Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/161

 9*8. XL FEB. 21, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

153

Nevertheless, may not the first tw letters of Istatnboul represent the Greek ecs The writer in ' Chambers's Encyclopaedia describes as " fanciful " the suggested deriva tion of Istamboul from ccs TTJV 7roA.ii/. Bu the pronunciation of Istamboul differs littl from that of the three Greek words. Anc why is its derivation from the word Constan tinople more probable? Suppose the wore K(DV(TTavTivovTro\.i<s was shortened to three syllables, is there any reason why a-rav anc Ti-oA, both syllables being unaccented, shoulc be preserved? Would not the accented syllable be more likely to survive than any of the unaccented syllables? In fact, the Turkish equivalent for Constantinople, as used, for instance, on the coinage, is Costan- tiniye. E. M. S.

The prosthetic / in the name Istambul is not an isolated instance in geographical names transplanted by the Turks from the Franks' into their own language. Thus Szalankemen in Hungary has become Islan- kamen in Turkish ; Vlakhia (Wallachy), Iflak. Zvornik has been turned into Izvornik, Szerem into Isrim, Slavia into Islavin, &c. All the above names are from works of Turkish historians of the sixteenth century.

The Greek At/z^i/ (bay, port, &c.) has remained without the prosthetic i, thus limdn (as, e.g., Buyuk Liman, Kadi Limari), but occasionally we find Iliman also, though I am unable to quote an example just now.

The derivation of Stambul from Constanti- nople is, I believe, as old as the hills.

L. L. K.

ANCIENT DEMESNE OK CORNWALL FEE (9 th S. x. 443). The question as to South Tawton can easily be answered. Certainly at the time of Domesday it was one of those manors which had belonged to the family of Harold T.R.E., and so had escheated to the Crown and formed part of the county farm. Henry I. gave the fee to Rosaline Beaumont, but a reserved rent (socage) was retained by the Crown, and formed part of Queen Isa- bella's dowry in the reign of Henry II. The fee as "ancient demesne" continued to be held of the king till the sixteenth century, but the reserved rent after the death of Earl Reginald was held of the Duchy of Cornwall.

T. W. WHALE, M.A. Bath.

JEWS AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT (9 th S. x. 229, 334). Supplementing my crude reply to

.MR. HOOPER'S query, I may say frankly that one exact date when the doctrine of reward ind punishment became one of the formulae

p the Jewish faith has never been clearly

ascertained. Its growth was wisely restrained by rabbinical anathema until the close of the Talmudical writings, when in the Gaonic period it gradually crystallized, and Mai- monides in the twelfth century gave it permanence. Therefore every reference to heathen nations such as the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Idumeans, &c., extant in the Talmud could only concern itself with the material, and could take no cognizance of the spiritual well-being of those peoples. Assuredly a deadly hatred of the detestable practices, the vile rites, and the lascivious orgies of those heathen races justified the ban and the boycott proclaimed against them by the rabbis. Social and commercial inter- course was stringently forbidden so long as they remained entrenched in the strongholds of debauchery and idolatry. Once they renounced some of their hideous materialism, and took the pledge to conform to " the seven Noachian precepts," they passed out of the state of nakoom into the higher state of nochree, and ultimately, if so disposed, became gyrei tsaydek. A war of extermination was preached not against the heathen, but against the vile things he did ; and if, like the Old uard, he preferred to die gamely rather than to surrender his disgusting fetishes to the remorseless invasion of Jewish Unity, the rabbis who penalized him by boycott, <fec., merely displayed that zealous regard for their flock which is the basis of all rational govern - ment and the mainstay of the social fabric n times of turbulence and civic danger. This rabbinical attitude towards the heathen s beautifully summarized in Tractate Megillah 13 : " God smites the Gentiles and then leals their wounds." Towards the Nochreem a less rigid discipline was in force : so much so that works of mercy and humane offices were ordained ; the Jews were directed to eed and clothe the poor and to bury the dead Nochreem (Ketuboth 61). Of these jyrei tsaydek (righteous aliens), many rose to ?reat eminence in the Jewish commonwealth. Dnkelos, the author of the Targum, and Rabbi Akiba are well-known examples. Far from >eing "trained for generations in hostility and contempt towards Gentile nations," every ncouragement was given to the Hebrews to nduce the Gentiles to enter the pale. This merely accords with the overwhelming vidence of the Scriptures, which the rabbins rystallized into a dictum, "Be rather of the >ersecuted than of the persecuting class," nd of which the well-known story of * The Nochree and Shammai' (rival of the great lillel) is typical of the sympathies of the ~ews of that age towards the world at large.