Eran (Hastings' Dictionary)

Grandson of Ephraim, Nu 26^ P. Patronymic, Eranites, ib. ERASTUS CEpoffTot) occurs three times as the name of a companion of St. Paul. 1. From Ac 19*^ we learn that during St. Paul's long stay at Ephesus he sent Timothy and E., two of those that ministered unto him (5i;o tCjv SiaKovowTuv oi>rv), into Macedonia. 2. In Ro 16=^ E. 'the treasurer (olKofSnot) of the city ' is mentioned among those who send their salutations. His office implies that he was a man of some consider- able importance. 3.

In 2 Ti 4"° E. is mentioned as having 'remained in Corinth.' Whether these reff. apply to one, two, or three persons we have no means of conjecturing. It IS, however, not probable that the 'treasurer of the city,' who held an office which implied resid- ence in one locality, should have been, like the others, an itinerant companion of St. Paul. A. C. Headlam. ERECH (Tj-iN) was called by the Babylonians and Assyrians Uruk (or Arku), whence Heb. Erech and Arab. Warka.

A very ancient city, thought at first to be Edessa or Calirrhoe (Urfah) in the N. W. of Mesopotamia. It is the second in the list of the four towns of Gn lO'" (Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh), comprising Nimrod's kingdom in the land of Shinar (Babylonia). Erech (or Warka) lies half- way between Hillah and Korna, on the left bank of the Euphrates, and W. of the Nile Canal. It is supposed bv Fried.

Delitzsch that this river must have flowed nearer to the city at the time of Gil- fames, as the legend relates that GilgameS and la-b4nl washed tlieir hands in the stream after having killed, in Erech, the divine bull sent out by the goddess Ishtar. Its orig. name was Unu, Unug, or Unuga, translated in the bilingual texts by Svbtu • ' seat ' ' dwelling.' don, 'Tbepronunciationofthe word wemi, from > Greek tnnacrip- 3n, to have been tobthu.

It was a very important city — the capital, is fact, of the mythical hero-king GUgameJ. The ruins found on its site show the remains of elegant buildings with fluted walls, sometimes decorated with patterns formed witli the circular ends of various coloured cones imbedded in mortar, bricks bearing archaic Accad. and Bab. inscriptions, etc.

Remains of canals traverse the mass of hillocks (which in some parts are nearly 00 feet lii^li) and the country around the city, sliowing that it must have been well drained in ancient times. Those portions of the walls of the city wliich can be traced seem to have been in the form of an irregu- lar circle about 40 feet high, and show that its average circumference was about si.x miles. The houses of the people are supposed to have extended beyond the walls.

The antiquitj' of the city is indicated by the non-Semitic (bilingual) version of the creation- story, in which its foundation is attributed to the god Merodach (iiP 2nd ser. vi. 107-114). Another and important proof of its antiquity is given in the number of names it bears in the inscriptions. Be- sides its original appellation of Unug, it was called lUag (or Illab) ((K^/ v. pi. 41. 15), Namerim (ii. 50. 58 ; v. 41. 16), Tir-ana 'the heavenly grove ' (v. 41.

16), Ara-imina ' the seven districts ' (ii. 17), Gipar-imina * ' the seven enclosures' (ib. 18), Ki-na- ana 'tlie heavenly resting-place' (ii. 19) — poetical names implying that the city and its surroundings were regarded by the Babylonians as fertile and beautiful in the extreme, and very difl'erent, natu- rally, from the scene of desolation which now meets the traveller's eyes. The Archevites mentioned in the Bk. of Ezra, 4', were inhabitants of the Bab.

Arku or Erech, which was the seat of a celebrated school of learned men. Strabo speaks of the Orcheni (Archevites) as a sect of Chaldiean astro- nomers dwelling near Babylon (xxi. p. 739) ; Ptolemy, as a people of Arabia near the Persian Gulf (v. 19, § 2) ; and Pliny, as an agricultural population, who banked up the waters of the Euphrates and compeUed them to flow into the Tigris (vi. 27, s. 31). Two deities who had temples in the city seem to have been worshipped in E.

, namely, Ishtar and Nana. The temple dedicated to Ishtar (Venus, as the evening star) was called E-ulma§ ' the house of the oracle ' ; the other, dedicated to Nana (the goddess whose image was carried off by the Elamite king, Kudur-nankhundi, B.C. 2280, and only restored to its place 1635 years later by Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria), was called E-ana ' the house of heaven,' and is now represented by the Buwariyya mound.

Among the inscribed and stamped bricks found in Erech are many of the time of the historical kings — Dungi, Ur-Bau, Gudea, Sin-gasid, Merodach- baladan I., etc. Tablets of the reigns of Nabopo- las.sar, Nebuchadrezzar, Nabonidus, Cyrus, Darius, and some of the Seleucidse, have been excavated in the site.

In the ruins of tlie town and the country around, a large number of glazed earthenware coflins and other receptacles, used no doubt for the burial of the dead, mostly of the Parthian period, has been found, showing that part of the town and its neighbourhood must have been used as a necro- polis. LiTERATxntB. — Schrader, KA T^ 94 f. ; Loftus, Chaidtea and Stuiana, 162 1. ; Delitzsch, Parodies, 221 1. ; Smith, Chaldaan Genent, 194 ; Sayce. Uib. Led. on liel. of Anc. Babyloniant, 1841.

, HCM 102; Hommel, jlnc Ueb. Trad. 122 n., 129, 168, 177, also art. BABTiiOiiu, p. 224>>. I A PiXCHKS