Thought (Hastings' Dictionary)

In 1 S 9' ' Come, and let us re- turn ; lest my father leave caring for the asses, and take thought for us,' the phrase 'take thought' means 'be anxious,' 'grieve.' The same verb (jn-i) is translated 'sorrow' in 10" 'Thy father hath left the care of the asses, and sor- roweth for you.' RV lias ' take thought' in both Cassages, but Amer. RV gives ' be anxious ' in oth. In Ps 38'* both ver.sions render the Hebrew word ' I will be sorry.'

' Thought ' was once freely used in English in the sense of ' anxiety ' or ' grief. ' Thus Cranmer, Works, i. 162, ' Alas, Master Secretary, you forget Master Smyth of the Ex- chequer, who is near consumed with thought and penjiveness ' ; Somers Tracts, 'In five hundred years only two queens have died in childbirth. Queen Catherine Parr died rather of thought ' ; Shaks. Hamlet, III. L 85 — • And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought* ; and IV. v.

177 — ' KnA there is pansies, that's for thoughts.' Cf. Wyclif's use of^ the verb, Selert Works, iii. 9, ' As a bird of a swalowe, so I scbal crie, I schal thinke as a do\we.' In AV ' thought' occurs in this sense only in the phrase 'take thought.' Besides 1 S 9' (above) the examples are Mt e^'- »'•»•"•"'"' 1019, Lk i2ii.s2.a>.M (aji ^p^^_ via), and Mk 13" ' take no thought beforehand ' ■ ♦ The best C'lition of the Gr. and Lat.

texts of these Acta is that of Bonnet (18S;l); for the Syriac Acts see Wright, Apocry- phal Acts 0/ the Apostles (1871) ; and, for the .fCthiopic version of the stor}', Malan, Conjlicts of the Holy Apostles (1871). For all legends about Thomas the best and fullest account will be found in I.ipsius' Dit Apoleryphen Apottelgeschiehttn (1888-1890), vol. i. pp 22S-S47. {pLTi Tpofi.eptftfS.Ti); KV alw.ays 'be anxious.' Cf. Coverdale's tr.

of 1 S 10^ (see above), ' Thy father hath put the asses out of bis mynde, and taketh thouglite for the, and sayeth : What shall I do for my Sonne ? ' and Shaks. Jul. Ctesar, II. L 187 — ' If he love C:esar, all that he can do, Is to himself take thought and die for Caesar.' J.

Hastings THRACIA ^QplfKr|) was the country lying east ol Macedonia, bounded on the north by the Danube and on the south by the jEgean Sea, the Darda- nelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the territory of Byzantium (a ' free city,' connected with the Roman province of Bithynia from B.C. 74). Thrace is never mentioned in the NT, nor did any action alluded to in the NT take place in that country.

Philippi and Neapolis, indeed, had originally been in Thrace ; but the boundaries of Macedonia were extended far towards the east by the conquests ol the Macedonian kings, and included botn citie.». Before the Roman period the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace was the boundary between civilization and barbarism, and this varied as civilization enlarged its limits.

Originally the name Thracia was used in a very loose and vague fashion, and the Macedonians were even sometimes spoken of as a tribe of Thrace, which in that case practically meant the land north and north-east of Greece. The Macedonians were akin to the Tliracians, but came under the inttuence of Greek civilization earlier.* It was not until A.D. 46 that Thrace was incorporated as a province in the Roman empire.

In 2 Mac 12^ a Thracian soldier is mentioned as saving the life of Gorgias, governor of Idumaea-f under Antiochus Epiphanes, in a battle against .Judas Maceaba?us, about B.C. 103. The Thracian tribesnien, barbarous, hardy, and inured to war, were much used as mercenaries by the Greek kings of Syria, Pergamum, Bithynia, etc. This is several times mentioned by Polybius (V. Ixv. 10, Ixxix. 6) ; and inscriptions along with other evidence entirely corroborate him.

Thracian mercenaries were settled as colonists in many of the garrison cities founded by those kings, e.g. in Apollonia of Pisidia (where they are often mentioned on coins, etc., in the full title of the city) and in other places : the Thracian mercenaries" were sometimes called Traleis or ' warriors ' ; see Ramsay, Histor. Geogr. of Asia Minor, p. 112, Cities and Bish. oj Phri/gia,i. p. 34; Friinkel, Inschr. Pergnm. i.. No. 13, p. 16. W. M. Ramsay.

THRASiEUS (A Qpaoatos, A^*"" Qapala^, V' Qapaia^). — The father of Apollonius, 2 Mac S' ; but see Apollonius, No. 1, and cf. R\'m. THREE CHILDREN, SONG OF THE (or, more accurately, as in Codex B : ' The Prayer of Azarias' and ' the 'Hymn of the Three '), is one of the addi- tions to the book of Daniel, extant only in the Greek Bible and in versions taken from the Greek. It contains 67 verses, and is inserted between v.^ and v.'-" of Dn 3 in the canonical text.

In Codex A our ' addition ' forms also two of fourteen canticles appended to the Book of Psalms. The ninth and tenth of these canticles are called respectively irpo- aevxn 'A^aplov (Prayer of Azarias) and Cfwos Tii» TraTipwv iifiuv (Hymn of our Fathers). i. Contents. — The apocryphon contains three sections: (1) the Prayer of Azarias; (2) descrip- tive narrative ; (3) thanksgiving of the Three foi their deliverance from the hery furnace.

• It is maintained by some scholars that Thrace, in that early wide extension, is alluded to in Gn 102. In that verse the sonb of Japheth are said to be Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras ; but see Tikas. t Tdumcea is suspicious : it has been thought to be an erroi for Jamnia. THREE CHILDREN, SONG OF THREE CHILDREN, SONG OF 755 0) The Pmiirr o/Azarias, T\-.l-a (Or. «-»).

— In Dn 3=3 it haa been narrated that the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst o( the burning' fiery furnace. After a^ Theodotion (whose text is followed in Vulj^. and the Enghsh Apocr.) proceeds : ' And they walked [ in their rhains,* Syr \VJ in the midst of the fire, praising God.'

The connexion ia, in LXX, effected thus: 'Thus then prayed Uananiofl and Azarias and Mishael and aaug praises to tlie Lord, when the king commanded them to be cast into the furnace.* Both then say that ' Azaria.s stood and prayed in the sidst of the fire'; LXX adding 't^i^et her with liis companions,' which "Theod. omits, as he does also the statement of LXX that •the furnace had been heated exceedingly by the Chaldaians.'

The Prayer opens with praise to Go<l for His righteous nets to the nation, acknowledging His justice even in the disasters which He iias brought upon Jeru.'ialem. National ruin was completely justified, because of national sins. He complains, however, tliat the nation by wliich God had chastised His people was a very lawless one, and that their king was the most wicked king on earth, treating Israel scornfully and t.vrannically.

lie then pleads the covenants with the fathers and the promises of the vast expansion of the nation as the ground of God's intervention to the ver>' small remnant.

They had been brought very low : the State was dis-solved : State functionaries had ceased to be : State religion was no longer possible : but with the sacrilice of a contrite heart, rather tlian of myriads of rams, they would seek the LoRn and implore Him to remove tiieir stiame'and transfer it to their foes; that all mav know that J" is God alone. (2) In %'v.2i-27 of EV (Or.

*i-5i) we have a continuation of the narrative of Dn 3^, describing how the king's ser\'ant« kept on heating the furnace with n;ii)htha and pitch till it was seven times as hot as usual, and the flame reached 49 cubitJf above the furnace. Then an angel came down, called in Syr. 'the angel of dew,' antl by means of a dewy whistling wind made the centre of the furnace cool, forming an inner zone which the flames could not touch. After this 'the three' unitedly began to praise God.

(3) The llniiino/Thanlcsgiring, w.2S-63(Gr. »"«>). ThisHj-mn, like Ps VMJ, contains, as the second line of each verse, a refrain. As the Psalm repeats throughout the words, 'For his n-rt'*- ei:diireth for ever'; so our Hymn, in every verse, ascribes praise to God. For the first six verses the a.scription is verbally varied, though Identical in meaning. After that, the second line of each verse is Cun'trs jmcj Wtptj-ifovrt teC-Tov tU Tr.< «iw»«f. 'Praise and 6uj>erexalt him for ever.'

In the first place the Psalmist (for such he really is) exults in the face that J " is worthy to be praised in the heavenly temple, sitting on the throne of His glor>' : from the loftiest lieights looking down on tl;e deepest depths. Then he apostrophizes all the works of Ood ana calls on them to praise the Lord ; angels, the heavens, the celestial waters, sun, moon, and stars.

From things uelQl^iat he passes to what u'e call meteorological phenomena, but which, to the Jewish mind, were changes presided over by an angel, — if not indeed themselves actual entities, — rain and dew, winds, frost and snow, light and darkness, lightnings and clouds. Then the terrestrial creation is addressed, moun- tains, vegetation, showers, fountains, monsters, fowls, and beasts.

After that, men of various ranks and conditions in life ; Israel, priests, slaves, the righteous, the humble, and lost of all, as Ps 103 terminates witli the words ' Bless the 1-oiiu, O mj/ tout,' we have in v.^ ' O Haiianias, Azarias, and Mishael, bless ye the Lord.' The last two verses are from Ps 13tJ, antl were probably appended by some later hand. ii. Literary E.stimate. — The judgment of Eichliorn {Eiiileitunr/, 419, ed.

1795), that the Prayer of Azarias is unsuitable to the circum- stances, and that it betrays a lack of literary art to sujifiose that in a liory furnace any man couUl pray as lie does, is endor.sed by most later scholars (I'Vitzsche, 11.5). There are 'no groans, ' 'no per- sonal petitions,' 'no cries for help.' Tlie author makes Azarias review the liistory of the Jewish nation as calmly as an aged saint miglit do under the fig-tree of solitude at the time of evening prayer.

On one supposition, however, the Praj'er becomes thoroughly n levant. If we might assume that the author of the Prayer regarded the narra- tive of Dn 3 as a Haggada, a .symbolical, hut not historical, account of the Diibyloiiian captivity: as in Zee 3' the angel says concerning .loslnia the high priest, ' Is not this a brand plucked out of tlie fire ? '— then the Prayer would bo (iiiite suitable. As to the paetiral charnctcr of the Hymn, critics differ.

Fritzsche considered the accumulation of doxologies devoid of all literary skill, and the enumeration of the powers of creation, frigid. Ball, however, replies {Sprnker's Com. 307) tliat the very monotony is cflective. ' It is like the monotony of the winds or the waves, and power- fully suggests to the imagination the amplitude and splendour of God's world, and the sublimity of the universal chorus of praise.

The instinct of the Church which early adojitLd the Bencdiiite for liturgical use was right.' Zockler sympathizes so strongly with IJall against Fritzsche that he quotes the above in English. The Hynm is modelled after Ps 136, and lias equal claim to be considered poetical. iii. Authorship. — The name and date of the compo.ser of the Prayer and Hymn are quite unknown. It is even disputed whether thej' come from the same author. The cliief argument for duiilitv is that v."

<**> implies the cessation of Temple worship. ' There is no . . sacrilice nor place to offer sacrifice before thee ' : whereas in y 81 (M) there is reference to a Temple, and in y 62 (85) tQ priests. The argument is not valid. The Temple in v.^' is the heavenly Temple, where the Lord is enthroned on the cherubim. Further, the priesthood was hereditary. A man did not cease to be a priest when the Temple was de- stroyed ; and hence we note that v." does not say, ' There is no priest.'

— It is even more eagerly dis- puted whether the Gr. text is the original, or a translation from Heb. or Aramaic. Eichhom in his first edition favoured Gr. authorship. In his second edition he adduced reasons for regarding it as a translation, but held the evidence to be in- decisive. This uncertainty still remains. Fritzsche, Keil, Bissell, and Schiirer are against a Semitic authorship. Ball attaches more importance than they do Co Eichhorn's indications of translation.

The difficulty is this : every extant version is clearly based on the LXX. Where Theod. differs from LXX, it is usually in very small matters of addition or omission. There arc no synonymous, but verbally variant, phrases, indicating that both are translated from the same original. There are no marks that Theod. or any version used a Semitic copy in order to correct LXX. In such cases the only evidence of translation work is to be sought in the awkward, barely intelligible {)hrases.

We have to retranslate these into the lypothetical original, and see if by some slight modification of this we can secure a better render- ing. In the case before us the results tire disaji- pointing. We may premise, liowever, that if there ever was a Semitic original, it would be Heb. and not Aramaic. The orthodox Palestinian Jew con- sidered Heb. the language of heaven, and always used it in prayer and jiraise. — The evidence in favour of Heb.

stands thus: (1) The style is intensely Hebraistic, perhaps more so than an Alexandrian Jew would use in original composi- tion. ('2) The names of the three men are their original Hebrew names (Dn 1'), not the .Aramaic names found in Dn S'"- '»• ■•»• »> etc. (3) V." l"' is very obscure. In LXX it reads literally, ' Let our sacrilice be before thee, and may it make atone- ment behind thee ' (^JiXdtrai 6maOiv aov). Theod. reads inrcXiaat ttrtaSiv cov, ' Miij' it make re- quital behind thee.'

At the end of the verse in hXX there occurs an incorporated marginal gloss : Tf.\eiw(rai fiviirBh aov, ' let it be perfect behind thee.' These three Gr. verbs seem very diverse, but, if we might assume a Heb. original from which they are a tr., the matter is simplified. These Gr. verbs may represent different forms of the Heb. root oho. The Hiphil C'\\f'n 'to make peace' may account for iiiXdaai. The Piel oVsj* and the Gr.

T(\(lu both nuNin to 'pay,' 'requite' ; and the Qal oS\^ means to ' be jicrfect.' We do not attempt to ex|)lain iviaOcv. (4) It might seem that the ]ihrase 'to scatter a covenant' in v.", instead of ' violate,' was a confusion of is and t\b : but the same thing occurs in LXX of Gn 17" and Lv SO'' . So also tlie use of d7r<i with xaTat<r;^i''i'«(r5ac, ' to be ashamed,' might arise from translating th« Heb. \r) (Eichh.

428) ; but both ix and drd are used 756 THEESHING THRO^'E in LXX w-ith verbs of ' shame,' and tlnis this also may be a Hebraism, and due to familiarity witli the I,XX. The evidence of a Heb. original is not irresistible, but probable. iv. Versions.— The LXX presents the earliest extant text. Theod. edited the LXX with sundry emendations of little Bi^ificance ; none of them so important as in ' Bel and the Drairon ■ (vol. i. 207). A collation of the two versions is piven by Eichhom (422 fl.)

, and also in Field's Uexapla (ii. 9Utf.) The Vul^. is in the main an accur.ite tr. of Theodotion. Tlie Syriac as given by Laixarde is the same text as Walton's, the differences being merVlv such as occur in transcription. Worthy of note are the" readings : 15 iSSi, ' a place where we may offer spicks and a sacrifice' : ^^ ^*^K 'let not thy servant be ashamed ' for ijiXoira. oTirfs. rtu : « (72), • The angel of dele went down into the furnace.' The Syro-Hexapiar text is » tr. of the LX.X. V.

Canonicity. — Ball gives several citations from Jewish writings of the incidents narrated in the Biblical portions of Dn 3 ; but it is ditticult to finil Rabbinic quotations of our apocryphon. Pe-sarliim llSa tells how R. Hiskiah ilesoribes the three martyrs as reciting Ps 115, clause by clause, in rotation ; and how R.

Samuel the Sbilonite used to say that Yorkemi, the prince of hail, begged to go down to cool the furnace ; but Gabriel ofi'ered not only to make the furnace cool within (as the hail would do), but also to make it hot without (Speaker's Aporr. 306 f.) In the Christian Church, Hippolytus gives a few notes explanatory of the Song. Julius Africanus disputed the canonicity of the additions to Daniel. Origen wrote in reply defending their genuine- nes.s, and on sever.

al occasions quotes ' the Prayer ' ; e.g. in Com. on Matt. bk. xiii. 2 he quotes v."<»*l ' as it stands in the book of Daniel according to the LXX' as representinjr the ditterence between the soul and the body. Cyprian, de Lajysis, e. 31, quotes v.^ '^i as ' scviptura divina ' ; and he ad- duces the Prayer of the ' tres pueri in camino inclusi ' as a model of ptiblic prayer (de Oral. Do7)iinica, c. 8). LiTEKATURE.— Ball in Speaker's Apocr. ii. 3059. ; Fritzschc, Bandbueh zu den .ipokr. i. l'2.'

i ff. ; Schurer, HJP n. iii. 1S3 ff. ; Zockler, Apnkr. des AT 230 ff. ; Bissell in Lanire's Apokl-.; ]£,\chhom, EiiUeilxini} in die Apokr. SchriJ'ten, 419 ff.; Uothsteia in Kautzsch'a Apokr. u. Pseudcpi-ir. d. AT i. 172 fl. J. T. Marshall.