COCCEIUS (COCH), JOHANN, was a native of Bremen, where he was horn in 1603. In 165o he was appointed Professor of Theology at Leyden, where he died in 1669. He was-a man of pro found scholarship, especially in Hebrew and Rab binical literature. Besides many works of a dog matical and polemical cast, a Hebrew Lexicon, etc., he wrote commentaries on most of the books of the Bible. He also edited the Moreh Nevockim of Maimonides, and the Talmudic Tracts Sanhedrin and llfaccoth. He occupies a prominent place among the adherents of the mystical and spiritual izing school of interpreters. He maintained that every passage has as many meanings as it can be made to bear ; and everything in the O. T. he re garded as typical of Christ and his church. He held also Millenarium views. His works have been 'collected in 12 vols. fol., Amst. 1701, of which two contain his posthumous publications. His fame rests chiefly on his services to Hebrew philology. His Lexicon et Commentaries Sermonis Neb. et Chalet'. had a wide circulation. It was twice re edited by Maius, Frankfort 1689, and 1714, fol. ; and again by Schulz in 1777 ; and again in 2 vols. Svo, in 1793-96. The last edition, however, is much altered from the author's original, and has in it hardly a vestige of anything Cocceian .—W. L. A.
COCK (lAlfercop; in Hebrew Caber, if Jerome's version of Is. xxii. 17, IS be correct : our version of the passage is obscure). It is some what singular that this bird and poultry in general should not be distinctly noticed in the Hebrew Scriptures. They were, it may be surmised, un known in Egypt when the Mosaic law was pro mulgated, and, though imported soon after, they always remained in an undetermined condition, neither clean nor unclean, but liable to be declared either by decisions swayed by prejudice, or by fanciful analogies ; perhaps chiefly the latter ; be cause 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 prope 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 cockcrowing 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, the d.Xercropog56./via, 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 dis ciples, and consequently that they were not rare in Judma. ? To the present time in the East, and on the Continent of Europe, this bird is still often kept, as amongst the Celtre (Caesar, Bell. Gall. iv. 12), not so much for food as for the purpose of announcing the approach and dawn of day. — C. H. S.