CALENDAR (Latin calendarium, from calere,to call, because the priests called the people to notice that it was new moon. (See HOURS; DAYS; YEAR; WATCHES, and JEwtsti CALENDAR; in Appendix.) CALF (kaf), (bleb. •.'tt, a/zhe/), is mentioned in several places, hut, not requiring a zoological explanation, it may he sufficient to make a few remarks on the worship of calves and other super stitious practices connected with them.
The most ancient and remarkable notice in the Scriptures on this bead is that of the golden calf, which was cast by Aaron from the ear rings of the people, while the Israelites were en camped at the foot of Sinai and Moses was ab sent on the mount. The next notice refers to an event which occurred ages after, when Jero boam, king of Israel, set up two idols in the form of a calf, the one in Dan and the other in Bethel. This almost incomprehensible degradation of hu man reason was, more particularly in the first in stance, no doubt the result of the debasing in fluences which operated on the minds of the Israelites during their sojourn in Egypt, where, amid the daily practice of the most degrading and revolting religious ceremonies, they were accus tomed to see the image of a sacred calf, sur rounded by other symbols, carried in solemn pomp at the head of marching armies, such as may be still seen depicted in the processions of Rameses the Great or Sesostris.
It is doubtful whether this idolatrous form is either Apis or Mnevis; it may perhaps represent the sun's first entrance in Taurus, or more prob ably be a symbol known to the Egyptians by an undeciphered designation, and certainly under stood by the Edomites of later ages, who called it Wanted and k/iaru/, or the calf, the mysterious anima motdi; according to Von Hammer (Pref.
to Ancient Alphabets), the NabatInean secret of secrets, or the beginning and return of every thing. With the emblems on the back, it may have symbolized the plural Elohim long before the cabalistical additions of this mysterious type had changed the figure. At the time of the de parture of the Israelites from Egypt this may have been the Moloch of their neighbors, for that idol was figured with the head of a calf or steer.
A similar divinity belonged to the earliest In dian, Greek and even Scandinavian mythologies, and therefore it may he conceived that the sym bol, enduring even to this day, was at that period generally understood by the multitude, and con sequently that it was afterwards revived by Jero boam without popular opposition.
Egyptian paintings illustrate the contempt which the prophet Hosea (x :5) casts upon the practice of those whom he designates as 'coming to sacri fice and kiss the calves;' and commentators have been at pains to explain in what manner Moses reduced the golden calf to such a state as to make it potable in water: but surely as the science of making gold leaf for gilding was already prac ticed in Egypt, there could he no difficulty, even if chemical processes had not then been discov ered. in effecting the object.
With regard to Jer. xxxiv:18, to, it may he sufficient to mention that many nations of an tiquity had a practice of binding themselves to certain resolutions by the ceremony of cutting a calf or other victim into two halves or sides. laying them nn the ground and passing between the severed parts. This was considered as con stituting a peculiarly binding obligation (Comp. Gen. xv;to, 17).