MADMAN, MADNESS. Two Hebrew words are rendered by 'madness' in the A. V., viz.— and 69fil. The words rendered mad,' or ,••• madman,' are 3=.`'n, and r6911n. A brief ex T amination of these words will show us the Jewish conception of the nature of madness.
1. rIpp (LXX. vaprorM2Eia, Deut. xxviii. 28 ; rapaq5p6ncrts, Zech. xii. 4) is from an Arabic root, meaning to be strong,' or bold,' and is probably in some way connected with rivi, to wander,' or stumble.' This word, and the participle ,fg;3, mad,' are always used of madness connected with intellectual confusion and excitement ( Wahnsinn), and manifested by wild and rapid actions. In 2 Kings ix. 20 it is applied to the furious' driving of Jehu—' he driveth in madness' (marg. A. V.) It is from a curious and interesting trace of the Dervish-like separation, unusual dress, and intense utterance of the ancient Hebrew prophets, that we find this word applied to them, not without a shade of contempt, by the false prophets or men of the world by whom they were surrounded. Thus, in 2 Kings ix. nr, the captains say of the young prophet missioned by Elisha to anoint Jehu, Wherefore came this mad fellow (LXX. brawn.
ros) to thee?' and still more instructively in Jer. xxix. 26, we find the words t.q.rypli every man that is mad and maketh himself a prophet' (cf. Hos. ix. 7), just as we find Vaticinari et insanire' united in Cicero (Pro Sext. Jo). That the pro phets generally assumed the unkempt aspect and rough garment, which made them, from Elijah to St. John the Baptist, a living testimony against luxury and worldliness, seems probable from Is. xx. 2, Zech. xiii. 4 • and that, in addition to this, there was a certain fury and passion in their looks and gestures during the rapture of prophetic de livery, is clear from the fact that Nzriri is used alike of divine inspiration (I Sam. x. 6, ro, 13), of the raving of impostors (I Kings xviii. 29), and of the frantic outburst of a maniac (I Sam. xviii. ro). To the ancients generally, 'madness' appeared as the direct result of some external spiritual influ ence, and this was more especially the case with the Jews, who had no conception corresponding to the word Law,' as used in science, but attributed every result to the immediate intervention of God.
A poet has profoundly said that Great wit to madness nearly is allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide ;' and the intense realisation of spiritual truths, or the unutterable fulness of noble emotions, may not unfrequently produce effects which, to the idle and sin-degraded observer, appear no better than the vagaries of insanity (Acts xxvi. 24 ; John X. 20 ; 2 Cor. ii. 14; iv. to). In the East, too, where men abandoned themselves with more uncontrolled freedom to inward impulse and outward influences, the manner of a prophet—the nakedness, the dis hevelled hair and foaming lip, and the agitation which often required music for its tranquillization (r Sam. xix. 24 ; 2 Kings iii. 15 ; cf. vi. 45 ; Luc. Phars. v. 160—recalled in some measure the actions of a maniac. It is, however, a fact of deep significance, and one which well illustrates that divine instinct' which guided the disciples (161C)rat /cal though they were, Acts iv. 13) in the use of words, that we find in the N. T. no sanction of this confusion of thought which resulted among the ancient Hebrews from confusion of language, and among the ancient Greeks from limitation of knowledge. The apostles do not adopt the word aavreocaBaz (derived from p.alpopai, Plat. Phzedr., p. 244), because it sanctioned the erroneous conception which even Cicero pointed out only to condemn (Ut alia nos melius quam Grmci, sic huic prstantissimx rei nomen nostri a divis ; Graeci, ut Plato interpretatur, a furore dux erunt—.De Div. i. 1). Knowing and teaching that the spirits of the prophets are subject to the pro phets' (1 Cor. xiv. 32), they reject Acivrts alto gether for irpoOrns, and only use i.caurcOop.a‘ once (Acts xvi. 16) of the girl who imagined herself to be possessed by the spirit of Python (Trench, Synonyms of the N. T., 1. 6).