COCCEIANS

the disciples of John Cocceius, a celebrated Dutch divine, born at Bremen, in 1608, where he was appointed profe or of Hebrew, at the age of twenty-seven, and afterward filled the theological chair at Leyden, where he died in 1669. His works make ten volumes in folio. He was a man of good learning, and a vivid imagination. He considered the Old Testament as a mirror, which held forth figuratively the transactions and events that were to happen in the church under the dispensation of the New Testament, and unto the end of the world. He maintained, that by far the greater part of the ancient prophecies related to Christ’s ministry and mediation, and the rise, progre , and revolutions of the church; not only under the figure of typical persons and transactions, but in a more direct manner; and that Christ was, indeed, as much the substance of the Old Testament as of the New. Cocceius also taught, that the covenant made between God and the Jews was of the same nature as the new covenant by Jesus Christ; that the law was promulgated by Moses, not merely as a rule of obedience, but also as a representation of the covenant of grace; that when the Jews had provoked the Deity by their various transgre ions, particularly by the worship of the golden calf, the severe yoke of the ceremonial law was added as a punishment; that this yoke, which was painful in itself, became doubly so on account of its typical signification; since it admonished the Israeli tes from day to day of the imperfection of their state, filled them with anxiety, and was a perpetual proof that they had merited the righteous judgment of God, and could not expect, before the coming of the Me iah, the entire remi ion of their iniquities; that indeed good men, under the Mosaic dispensation, were, after death, made partakers of glory; but that, neverthele , during the whole course of their lives they were far removed from that a urance of salvation, which rejoices the believer under the dispensation of the Gospel; and that their anxiety flowed from this consideration, that their sins, though they remained unpunished, were not yet pardoned; because Christ had not as yet offered himself up to make an atonement for them. Cocceius was also a millennarian, and expected a personal reign of Christ on earth in the last days. Many of his opinions were afterward adopted by the Hutch in son i ans. COCK, ἀλέκτωρ, a well known domestic fowl. Some derive the Greek name from α, and λέκτρον, a bed , because the crowing of cocks rouses men from their beds; but Mr. Park hurst asks, “May not this name be as properly deduced from the Hebrew אור הלכת , the coming of the light , of which this ‘bird of dawning,’ as Shakspeare calls him, gives such remarkable notice, and for doing which he was, among the Heathen, sacred to the sun, who in Homer is himself called ἀλέκτωρ?” In Matt. xxvi, 34, our Lord is represented as saying, that before cock-crow Peter should deny him thrice; so Luke xxii, 34, and John xiii, 39. But according to Mark xiv, 30, he says, “Before the cock crow twice thou shalt deny me thrice.” These texts may be very satisfactorily reconciled, by observing, that ancient authors, both Greek and Latin, mention two cock-crowings, the one of which was soon after midnight, the other about three o’clock in the morning; and this latter being most noticed by men as the signal of their approaching labours, was called by way of eminence, the cock-crowing; and to this alone, Matthew, giving the general sense of our Saviour’s warning to Peter, refers; but Mark, recording his very words, mentions the two cock-crowings. The rabbies tell us that cocks were not permitted to be kept in Jerusalem on account of the holine of the place; and that for this reason some modern Jews cavil against this declaration of the Evangelists; but the cock is not among the birds prohibited in the law of Moses. If there was any restraint in the use and domestication of the animal, it must have been an arbitrary practice of the Jews, and could not have been binding on foreigners, of whom many resided at Jerusalem as officers or traders. Strangers would not be willing to forego an innocent kind of food in compliance with a conquered people; and the trafficking spirit of the Jews would induce them to supply aliens, if it did not expre ly contradict the letter of their law. This is sufficient to account for fowl of this kind being there, even admitting a customary restraint. The celebrated Reland admits that it was not allowed to breed cocks in the city, but that the Jews were not prohibited from buying them to eat, and that therefore the cock mentioned in the Gospel might be in the house of a Jew who designed to kill it for his own table; or may have been kept in the precincts of Pilate, or of a Roman officer or soldier. During the time of our Saviour, the night was divided into four watches, a fourth watch having been introduced among the Jews from the Romans, who derived it from the Greeks. The second and third watches are mentioned in Luke xii, 38; the fourth, in Matthew xiv, 25; and the four are all distinctly mentioned in Mark xiii, 35: “Watch, therefore; for ye know not when the master of the house cometh; at even ,” ὀψὲ, or the late watch, “or at midnight ,” μεσονυκτίου, “or at the cock-crowing ,” ἀλεκτοροφωνίας, “or in the morning ,” ϖρωΐ, the early watch. Here, the first watch was at even, and continued from six till nine; the second commenced at nine, and ended at twelve, or midnight; the third watch, called by the Romans gallicinium , lasted from twelve to three; and the morning watch closed at six. COCKATRICE, צפען , or צפעי , Proverbs xxiii, 32; Isaiah xi, 8; xiv, 29; lix, 5; Jer. viii, 17. A venomous serpent. The original Hebrew word has been variously rendered, the aspic , the regulus , the hydra , the hemorhoos , the viper , and the cerastes . In Isaiah xi, 8, this serpent is evidently intended for a proportionate advance in malignity beyond the peten which precedes it; and in xiv, 29, it must mean a worse kind of serpent than the nahash . In lix, 5, it is referred to as oviparous. In Jer. viii, 17, Dr. Blayney, after Aquila, retains the rendering of basilisk. Bochart, who thinks it to be the regulus or basilisk, says that it may be so denominated by an onomatopœia from its hi ing; and accordingly it is hence called in Latin sibilus , “the hi er.” So the Arabic saphaa signifies “flatu adurere,” [to scorch with a blast.] The Chaldee paraphrast, the Syriac, and the Arabic, render it the hurman or horman ; which rabbi Selomo on Gen. xlix, 17, declares to be the tziphoni of the Hebrews: “ Hurman vocatur species, cujus mors us est insanabilis. Is est Hebræis tziphoni, et Chaldaicè dicitur hurman, qui a omnia facit חרם vastationem; id est, qui a omnia vast at, et ad internecionem destruit. ” [The species is called hurman , whose bite is incurable. It is the tziphoni of the Hebrews, and is called in Chaldee hurman , because it makes all things חרם --a waste; that is, because it lays waste and utterly destroys every thing.]