are all qualities of that animal, usage has attached an invariable meaning to the metaphor, which we all understand at once, and from which no one who wishes to be understood may lawfully depart. The same must be said of all established figurative phrases; besides their literal signification, they can only bear that metaphorical one which use has given them, and the moment we give them another totally new, we must cease to be understood. You may verify this remark, by trying it upon any proverbial metaphor.

Once more, then, if the phrase to eat the flesh of a person, besides its literal sense, bore among the people whom Jesus addressed, a fixed, proverbial, unvarying, metaphorical signification, then, if he meant to use it metaphorically, I say, that he could use it only in that one sense; and hence, our choice can only lie between the literal sense and that usual figure. Now, I do assert that, whether we examine (1) the phraseology of the Bible, or (2) the ordinary language of the people who still inhabit the same country, and have inherited the same ideas, or, (3) in fine, the very language in which our Saviour addressed the Jews, we shall find the expression to eat the flesh of a person, signifying invariably, when used metaphorically, to attempt to do him some serious injury, principally by calumny or false accusation. Such, therefore, was the only figurative meaning which the phrases could present to the audience at Capharnaum.

1. It is so in Hebrew,-" While the wicked,"

says the Psalmist, "draw near against me, to eat my flesh." This expression, as commentators have remarked, describes the violent rage of his enemies, and the lengths to which they were ready to go against him.† Job xix. 22, is the same phrase, but spoken of Calumniators; "Why do you persecute me, and are not satisfied with (eating) my flesh.”‡ Again, Michaes iii. 3, we have, "Who also eat the flesh of my people." Ecclesiastes iv. 5, we find the mischief which a foolish man does to himself, described by the same figurative phrase; "The fool foldeth his arms together and eateth his own flesh." These are the only passages in which we meet this expression throughout the Old Testament, in its figurative sense; and in all, the idea of inflicting grievous injury, under different forms, and specifically by calumny, is strongly and decidedly marked.

*Ps. xxvii. (Heb.) 2.

"Rosenmüller, Psalmi," 2a, ed Lips. 1822, vol. ii. p. 724."Gesenius's Heb. Lexicon," translated by Leo. Camb. 1825, p. 35. Michaelis understood the phrase of calumny.

+ Allusion is made to the same idea, (xiv. 10.) "They widen their jaws against me, they fill themselves with me." Job. xxxi. 31, "The men of my tabernacle have said, who will give us of his flesh, that we may be filled," must not be compared ; as Schultens has satisfactorily proved, after Ikenius, that the pronoun is not personal, but possessive; and that the phrase is more correctly rendered "quis dabit de carne ejus non saturatum;""where is the man who is not filled with his meat?" (Liber Jobi cum nova versione. Lugd. Batav. 1737, tom. ii. p. 875.) Rosenmüller approves of this interpretation.

In the New Testament, the expression is used by St. James in the same sense, though it seems to me, that it rather bears the more limited import of accusation, which, I will presently show you, it subsequently acquired. The parallelism between the members of the sentence seems to indicate this; "Your gold and silver are rusted; and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as (destructively as) fire." St. Paul undoubtedly alludes to this common figure, when he says to the Galatians, then involved in party quarrels, "But if you bite, and eat one another."*

2. The language and literature of the Arabs, form one of the most fruitful sources of Scriptural illustration. Words and phrases are still in current use among them, which occur in the sacred writings, for their language is but a dialect of that which the Jews spoke; and the tenacity in eastern nations of customs and ideas, preserves them through ages, almost unalterable and fresh. Among the Arabs to this day, and from time immemorial, to eat the flesh of a person means figuratively to calumniate him. This strong expression takes its rise clearly from the horror which the Orientals entertain for calumny and detraction.

This idea is expressed most strikingly in the

* Gal. v. 15,

Koran, where the sentiment occurs as follows,

أحدكم أن يأكل لحم أخيه ميتا فَكَرِهْتُمُوهُ ولا يعتب

بعضكم بعض ايجب

"And speak not ill one of the other in his absence. Should any of you like to eat the flesh of his brother (neighbour) when dead? Truly you would abhor it."* The inference is clear. "In the same manner you ought to abhor calumny." The poet Nawabig uses the same ex

تقول انا صايم وانت في لحم اخيك سايم : pression

"Thou sayest, I am fasting, and thou art eating the flesh of thy brother."+ In the Hamasa,

66

I am not given to ، لانرقا للماء ولا اللحوم صديقي اكولا

detraction, and to eating the flesh of my friend." Again,

وبيرب من موالي السودي حسد

قرم
يقتات لحمي ولا يشفيه من

"Koran, Sura, xlix. 12, ed. Maracci, p. 667.

t Elnawabig, No. 146, ed. Shultens. There is a passage remarkably resembling this of Nawabig, in the elegant and pious Lewis of Granada; and it might be interesting to inquire whether this phraseology passed from the Arabs into Spanish literature. His words are as follows. Y otros hallereis que por todo el mundo no comeràn carne el miercoles, y con esto murmuran y deguellan crudelissimamente los proximos. Demanera que siendo muy escrupulosos en no comer carne de animales, ningun escrupulo tienen de comer carne y vidas de hombres." Obras del Ven P. M. Fray Luis de Granada. Tom. i. Barcel. 1701, p. 174. + Ap. Schultens, Com. in Job. p. 480.

"The rich calumniator, who is allied to the envious, has taken my flesh for food, and has not been cured of his appetite for flesh."* The eighth proverb of Meidant contains, I believe the same expression, but I have not the work within my reach. The poet Schanfari too expresses the same idea.

طريد جنایات تیاسرن لحمه

"He has been persecuted by falsehoods, which have divided his flesh among them for food."‡ In fine, not to multiply examples, the thirtieth fable of Lokman the Wise, contains the same sentiment, where the dog that gnaws the dead lion is made the emblem of the calumniator of the dead.§

I must observe, in reference to these expressions, that they clearly do not belong to the verbal idioms of the language, but that their meaning descends from the ideas and feelings of the people. For they are not like our own corresponding term backbite, which, however figurative in its origin, could not warrant us in now expressing calumny by any other term similarly compounded, nor by any phrase equivalent to it. The Arabic figure, on the contrary, exists not in the terms or body, but

* Excerpta Hamase in Schultens's Anthology, at the end of his Erpennius, Lugd. Batav. 1748, p. 591. See also Michaelis's Chrestomathia Arab. p. 133.

t "Meidani Proverb." Lugd. Batav. 1795, p. 7.

"Sacy, Chrestomathie Arabe," Tome i. Paris, 1806, p. A.. "Fabulæ Locmani Sapientis," at the end of Erpennius's Grammar, Roma, 1829, p. 165.