BREAKFAST .

com' of Lv 2"- ", ordinary flour or 'meal,' and the 'fine meal' tor honoured guests (Gn 18«) or 'fine flour' for a king's kitchen (1 K 4^) and the ritual meal-oflerings.

The flour was then mixed with water and kneaded In the wooden basin or kneading-trough (Ex 8» 12«). In a case of urgency the dough was at once made into cakes and fired. These unleavened cakes were termed mazzoth and were alone permitted for the altar and during Passover and the immediately following Feast of Unleavened Cakes (Uazzoth). On ordinary occasions, however, a small lump of yesterday's baking, which had been reserved for the purpose, was broken down and mixed with to-day's 'batch.' The whole was then set aside for a few hours till thoroughly leavened (see Leaven).

Three modes of firing bread are found in OT, as in the East at the present day. (a) The first is repre-sented by Elijah's 'cake baken on the hot stones' (1 K 19« RVm). A few flat stones are gathered to-gether, and a fire lighted upon them. When the stones are sufficiently heated, the embers are raked aside, the cakes are laid on the stones and covered with the embers. After a little the ashes are again removed, the cake is turned (Hos T) and once more covered. Presently the cake is ready. (6) In Syria and Arabia to-day a convex iron plate is much used, especially among the Bedouin. It is placed over a small fire-pit with the convex siide uppermost, on which the cakes of dough are laid and fired. The Hebrew 'baking -pan' (Lv 2' 79 RV) must have resembled this species of iron ' girdle." (c) The settled population, however, chiefly made use of one or other of the various kinds of oven, then as now called tannur. In one form, which may be termed the bowl-oven, since it consists of a large clay bowl inverted, with a movable lid, the heat is applied by heaping cattle dung, etc., on the outside. The cakes are baked on the heated stones covered by the oven. In other parts of the country the jar-oven is used. This is really a large earthenware jar which is heated by fuel, consisting of stubble (Mai 4"), grass (Mt 6»»), dry twigs (1 K 17"') and the like, placed in the bottom of the jar. When the latter is thoroughly heated, the cakes are appUed to the inside walls. From this type was developed the pit-oven, which was formed partly in the ground, partly built up of clay and plastered throughout, narrowing from the bottom upwards. Many of these pit-ovens have been discovered in the recent excavations. It is to the smoke issuing from one of these, while being heated, that the smoke of the ruined cities of the plain is compared in Gn IQ^s (EV furnace, and often unnecessary rendering for 'oven'). Such no doubt were the ovens of the professional bakers in the street named after them iu Jerusalem (Jer 372').

Bread-making was at all times the special charge of the women of the household. Even when, as we have just seen, baking became a recognized industry, a large part of the baker's work had been, as now in the East, merely to fire the bread baked by the women at home.

A considerable variety of bakemeats (Gn 40", lit. 'food, the work of the baker') is met with in OT, but only in a few cases is it possible to identify their nature or form. The ordinary cake — the loaf of OT and NT — was round and fairly thick; such at least was the rolling 'cake of barley bread' of Jg 7''. These cakes were always broken by the hand, never cut. A cake fre-quently used for ritual purposes (Ex 29' and often) seems, from its name, to have been pierced with holes like the modern Passover-cakes. The precise nature of the cracknels of 1 K 14' (Amer. RV 'cakes') is unknown. The wafer, often named in ritual passages (cf. also Ex 16"), was evidently a very thin species of cake. For what may be called the pastry of the Hebrews, the curious in these matters are referred to the art. ' Bake-meats' in the Encyc. Bibl. col. 460 f.

A. R. S. Kennedy.

BBEAEFAST.— See Meals.

BRICK

BREASTPLATE.— See Armour, 2 (c).

BREASTPLATE (of the High Priest).— In the direc-tions for the official dress of the high priest, as laid down by the priestly writer, a prominent place is occupied by the breastplate or pectoral. The fuller designation •the breastplate of judgment' (Ex 28'', Sir 45") is significant of the purpose of the breastplate, which was to form a fitting receptacle or pouch for the Urim and Thummim (wh. see), by means of which judgment was pronounced. The special directions for the making of the breastplate are given in Ex 28"-3» (cf. 39»-2'). It was made of an oblong piece of richly wrought linen, which, folded in two, formed a square of half a cubit, or 9 inches, in the side. Attached to the outer side were four rows of precious stones in gold settings, twelve in all, each stone having engraved upon it the name of a tribe 'for a memorial before J" continually' (28"). The breastplate was kept in position by means of two cords of 'wreathen work' of gold, by which it was attached to a couple of gold ' ouches ' (probably rosettes of gold filigree) on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod, while the lower part was fastened to the ephod by a 'lace of blue' (28^8) at each corner.

A. R. S. Kennedy.

BREECHES.' — Rather short drawers of white linen ordered to be worn by the priests on grounds of modesty (Ez 28", Lv 16*, Ezk 44", Sir 458). Josephus describes those worn in his time in his Ant. iii. vii. 1. The modern trousers are represented in AV by hosen (wh. see). A. R. S. Kennedy.

BRETHREN OF THE LORD.— Jesus was Mary's first-born (Lk 2'), and she subsequently (according to the view accepted in the present article) bore to Joseph four sons, James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, and several daughters (Mt 13"-t6=Mk 6'). During His ministry the Lord's brethren did not believe in Him. They sneered at Him (Jn 7'-'), and once they concluded that He was mad, and wished to arrest Him and convey Him away from Capernaum (Mk 3«- si). After the Resurrection, however, convinced by so tremendous a demonstration, they joined the company of the believers (Ac 1»).

In early days, partly at least in the interests of the notion of Mary's perpetual virginity, two theories were promulgated in regard to the 'Brethren of the Lord.' (a) They were supposed to be sons of Joseph by a former marriage, having thus no blood-relationship with Jesus. So Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Epiphanius. (6) They were held to be His cousins, sons of Mary, the vrife of Alphceus (Mt 27™ = Mk IS*"); 'brother' here implying merely kinship, as Abraham calls himself and his nephew Lot 'brethren' (Gn 13'), and Laban calls Jacob, his sister's son, his 'brother' (29«). So Jerome and Augustine. That Mary, the wife of Alph^us and mother of James the Little, was a sister of Mary the mother of Jesus, is an inference from Jn 19", where it is supposed that only three women are mentioned: (1) His mother,

(2) His mother's sister, viz., Mary, the wife of Clopas ( = AlphEeus), and (3) Mary Magdalene. But there are probably four: (1) His mother, (2) her sister Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee (cf. Mt. = Mk.),

(3) Mary, the wife of Clopas, and (4) Mary Magdalene. It is very unlikely that two sisters should have been named Mary ; and moreover, James, the son of Alphaeus, was an Apostle (Mt 10' = Mk 3i8=Lk 6"), and none of the Lord's brethren was an Apostle in His life-time (cf. Ac 1"-"). David Smith.

BRIBERY, — See Crimes and Punishments, § 6.

BRICK. — The use of sun-dried bricks as building material in OT times, alongside of the more durable limestone, is attested both by the excavations and by Scripture references (see House). The process of brick-making shows the same simplicity in every age and country. Suitable clay is thoroughly moistened,

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