SUPERSTITIOUS (Gr. octet dcwhav, dice-ee-dahee-mohn', reverencing the gods).
These are words which occur only in the New Testament. Festus, governor of Judea, informed Agrippa, that Paul had disputed with the other Jews concerning matters of their own superstition (Acts xxy :t9), in which he spoke like a true pagan, equally ignorant of the Christian religion, and of the Jewish. Paul, writing to the Colos sians (ch. ii :23), recommends to them, not to re gard false teachers, who would persuade them to a compliance with human wisdom, in an affected humility and superstition ; and speaking to the Athenians, he says, "I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious," etc. (Acts xvii :22).
The Greeks call superstition as above, deisdai mania, demon-terror. A superstitious man looks on God as a severe and rigid master, and obeys with fear and trembling.
Paul at Athens tells the Areopagites that they are too superstitious; he uses a word no doubt susceptible of a good as well as of a bad sense; as it would have been highly indecorous, nor less unnecessary, to calumniate the religious disposi tion of his judges, whom he was addressing.
SUPH (suph), (Heb. soof, translated 'flags' in the A. V.), means some aquatic plant.
It is mentioned in Exod. ii :3, 5; Is. xix :6; Jonah ii :5 ; but it is difficult to say whether it may not have been used in a comprehensive sense, as seaweed is with us, rather than have been confined to one of the plants growing in the sea. The word suph occurs in several other passages; these, however, have reference to the Red Sea, which by the Hebrews was called Suplz Sea.
In Jonah ii :5, 'seaweed was wrapped around my head,' one of the fuci would seem to be indi cated. Lady Calcott selects .rostera marina, or sea wrack, which resembles them in habit. It is quite probably a contracted form of Yam-suph, Red Sea.