that of these luminaries. " Astarte," observes a learned periodical writer in the Classical Journal (Nos. 53 and 74), "was precisely the same as Cybele, or universal mother of the Phrygians. She was, as Appian remarks, by some called Juno, by others Venus, and by others held to be Nature, or the cause which produced the beginnings and seeds of things from humidity, so that she comprehended in one personification both of those goddesses, who were accordingly sometimes blended in one symbolical figure by the very ancient Greek artists. Her statue at Hieropolis (in Syria, where she had a magnificent temple served by more than three hundred priests) was variously composed, to signify many attributes, like those of the Ephesian Diana, Berecynthian Mother, and others of the kind. It was placed in the interior part of the temple, acces

sible only to priests of the highest order; and near it was the statue of the corresponding male personification, called by the Greeks Jupiter." Astarte was usually represented, like the Egyptian Isis, with cow's horns on her head, and probably for the same reason, to exhibit the moon's increase and decrease; but her votaries in different nations gave her a variety of forms as well as attributes. Among the Assyrians, she was sometimes termed a god as well as a goddess, which arose from the ambiguity of the genders in the oriental languages, and because the Hebrews knew no distinction of sex among the gods. It is remarkable that though the Israelites were never seduced into the worship of Dagon, one of the chief idols of their inveterate enemies the Philistines, they were often found worshipping Ashtaroth. Even Solomon, in his idolatrous days, persuaded by his foreign wives, introduced the worship of Ashtaroth into Israel, and erected a temple to her on the Mount of Olives, which, on account of this and other idols, is termed the mountain of corruption, 2 Kings xxiii. 13. But Jezebel, daughter of the king of Tyre, and queen of Ahab, principally established her worship. This princess caused altars to be erected to her favourite deity every where throughout the Ten Tribes who formed the then recently erected kingdom of Israel, and at one time four hundred and fifty priests attended its worship, 1 Kings xviii. 22. During the time of the Judges, Israel made several relapses into the worship of Ashtaroth, Judges ii. 13; x. 6; and the idol was on one occasion destroyed by the command of the Prophet Samuel, 1 Sam. vii. 3; xii. 10. The armour of King Saul was deposited in the house of Ashtaroth, 1 Sam. xxxi. 10. Ashtaroth is termed goddess of Zidon, which refers to a fabulous tradition that she had consecrated Tyre by depositing in that city a fallen star; but it may also have a reference to that city as the native place of Jezebel, Tyre and Zidon being often mentioned together by the sacred writers.

ASHUR, one that is happy, that

walks on prosperously, a name sometimes given to Assyria, from Ashur, the son of Shem, who originally dwelt in the Land of Shinar in the neighbourhood of Babylonia, but who was compelled by Nimrod to remove towards the sources of the Tigris, in the province of Assyria, and who was the founder of Nineveh, Gen. x. 11; Numb. xxiv. 22, 24; Ezra iv. 2; Psal. lxxxiii. 8; Ezek. xxvii. 23. See ASSYRIA.

ASHKELON, ASKELON, or ASCALON, weight or balance; also, fire of infamy; otherwise, the residence or stution of fire, inactivity or healing, a city in the north-west corner of the territory of the tribe of Simeon, not very far from the river or brook Eschol, formerly belonging to the Philistines, and the capital of one of their five satrapies or lordships. Ashkelon, called Askelon by the Greeks, and Ascalon by the Latins, is situated between Ashdod and Gaza, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, about three hundred and twenty furlongs distant from Jerusalem. It was esteemed the strongest city on the Philistine coast; but the tribe of Judah, to whose lot it fell, made themselves masters of it soon after the death of Joshua, Judges i. 18. Samson went down to Ashkelon in one of his excursions, and slew thirty men, Judges xiv. 19. The Philistines, however, regained possession of this place; and we find it mentioned in a very peculiar manner in David's lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, as denoting its importance-"Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph," 2 Sam. i. 20. Various predictions were uttered by the ancient prophets against Ashkelon, which have been literally fulfilled, Jer. xlvii. 5, 7; Zeph. ii. 4; Zech. ix. 5. It was taken and plundered by the Assyrians, destroyed by the Chaldeans, rebuilt, taken by the Greeks, and afterwards by the Maccabees. Venus, under the name of Urania or Coelestis, was worshipped in Ashkelon, and another idol called Derceto by Diodorus Siculus,

who was represented as a semi-woman and semi-fish, or similar to the modern delineations of the pretended mermaid; and near it was a lake, the fish in which was consecrated to this idol. Ashkelon at one period had its own kings, and was successively under the dominion of the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. It was the native place of Herod the Great, who was from this circumstance sometimes called Ascalonites, or Herod the Ascalonite; he built a palace in the city, which the Emperor Augustus gave to his sister Salome. Ascalon was frequently taken by the Saracens, and suffered greatly during the Crusades. Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, took it in 1154, after a siege of nearly six months, when it was erected into an episcopal city, and a bishopric founded. During the continuance of the Crusades, it was adorned with many stately edifices, and surrounded by a new wall, by Richard I. of England; but, subsequently falling into the hands of the Turks, it has been completely ruined, and is now an insignificant place, called Scalona, occupied by the Turks for the purpose of opposing the incursions of the Arabians. It was anciently famous for its wines and cypress-trees, which have disappeared with the im portance of the place.

ASIA, muddy, boggy, one of the three great divisions of the ancient world, and still one of the greatest divisions of the world in modern geography. The origin of the name is involved in uncertainty. Bochart attempts to derive it from a Hebrew or Phoenician word signifying the middle; but the ancient Hebrews were strangers to our division of the earth into parts or quarters, and the name Asia never occurs in any Hebrew book. They appear to have concluded that the globe consisted exclusively of Asia and Africa, and the rest of the world, even occasionally Asia Minor, was comprised by the ancient sacred writers under the general designation of "the Isles of the Gentiles," Gen. x. 5. The term Asia occurs only in the Books of the Maccabees, and in the New Testa