family are well-off, a new suit is made for the occasion. The colour of the mourning also varies. In most countries both the mourners and the coffins are draped in black. But in Russia

the coffins are never covered with cloth of that hue. A child's coffin is lined externally with pink; that of a woman with crimson, and that of a widow with brown. The colour worn by mourners in Ireland is white.

CHAPTER XV.

STRANGE MEN-GIANTS-GIANT RACES-INDIVIDUAL GIANTS.

No belief entertained by mankind is more widely spread, or more deeply seated than that our remote ancestors were more long-lived, more beautiful, and of greater strength and stature than ourselves. The earliest writers, whose works have descended to us, affirm, or appear to affirm, as much; and even in our own day the opinion is not extinct. So far as the duration of life is concerned, that, no doubt, has the express sanction of Holy Scripture, and will be accepted without question, by all believers. With regard to the second notion that our ancestors exceeded us in symmetry and beauty--that may be said to be a matter of taste and fancy, very difficult to determine, because the ideas of mankind (which is made up of a variety of races, and has existed through many centuries) differ widely as to what constitutes grace and beauty. But the third point is one open to free discussion, and there are--one would think-sufficient data in existence, by which it might be decided. Meanwhile, it may be interesting to collect the evidence which exists as to the general prevalence of the opinion.

The passage which is generally supposed to have given rise to the idea, so far as Jewish and Christian writers are concerned, is that which occurs Genesis vi. 4, "There were giants in the earth in those days." It is no wonder that in times when the Hebrew language was almost unknown, and the

Greek known very imperfectly to the best scholars, these words should have given rise to the belief in question. Closely and critically examined they do not bear it out at all; but that fact, it was reserved for a later age to point out. Meanwhile it will be well, before proceeding to consider the text in question, to remark that though it will explain the widespread existence of the idea, in the instance of the Jews and all Christian nations, it in no way accounts for the prevalence of the same notion among those who had no acquaintance with, and would have acknowledged no authority in, the Mosaic writings.

And there is ample evidence that they entertained the notion in all its fulness. Homer speaks of a race of giants, over whom Eurymedon reigned ("Odyssey," vii. 59), and described the gigantic race of the Cyclopes, in the tenth book of the same poem. He regarded them as one of the primitive races of the world, whom the gods ultimately destroyed for their insolent rebellion against them. Hesiod reports of them that they sprang from the union of Uranus and Gé (Heaven and Earth). Later chroniclers represent them as not only rebelling against the gods, but as attempting to storm Heaven itself, and being cast down to suffer torment in the lowest Tartarus, for the impious offence. Writers subsequent to these clothe the idea in different language, but it remains in the main the same. Berosus tells us that the ten antediluvian kings of Chaldea were all giants. Lucretius speaks of the vast proportions of the earliest created beings. Virgil, following Homer ("Iliad,” v. 305), describes Turnus as raising a huge stone to cast at his antagonist, which six men of his own age could not carry on their shoulders (“Æneid,” xii. 900). Juvenal declares that the gradual diminution of the human race in respect of size and strength had begun even in the days of Homer (Juvenal's

"Satires," xv. 69). The Jews, it may be added, concurred in this continuous deterioration of mankind, as may be gathered from 2 Esdras, v. 54: “Consider thou how ye are less of stature than those that were before you. And so are they that come after you less than ye.”

To return to the passage in Genesis, which (as has been said above) is supposed to have originated the notion, we may in the first place observe that the Hebrew word rendered “giants in our English Version, does not denote persons of enormous stature; and the second, that the word "giant" itself, in its original language (the Greek), has no such meaning either.

The literal meaning of the word in the Hebrew original is either "the fallen" or "the violent;" Hebraists are not agreed which. If the latter interpretation be adopted, it accords well enough with what is said subsequently in the chapter, as to the earth being filled with violence; which, together with its moral corruption, caused its Maker to destroy it. But violence, it needs not to say, has no necessary connection with gigantic

stature.

If the other, and the more generally adopted, interpretation be followed, some explanation must be given of the word "fallen." The notion that they fell upon the rest of mankind, i.e., oppressed and slew them, is obviously untenable, as is that also which represents their fellow-men as falling in terror before them. A more plausible explanation at all events, affirms that they were a "fallen" race, being the offspring of the " sons of God" (or angels), who were allured by the beauty of women to take human shape, and intermarry with them. This is the view supported by the Jewish Rabbis, the Apocryphal book of Enoch, and the great majority of the early Fathers. Dr. Pusey says that the idea "gained for a time extensive, yet not com

plete, reception in the Church, viz., that the sons of God who were the parents of the giants before the Flood, were not the sons of Seth, but Angels." (Pusey on Daniel, p. 387.) Others would explain the persons in question to be "fallen" in the sense of having departed from the righteousness of their ancestors, Seth and Enoch.* The present book is not suitable for a discussion of this question. It is enough for our purpose to show that neither according to this explanation either, is there any hint of extraordinary stature in these presumed giants.

But again the word "giant" (yiyas), which was first introduced into the text of Scripture by the Septuagint translators (B.C. 277) does not in itself contain any reference to great height or strength. The literal English of the word is "earthborn" t-born, that is to say, of the intermixture of the earthly with the unearthly or preternatural, which we call a "monster." The idea of the beings thus engendered being of immense power and stature, is one which has grown up out of men's superstitions and fancies, but has no etymological connection with the word. There is absolutely nothing in the Mosaic account of the world before the Flood to support the belief that the race of men who then occupied the earth were different from ourselves in respect of stature.

Nor is there any other evidence of it. On the contrary, what ever evidence does exist on the subject tends directly to an opposite conclusion. We have the remains of ancient

*This view has been maintained with great ability and learning by Maitland in his work "Eruvin."

† γίγας, probably contracted from γειόγας, formed of γελος, the adjective of yea, a primitive form of yaîa, and the (obsolete) 2 aor. participle of yaw, a root of yelvoμaι, whence yéyaa, and the (obsolete) 2 aor. participle οι γάω, a root of γείνομαι, whence γέγαα.

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