MANDRAKE

דודאים , Gen. xxx, 14–16; Cant. vii, 13. Interpreters have wasted much time and pains in endeavouring to ascertain what is intended by the Hebrew word dudaim . Some translate it by violet,” others, lilies,” jasmines,” truffle or mushroom,” and some think that the word means flowers,” or fine flowers,” in general. Bochart, Calmet, and Sir Thomas Browne, suppose the citron intended; Celsius is persuaded that it is the fruit of the lote tree; Hiller, that cherries are spoken of; and Ludolf maintains that it is the fruit which the Syrians call mauz, resembling in figure and taste the Indian fig; but the generality of interpreters and commentators understand by dudaim , mandrakes, a species of melon; and it is so rendered in the Septuagint, and in both the Targums, on Gen. xxx, 14. It appears from Scripture, that they were in perfection about the time of wheat harvest, have an agreeable odour, may be preserved, and are placed with pomegranates. Ha el quist, the pupil and intimate friend of Linnæus, who travelled into the Holy Land to make discoveries in natural history, imagines that the plant commonly called mandrake, is intended. Speaking of Nazareth, in Galilee, he says, “What I found most remarkable at this village was the great number of mandrakes which grew in a vale below it. I had not the pleasure to see this plant in blo om, the fruit now (May 5th, O. S.) hanging ripe on the stem, which lay withered on the ground. From the season in which this mandrake blo oms and ripens fruit, one may form a conjecture that it was Rachel’s dudaim . These were brought her in the wheat harvest, which in Galilee is in the month of May, about this time, and the mandrake was now in fruit.” MANICHÆANS, or MANICHEES, a denomination founded in the latter part of the third century, by Mani, Manes, or Manichæus. Being a Persian or Chaldean by birth, and educated among the magi, he attempted a coalition of their doctrine with the Christian system, or rather, the explication of the one by the other. Dr. Lardner, so far from taking Mani and his followers for enthusiasts, as some have done, thinks they erred on the other side, and were rather a sect of reasoners and philosophers, than visionaries and enthusiasts. So Faustus, one of their leaders, says, the doctrine of Mani taught him not to receive every thing recommended as said by our Saviour, but first to examine and consider whether it be true, sound, right, genuine; while the Catholics, he says, swallowed every thing, and acted as if they despised the benefit of human reason, and were afraid to examine and distinguish between truth and falsehood. St. Augustine, it is well known, was for some time among this sect; but they were not pretensions to inspiration, but specious and alluring promises of rational discoveries, by which Augustine was deluded, as he particularly states in his letter to his friend Honor at us. So Beausobre remarks: These heretics were philosophers, who, having formed certain systems, accommodated revelation to them, which was the servant of their reason, not the mistre .” Mani, according to Dr. Lardner, believed in an eternal self-existent Being, completely happy and perfect in goodne , whom alone he called God, in a strict and proper sense; but he believed, also, in an evil principle or being, which he called hyle , or the devil, whom he considered as the god of this world, blinding the eyes of them that believe not, 2 Cor. iv, 4. God, the supreme and good, they considered as the Author of the universe; and, according to St. Augustine, they believed, also, in a consubstantial trinity, though they strangely supposed the Father to dwell in light inacce ible, the Son to have his residence in the solar orb, and the Holy Spirit to be diffused throughout the atmosphere; on which account they paid a superstitious, and perhaps an idolatrous, reverence to the sun and moon. Their belief in the evil principle was, no doubt, adopted to solve the mysterious question of the origin of evil, which, says Dr. Lardner, was the ruin of these men, and of many others. As to the hyle , or the devil, though they dared not to consider him as the creature of God, neither did they believe in his eternity; for they contended, from the Greek text of John viii, 44, that he had a father. But they admitted the eternity of matter, which they called darkne ; and supposed hyle to be the result of some wonderful and unaccountable commotion in the kingdom of darkne , which idea seems to be borrowed from the Mosaic chaos. In this commotion darkne became mingled with light, and thus they account for good and evil being so mixed together in the world. Having thus brought hyle , or Satan, into being, they next found an empire and employment for him. Every thing, therefore, which they conceived unworthy of the fountain of goodne , they attributed to the evil being; particularly the material world, the Mosaic dispensation, and the Scriptures on which it was founded. This accounts for their rejecting the Old Testament. Dr. Lardner contends, however, that they received generally the books of the New Testament, though they objected to particular pa ages as corrupted, which they could not reconcile to their system. On Rom. vii, Mani founded the doctrine of two souls in man, two active principles; one, the source and cause of vicious pa ions, deriving its origin from matter; the other, the cause of the ideas of just and right, and of inclinations to follow those ideas, deriving its origin from God. Considering all sensual enjoyments to be in some degree criminal, they were enemies to marriage; though, at the same time, knowing that all men cannot receive this saying, they allowed it to the second cla of their disciples, called auditors; but by no means to the perfect or confirmed believers. Another absurd consequence of believing the moral evil of matter was, that they denied the real existence of Christ’s human nature, and supposed him to suffer and die in appearance only. According to them, he took the form only of man; a notion that was afterward adopted by Mohammed, and which nece arily excludes all faith in the atonement. Construing too literally the a ertion that flesh and blood could not inherit the kingdom of God, they denied the doctrine of the resurrection. Christ came, they said, to save the souls of men, and not the bodies. No part of matter, according to them, could be worthy of salvation. In many leading principles they thus evidently agreed with the Gnostics, of whom, indeed, they may be considered a branch. MANNA, מן , Exod. xvi, 15, 33, 35; Num. xi, 6, 7, 9; Josh. v, 12; Neh. ix, 20; Psa. lxxviii, 24; μάννα, John vi, 31, 49, 58; Heb. ix, 4; Rev. ii, 17; the food which God gave the children of Israel during their continuance in the deserts of Arabia, from the eighth encampment in the wilderne of Sin. Moses describes it as white like hoar frost, round, and of the bigne of coriander seed. It fell every morning upon the dew; and when the dew was exhaled by the heat of the sun, the manna appeared alone, lying upon the rocks or the sand. It fell every day except on the Sabbath, and this only around the camp of the Israeli tes. Every sixth day there fell a double quantity; and though it putrefied and bred maggots when it was kept any other day, yet on the Sabbath there was no such alteration. The same substance which was melted by the heat of the sun when it was left abroad, was of so hard a consistence when brought into the tent, that it was beaten in mortars, and would even endure the fire, being made into cakes and baked in pans. It fell in so great quantities during the whole forty years of their journey, that it was sufficient to feed the whole multitude of above a million of souls. Every man, that is, every male or head of a family, was to gather each day the quantity of an omer, about three quarts English measure; and it is observed that he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack,” because his gathering was in proportion to the number of persons for whom he had to provide. Or every man gathered as much as he could; and then, when brought home and measured by an omer, if he had a surplus, it went to supply the wants of some other family that had not been able to collect a sufficiency, the family being large, and the time in which the manna might be gathered, before the heat of the day, not being sufficient to collect enough for so numerous a household, several of whom might be so confined as not to be able to collect for themselves. Thus there was an equality; and in this light the words of St. Paul lead us to view the pa age, 2 Cor. viii, 15. To commemorate their living upon manna, the Israeli tes were directed to put one omer of it into a golden vase; and it was preserved for many generations by the side of the ark. Our translators and others make a plain contradiction in the relation of this account of the manna, by rendering it thus: And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna; for they knew not what it was;” whereas the Septuagint, and several authors, both ancient and modern, have translated the text according to the original: “The Israeli tes seeing this, said one to another, What is it? מן הוא ; for they knew not what it was,” and therefore they could not give it a name. Moses immediately answers the question, and says, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.” From Exod. xvi, 31, we learn that this substance was afterward called מן , probably in commemoration of the question they had asked on its first appearance. What this substance was, we know not. It was nothing that was common in the wilderne . It is evident that the Israeli tes never saw it before; for Moses says, He fed thee with manna which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know,” Deut. viii, 3, 16; and it is very likely that nothing of the kind had ever been seen before; and by a pot of it being laid up in the ark, it is as likely that nothing of the kind ever appeared after the miraculous supply in the wilderne had ceased. The author of the book of Wisdom, xvi, 20, 21, says, that the manna so accommodated itself to every one’s taste that it proved palatable and pleasing to all. It has been remarked that at this day, what is called manna is found in several places; in Arabia, on Mount Libanus, Calabria, and elsewhere. The most famous is that of Arabia, which is a kind of condensed honey, which exudes from the leaves of trees, from whence it is collected when it has become concreted. Salmasius thinks this of the same kind which fed the children of Israel; and that the miracle lay, not in creating any new substance, but in making it fall duly at a set time every day throughout the whole year, and that in such plenty as to suffice so great a multitude. But in order for this, the Israeli tes must he supposed every day to have been in the neighbourhood of the trees on which this substance is formed; which was not the case, neither do these trees grow in those deserts. Beside, this kind of manna is purgative, and the stomach could not endure it in such quantity as is implied by its being eaten for food. The whole history of the giving the manna is evidently miraculous; and the manna was truly bread from heaven,” as sent by special interposition of God.