II. The fashion, however, of adorning the necklace with golden Suns and Moons, so agreeable to the Hebrew ladies of Isaiah's time, (chap. iii. 18,) was not derived from Phoenicia, but from Arabia. At an earlier period, (Judges, viii. 21,) the camels of the Midianites were adorned with golden moons, which also decorated the necks of the emirs of that nomadic tribe. These appendages were not used merely by way of ornament, but originally as talismans, or amulets, against sickness, danger, and every species of calamity to which the desert was liable. The particular form of the amulet is to be explained out of the primitive religion, which prevailed in Arabia up to the rise of Mahometanism, in the seventh century of Christianity, viz. the Sabean religion, or worship of the heavenly host—sun, moon, and stars, the most natural of all modes of idolatry, and especially to a nomadic people in flat and pathless deserts, without a single way-mark or guidance for their wanderings, except what they drew from the silent heavens above them. It is certain, therefore, that, long before their emigration into Palestine, the Israelites had received the practice of wearing suns and moons from the Midianites; even after their settlement in Palestine, it is certain that the worship of the starry host struck root pretty deeply at different periods; and that, to the sun and moon, in particular, were offered incense and libations.
From Arabia, this fashion diffused itself over many countries; [Footnote 6] and it was not without great displeasure that, in a remote age, Jerome and Tertullian discovered this idolatrous ornament upon the bosoms of their countrywomen.
The crescents, or half-moons of silver, in connection with the golden suns, [Footnote 6] were sometimes set in a brilliant frame that represented a halo, and still keep their ground on the Persian and Turkish toilette, as a favorite ornament.
III. The GOLDEN SNAKES, worn as one of the Hebrew appendages to the necklace, had the same idolatrous derivation, and originally were applied to the same superstitious use—as an amulet, or prophylactic ornament. To minds predisposed to this sort of superstition, the serpent came specially recommended under the circumstances of the Hebrews, from the conspicuous part which this reptile sustains in the mythologies of the East. From the earliest periods to which tradition ascends, serpents of various species were consecrated to the religious feelings of Egypt, by temples, sacrifices, and formal rites of worship. This mode of idolatry had at various periods infected Palestine. According to 2 Kings, xviii. 4, at the accession of King Hezekiah, the Israelites had raised peculiar altars to a great brazen serpent, and burned incense upon them. Even at this day the Abyssinians have an unlimited reverence for serpents; and the blacks in general regard them as fit subjects for divine honors. Sonnini (II. 388) tells us, that a serpent's skin is still looked upon in Egypt as a prophylactic against complaints of the head, and also as a certain cure for them. And of the same origin, no doubt, was the general belief of antiquity, (according to Pliny, 30, 12,) that the serpent's skin was a remedy for spasms. That the golden serpent kept its place as an ornament of the throat and bosom after the Christian era, we learn from Clement of Alexandria. That zealous father, so intolerant of superstitious mummery under every shape, directs his efforts against this fashion as against a—device of the devil.
IV. To the lowest of the several concentric circles which composed the necklace, was attached a little box, exquisitely wrought in silver or gold, sometimes an onyx phial of dazzling whiteness, depending to the bosom or even to the cincture, and filled with the rarest aromas and odorous spices of the East. What were the favorite essences preserved in this beautiful appendage to the female costume of Palestine, it is not possible at this distance of time to determine with certainty—Isaiah having altogether neglected the case, and Hosea (who appears to allude to it, ii. 14) having only once distinctly mentioned it, (ii. 20.) However, the Thalmud particularizes musk, and the delightful oil distilled from the leaf of the aromatic malabathrum of Hindostan. To these we may venture to add, oil of spikenard, myrrh, balsams, attar of roses, and rose-water, as the perfumes usually contained in the Hebrew scent-pendants. Rose-water, which I am the first to mention as a Hebrew perfume, had, as I presume, a foremost place on the toilette of a Hebrew belle. Express scriptural authority for it undoubtedly there is none; but it is notorious that Palestine availed itself of all the advantages of Egypt, amongst which the rose in every variety was one. Fium, a province of central Egypt, which the ancients called the Garden of Egypt, was distinguished for innumerable species of the rose, and especially for those of the most balsamic order, and for the most costly preparations from it. The Thalmud not only speaks generally of the mixtures made by tempering it with oil, (i. 135,) but expressly cites (ii. 41) a peculiar rose-water as so costly an essence, that from its high price alone it became impossible to introduce the use of it into the ordinary medical practice. Indeed this last consideration, and the fact that the highly-prized quintessence cannot be obtained except from an extraordinary multitude of the rarest roses, forbid us to suppose that women of the first rank in Jerusalem could have made a very liberal use of rose-water. In our times, Savary found a single phial of it in the place of its manufacture, valued at four francs. As to the oil of roses, properly so called, which floats in a very inconsiderable quantity upon the surface of distilled rose-water, it is certain that the Hebrew ladies were not acquainted with it. This preparation can be obtained only from the balsamic roses of Fium, of Shiras, of Kerman, and of Kashmire, which surpass all the roses of the earth in power and delicacy of odor; and it is matter of absolute certainty, and incontrovertibly established by the celebrated Langles, that this oil, which even in the four Asiatic countries just mentioned, ranks with the greatest rarities, and in Shiras itself is valued at its weight in gold, was discovered by mere accident, on occasion of some festival solemnity in the year 1612.
V. To what I said, in the first scene of my exhibition, about the
Hebrew ear-ornaments, I may add,
1. That sometimes, as Best remarked of the Hindoo dancing-girls, their ears were swollen from the innumerable perforations drilled into them to support their loads of trinketry.
2. That in the large pendants of coral which the Hebrew ladies were accustomed to attach to their ears, either in preference to jewels, or in alternation with jewels, they particularly delighted in that configuration which imitated a cluster of grapes.
3. That, in ear-rings made of gold, they preferred the form of drops, or of globes and bulbs.
4. That of all varieties, however, of this appendage, pearls maintained the preference amongst the ladies of Palestine, and were either strung upon a thread, or attached by little hooks—singly or in groups, according to their size. This taste was very early established amongst the Jews, and chiefly, perhaps, through their intercourse with the Midianites, amongst whom we find the great Emirs wearing pearl ornaments of this class.