PURIM, a Jewish festival on Adar 14 and 15, to commemorate the deliverance of the Jews from Haman, the minister of Ahasuerus (Artaxerxes?), as related in the book of Esther (lit. lots, Heb. Ts, Esther iii. 7; ix. 24, 26, possibly from Assyrian guru, stone or Vedic piirti, portion) : so called from the lots cast by Haman to determine an auspicious day for the massacre. The origin of the festival is much disputed : some hold that it developed from a primitive spring festival because (a) it is celebrated just before the advent of the New Year in Nissan and that the pre liminary fasting was actually ordained in Esther iii. 7; iv. 16 for Nissan. But the fasting is a later institution (on this see Jew. Enc., x. 278) ; (b) the feast is secular rather than religious : it has all the characteristics of a spring carnival including the ironical crown ing of the buffoon-king or vegetation-god who was put to death after mockery (cf. Frazer, Golden Bough, ed. ii., vol. iii., pp. S. Langdon (Bab. Epic of Creation, 1923, pp. 28, 33, etc.) traces a similar festival to Marduk (cf. Mordecai; Ishtar-Esther?) dur ing Nissan, with the mystic ceremony of the death and resurrec tion of Bel, from primitive times in Babylonia. Zimmern (see refs. in Langdon) drew a parallel with the leading features in the scourging and death of Jesus. But the Jewish beating of Haman or burning of his effigy is late and clearly borrowed from me diaeval carnival customs, probably in the 13th century. On the contrary, during the synagogal reading of the book of Esther the reader hurries over the execution of the ten sons of Haman (Esther ix. 7-10), pronouncing them in one breath. This goes back to the Talmud (Neg. 16 b) and is ordained (I) to denote their simultaneous death and (2) to avoid gloating over a fallen foe. If Purim were purely a Babylonian feast, the Jews of Pales
tine and Egypt would hardly have accepted or retained it long after their connection with the Persian Empire ceased, whereas Purim has always been most popular. (c) On the other hand, there are features in the Jewish liturgy which strongly suggest a secular origin and it is most likely that this festival, first secular and national, ultimately became sanctified and was made a religious occasion. The growth of this process may be traced in the service. The name of God is absent from the Megillah and various devices of the scribe make good the deficiency, e.g., when the letters of the Tetragrammaton occur close together they are crowned or written large : in iv. 14 "another place" is inter preted of God because "place" (Maqom) is used in this way. The only religious allusions in the book are iv. 16 and ix. 31. The scroll is called 'Iggereth or letter (ix. 26 and 29) and the reader folds the scroll so as to make it resemble a letter and holds it aloft when he recites the word "letter" in the verses just named. This tends to mark the lower or secular category of the book, i.e., it is classed as an "Epistle" rather than as a "Gospel." For the service itself see Singer's Authorized Daily Prayer Book, p. 276 (and p. ccvi. of annotated ed.), where the alphabetical poem (r4•47.1 V) may be noted.
A characteristic of Purim and the book of Esther often over looked is its similarity to the Euripidean drama. A cardinal feature is the punishment of i'Alts. Purim plays are frequent, by Christian (e.g., Racine) as well as by Jewish authors.