PURIIVI (pri'rim), (Heb, poo-reene, lots, Esther iii:7; ix:26, sq., from a word supposed to be 'lot'), J the Persic for a o , a celebrated Jewish festi val instituted by Mordecai, at the suggestion of Esther, in the reign of Ahasuerus, king of Persia,• to commemorate the deliverance of the Jews from the designs of Haman. (See ESTHER; HAMAN; MORDECAI.) It derives its name from the lots cast every day for twelve months in presence of Haman, with the view of discovering an auspicious day for the de struction of all the Jews in the Persian dominions ; when the lot fell on the 13th day of Adar (Feb ruary and part of March). (See FESTIVALS.) The celebration of this festival is next referred to in 2 Macc. xv :36, where it is denominated Mordecai's day. (See MACCABEES.) It is also mentioned by Josephus (Antiq. xi :6), who, hav ing observed that the Jews in Shushan feasted on the fourteenth day (of Adar), and that which fol lowed it, says, 'Even now all the Jews in the hab itable world keep these days festivals, and send portions one to another ;' and after referring to the deliverance of the Jews by divine protection, he adds, 'for which cause the Jews keep the fore mentioned days, calling them Phrurzran days. It is disputed whether the word employed by Jo sephus (8spoupa(at) arose from an error of tran scription, or whether the historian may not have confounded the name Purim with the Hebrew word which implies protection. The Talmud makes frequent mention of this feast. In the Je rusalem Megillah (p. 704) it is observed that 'there were seventy-five elders, above thirty of whom were prophets, who made exceptions against the feast of Purim ordained by Esther and Mordecai, as some kind of innovation against the law' (see Lightfoot, on John x :22). Maimon
ides remarks that it is forbidden to weep or fast on this day.
It has been sharply contested whether there is any reference in the New Testament to this feast. It is recorded in St. John's Gospel (v :1), that after these things was the feast of the Jews, or rather, perhaps, a feast, as the article is wanting in several manuscripts. It has been held by Out rein, Lamy, and Hug, and still more recently by Tholuck and Lucke, that the feast of Purim is here meant. The reasons on which this opinion is grounded will be found fully detailed in Hug's Introd. (part ii, sec. 64), and in Liicke's Comment. on St. John's Gospel (see the English translation of Liicke's Dissertation or a Commentary on St. John's Gospel, in Bib. Cabinet, vol. xlv. Heng stenberg, on the other hand (Christ°logy, vol. ii, On the Seventy Weeks of Daniel, pp. 408-414, Engl. transl.. 1839), opposes this hypothesis by many ingenious arguments, and holds it to be in conceivable that our Lord, 'who never mentions the book of Esther, whose apostles nowhere ap peal to it, should have sought this feast conse crated to the remembrance of an event described in this hook.' Not that he wishes to 'impugn the authority of the book of Esther, but because, in regard to the true standard, its reference to Christ, it undoubtedly holds the lowest place among all the books in the Old Testament.' It would ap pear from this, that Professor Hengstenberg fol lows Luther's 'touchstone' of canonicity. (See