tions of the late Dr. Ward, published foon after his death, have given occafion to the annexing this Obfervation to the rest of this chapter. The Doctor fuppofes the Jewish method of embalming was very different from the Ægyptian, and that this appeared by feveral paffages of the New Testament. Both, he thinks, fwathed up their dead ; but instead of the Ægyptian embowelling, he fupposes the Jews contented themselves with an external unction; and that, instead of myrrh and cafia, they made ufe of myrrh and aloes; to which he adds the fuppofition, that St. John might mention the circumftance of our Lord's embalming, the better to obviate the falfe report that then prevailed among the Jews, that the body of our Lord had been stolen away in the night by his difciples, for the linen, he fuppofes, could not have been taken from the body and head, in the manner in which it was found in the fepulchre, on account of its clinging fo faft from the viscous nature of thefe drugs, had they been fo foolish as to attempt it.

The modern Eaftern method, the modern Ægyptian method, of applying odours to the dead, certainly differs from that which was anciently made use of in that country. The prefent way in Ægypt, according to Maillet, is to wash the body divers times with rofe-water, which, he elsewhere obferves, is there much more fragrant than with us; they afterwards • Lett. 10. p. 88.

perfume

perfume it with incense, aloes, and a quantity of other odours, of which they are by no means fparing; they after that bury the body in a winding-fheet, made partly of filk, and partly of cotton, and moistened (as I imagine, with some sweet-fcented water, or liquid perfume, though Maillet only uses the simple term moistened ;) this they cover with another cloth of unmixed cotton; to which they add one of the richest fuits of clothes of the deceased. The expenfe, he fays, on these occafions, is very great, though nothing like what the genuine embalmings of former times coft.

The modern Ægyptian way of embalming then, if it may be called by that name, differs very much from the ancient; whether the Jewish method in the time of our Lord differed as much, or how far, I know not. To pass by the difference Dr. Ward has remarked between their drugs, the Egyptians ufing myrrh and cafia, and the Jews myrrh and aloes, which might be only in appearance, fince more than two forts might be used by both nations, though thefe only happened to be diftinctly mentioned, it doth not appear fo plain to me as to the Doctor, that the Jews were not wont to embowel their dead in embalming. Their hope of a refurrection did not neceffarily prevent this. And as all other nations feem to have embalmed exactly according to the Egyptian manner, the fame caufes that induced them to do fo,

probably occafioned the Jews not to vary from them in this refpect. So the accurate editor of the Ruins of Palmyra tells us they discovered that the inhabitants of that city used to embalm their dead; and that upon comparing the linen, the manner of fwathing, the balfam, and other parts of the Mummies of Egypt, (in which country they had been a few months before,) with thofe of Palmyra, they found their method of embalming exactly the fame. Zenobia, whofe feat of government Palmyra was, was originally a native of Egypt, this writer obferves; but then he remarks that these bodies were embalmed before her time. So that paffage which the Doctor cites' from Tacitus, concerning Poppaa, the wife of Nero, fuppofes it was the common ancient cuftom to fill the body with drugs, and not merely apply them externally, Corpus non igni abolitum, ut Romanus mos; fed Regum exterorum confuetudine DIFFERTÜM odoribus conditur. Her body, that is, was not confumed by fire according to the Roman manner, but was buried, after having been stuffed with odours, after the way of foreign princes, not merely of the Egyptian, but of those that practised burying in general, it seems.

1

It doth not however follow from hence that our Lord was embowelled, though St. John fays, he was buried with fpices as the manner of the Jews was to bury*; for these

? P. 22.

3 P. 143.

4

+ John 19. 40.

words

words do not neceffarily fignify, that all was done that was wont to be done in those cases among the Jews. The contrary appears to be fact, from the farther preparations the women made, who were not, I imagine, unacquainted with what had been done, though Dr. Ward fuppofes the contrary; fince St. Luke expreffly telleth us, that the "women, "which came with him from Galilee, fol"lowed after, and beheld the fepulchre, and "how his body was laid ".

If indeed this be admitted, the Doctor's thought concerning the difficulty of taking off the bandages, befmeared with very glutinous drugs, will appear to be ill-founded, for in that cafe the women could have done nothing more as to the embalming him. That thought indeed feems to have made all the impreffion on the Doctor's mind, that the force of novelty, it might be expected, should give it; but as aloes and myrrh do not appear to have that very glutinous quality the Doctor fuppofed, fo a much more obvious account may be given of St. John's making mention of a circumstance about which the other Evangelifts are filent-He appears to have published his history for the ufe of perfons lefs acquainted with the cuf toms of the East, than those for whofe information the others immediately wrote. The Doctor himself has remarked, in the 32d Differtation, that in giving an account of • Luke 23. 55.

the

the circumstances of the death of our Lord, St. John has reckoned the hours after the manner of the Romans, whereas the other Evangelists speak according to the Jewish method of computation; the fame reafon that induced him to do that, naturally led him to fay to those who were wont to burn their dead, that our Lord was buried, with fpices, which was in general the Jewish method of difpofing of their dead, which he might very well do, though the ftraitnefs of the time did occafion fome deviation from what they commonly practifed.

Which fhortness of time, we may believe, prevented them alfo from fwathing him with that accuracy and length of bandage they would otherwise have ufed: the Ægyptians, we are told, have used above a thousand ells of filletting about a body, befides what was wrapped about the head. Thevenot found it fo, he informs us, in a Mummy which he examined. The Jews, it is reasonable to believe, fwathed them in fomething of the fame form, which could not have been nicely performed in fuch an hurry as the difciples were then in, [though not exactly after the Egyptian manner: for the head not only of our Lord, but of Lazarus, was fimply bound about with a napkin'; which Chardin tells us, in his MS, is ufed by the Mahometans at this very time.