ledge. St. John founded a school of this kind at Ephesus; another was erected at Smyrna by Polycarp, who was made bishop by St. John, and who is generally thought to have been the angel of the church addressed Revelation 2. 8-10, in which address, unlike the others, there is not a word of reproach; and the character of the angel, or bishop, harmonizes with that of Polycarp. There were schools at Seleucia, Rome, Cæsarea, and Antioch; but none of them attained the reputation enjoyed by the school of Alexandria in Egypt, founded by St. Mark. It had a succession of eminent and learned teachers, amongst whom were the celebrated Clemens Alexandrinus, Pantænus, and Origen, and became a grand bulwark of Christianity.

SCIENCE. It was not until after the accession of David, that the Jews became remarkable for their intellectual culture; but the patriarchs probably possessed a considerable knowledge of practical astronomy, (q. v.) such as is still popular among pastoral tribes, probably corrupting it by an admixture of judicial astrology (q. v.). The literature of the Hebrews was chiefly limited to ethics, religion, the history of their nation, and to natural history, on which Solomon wrote several treatises no longer extant. If the phenomena mentioned in Scripture had been described with the accuracy of modern physical science, they would have been unintelligible to the persons for whose use the Sacred Writings were originally designed. The most numerous references to Oriental science occur in the Book of Job; and the best summary of the physical knowledge to which the patriarchs attained, and which the Hebrews while they existed as a nation, never surpassed, will be found in the notes to Wemyss's

translation. C.

SCOURGE. See WHIP, TORTURE, &c.

SCRIBE, sopher, a writer, clerk, notary, secretary, learned man, historiographer. The verb 750 sepher, which is the root, means to cipher, (which is derived from sepher,) to relate or narrate, to number or reckon. From this verb also comes the substantive

sepher, meaning a book, (Exod. 20. 7;) a bill or document, (Deut. 24. 1,3;) a letter, (2Sam. 11. 14,15;) a deed or conveyance, (Jerem. 32. 10;) learning or literature. (Dan. 1. 4.) See Parkhurst.

There were among the Jews different classes of scribes, having different occupations exemplified by the words above quoted.

I. Civil scribes, clerks, or copyists; men who would naturally find abundance of occupation among the children of Israel, in writing out for those who were unable to do so themselves, the verses of the Law that were to be worn between the eyes as frontlets, and bound upon the hand, (Deut. 6. 8,) and to be placed on the posts of the doors. (ver. 9.) Also letters, deeds of civil matters, like the deed of Jeremiah's purchase of the field of Hanameel, (Jerem. 32. 9,10;) accounts, &c. It is highly probable that such persons were employed, under Joab, in writing down the census, when David numbered the people of Israel. (2Sam. 20.4.) The tribe of Zebulon seem to have been famous as scribes, (Judges 5. 14:) "Out of Machir came down governors, and out of Zebulon, they that handle the pen of the writer." And also the families of Shamlah, descendant of Caleb, who dwelt at Jabez. (2Chron. 2. 55.) Of a very superior order of scribes were the king's secretaries, whom we read of, as reckoned amongst the principal officers of state. Shebna, the scribe or

secretary of Hezekiah, is called his treasurer. (Isai. 20. 15.) The royal secretaries whose names are preserved in Scripture, besides Shebna, are Sheva, and Seraiah, and Shemaiah, the Levite, scribes to King David; Elihoreph and Ahiah, secretaries to Solomon; and Shaphan, to Josiah.

II. Military scribes or muster-masters of the army, or secretaries at war, "the principal scribe of the host which numbered the people of the land." (2Kings 25. 19.) It was the occupation of these persons to keep the muster-roll and call it over. (2Chron. 25. 2:) "Moreover Uzziah had an host of fighting-men that went to war by their bands according to the number of their account by the hand of Jeiel, the scribe." And in the Apocryphal Book of Maccabees, (1book 5. 42) we read that when Judas Maccabeus was going to fight against Timotheus, "he caused the scribes of the people to remain by the brook; unto whom he gave commandment, saying, Suffer no man to remain in the camp, but let all come to the battle;" which was manifestly an order to muster the men and see that they answered to their names, and formed in order of battle. Amongst the duties of military scribes we may naturally include keeping the accounts of the army; writing letters concerning military business, &c. (Isai. 38. 18:) "Where is the scribe? Where is the receiver? Where is he that counted the towers?" is understood as spoken triumphantly against the king of Assyria. "Where is the scribe?" or muster-master of the host that threatened to destroy, (and who, perhaps, was to write down the numbers and names of the anticipated captives.) “Where is the receiver?" that was to collect the taxes from the conquered and tributary land. "Where is the general who reconnoitred our towers and took note of our places of defence? This passage of Isaiah has been made by St. Paul, (1Cor. 1. 20,) the basis of a similar triumphant declamation against the enemies of Christianity. "Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" "The wise man" is the chacham or sage, the teacher of the Rabbinical schools. "The scribe," the studier and translator of the law. "The disputer of the law" is the "lawyer," the subtle casuist, they who from their own carnal views expected a different Messiah from Jesus of Nazareth, and rejected him in spite of the prophets and types of the old law: thus in Him and the preaching of the cross, the wisdom of which they boasted was made foolishness.

III. Ecclesiastical scribes, who were generally of the tribe of Levi. They may be divided into two classes, the business of the lower class being to transcribe the copies of the law, to write out the bills of divorcement, to keep the accounts, inventories and catalogues of everything concerning sacred matters, as in Ezra 8, when Ezra caused to be weighed the gold and silver, and the vessels belonging to the Temple, and had the numbers and weight written down. It is also highly probable that part of their business was to keep the genealogies of the people, with registers of births, deaths, and marriages: as the preserving of authentic pedigrees was a matter of such vital importance amongst the Hebrews. (2Chron. 31. 16,17.) They likewise wrote anything pertaining to religious matters: like the solemn confession or covenant made in Ezra 9. 38, when the Levites proclaimed to the people God's goodness and their wickedness; and then wrote down "a sure corenant:" and the princes, priests, and Levites sealed it.

A very superior class of ecclesiastical scribes were those who were learned in the Scriptures, and were employed in expounding them; who transcribed prophecies

from the dictation of the inspired person, as Baruch wrote Jeremiah's prophecy, (Jerem. 36,) and who were historiographers, or wrote the annals of the kings' reigns; as Isaiah did the history of Uzziah, and Nathan the prophet, and Gad the seer, the history of David; in fact, to whose pens the records of the most important matters, particularly religious, were entrusted. The higher race of ecclesiastical scribes were the learned men, the "lawyers" as they were afterwards termed, who began by deeply studying, then refining upon and corrupting the law, in the later and worse times of Israel. It is of them that Jeremiah speaks (8. 8,9) when he says, "How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly, in vain hath he made it: the pen of the scribes is in vain. The wise men are ashamed; they are 'dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them?" Of such as these were the scribes mentioned in the New Testament, who were always found zealous against Christ; when, if they had not perverted their own understandings, they would have recognised him as the Messiah from their own scriptures. In the New Testament they are called sometimes scribes, sometimes "lawyers;" the former because they were transcribers of the law, and the commentaries upon it; the latter, because they prided themselves on their skill and casuistry in all difficult and subtle questions of the law. They were the persons who preached and expounded the law to the people, while the priests were occupied chiefly with sacrifice and the ceremonies of the Temple; hence they were called scribes of the people. That the lawyers and the scribes were synonymous in the New Testament we see in Matthew 22. 35. The lawyer who asked which is the great commandment in the law, is called in Mark 12. 28, one of the scribes. And in Luke 11. 39 to 43, when Our Lord reproaches the Pharisees, he continues some time uninterrupted; but when at verse 44 he joins the scribes to the Pharisees, then a lawyer takes it to himself and says, "Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also," and Our Lord (v. 46) indicates by his reply that he does include them as lawyers in his rebuke. It is easy to perceive throughout the Gospels that the scribes were generally Pharisees; and these were naturally the most vehement against Our Lord, and the most deaf to conviction; because they were the most zealous adherents of the traditions and glosses of Rabbinism added to the Scriptures. (Matt. 16. 21; 22. 18; 21. 15; 25. 13; Mark 3. 22; 14. 1; Luke 5. 20; 6. 7; 20. 2; 23. 10.) There were some scribes of the sect of the Sadducees, who rejected everything but the simple letter of Scripture; and they would be more likely to give ear to our Saviour than the Pharisees. Now we see in the Gospels that it did occasionally happen, that a scribe in conversing with Our Lord seemed approaching to conviction as in Mark 12, when one who asks our Saviour concerning the great commandment of the law, is so pleased with Christ's scriptural answer, commencing with a quotation from Deuteronomy 6. 4, that he says, "Well, master, thou hast said the truth;" and continues himself speaking in a scriptural strain, without any of the quibbles and nice questions of the Pharisees and their scribes; and ends with a quotation from Hosea 6. 6; so that Jesus replied to him: "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." The scribes of the Pharisees were the most numerous: their's was the triumphant party; their school, that of Hillel, had been victorious over that of Shammai, (see art. SCHOOL), and the scribes of the Sadducees were depressed and few. Whenever the scribes are mentioned as furious against Our Lord, they are many-" the scribes." It is but a solitary scribe who says, "Well, master, thou hast said

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the truth," (Mark 12. 32;) or the truth," (Mark 12. 32;) or "Master, I will follow thee." (Matt. 8. 19.) In Luke 11. 52, Our Lord upbraids the lawyers, i. e. scribes, that they had taken away the key of knowledge: "Ye enter not in yourselves, and those that were entering in ye hindered." This is in allusion to the ceremony of installing the wise or learned into the dignity of doctors of the laws, which was by delivering to them a key, symbolical of their unlocking the storehouse of knowledge. There is a rabbinical treatise called Petichtha Hachacmi, NATA "The Openings of the Sages" (i. e. the exposition of the sages): and in rabbinical books is it often written "Rabbi, opened," instead of "Rabbi, explained or taught." Compare with Luke 24. 32, where the two disciples say, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he opened to us the Scriptures?" which is an Hebraism. Some persons have thought the officers mentioned in Deuteronomy 20. 5; 29. 10; 31. 28; Josh. 8. 33; and 23. 2, are scribes; but upon examining the matter, they will be seen to be quite different. Those officers are named in Hebrew by a word entirely different from scribe, viz., shoter, which does not anywhere occur as a verb. It is explained by Parkhurst as an inferior magistrate or officer, who attended on a superior magistrate or judge, to execute his orders; answering in some measure to sheriff among us: the derivative noun from this word is D mishtar, ministerial authority or power. (Parkhurst's Lexicon.) This word mishtar seems to be the original etymology of the Latin magister, and hence our magistrate. The letters are MST R, the nucleus of our master. The word, too, which might be pronounced satar or shatar, is the original of satrap, an oriental officer very different from a scribe or penman. The functions attributed to those shoterim, or officers, have no connexion with that of the scribes. In Exodus 5. 6, we see them along with the taskmasters, over the children of Israel, as overseers or drivers to keep them at work; and in connexion with this, Solomon commends the ants, (Prov. 6. 7,) for carefully working, though having no shoter or overseer over them to compel them. In Deuteronomy 15. 18, they appear as attendants on the judges in the courts; and Moses de Cotzi says that they attended to keep the people in order with staves; and to execute the judge's decrees. In Deuteronomy 20. 5, they make proclamation to the people before going into battle; and in Joshua 1. 10, they proclaim Joshua's orders to the people, to prepare for crossing Jordan; and in this capacity Josephus calls them the public criers; which office might well combine with the foregoing. In 2Chronicles 26. 2, the title is applied to Hananiah, who seems to have had some control over the muster-roll, kept by the military scribe; but still the shoter belongs to the army of Uzziah; he is a man of the sword, not of the pen.

In the other places where these shoterim, or officers, appear, it is in the train of the judges.

There is a class of scribes whom it may not be superfluous to notice, because they are connected with the subject as transcribers of the Scriptures, though their silent unostentatious and indefatigable labours have been too much overlooked, too seldom acknowledged. They are those industrious recluses who devoted their time, in religious retirement, not to idle contemplativeness, but to the useful task of preserving to posterity copies of the sacred writings before the art of printing was discovered. In every great abbey there was a room called the Scriptorum, or Domus Antiquarii, where the brethren called the Scriptores were constantly employed in copying the Scriptures, psalters, or church music, in profound silence. The beauty of the manuscripts was in many instances extraordinary. The writing was so clear and

regular that it could hardly be imagined to be manuscript; and they were ornamented with flourished capitals, and exquisite paintings and miniatures; often with the capitals executed in silver or in gold; and in some instances they were wholly written in gold: the more ancient were stained purple or violet, on which the silver or gold letters had a splendid effect. Some of them, on account of the care with which they were executed, took many years in completing. Some interesting descriptions of these beautiful manuscripts will be found in Townley's Illustrations of Biblical Literature.

Modern Eastern Scribe.

SCRIP. Notwithstanding the great hospitality of the Orientals, travellers cannot always calculate upon obtaining a supply of food in their cottages, for most of the peasants are so poor that they can rarely afford to keep more provisions than will meet the immediate wants of their families. Pedestrian travellers and shepherds are therefore accustomed to take with them a bag, or wallet, in which they carry some dry food and other little articles likely to be useful on a journey. It was in such a bag that David carried the pebble with which he smote the boasting champion of the Philistines. When Christ sent forth his Apostles, he forbade them to provide themselves with these bags, or, as they are rendered in our translation, scrips; and nothing can more forcibly show the completeness of their dependence on Divine Providence while executing their mission, than their neglecting to supply themselves with what all other travellers would have regarded as an indispensable requisite.

The scrip is usually made of hair-cloth, and is generally of much greater depth than breadth. In the south of Spain, where many of the usages introduced by the Mahommedan conquerors are still retained, the scrip is usually of goat-skin, and is generally carried over the shoulder. The purse, which some inaccurate commentators have confounded with the scrip, was always suspended from the girdle. A kind of sanctity is attributed to the scrip by some of the Eastern Jews, as it preserves their food from being polluted by being brought into contact with those whom they are taught to regard as unclean or profane. C.

SCRIPTURE, WRITING: from the Latin scriptura, applied solely to the sacred writings contained in the Bible, as the writings of all others of paramount importance, and entitled to the highest degree of respect. They are called the Holy Scriptures (Rom. 1. 2; 2Tim.

3.15), because containing a holy law for life and doctrine; the Sacred Scriptures, because given, or dictated, by the inspiratiou of the Spirit of God; and the Canonical Scriptures, from the word Canon (q.v.), because when their authenticity was once established and recognised, an authorized catalogue was formed of them, which became a fixed rule for the guidance of the Churches. The whole body of Scripture collectively is called the Bible (q. v.).

The Jews call the body of Scripture in the Old Testament NPD Mikra, "the Reading," i.e. that which is especially to be read. The grand division of the Scriptures into the Old and New Testament was made according to St. Paul's distinction, which he gave in 2Corinthians 3. 6, when, speaking of the Apostles, he says: "Our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament." Then, in ver. 14, speaking of the Jews, he says: "for their minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament." The Greek word 4a0nkn, here rendered "testament," is either testament or covenant, and is analogous to the Hebrew word n berith, covenant; and St. Paul means the Old Covenant made by God with his people under Moses, and the New Covenant made under, and through, Christ. The Latin translation, however, renders the word Testamentum, and the name begun early to be applied to all the sacred writings, as the Old Testament to those before Christ, and the New to those after him. Bishop Mant thinks it was thus used as early as the second century. The Western Churches, or those European nations that acknowledged the Roman see, followed the Latin version, and called the divisions "the Testaments." But the Sclavonic nations divide the Bible into the Old and New Law. St. Augustine (de Civitate Dei) calls the Old Testament "Vetus Testamentum." The Jews divide the Old Testament into three grand divisions: I. The Law, or 777 Torah, i. e. the five books of Moses, called by Christians the Pentateuch, from TEVTE, five, and TEUKOS, a volume. The Jews sometimes give it the synonymous appellation of Won Chomesh, The Five. II. The Prophets, ' Nebiim, containing Joshua, Judges, Samuel (as one book), Kings (as one book), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor Prophets, from Hosea to Malachi, in one book (minor from their brevity, not from being of inferior importance). Joshua and Judges are reckoned among the Prophets, because believed to have been written by the Prophet Samuel. This division is again subdivided into the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings), and the Later Prophets (the remaining books), which division is thought to be derived from Zechariah, 1.4: "Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the Former Prophets cried." Another subdivision is the Greater Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel), and the Lesser Prophets (the twelve minor Prophets).

III. Cetubim, or the Holy Writings (called by the Greeks the Hagiographa), viz., Psalms, Proverbs, Job, The Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah (as one book), and Chronicles (as one book). The Jews do not place Daniel among the other Prophetic writings, because he dwelt among the luxuries of a court, and did not lead an ascetic life, like the rest of the Prophets. The Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther are by modern Jews called the Megilloth, or Chomesh Megilloth, i.e. the Five Rolls (because read out from rolls, and even printed in that form, and are placed immediately after the Pentateuch. The Jews, who are fond of making words out of initials (like acrostics),