An examination of the essays Bacchus and Anti-Bacchus / by John MacLean.

  • John Maclean
Date:
1841
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An examination of the essays Bacchus and Anti-Bacchus / by John MacLean. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    term for leaven. But this will not be pretended. Corres- ponding to the Arabic verb khamara, to ferment, and the Arabic noun khamr, wine, there are in the Hebrew the terms hhamar, to ferment, and hhemer, wine, but for the Arabic term khamireh or khamirat, leaven, there is no cog- nate word in the Hebrew. In this language, the word for lea- ven is ixi? (seor) and for the thing leavened yon (hhamets); therefore could it be shown that in the Arabic the term kha- mireh included the ferment of wine as well as that of bread, it would be of no avail in an attempt to prove that the terms seor and hhamets do the same. Unless this be done, there is not the shadow of proof that the Jews were required to exclude from their tables the fermented juice of the grape during the Paschal feast: and were it done, yet the evidence in favour of the exclusion would be defective, until it were shown from an examination of the terms of the law, that the words denot- ing leaven were to be taken in their most extensive meaning. What the evidence is on this point we shall consider pre- sently, and we hope to show that these terms express mere- ly the fermentation of corn, as mentioned by Mr. Herschel in his remarks on the import of the ]*nn (hhamets), given in Bacchus, p. 364.* The word Chornets says Mr. Parsons, in Hebrew * ^Cfj.r], the Greek term for leaven, is derived from Psu, to ferment, and yet while the verb is applied by Greek writers to the fermentation of wine, the noun ^ufjivj is never thus used. And in Latin, while the verb ferveo is applied to the transition of must into wine, the noun fermentum never is; and yet it is employed to express a drink made from grain. Et pocula laeti Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis.—Virgil's Georgics, III. 379, 38Q, This use of fermentum has some resemblance to the use of |'ttn which in- cludes fermented liquors made from corn as well as leavened bread, 13
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