Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/142

Rh 124 S A B S A B Kimanis Bay), the East Coast residency (to the south-east of Alcock and Keppel provinces), and Dent province (to the south-west of the East Coast residency with the coast from Kimanis Bay to Brunei Bay). In 1865 an American company started by Mr Torrey obtained from the sultan of Brunei certain concessions of territory in North Borneo ; but this enterprise proved a financial failure and the settlement formed on the Kimanis river broke up. The rights of the American company were bought up by the Austrian Baron von Overbeck and the English merchant Mr Alfred Dent, who further obtained from the sultan of Brunei and the sultan of Sulu a series of charters conferring on them the sovereign authority in North Borneo under the titles of maharajah of Sabah, rajah of Gaya and Sandakan and Data Bandahara. In spite of the opposition of Spain, which claimed that the sultan of Sulu being a Spanish vassal could not dispose of his territory without her consent, the English company organized by Mr Deut succeeded in obtaining a charter of incorporation under Act of Parliament, 1st November 1881, as the "British North Borneo Company," with right to acquire other interests in, over, or affecting the territories or property comprised in the several grants. The text of the charter will be found in the London Gazette, 8th November 1881 and in the appendix to Mr Joseph Hatton'8 New Ceylon (1881) ; see also Prank Hatton, North Borneo, 1885 ; the Century Magazine, 1885 ; the Edinburgh Review, 1882 ; and the English Illustrated Magazine, 1885. 6ABAS, or SABBAS, ST (Syr. Mar SabJid one of the early leaders of monasticism in Palestine, was a native of Cappadocia, born about 439. While still a child he accompanied his parents to Alexandria, whence in his eighteenth year, having made choice of the ascetic life, he removed to Palestine, settling at the desolate spot now occupied by the convent called by his name, about two hours from the north-west shore of the Dead Sea. As his reputation for holiness increased he was joined by others, who ultimately constituted a " laura " under the rule of St Basil. He took some part in the doctrinal controversies of the day, being a zealous defender of the decrees of Chalcedon. He died about 532 and is commemorated on 5th December. Another saint of this name, surnamed " the Goth," suffered martyrdom at the hands of Athanaric, the Visigothic king, in the reign of Valentinian; he is commemorated on 15th (or 18th) April. See also Hoff- mann, Syr. Aden Persischer Mdrtyrer (1880), Nos. iv. and xii., for lives of two martyrs named Sabha. SABBATH (ri3B>), the day of sacred rest which among the Hebrews followed six days of labour and closed the week. 1. Observance of the Sabbath. The later Jewish Sab- bath, observed in accordance with the rules of the Scribes, was a very peculiar institution, and formed one of the most marked distinctions between the Hebrews and other nations, as appears in a striking way from the fact that on this account alone the Romans found themselves com- pelled to exempt the Jews from all military service. The rules of the Scribes enumerated thirty-nine main kinds of work forbidden on the Sabbath, and each of these prohibi- tions gave rise to new subtilties. Jesus's disciples, for example, who plucked ears of corn in passing through a field on the holy day, had, according to Rabbinical casuis- try, violated the third of the thirty-nine rules, which for- bade harvesting ; and in healing the sick Jesus Himself broke the rule that a sick man should not receive medical aid on the Sabbath unless his life was in danger. In fact, as our Lord puts it, the Rabbinical theory seemed to be that the Sabbath was not made for man but man for the Sabbath, the observance of which was so much an end in itself that the rules prescribed for it did not require to be justified by appeal to any larger principle of religion or humanity. The precepts of the law were valuable in the eyes of the Scribes because they were the seal of Jewish particularism, the barrier erected between the world at large and the exclusive community of Jehovah's grace. For this purpose the most arbitrary precepts were the most effective, and none were more so than the complicated rules of Sabbath observance. The ideal of the Sabbath which all these rules aimed at realizing was absolute rest from everything that could be called work ; and even the exercise of those offices of humanity which the strictest Christian Sabbatarians regard as a service to God, and therefore as specially appropriate to His day, was looked on as work. To save life was allowed, but only because danger to life " superseded the Sabbath." In like manner the special ritual at the temple prescribed for the Sabbath by the Pentateuchal law was not regarded as any part of the hallowing of the sacred day ; on the contrary, the rule was that, in this regard, " Sabbath was not kept in the sanctuary." Strictly speaking, therefore, the Sabbath was neither a day of relief to toiling humanity nor a day appointed for public worship ; the positive duties of its observance were to wear one's best clothes, eat, drink, and be glad (justified from Isa. Iviii. 13). A more directly religious element, it is true, was introduced by the prac- tice of attending the synagogue service ; but it is to be remembered that this service was primarily regarded not as an act of worship but as a meeting for instruction in the law. So far, therefore, as the Sabbath existed for any end outside itself it was an institution to help every Jew to learn the law, and from this point of view it is regarded by Philo and Josephus, who are accustomed to seek a philosophical justification for the peculiar institutions of their religion. But this certainly was not the leading point of view with the mass of the Rabbins ; l and at any rate it is quite certain that the synagogue is a post-exilic institution, and therefore that the Sabbath in old Israel must either have been entirely different from the Sabbath of the Scribes, or else must have been a mere day of idle- ness and feasting, not accompanied by any properly reli- gious observances or having any properly religious mean- ing. The second of these alternatives may be dismissed as quite inconceivable, for, though many of the religious ideas of the old Hebrews were crude, their institutions were never arbitrary and meaningless, and when they spoke of consecrating the Sabbath they must have had in view some religious exercise of an intelligible kind by which they paid worship to Jehovah. Indeed, that the old Hebrew Sabbath was quite differ- ent from the Rabbinical Sabbath is demonstrated in the trenchant criticism which Jesus directed against the latter (Matt. xii. 1-14 ; Mark ii. 27). The general position which He takes up, that " the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath," is only a special application of the wider principle that the law is not an end in itself but a help towards the realization in life of the great ideal of love to God and man, which is the sum of all true religion. But Jesus further maintains that this view of the law as a whole, and the interpretation of the Sabbath law which it involves, can be historically justified from the Old Testa- ment. And in this connexion He introduces two of the main methods to which historical criticism of the Old Testament has recurred in modern times : He appeals to the oldest history rather than to the Pentateuchal code as proving that the later conception of the law was unknown in ancient times (Matt. xii. 3, 4), and to the exceptions to the Sabbath law which the Scribes themselves allowed in the interests of worship (ver. 5) or humanity (ver. 11), as showing that the Sabbath must originally have been de- voted to purposes of worship and humanity, and was not always the purposeless arbitrary thing which the schoolmen made it to be. Modern criticism of the history of Sabbath observance among the Hebrews has done nothing more than follow out these arguments in detail, and show that the result is in agreement with what is known as to the dates of the several component parts of the Pentateuch. 1 See the Mishnah, tr. "Sliabbath," and B. of Jubilees, ch. 1. ; and compare Schurer, Gesch. d. jud. Volkes, ii. 357, 376, 893 sq., where the Rabbinical Sabbath is well explained and illustrated in detail.