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Bar Shalmon

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

dead body in a natural attitude. When Jacomo arrives he becomes jealous of his brother friar and brains him. Thereupon Barabas turns him over to the authorities, who hang him on a charge of tlie

murder. In the mean time Ithamare has been ensnared by Bellamira, a courtezan and to her and her lover, I'ilia-Borza, he confesses. They seek to blackmail Barabas; and he kills them by means of poison sprinkled on flowers. When taken into custody, he swallows a sleeping-draft of " poppy and cold mandrake juice." He is left for dead, and betrays the city into the hands of the Turks, who make him governor. Barabas' next desire is vengeance on the Turks, the

prime instigators of his troubles. He invites their commander-in-chief to a banquet, prepared in a room so built that by the cutting of a rope all in the

room would be precipitated into a caldron of boiling oil. As the Turks arrive, Femeze, the ex-governor of Malta, cuts the rope, and Barabas is thrown into the caldron, from which, dying, he exclaims: " Die,

Such

life

!

fly,

soul

!

tongue, curse thy

All,

and die

!

Barabas, the embodiment of devilishness. It is only fair to say that three of the Christian characters in the play the two friars and the courtezan are fully as repulsive as Barabas. Remarkable as was Marlowe's perception of human nature, his knowledge of Hebrew nomenclature was decidedly defective for in Act 1, Barabas indicates other Jews bj' such names as "Zaareth," "Temainte," "Nones," and "Kirriah." is

—

—



Bibliography:. Merchant of Venice, in H. H. Furness, The New Variorum Shakespeare, Appendix, pp. 322-334 Gentleman's Magazine, 1830, c. 593, 594, 596, 59T; Fuller,

Baraita

son of Abba." Accordingly, the first name was afterward omitted from the manuscripts of the Gospels when the name of Jesus had become sacred. Chajes (in Hilgenfeld's "Zeitschrift," xliii. 280) thinks of the Talmudical name iy (Mak. 54), which, however, still awaits a satisfactory explanation. With regard to the Roman custom of selecting a mock king who should die, and another who should represent the local deity and have all the privileges of a sacred person, compare Philo, "In Placcum,"

§§

6; Fraser,

5,

and

"The Golden Bough," 2d

edition;

article Jesus.

Bibliography 105

Brandt, Evangelische Gesch. 1893, pp. 94-



Folklore,



xii. 227.

K.

J.

BARACH, M. See Maeezboth. BARACH, ROSA Austrian authoress and

edu-

born at Neu-Rausnitz, Moravia, May 15, 1841. Educated at her native place and at Vienna, she settled in the latter city, where she founded a high school for girls. In 1882 she made a profesShe published sional tour in Germany as a reciter. cator;

the following novels: "AusEigener Kraft," 1880; "Soldaten Fritz," 1881; "Gefesselt," 1882; "Liebesopfer," 1884; " Aberglauben," 1890; " Stiefmiltterchen," 1892; "Alle Drei," 1893. She wrote also: "Aus Oesterreichs Herzen," patriotic songs, 1882; "Franz Josef I.," a biography of the Austrian em-

"Ein Abend Unter Freimaurern," a

peror, 1889;

sketch, 1893.

Bibliography



Eisenberg,

Das

Wicn,

Geistige

i.

17.

M. B.

s.

BARAFFAEL (BARUFFALL),

ISAAC



in

and communal worker lived in Rome at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. On the occupation of Rome by the French, Baraffael was appointed major of After the the national forces on March 18, 1798. reconquest of the city by the Neapolitans and their allies, when a heavy tribute was exacted from the Jews, Baraffael paid 700 scudi (about §700). In 1811 he was elected deputy-representative of the Jewish community of Rome.

known

Bibliography



Worthies,

ii.

223



Collier,

Memoirs

of

Edivard Allevn,

1841.

E. Ms.

j.

BAEABBAS

Prisoner of the Romans released the procurator Pontius Pilate. The reason for his incarceration is given differently in various books of the New Testament. In Matt, xxvii. 16, he is called " a notable prisoner " according to Mark xv. 7, and Luke xxiii. 19, he had been implicated

by



some insurrection and had committed what was to the Romans as murder; John xviii. 40 represents him as a robber. According to the New Testament account there was a custom to release, at the request of the people on the day preceding the festival of Passover, one prisoner condemned to punishment. When they were given the choice between Barabbas and Jesus after the latter had been condemned, they selected Barabbas, possibly on the ground that he had been engaged in an insurrection against the Romans. Brandt, following Jerome on Matt, xxvii. 16, who quotes the gospel of the Hebrews as containing the explanation of Barabbas as "filius magistri eorum," gives as the reason thf.t, being the son of a rabbi or teacher, he was popular among the people. This assumes that " Abba " is used in the name " Barabbas " as a common noun, whereas Abba " is found as a pranomen as early as tannaitic times (Yeb. 15a). If "Abba" were merely a title of Barabbas' father, his name could not have been simply " Son of Abba." In fact Origen reports that in several manuscripts of the Gospels he had " " seen the name given as " Jesus Barabbas or Jesus, •'

II.— 33

Italian officer

Rom,

ii.



Vogelstein and Rleger, {resell, der 352 et seq.

Juden in

M. B.

s.

BARAITA

(plural

Baraitas



Hebrew

plural,

An Aramaic word

designating a tannaite tradition not incorporated in the Mishnah; later it was applied also to collections of such traThe Araditions ("Barayata," plural of Baraita).

Baraitot)

maic form



is

tWV'ia. which in an old manuscript ii. 20J, is vocalBarayta "), The form frequently used,

in Grlinhut, "Scfer ha-Likkutim,"

ized

NJVQ ("

"Boraitha" or "Boraita," is certainly erroneous; for " kamez " by both " a " it assumes the rendition of " " The word means " the word. same in the and o outside" NrnriD or tradition, and is probably an adaptation of the Neo-Hebraic term Definition. " sefarim ha-hizonim " (outside books), denoting the Apocrypha (employed by so early a teacher as Akiba, Sanh. x. 1). The relation of the Baraita to the Mishnah is thus represented as similar to that of the Apocrypha to the

canonical Biblical writings.