assembled nations. This will sufficiently appear to any person, who attentively reads the whole of the third chapter in connection with the latter end of the second. Nothing indeed, I am persuaded, could have given rise to such an opinion, except the arbitrary division of chapters, and the mention of prophets and priests and a sanctuary as all appertaining to the polluted city. Zephaniah himself however, unless I be greatly mistaken, puts the matter out of all doubt by describing in a very remarkable manner the city mentioned in the third chapter. Our translators speak of it as the oppressing city; and such no doubt it is: yet neither does this character accord with that of Jerusalem, which was notoriously an oppressed not an oppressing city, a city successively oppressed by the iron rod of foreign tyrants; nor does Zephaniah, I apprehend, mean thus to designate it in the words which he here uses. He had already represented it as a city swelling with pride and deeply polluted, a city exalting itself above all other cities; whence it would appear somewhat tautological and unnecessary to style it the oppressing city, which is an idea plainly involved in what he said before respecting it. Instead therefore of the oppressing city, I translate his words the city of the dove, and consider them as allusive to a well-known object of worship among the Assyrians. And in this translation I find myself confirmed by the LXX, the Vulgate, and the Latin translations of the Syriac and the Arabic; all of which so understand the original word rendered in our version oppressing. None of them indeed, except the Latin version of the Syriac, have translated the expression quite properly; for they read the city the dove, instead of the city of the dove: but, so far as the word itself is concerned, they manifestly understood it to mean a dove, not oppressive. How greatly the dove was venerated by the Assyrians is well known to every person in the least degree conversant with ancient mythology. Diodorus informs us, that they worshipped it as a goddess; and Semiramis, one of their fabulous sovereigns, was reported to have been changed into a dove t. She was in fact the sacred emblem of the dove itself: whence, according to Athenagoras, she was worshipped by the Syrians; and was esteemed the daughter of Derceto, and the same * Διο και της Ασσυρίως την περιτεραν τιμαν ὡς θεαν. Diod. Bibl. L. ii. p. 107. * Το Σεμιράμιδος τέλος ες περιτερήν απίκετο (Lucian. de dea Syra. Vol. ii. p. 885.) Ενιοι δε μυθολογεέντες φασιν αυτην γενεσθαί περίσει par (Diod. Bibl. L. ii. p. 107.). Diodorus further says, that the person who was supposed to have named her, bestowed the appellation Semiramis upon her from Doves: oropa Denever Twy wepisepwv (L. ii. p. 93.). Hence Hesychius informs us, that Semiramis signifies a wild pigeon: Σεμίραμις, περιστερα opesos nus. See likewise Ovid. Metam, Lib. iv. ver. 44--18: and Athen. Legat. p. 33, as as the Syrian goddess *. She was likewise the same, in the mythology of Syria, as Rhea, Isis, Astartè, and Atargatis f. In her temple at Hierapolis, her image bore upon its head a golden dove; which the Assyrians themselves called Semeion ‡, a compound oriental word denoting the emblem of the dove. As the western nations mistook the character of Semiramis, and fancied that she was a princess, they had a tradition that her standard was a dove; because they found that such was the national insigne of Assyria, the standard of all the Assyrian kings, as the eagle was of Rome both republican and imperial §. This being the case, the Assyrian empire itself was poetically styled the dove; in allusion to its favourite badge ; and ac * Την Σεμίραμιν σεβασί Συροι Η θυγατης της Δερκετες Σεμιράμις Edoge Zupia Jeos. Athen. Legat. p. 307. + Chron. Pasch. p. 36-Luc. de dea Syra, Vol. ii. p. 885. * Καλέεται δε σημεΐον και ὑπ' αυτων Ασσυρίων (Luc. de dea Syra :): not merely by the Greeks, but by the Assyrians themselves. Semeïon is Sem-Jonah, the name or sign of the dove. § Signum vexilli Semiramidos fuit figura columbæ; quod vexilli signum imitati sunt omnes Assyrii reges (David Ganz Chronolog. L. ii. ad annum 1958.). After the conquest of Babylon by the Assyrians, all the tract of country between the Tigris and Euphrates was called Assyria. Our Lord alludes in a similar manner to the Roman ensign, when predicting the siege of Jerusalem by Titus: Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together (Matt. xxiv. 28.). The apocryphal Esdras likewise symbolizes the Roman empire, or Daniel's fourth beast, by an eagle. See 2 Esdras xi. xii. and particularly xii. 11, R 4 cordingly cordingly it is thrice mentioned by Jeremiah under the name of that very symbol. Speaking of the land of Israel being laid waste by the Babylonians, he styles them Jonah or the dove; which passage is properly rendered by the Vulgate, Their land was made a desolation from the face of the anger of the dove*. In another place, foretelling that the Jews should be restored to their own land, in consequence of the downfall of Babylon, he puts these words into the mouth of the people, as they are likewise properly rendered by the Vulgate: Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the face of the sword of the dovet. So again, speaking of the overthrow of the Assyrian empire, he says; From the face of the sword of the dove, they (the captive Jews) shall turn every one to his people, and every one to his own land. In all these passages Jeremiah uses the very same word Jonah or a dove to designate the Babylonian or later Assyrian empire, that Zephaniah does to describe Nineveh which was the capital city of the dove or first Assyrian empire §. And here I think we may observe a singular * Jerem. xxv. 38. Jerem. 1. 16. Jerem. xlvi. 16. § It was probably in allusion to the sacredness of this bird. among the Assyrians, that Hosea uses for a comparison the flight of a dove out of the land of Assyria (Hos. xi. 11.). There are still some remains in the East of the ancient diluvian veneration of the dove and the fish. "In Mecca there are thousands "of singular propriety in the name of the prophet, who was sent to preach repentance to the Ninevites. Jonah seems rather to be a title than a proper name. From the circumstance of the sacred dove being accounted oracular by the heathens, their priests and prophets were sometimes denominated doves, as at other times for the same reason they were denominated ravens *. The prophet then, assuming the title of Jonah or the dove, calls upon Nineveh, the city of the dove, to repent of her iniquities; and, instead of consulting the false oracle of her favourite dove, to attend to the true oracle sent by the living God f. But "of blue pigeons, which none will affright or abuse, much "less kill them; and they are therefore so very tame, that "they will pick meat out of one's hand-They come in great "flocks to the temple, where they are usually fed by the pil"grims," The people of Mecca call them the pigeons of the prophet (Pitts cited by Harmer, Observ. Vol, iii. p. 57.). In a similar manner Sir John Chardin twice mentions the sacred fishes of the East; and tells us, that an Armenian Christian, who had ventured to take some of them, was killed on the spot. Ibid. p. 58, 59, Hence Herodotus, when speaking of two priestesses who came from Thebes in Egypt and settled in Dodona, styles them doves. Herod. Hist. L. ii. c. 54. I am indebted to Mr. Bryant, for these remarks on the Assyrian dove. See his Anal. Vol. ii p. 283-320. + Mr. Bryant, in a later publication, seems to think that Jonah was so called from his being a semi-idolater, partly worshipping God, and partly the Jonah or dove: but, in his Analysis, he conceives, and perhaps more justly, that this title was |