[645] Herodian (Hist., v. 3) describes the dance of Heliogabalus round the altar of the Emesene Sun-god, and Apuleius describes at length the fanatic leapings and gashings of the execrable Galli—the eunuch-mendicant priests of the Syrian goddess. From these sources and from allusions in Seneca, Lucian, Statius, Arnobius, etc., Movers (Phöniz., i. 682) derives his description (quoted by Keil, ad loc., E.T., p. 281): "A discordant howling opens the scene. Now they fly wildly through one another, with the head sunk down to the ground, but turning round in circles, so that the loose flowing hair drags through the mire. Thereupon they first bite themselves on the arm, and at last cut themselves with two-edged swords, which they are wont to carry. Then begins a new scene. One of them who surpasses all the rest in frenzy, begins to prophesy with sighs and groans, openly accuses himself of past sins, which he now wishes to punish by the mortifying of the flesh, takes the knotted whip which the Galli are wont to bear, lashes his back, cuts himself with swords, till the blood trickles down from his mangled body."
[646] Verse 27. Others render it "meditating" (De Wette Thenius) or "peevish" (Bähr). Comp. Hom., Il., i. 423; Od., i. 22, etc.
[647] This instance of "grim sarcastic humour" is almost unique in Scripture. It was made more mordant by the paronomasia כִּי־שִׂיחַ וְכִי־שִׂיג לֹּו (2 Sam. i. 22).
[648] Plutarch (De Superstit., p. 170) says: "The priests of Bellona offered their own blood, which was deemed powerful to move their gods." Comp. Herod., ii. 61; Lucian, De Dea Syra, 50; Apul., Metam., viii. 28.
[649] עַד לַעֲלוֹת הַמִּנחָה, "till towards (Numb. xxviii. 4) the offering of the Minchah." LXX., θυσία; Vulg., sacrificium and holocaustum. In verse 39 it is omitted in the LXX. "There is a great concurrence of evidence that the evening sacrifice of the first Temple was not a holocaust, but a cereal oblation" (Robertson Smith, p. 143, quoting 1 Kings xviii. 34; 2 Kings xvi. 15; Ezek. ix. 4, Heb).
[650] Heb., וַיִתְנַבְּאוּ; LXX., διέτρεχον; Vulg., transiliebant. Literally, they acted like frantic prophets (1 Sam. xviii. 10; Jer. xxix. 26).
[651] LXX., θαλάσσαν, or "sea"—the name given to Solomon's molten laver; but the description, "as great as would contain two seahs of seed," is curious, for a seah was only the third of an ephah.
[652] Blunt (Undesigned Coincidences, II. xxxii.) thinks that as the drought had been so intense the water must have been sea-water. But Josephus says it was drawn ἀπὸ τῆς κρήνης (Antt., VIII. xiii. 5); and the well still exists.
[653] Priests, both pagan and mediæval, have been adepts at deception. At the Reformation the mechanism of winking Madonnas, etc., was exposed to the people. At Pompeii may still be seen the secret staircase behind the altar, and the pipes let into the head of Isis from behind, through which the priests spoke her pretended oracles. St. Chrysostom (Orat. in. Petr. et Eliam, which is of uncertain genuineness) tells us that he had himself seen (θεάτης αὐτὸς γενομένος) altars with concealed hollows in the middle, into which the unsuspected operator crept, and blew up a fire which the people were assured was self-kindled (see Keil, p. 282). One legend says that on this occasion a man was suffocated, who had been concealed by the Baal priests inside their altar.
[654] 1 Kings xviii. 36.