THRESHOLD, THE. The threshold of a house or temple figures in the religion of certain peoples as a sacred spot or a dangerous point. According to Hero dotus (ii. 48) every Egyptian sacrificed before the door of his house a hog to Osiris (q.v.). According to H. Clay Trumbull, in modern Egypt the incoming master of a house may be welcomed by a threshold sacrifice. In modern Syria it is unlucky to tread on a threshold; and in Upper Syria the friends of a bridegroom sometimes carry the bride across the threshold of the bridegroom's house. The Hebrew word for Passover, pesalt, is derived from a root meaning "to leap, dance." This has sug gested that perhaps the Passover was so called because, after the performance of a special rite, the Israelites, in recognition of the sanctity of the threshold, leaped over it or performed a ritual dance near it. In Zephaniah (1. 9) It Is said : " And I will punish all who leap over the threshold, who fill the house of their lord with violence and deceit." T. K. Cheyne paraphraies this (Encycl. Bibl.): "And on that day I will punish those who, though they leap with scrupulous awe over the sacred threshold, yet bring with them into Yahwb's house hands stained with cruelty and injustice." But the
reference here may be to some superstitious practice of foreign origin. The threshold of the house has been regarded by many peoples as the favourite abode of demons or the ghosts of the dead. W. Warde Fowler mentions that among the Romans a man who returned home after his supposed death in a foreign country was made to enter the house by the roof instead of by the door. He might be a ghost or have evil spirits about him, and against such the door had to be kept barred. There was a curious Roman ceremony immediately after the birth of a child, the object of which was " to prevent Silvanus, who may stand for the dangerous spirits of the forest, from entering in and vexing the baby " (Warde Fowler). St. Augustine mentions a protecting spirit of the entrance to a house named Limentinus. See H. Clay Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, 1896; the Encycl. Bibl.; W. Warde Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman People. 1911.