Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/133

 HABOR

103

HACELDAMA

habit proper, or virtue in the strict sense — is acquired by the co-operation of man with Divine grace and the repetition of acts. By sin, on the contrary, these habitus are lessened or lost.

Andrews, Habit in Amer. Journal of Psychol., XIV (1903), 121; Baldwin, Mental Developrnent in the Child and the Race (3rcl ed.. New York, 1906); Benn, Habit and Progress u\ Mind, XI (1S86), 243; Dubhay. The Thmni of Psiichical Di.iixisitions in Psychol. Review: Monaqraph Suppl. (N<'"' York. 11)0.')); Uu- MONT, De t'habitude in Revue phdnsophique (ISTO*. I, 321; ■Iames, Principlea of Pyschology (London, 1890); Mercieh, Metaphysique gi-nerale (4th ed., Louvain, 1905); Radestock, Die Gewi'hnung und ihre Wichtifikeit fiir die Erziehung {Herlm, 18S2), Eng. tr. by Caspar: (Boston. 1SS6); Ravaisson, De I'habitudein Revue de Mvtaphysique et de Morale (1894), II, 1; S\roLi^i, De halntibus (Rome, 1897); Stout, Analytic Psychotogt/ (London. 1S96); Sully, The Human Mind (New York, 1892); Idem, Outlines of Psychology (New York, 1891); St. Thomas, Summa theologica, l-ll, Qti. xlix sq., and QucEStianes disputntce, De virtutibus in communi.

C. A. DuBRAY.

Habor [Heb. habMr; Sept. 'A^<ip: IV Kings (ID, xvii,6;'A/3iiip. IVKings, xviii, 11: Xa/3ii/):IPar. (Chron- icles), V, 26]. — .\ river of Mesopotamia in Asiatic Turkey, an important eastern affluent of the Eu- phrates. It still bears the name of /fa6 Mr. It rises in .\U. Masius (the present Karaja Dagh), some fifty miles north of Resaina (Ras el-'Ain, "the head of the spring"), flows S.S.W., imparting great fertility to its banks in its winding way through the midst of the flesert, and falls into the Euphrates at Karkisiya (the ancient Carchemish) after a course, to a great extent navigable, of about two hundred miles. The most important tributary of the Habor is the Jeruyer, or ancient Mygdonius, which flows into it after passing Nisibis and Thubida. In IV Kings, xvii, 6; xviii, 11, the Habor is called " the river of Gozan" (the modern Kaushan), on account of the district of that name which it waters and which is nowcovered with mounds, the actual remains of Assyrian towns. The river Habor is distinctly named in the cuneiform inscrip- tions of Tiglath-pileser I (about 1120-1110 b.c), and of Asshurnasir-pal (SS5-860 B.C.), and it seems from the expressions used by the last-named monarch that the river then emptied itself into the Euphrates through several mouths. In I Par., v, 26, it is stated that Phul, also called Thelgathphalnasar (Tiglath- pileser III), carried away the exiles of the Traus- jorilanic tribes of Israel into the district of the Habor. It is in the same land that according to IV Kings, xvii, 3-6; xviii, 9-11, Salmanasar iV — and perhaps Sargon, his immediate successor — settled the captives of Northern Israel.

The Habor of IV Kings and I Par. must not be identified with the Cliohar (Heb. Kebhar) which is repeatedly mentioneil by the prophet Ezechiel (i, 1, 3; iii, 15, 23, etc.), and which was a large navigable canal east of the Tigris, near Xippur. The Greek historian Procopius (6th cent, after Christ) says that the Cha- boras (the classical name of the Habor) formed the limit of the Roman Empire. When the Spanish rabbi Benjamin of Tudela visited (a.d. 1163) the mouth of the Habor, he found near by some two hundred Jews who may have in part been the descendants of the ancient captives of the Assyrian kings. At the pres- sent day, the plain of the Haljor is a favourite camping ground for wandering Bedouins.

Wright, Early Travels in Palestine (London, 1848); La yard. Nineveh and Babylon (New Y'ork. 1853); Maspero. A Manual of the Ancient Hi'itory of the East (tr.. London, 1869); .Sachau. Reise in Syrien und Me'iopotamien (Leipzig. 1883); Pinches in Hast., Diet, of the Bible, s. v.; VigouRoux, in Diet, de la Bible, s. v.; Brown. Driver and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexi- con (New York, 1906).

Francis E. Gigot.

Haceldama is the name given by the people to the potter's field, purchased with the price of the treason of Judas. In Aramaic XDT '^pn, hagal dema, signi- fies "field of blood". The name is written in Greek "AKeXSa/id, and very often ' AKcXda/juix, to render by the

letter x the guttural sound of the final X- St. Peter said in his discourse (Acts, i, 18-19); "He [Judas] in- deed hath possessed a field of the reward of iniquity, and being hanged, burst asunder in the midst: and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: so that the same field was called in their tongue, Haceldama, that is to say. The field of blood." Judas seeing that Jesus was condemned, relates St. Matthew (xxvii, 3-S), threw down the thirty pieces of silver in the temple and went and hanged himself. "But the cliief priests having taken the pieces of silver, said: It is not law- ful to put them into the corbona, because it is the price of blood. And after they had consulted together they bought with them the potter's field, to be a bury- ing place for strangers. For this cause, that field was called [Haceldama, that is,] The field of blood, even to this day " (the bracketed words are added by the Vulgate). According to the Acts this blood was that of Judas, according to St. Matthew it was that of Christ. It is not impossible that the people should have so designated the potter's field, for lioth reasons. In saying that Judas acquired a field with the reward of his crime, St. Peter undoubtedly did not intend to say that the traitor purchased a field in order to com- mit suicide therein. Since there was question of re- placing ihe fallen Apostle, St. Peter by an oratorical motion recalled his tragic death and the acquisition of the field where he perished, which was the sole re- ward of his treason. St. Matthew, on the contrary, writes as an historian, and relates the manner in which the prophecies were fulfilled (Zach., xi, 12-13: Jer., xxxii, 2, 15, 43; vii, 32).

It is permissible to conjecture from these two ac- counts, that after the potter's field was polluted by the suicide of the traitor, the proprietor hastened to rid himself of it, at any cost. In this manner the chief priests were enabled to buy it for thirty pieces of silver or thirty shekels, equivalent to about twenty dollars. It seems to correspond to "the potter's house" of Jeremias (xviii, 2-3), which further on (xix, 1-2) is spoken of as being in the valley of the Son of Ennom, south of Jerusalem. The same Prophet declares (vii, 32) that in this valley, "they shall bury in To- pheth, because there is no other place " owing to the Moloch worship being practised there. In his "Ono- masticon " (ed. Klostermann, p. 102, 16) Eusebius makes the ' ' field of Haceldama " lie nearer to ' ' Thafeth of the valley of Ennom". But under the word "Hacel- dama '' (p. 38, 20) he says that this field was pointed out as being "north of Mount Sion ", but this was evi- dently through inadvertence. St. Jerome corrects the mistake and writes "south of Mount Sion "(p. 39, 27).

Tradition with regard to this place has remained the same throughout the centtu'ies. In fact, the Pilgrim of Piacenza who was known by the name of Antoninus (c. 570) went from the pool of Silo "to the field of Akeldemac ", which then served as a burial- place for pilgrims. Arculf (c. 670) visited it to the south of Motmt Sion and makes mention also of the pilgrims' sepulchre. In the twelfth century, the cru- saders erected beyond the field, on the south side of the valley of Ennom, a large buikling now in a ruined condition, measuring seventy-eight feet in length from east to west, fifty-eight feet in width, and thirty in height on the north. It is roofed and, towards the southern end, covers several natural grottoes, which were once used as sepulchres of the Jewish type, and a ditch is hollowed out at the northern end which is sixty-eight feet long, twenty-one feet wide, and thirty feet deep. It is estimated that the bones and rubbish which have accumulated here form a bed from ten to fifteen feet thick. They continued to bury pilgrims here up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Haceldama (Hagg ed Dimim), has been the property of the non-United Armenians since the sixteenth century.