COAT OF MAIL (kat Ov mal). Sec ARMS, ARMOR.
COCK (Ion). The Hebrew word bar-boor', which is mentioned only in connection with Solo mon's table, has been rendered swans, geese, guinea fowls, and fish, as well as the fiztted fowl of the A. V. and the R. V.; Gr. liXer-rwp, al ek'Iore, the male of the well known domestic fowl gallus domestic us.
It is somewhat singular that this bird and poul try in general should not be distinctly noticed in the Hebrew Scriptures; especially as rearing galli naceous fowls was an object of considerable eco nomical importance in Egypt, and their flesh one of the principal resources for the table in every part of Southern and Western Asia. They were, it may be surmised, unknown in Egypt when the Mosaic law was promulgated, and, though im ported soon after, they always remained in an un determined condition, neither clean nor unclean, but liable to be declared either by decisions swayed by prejudice, or by fanciful analogies; perhaps chiefly the latter, because poultry are devourers of unclean animals, scorpions, scolopendra, small lizards, and young serpents of every kind.
But although rearing of common fowls was not encouraged by the Hebrew population, it is evi •dently drawing inferences beyond their proper bounds when it is asserted that they were un known in Jerusalem, where civil wars, and Greek and Roman dominion, had greatly affected the national manners.
In the denials of Peter, described in the four Gospels, where the cock-crowing is mentioned by our Lord, the words are plain and direct, not we think admitting of cavil, or of being taken to signify anything but the real voice of the bird, cock-crow, as it is expressed in Mark xiii :35, in its literal acceptation, and not as denoting the sound of a trumpet, so called, because it pro claimed a watch in the night ; for to what else than a real hen and her brood does our Saviour allude in Luke xiii :34, where the text is proof that the image of poultry was familiar to the disciples, and consequently that they were not rare in Judaea? To the present time in the East, and on the Continent of Europe, this bird is still often kept, as amongst the Celtm (Ca•sar, Bell. Gall
iv :i2), not so much for food as for the purpose of announcing the approach and dawn of day. The origin of our domestic poultry is undoubtedly Asiatic, but there is considerable doubt as to the precise breed from whence they are sprung. It is figured on the ancient Egyptian monument?.
(kOlekriVing).
The cock usually crows several times about midnight, and again about break of day. The latter time, because he then crows loud est, and his 'shrill clarion' is most useful by slim moiling man to his labors, obtained the appellation of the cock-crowing emphatically, and by way of eminence: though sometimes the distinctions of the first and second cock-crowing are met with in Jewish and heathen writers. These times, and these names for them, were, no doubt, some of the most ancient divisions of the night adopted in the East, where 'the bird of dawning' is most prob ably indigenous. The latter (iXtkropoOwvia, cock crowing, was retained even when artificial di visions of time were invented In our Lord's time the Jews had evidently adopted the Greek and Roman division of the night into four periods, or watches, each consisting of three hours; the first beginning at six in the evening, in the second watch, cad in the third watch (Luke xii :38) ; in the fourth watch of the night (Matt. xiv :25; Mark vi :48). These watches were either num bered first, second, third, and fourth, as now spe cificd, or were called late, middle of the night, early, and cock-crowing. These are all mentioned (Mark xiii :35).
It has been considered a contradiction that Mat thew (xxvi :34) records our Lord to have said to Peter, before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice, whereas St. Mark (xiv :30), says, before (the cock) crow twice. But Matthew, giving only the general sense of the admonition (as also Luke xxii :34; John xiii :38), evidently alludes to that only which was customarily called the cock crowing, but Mark, who wrote under Peter's in spection, more accurately recording the very words, mentions the two cock-crowings.