BARBARIAN ri-an), 1(;r. licipoapos, bar' bar-or, foreign, strange, rude).
This term is used in the New Testament, as in classical writers, to denote other nations of the earth in distinction from the Greeks, without any idea of barbarism in the modern sense of the term. 'I am debtor both to the Greeks and Barbarians' EVoier( rc Ka( Ruin.
the Grekes and to them which arc no Tyndale, 1534. and Geneva, 15;7; 'To the Grekes and to the Ungrekes'—Cranmer, 153o. In Coloss. in:11, 'Greek nor Jew—Barbarian, Barbaros seems to refer to those nations of the Roman empire who did not speak Greek, and kuthace. Scythian to nation, nut under the Ro man dominion I Dr. Robinson). In t Cor. xiv I, the term is applied to a difference of language: 'If 1 know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that a barbarian ( 'as of an other language,' Geneva I 'ers.). and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian I 'as of another language;Gen,—,1 firs.) unto me.' Thus Ovid. 'Borborus 111(' intelli);ur Trist. 37. In Acts xxviii, the inhabitants of Malta are called barbarol, thoy were originally a Carthaginian colony, and t hictle spike of Punic language. In the Septuagint, ha rho ros,
is used by the Hebrew too:, 'A people of slrarwe language' (Ps. cxiv:i).
Strait() ( xiv :2 ) suggests that time word Bar bar-os %els ongmally an imitative sound, de signed to express a harsh dissonant language, or sometimes the indistinct artictilation of the Greek by foreigners.
but once in the Scriptures (Lick. v:1).
Shaving the head is a very common custom in Eastern countries. In India many of the re ligious sects are distinguished by the manner in which the head is shaved. Some leave a tuft of hair on the crown of the head, others a tuft above each car. In Syria. old men frequently have the whole head shaved and allow the beard to grow. Young men sha•.e the cheeks and the chin, and cut the hair of the head short. The upper lip is never shaved except in S. India, where it is done as a sign of mourning. Absence of the mustache is looked upon. in Syria, as a sign of the want of virility. The barber plies his trade in any convenient place—by the roadside, or in the courtyard of a khan. (V. Carslaw. I lastings' Bib. (NO.)