Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 1).djvu/81

 bunch of hyssop" was employed in the Israelitish ritual for sprinkling purposes (Exodus, xii, 22; Leviticus, xiv, 4 and 6; Numbers, xix, 6 and 18). From 1 Kings, iv, 33, it appears that it was a shrub that grew in crevices of walls; from Psalm li, 7, "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean," it has been assumed to have possessed purgative properties, though it is more likely that the allusion was to the ceremonial purification of the law; according to St. John its stem was used to hand up the sponge of vinegar to the Saviour on the cross, but St. Matthew and St. Mark use the term calamus, or a reed. It may have been that a bunch of hyssop was fixed to the reed and the sponge of vinegar placed on the hyssop. Some learned commentators have conjectured that the word hyssopos in St. John's account was originally hysso, a well-known Greek word for the Roman pilum or javelin. The other allusion in the New Testament occurs in Hebrews, ix, 19, and is merely a quotation from the Pentateuch.

It has been found impossible to apply the descriptions quoted to any one plant. That which we now call hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis) does not grow in Palestine. It is generally agreed that it was not that shrub. The caper has been suggested and strongly supported, but the best modern opinion is that the word was applied generically to several kinds of origanum which were common in Syria.

The Hebrew word rothem, translated juniper in our Authorised Version, has given much trouble to translators. The Septuagint merely converted the Hebrew word into a Greek one, and the Vulgate followed the Septuagint. The allusions to the tree are in 1 Kings,