there are to doubt. For it is not easily made out that this was an ancient way of execution in the public punishment of malefactors among the Persians, but we often read of crucifixion in their stories. So we find that Orostes, a Persian governor, crucified Polycrates the Samian tyrant. And hereof we have an example in the life of Artaxerxes, King of Persia (whom some will have to be Ahasuerus in this story), that his mother, Parysatis, flayed and crucified her eunuch. The same also seems implied in the letters patent of King Cyrus: Omnis qui hanc mutaverit jussionem, tollatur lignum de domo ejus, et erigatur, et configatur in eo.* The same kind of punishment was in use among the Romans, Syrians, Egyptians, Carthaginians, and Grecians. For though we find in Homer that Ulysses in a fury hanged the strumpets of those who courted Penelope, yet it is not so easy to discover that this was the public practice or open course of justice among the Greeks. And even that the Hebrews used this present way of hanging, by illaqueation or pendulous suffocation, in public justice and executions, the expressions and examples in Scripture conclude not, beyond good doubt. That the King of Hai was hanged, or destroyed by the common way of suspension, is not conceded by the learned Masius in his comment upon that text; who conceiveth thereby rather some kind of crucifixion, at least some patibulary affixion after he was slain, and so represented unto the people until toward the evening. Though we read in our translation that Pharaoh hanged the chief baker, yet learned expositors understand hereby some kind of crucifixion, according to the mode of Egypt, whereby he exemplarily hanged out till the fowls of the air fed on his head or face, the first part of their prey being the eyes. And perhaps according to the signal draught hereof in a very old manuscript of Genesis, now kept in the Emperor's library at Vienna, and accordingly set down by the learned Petrus Lambecius, in the second tome of the description of that library. When the Gibeonites hanged the bodies of those of the * In Ezra vi. CHAP. XXI.] OF THE PICTURE OF HAMAN HANGED. 71 house of Saul, thereby was intended some kind of crucifying,3 according unto good expositors, and the vulgar translation; crucifixerunt eos in monte coram domino. Nor only these, mentioned in Holy Scripture, but divers in human authors, said to have suffered by way of suspension or crucifixion might not perish by immediate crucifixion; but however otherwise destroyed, their bodies might be afterward appended or fastened unto some elevated engine, as exemplary objects unto the eyes of the people. So sometimes we read of the crucifixion of only some part, as of the heads of Julianus and Albinus, though their bodies were cast away.5 Besides, all crosses or engines of crucifixion were not of the ordinary figure, nor compounded of transverse pieces, which make out the name, but some were simple, and made of one arrectarium serving for affixion or infixion, either fastening or piercing through; and some kind of crucifixion is the setting of heads upon poles.. That legal text which seems to countenance the common way of hanging, if a man hath committed a sin worthy of death, and they hang him on a tree,* is not so received by Christian and Jewish expositors. And, as a good annotator of ours+ delivereth, out of Maimonides: the Hebrews understand not this of putting him to death by hanging, but of hanging a man after he was stoned to death, and the manner is thus described; after he is stoned to death they fasten a piece of timber in the earth, and out of it there cometh a piece of wood, and then they tie both his hands one to another, and hang him unto the setting of the sun. 3 the Gibeonites, &c.] The Jews, as is just afterwards remarked, inflicted the infamy (rather than punishment) of hanging after death. And so might these Gibeonites. But they were not Israelites, as Rev. T. H. Horne has observed, but Canaanites, and probably retained their own laws. See his section on the punishments mentioned in Scripture ; Introduction, &c. part ii. ch. iii. §iv. Nor only, &c.] This sentence is inserted, in MS. SLOAN. 1827, instead of the following: "Many, both in Scripture and human writers, might be said to be crucified, though they did not perish immediately by crucifixion." cast away.] The succeeding sentence was added from MS. SLOAN. 1827. Beside, the original word, hakany, determineth not the doubt. For that by lexicographers or dictionary interpreters, is rendered suspension and crucifixion, there being no Hebrew word peculiarly and fully expressing the proper word of crucifixion, as it was used by the Romans; nor easy to prove it the custom of the Jewish nation to nail them by distinct parts unto a cross, after the manner of our Saviour crucified; wherein it was a special favour indulged unto Joseph to take down the body. Lipsius lets fall a good caution to take off doubts about suspension delivered by ancient authors, and also the ambiguous sense of крɛμáσαι among the Greeks. Tale apud Latinos ipsum suspendere, quod in crucem referendum moneo juventutem; as that also may be understood of Seneca, Latrocinium fecit aliquis, quid ergo meruit? ut suspendatur. And this way of crucifying he conceiveth to have been in general use among the Romans, until the latter days of Constantine, who in reverence unto our Saviour abrogated that opprobrious and infamous way of crucifixion. Whereupon succeeded the common and now practised way of suspension. But long before this abrogation of the cross, the Jewish nation had known the true sense of crucifixion: whereof no nation had a sharper apprehension, while Adrian crucified five hundred of them every day, until wood was wanting for that service. So that they which had nothing but 'crucify in their mouths, were therewith paid home in their own bodies; early suffering the reward of their imprecations, and properly in the same kind. CHAPTER XXII.6 Of the Picture of God the Father; of the Sun, Moon, and Winds, with others. THE picture of the Creator, or God the Father, in the shape 6 Chap. xxii.] The first and second subjects of this chapter were Nos. 14 and 15, of chapter xxii. in editions 1672 and 1686. There they were obviously out of their place, occurring in the midst of a very different class of observations. I have therefore removed them : and having found (in No. 1827 of the Sloanian MSS. in the British Museum) some of an old man, is a dangerous piece, and in this fecundity of sects may revive the anthropomorphites.* Which although maintained from the expression of Daniel, "I beheld where the ancient of days did sit, whose hair of his head was like the pure wool;" yet may it be also derivative from the hieroglyphical description of the Egyptians; who to express their eneph or Creator of the world, described an old man in a blue mantle, with an egg in his mouth, which was the emblem of the world. Surely those heathens, that notwithstanding the exemplary advantage in heaven, would endure no pictures of sun or moon, as being visible unto all the world, and needing no representation, do evidently accuse the practice of those pencils that will describe invisibles. And he that challenged the boldest hand unto the picture of an echo, must laugh at this attempt, not only in the description of invisibility, but circumscription of ubiquity, and fetching under lines incomprehensible circularity. The pictures of the Egyptians were more tolerable, and in their sacred letters more veniably expressed the apprehension of divinity. For though they implied the same by an eye upon a sceptre, by an eagle's head, a crocodile and the like, yet did these manual descriptions pretend no corporal representations, nor could the people misconceive the same unto real correspondencies. So, though the cherub carried some apprehension of divinity, yet was it not conceived to be the shape thereof; and so perhaps, because it is metaphorically predicated of God that he is a consuming fire, he may be harmlessly described by a flaming representation. * Certain hereticks who ascribed human figure unto God, after which they conceived he created man in his likeness. additional instances of mistakes in "pictural draughts," I have formed the two transplanted numbers, together with the hitherto unpublished matter, into a new chapter. 7 piece.] This is a very just and worthy censure, and well followed with scorne in the close of this paragraph. St. Paul saw things in a vision which himself could not utter and therefore they are verye bold with God, who dare to picture him in any shape visible to the eye of mortality, which Daniel himself behelde not, but in a rapture and an extatical vision: unlesse they can answere that staggering question, "To what will you liken me?"-Wr. St. Augustine censures this impropriety; Ep. cxxii. Yet if, as some will have it, all mediocrity of folly is foolish, and because an unrequitable evil may ensue, an indifferent convenience must be omitted, we shall not urge such representments; we could spare the Holy Lamb for the picture of our Saviour, and the dove or fiery tongues to represent the Holy Ghost. 2. The sun and moon are usually described with human faces; whether herein there be not a Pagan imitation, and those visages at first implied Apollo and Diana, we may make some doubt; and we find the statue of the sun was framed with rays about the head, which were the indeciduous and unshaven locks of Apollo. We should be too iconomical* to question the pictures of the winds, as commonly drawn in human heads, and with their cheeks distended; which notwithstanding we find condemned by Minutius, as answering poetical fancies, and the Gentile description of Eolus, Boreas, and the feigned deities of winds. 3.8 In divers pieces, and that signal one of Testa,9 describing Hector dragged by Achilles about the walls of Troy, we find him drawn by cords or fastenings about both his ancles; which notwithstanding is not strictly answerable unto the account of Homer, concerning this act upon Hector, but rather applicable unto that of Hippothous drawing away the body of Patroclus, according to the expression of Homer: Hippothous pede trahebat in forti pugna per acrem pugnam. *Or quarrelsome with pictures. Dion. Ep. 7, a, ad Policar. et Pet. Hall. not. in vit. S. Dionys. 8 §3.] The rest of this chapter is now first printed ;-from MS. SLOAN. 1827, 3;-where it is thus prefaced :-"Though some things we have elsewhere delivered of the impropriety, falsity, or mistakes, in pictural draughts, yet to awaken your curiosity, these may be also considered. -In divers pieces, &c." 9 Testa.] Pietro Testa, a painter of Lucca and Rome, drowned 1632, in the Tyber, endeavouring to save his hat, which had been blown off by a gust of wind.—Gr. |