Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/524

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

v. JUNE so, im

Talmud (Yoma, cap. 5) Azazel was a mountai peak some ten stages outside Jerusalem, sur rounded by a barren district far from th busy haunts of men, a kind of Tarpeian roc down whose precipitous sides the condemnec goat was hurled. This is not quite satisfac tory. Modern scholars, and notably Heng stenberg, contend that Azazel = Satan, wh was only to be propitiated by the annua sacrifice of a goat. Indubitably much of th argument to which Hengstenberg resorts in his 'Die Biicher Mosis und Aegypten ' is sup ported by hypothesis only ; nevertheless, it i the only presentation of the case which cover all the facts, and which any dispassionate study of this remarkable chapter will readily sanction. In short, this eminent writer has developed a theory whereby he shows the deep inroads which Egyptian modes o: thought had made upon 'the doctrinal cere- monies of the early Hebrews, so that Moses was forced to engraft them temporarily upon the religious reforms he introduced 'in his scheme of Atonement service. One has only to turn to Numbers xi. 1-16 for a picture of what the State was like owing to the asafsuf or "rabble" that attached itself by marriage, &c., to the community, and to what extent the party of monotheism was hampered by the party which hankered after the flesh'- pots of Egypt, and which Moses laboured so strenuously to assimilate with the larger mass^ by tacking on many degraded rites to his ritual arid to his priestly ordinations.

But if any one should see fit to obiect that demonoloecy finds scarcely any confirmation in Holy Writ, the answer is that, albeit the date of the, book of Job (where Satan is ex- plicitly mentioned) is unsettled, there exists a Talmudic tradition assigning its authorship to Moses, while it is evident from many pas- sages in the Pentateuch and the Prophets that the early Hebrews were acquainted with nebulous beings called sheidim and scheerim (lit. goats), supposed to dwell in dark and barren places, and to exercise baleful in- fluences over their lives. This warrants the assumption of the survival in the early Hebrew consciousness of a belief similar to

that of the later Iranean mythologv, which it was ^the object of the Jewish Solon to neutralize or to destroy by the order cited in Lev. xvii. 7. Thus, if Azazel may reasonably typify Ahriman, or the principle of evil, Hengstenberg's argument in respect of the Egyptian origin of this curious rite is diffi- cult to whittle away. In that country the powers of darkness, he tells us, are classified under the name of Typhon. Representations of him are extant on numerous monuments.

Herodotus and Plutarch refer to him. The barren districts were assigned to him, whence he was said to make incursions into conse- crated land. To appease the anger of this invisible monster, the Egyptians were wont to offer up sacred animals, notably the ass, which they threw down a precipice. The striking similarity between the Egyptian practice and the Biblical narration is obvious, and the unbiassed student will therefore not fail to pay a tribute of admiration to the genius and brilliant statecraft of the Jewish lawgiver for successfully grafting upon the stock of contemporary heathenism his great scheme of Atonement, and in- geniously adapting a degraded rite to spiritual ends. M. L. R. BKESLAR.

Percy House, South Hackney.

THE " BOXERS." The full title of this originally obscure secret society of Shantung appears to be I-Ho-Chuen, or I-Ho-Chuan ; some natives of Peking prefer e, others a. Our newspapers translate it Righteous Har- mony Fists ; to be consistent it should be Righteous Harmony Boxers, as the short form of the name, Boxers, is simply the third ele- ment of the full title, /means "righteous," ho means "uniting," while of chuen, or chuan, lis ' Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language,' 1874, p. 452, is as follows : " The ist, to double up the hand, to grasp in the land, boxing, fisticuffs, athletic, vigorous." 't is a striking testimony to the position of 'oreign journals use our term without trans- ation. It occurs in German as " die Boxers," n Italian as "i Boxers," and in Spanish as 'los Boxers." JAS. PLATT, Jun.
 * he definition given b.y Wells Williams, in
 * he English language in the Far East that

LAFONTAINE'S 'Oiss DE FRERE PHILLIPPE.

In that interesting book 'An Australian in Uhina' (London, 1895, p. 154) the author,

Mr. G. E. Morrison, quotes a "charming tory." This is to the effect that

Chinese who had suffered bitter disenchant-

ments in marriage retired with his infant son to the olitude of a mountain inaccessible for little-footed hinese women. He trained up the youth to

worship the gods and stand in awe and abhorrence f devils, but he never mentioned even the name of

woman to him. He always descended to market Lone, but when he grew old and feeble he was at ength compelled to take the young man with him to arry the heavy bag of rice. He very reasonably rgued, ' I shall always accompany mv son, and take are that if he does see a woman by chance, he shall

lever speak to one ; he is very obedient ; he has never

leard of a woman ; he does not know what they 'e ; and as he has lived that way for twenty years ready he is. of course, now pretty safe.' As they ere on the first occasion leaving the market town