Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 1).djvu/79



References to aloes are frequent in the Scriptures. The first allusion is found in Numbers, xxiv, 6, when in his poetic prophecy Balaam describes Israel flourishing "as lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted." The other allusions occur in Psalm xlv, 8, Proverbs, vii, 17, Canticles, iv, 14, and John, xix, 39. In the four last-named passages aloes is associated with myrrh as a perfume. Of course it is understood that the lign or lignum aloes, the perfumed wood of the aquilaria agallocha, the eagle wood of India, is meant, but as that tree is believed not to have been known except in the Malayan peninsula in the days of Balaam, critics have remarked on the extraordinary circumstance that it should be used as a simile by an orator in Palestine who would naturally select objects for comparison familiar to his hearers. It has been suggested, and with much force, that the original word in Balaam's prophecy may have been the Hebrew word for the palm or date tree. The Septuagint translates the word "tents."

It has been stated that the stacte ordered in the formula for incense was probably a very fine kind of liquid myrrh (the flowing myrrh of the holy oil formula). But myrrh (Heb. mur) is several times directly mentioned. Esther purified herself for six months with oil of myrrh (ii, 12); myrrh, aloes, and cassia are grouped as sweet odours in Ps. xlv, 8; with cinnamon in the place of cassia in Prov., vii, 17, and in numerous verses of the Song of Songs. In the New Testament it is named among the gifts which the wise men brought to