ALABASTER rAXd(3acrrpov). This word occurs in the New Testament only in the notice of the `alabaster box,' or rather vessel, of `ointment of spikenard, very precious,' which a woman broke, and with its valuable contents anointed the head of Jesus, as he sat at supper in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper (Matt. xxvi. 7 ; Mark xiv. 3). At Alabastron, in Egypt, there was a mnanufactory of small pots and vessels for holding perfumes, which were made from a stone found in the neighbouring mountains. The Greeks gave to 33.
these vessels the name of the city from which they came, calling them alabastrons. This name was eventually extended to the stone of which they were formed : and at length the term alabastra was applied without distinction to all perfume ves sels, of whatever materials they consisted. Theo critus speaks of golden alabastra, /uptur p.61:nc Xpiaem' aciparprpa (Idyl. xv. i14) ; and perfume vessels of different kinds of stone, of glass, ivory bone, and shells, have been found in the Egyptian tombs (Wilkinson, iii. 379). It does not, there fore, by any means follow that the alabastron which the woman used at Bethany was really of alabaster ; but a probability that it was such arises from the fact that vessels made of this stone were deemed peculiarly suitable for the most costly and powerful perfumes (Flin. Hist. Nat. xiii. 2; xxxvi. 8, 24). The woman is said to have ' broken ' the vessel ; which is explained by supposing that it was one of those shaped somewhat like a Florence oil-flask, with a long and narrow neck ; and the mouth being curiously and firmly sealed up, the usual and easiest way of getting at the contents was to break off the upper part of the neck.
The alabastra were not usually made of that white and soft gypsum to which the name of ala baster is now for the most part confined. Dr. John Hill, in his useful notes on Theophrastus, sets this matter in a clear light :—‘ The alabastrum and ala bastrites of naturalists, although by some esteemed synonymous terms, and by others confounded with one another, are different substances. The ala bastrum is properly the soft stone [the common alabaster'] of a gypseous substance, burning easily into a kind of plaster; and the alabastra, the hard, bearing a good polish, and approaching the texture of marble. This stone was by the Greeks called also sometimes onyx, and by the Latins marmor onychites, from its use in making boxes to preserve precious ointments; which boxes were commonly called onyxes' and alabas ters.' Thus Dioscorides, d.Xa,8aarplrns b KaXob uevos bpti. And hence have arisen a thousand mistakes in the later authors, of less reading, who have misunderstood Pliny, and confounded the onyx marble, as the alabaster was frequently called, with the precious stone of that name.' This is now better understood. It is appre hended that, from certain appearances common to both, the same name was given not only to the common alabaster, called by mineralogists gypsum, and by chemists sulphate of lime; but also to the carbonate of lime, or that harder stone from which the alabastra were usually made. In the ruins of Nineveh Mr. Layard found fragments of alabaster vases, and one perfect specimen. The latter is in the British Museum.—J. K.
ALAH (r*, the name of a tree, which, both in its singular and plural form, occurs often in the Scriptures. It is variously rendered in ancient and modern versions—as oak, &rebind; teil (linden) tree, elm, and even a plain. This has occasioned more of apparent perplexity than now really belongs to the subject. In the masculine singular (91s) it occurs only in Gen. xiv. 6, in connection with l'aran, or as El-Paran. This the Sept. renders by terebinth (repepivOou 4'apdv) ; Aquila, Sym machus, and Theodotion by oak,' q2i 1' Cla j and the Samaritan, Onkeios, Kitnchi, Jerome, etc., by plain,' which is also adopted in the margin of our Bibles. The primary import of the word is strength, power; whence some hold that it denotes any mighty tree, especially the terebinth and the oak. But the oak is not a mighty tree in Pales tine ; and as it possesses its own distinct name [AtioN], which is shewn, by the apposition of the names in Is. vi. 33, and Hos. iv. 13, to denote a different tree from alah, one can have little hesita tion in restricting the latter to the terebinth. In deed, this conclusion has not been much questioned since it was shewn by Celsius (Hierobotan. ii. that the terebinth was most probably denoted by the Hebrew alah; that the terebinth is the but'ul *—of the Arabs; and that the Arabian but'm is frequent in Palestine. The first position is of
course incapable of absolute proof; the second has been confirmed by Forskal and Ehrenberg ; and the third is attested by a host of travellers, who speak of it under both names. Celsius exhibits the testimonies which existed in his time : to which those of Forskal, Hasselquist, and Dr. Robinson may now be added.* The last-named traveller gives the best account of the tree as it is found in Palestine. At the point where the roads from Gaza to Jerusalem, and from Hebron to Ramleh, cross each other, and about midway between the two last-named towns, this traveller observed an immense but'm-tree, the largest he saw anywhere in Palestine. This species (Pistacia Terebinthys) is, without doubt,' he adds, the terebinth of tht Old Testament ; and under the shade of such a tree Abraham may well have pitched his tent at Mamre. The but'm is not an evergreen, as is often represented ; but its small feathered lancet-shaped leaves fall in the autumn, and are renewed in the spring. The flowers are small, and followed by small oval berries, hanging in clusters from two to five inches in length, resembling much the clusters of the vine when the grapes are just set. From in cisions in the trunk there is said to flow a sort of transparent balsam, constituting a very pure and fine species of turpentine, with an agreeable odour, like citron or jessamine, and a mild taste, and hardening gradually into a transparent gum. In Palestine nothing seems to be now known of this product of the but'm. The tree is found also in Asia Minor (many of them near Smyrna), Greece, Italy, the south of France, Spain, and in the north of Africa ; and is described as not usually rising to the height of more than twenty feet. It often ex ceeded that siee as we saw it in the mountains; but here in the plains it was very much larger.' In Palestine and the neighbouring countries the terebinth seems to be regarded with much the same distinction as the oak is in our northern latitudes. The tree is long-lived; and it is certain that there were in the country ancient terebinths, renowned for their real or supposed connection with scriptural incidents. Thus, about the time of Christ, there was at Mamre, near Hebron, a venerable terebinth, which a tradition, old in the time of Josephus, alleged to be that (rendered plain' in our version of Gen. xiii. 18) under which Abraham pitched his tent ; and which, indeed, was believed to be as old as the creation of the world (Joseph. Bell. 7rid. iv. 9, 7). The later tradition was content to relate that it sprang from the staff of one of the angels who appeared there to Abraham (Gen. xviii. 2). Hav ing, from respect to the memory of the patriarch, and as one of the spots consecrated by the presence of commissioned angels,' become a place of great resort and pilgrimage both of Jews and Christians, the Phcenicians, Syrians, and Arabians were attracted to it with commercial objects; and it thus became a great fair. At this fair thousands of captive Jews were sold for slaves by order of Hadrian in A. D. 135 (Jerome, Comm. in Zech. xi. 4, De Loth Heb. 87 ; Euseb. Dent. Ev. v. 9, Onomast in 'Appio ; Sozom. Hist. Eccles. ii. 4, 5 ; Niceph. viii. 30 ; Reland, Paces,. p. 714). Being a place of such heterogeneous assemblage, great abominations and scandals, religions and moral, arose, to which a stop was at length put by Eusebius of Cmsarea and the other bishops of Palestine, who, by order of Constantine, cast down all the pagan altars, and built a church by or under the tree. It is said that the tree dried up in the reign of Theodosius the Younger; but that the still vital trunk threw off shoots and branches, and produced a new tree, from which Brocard (vii. 64), Salignac (x. 5), and other old travellers declare that they brought slips of the new and old wood to their own country. Zuallart, who alleges that some of its wood was given to him by the monks at Jerusalem, candidly admits the difficulty of believing the stories which were told of its long duration : but he satisfies him self with the authority of the authors we have men tioned, and concludes that God may have specially interfered to preserve it ( Voyage de Jerusalem, iv. 1). The tree was accidentally destroyed by fire in 1646 A. D. (Mariti, p. 52o). See Dr. Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. i. p. 262.—J. K.