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bitrary. In many cases the suspicion is no sooner entertained, or the cause of offence given, than the fatal order is issued; the messenger of death hurries to the unsuspecting victim, shews his warrant, and executes his orders that instant in silence and solitude. Instances of this kind are continually occurring in the Turkish and Persian histories. "When the enemies of a great man among the Turks have gained influence enongh over the prince to procure a warrant for his death, a capidgi, (the name of the officer who executes these orders) is sent to him, who shews him the order he has received to carry back his head; the other takes the warrant of the grand signior, kisses it, puts it on his head in token of respect, and then having performed his ablutions, and said his prayers, freely resigns his life. The capidgi having strangled him, cuts off his head, and brings it to Constantinople. The grand signior's order is implicitly obeyed; the servants of the victim never attempt to hinder the executioner, although these capidgis come very often with few or no attendants." It appears from the writings of Chardin, that the nobility and grandees of Persia, are put to death in a manner equally silent, hasty, and unobstructed. Such executions were not uncommon among the Jews under the government of their kings. Solomon sent Beniah as his capidgi, or executioner, to put Adonijah, a prince of his own family, to death; and Joab, the commander in chief of the forces in the reign of his father. A capidgi likewise heheaded John the Baptist in the prison, and carried his head to the court of Herod. To such

* Harmer's Observ. vol. iii, p. 373. * In Hindostan, punishment of all

Thevenot, part i, chap. 46. offences is exacted immediately after

conviction. Orme's Hist. of Military Trans. vol. iv, p. 451,

silent and hasty executioners the royal preacher seems to refer in that proverb; "The wrath of a king is as messengers of death; but a wise man will pacify it :"t his displeasure exposes the unhappy offender to immediate death, and may fill the unsuspecting bosom with terror and dismay, like the appearance of a capidgi; but by wise and prudent conduct, a man may sometimes escape the danger. From the dreadful promptitude with which Beniah executed the commands of Solomon on Adonijah, and Joab, it may be concluded that the executioner of the court was as little ceremonious, and the ancient Jews nearly as passive as the Turks or Persians. The prophet Elisha is the only person on the inspired record, who ventured to resist the bloody mandate of the sovereign; the incident is recorded in these terms: "But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him; but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away mine head? Look when the messenger cometh; shut the door, and hold him fast at the door-is not the sound of his master's feet behind him ?"" But if such mandates had not been too common among the Jews, and in general submitted to without resistance, Jehoram had scarcely ventured to dispatch a single messenger to take away the life of so eminent a person as Elisha.

Criminals were at other times executed in public; and then commonly, without the city. To such executions without the gate, the Psalmist undoubtedly refers in this complaint: "The dead bodies of thy saints have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven; the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth; their blood " 2 Kings vi, 32.

* Prov. xvi, 14.

have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, and

V

there was none to bury them." The last clause admits of two senses. 1st, There was no friend or relations left to bury them. 2d, None were allowed to perform this last office. The despotism of eastern princes often proceeds to a degree of extravagance which is apt to fill the mind with astonishment and horror. It has been thought, from time immemorial, highly criminal to bury those who had lost their lives by the hand of an executioner, without permission. In Morocco, no person dares to bury the body of a malefactor without an order from the emperor; and Windus, who visited that country, speaking of a man who was sawn in two, informs us, that "his body must have remained to be eaten by the dogs if the emperor had not pardoned him; an extravagant custom to pardon a man after he is dead; but unless he does so, no person dares bury the body."" To such a dregree of savage barbarity it is probable the enemies of God's people carried their opposition, that no person dared to bury the dead bodies of their innocent victims.

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In ancient times, persons of the highest rank and station were employed to execute the sentence of the law. They had not then, as we have at present, public executioners; but the prince laid his commands on any of his courtiers whom he chose, and probably selected the person for whom he had the greatest favour. Gideon commanded Jether, his eldest son, to execute his sentence on the kings of Midian: the king of Israel ordered the footmen who stood around him, and were probably a chosen body of soldiers for the defence of his person, to put to death the priests of the Lord; and when they refused,

▾ Psa. lxxix, 2, 3.

W

Journey to Mequinez, p. 157.

Doeg, an Edomite, one of his principal officers. Long after the days of Saul, the reigning monarch commanded Beniah, the chief captain of his armies, to perform that duty. Sometimes the chief magistrate executed the sentence of the law with his own hands; for when Jether shrunk from the duty which his father required, Gideon, at that time the supreme magistrate in Israel, did not he sitate to do it himself. In these times such a command would be reckoned equally barbarous and unbecoming but the ideas which were entertained in those primitive ages of honour and propriety, were in many respects extremely different from ours. In Homer, the exasperated Ulysses commanded his son Telemachus to put to death the suitors of Penelope, which was immediately done.* The custom of employing persons of high rank to execute the sentence of the law, is still retained in the prin cipality of Senaar, where the public executioner is one of the principal nobility; and, by virtue of his office, resides in the royal palace.

The trial by ordeal, is well known in eastern countries, and was appointed by God himself in the law of Moses in cases of jealousy: "The priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord; and the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle, the priest shall take and put it into the water, and give her to drink." Among the Hindoos, trials by ordeal are frequent, and conducted in many different ways, of which, one strikingly resembles the Jewish ordeal by the water of jealousy. Trial by the cosha, is thus described in the Asiatic Researches: "The * Odyssey, lib. x, 1. 465.

y Bruce's Trav. vol. vi, p. 372.

Z

* Numb. v, 14.

accused is made to drink three draughts of the water, in which the images of the sun, of Devi, and other deities, have been washed for that purpose; and if within fourteen days he has any sickness or indisposition, his crime is considered as proved.'

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When the accused person was convicted of the crime laid to his charge, he was subjected to a capital or arbitrary punishment, according to the nature of his offence. One of the most common punishments in use among the Jews, was stoning, which appears to have been a most grievous and terrible infliction: "When the criminal arrived within four cubits of the place of execution, he was stripped naked, only leaving a covering before; and his hands being bound, he was led up to the fatal spot, which was an eminence about twice the height of a man. The first executioners of the sentence, were the witnesses, who generally pulled off their clothes for that purpose: one of them threw him down with great violence upon his loins; if he rolled upon his breast, he was turned upon his loins again and if he died by the fall, the sentence of the law was executed; but if not, the other witness took a great stone and dashed it on his breast as he lay upon his back; and then, if he was not dispatched, all the people that stood by, threw stones at him till he died." Lapidation was also a common punishment in Greece, and was usually inflicted by the primitive Greeks on those that were taken in adultery, as we learn from the third Iliad, where Hector tells Paris, that for all his villanies, he should be stoned to death:

с

Λαινον τσσο χιτωνα κακων ενεκ' ούσα εργας. Il. lib. iii, 1. 57.

a Asiatic Res. vol. i,

p.

389. b Lewis Origines Hebrææ, vol. i, p. 74, 76. Potter's Gr. Antiq. vol. i, p.

135.

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