PILDASH

For before all things he seems to have considered his own position.

But it is very unliltely that Tiberius, who was jealous for good provincial government, would have allowed Pilate to remain procurator for ten years if his ad-ministration had been as bad as our knowledge of him would imply. It is easy to under-estimate the difSculties of his post. The province of Judaea included not only JudEEa proper, but Samaria and Idumaea; and in addi-tion to its normal population there was at the time of great feasts, particularly the Passover, an influx of Jews from other provinces, which made the temporary population of Jerusalem sometimes between two and three millions. And this population was animated, as no other race was, by a religious fervour capable of passing on occasion into political excesses difficult to cope with, since in the eyes of a large minority sub-mission to foreign rule was religious apostasy. But the province ranked only as a ' minor Imperial province ' ; its governor was a procurator, not a legatus or proefectus, and to control the difficult elements in the population he had only 3000 troops, quartered usually at Csesarea, besides small detachments used to garrison Jerusalem and Sebaste. The governor usually went up to Jeru-salem for the Passover time, but he must have felt that in face of a sudden national movement he would be powerless; and it is no small testimony to Roman powers of administration that for 60 years the series of procurators in Judaa managed to postpone more serious conflicts. The fault would seem to rest with the central authority, which did not realize that in administer-ing the small province of Judsea it had to deal not with the province alone, but with all the millions of Jews scattered throughout the Empire, profoundly earnest in religious convictions, regarding Judsea as the holy centre of all they held dearest, and maintaining direct communication with the Sanhedrin, to which the Romans themselves had allowed a certain authority over all Jews throughout the Empire. Hence, mistaking the nature of the work, they sent as procurators second- rate men, who were often (like Pilate) nominees of Imperial favourites, and who were probably looking forward to their promotion from the moment that they landed in Caesarea. Had Judaea been definitely attached to the province of Syria, it would at any rate have been governed by men with a wider outlook.

A. E. HiLLARD.

PILDASH.— One of the sons of Nahor (Gn 22^). PILHA. — A signatory to the covenant (Neh lO''*).

PILLAR. — 1. With two or three unimportant ex-ceptions, 'pillar' in OT is the rendering of two very distinct Heb. terms, 'ammud and maizebah. The former denotes in most cases — for a conspicuous exception see Jachin and Boaz — a pillar or column supporting the roof or other part of a building (Jg le^s'-, 1 K 7"), also the pillars from which the hangings of the Tabernacle were suspended (Ex 26'^ and oft.). From this sense the transition is easy to a column of smoke (Jg 20"), and to the 'pillar of cloud' and the 'pillar of fire' of the Exodus and the Wanderings (Ex 13^' etc.). The further transition to the figurative use of the term 'pillar,' which alone prevails in NT (Gal 2», 1 Ti 3", Rev 312 10'), may be seen in Job 9« 26" — passages reflecting an antique cosmogony in which the pillars of earth and heaven were actual supports.

2. It is with the second of the two terms above cited, the mazzebah, that this article has mainly to deal. Derived from a root common to the Semitic family, mazzibah denotes something ' set up ' on end, in particular an upright stone, whether it be a megalithic monu-ment, such as the stones known to contemporary archaeology as menhirs or 'standing stones,' or a less imposing funerary stele. Three varieties of mazzibahs may be distinguished in OT.

(a) For reasons that will appear at a later stage, our

PILLAR

survey may start from the stone erected over a grave or elsewhere as a memorial of the dead. The mazzebah set up by Jacob upon the grave of Rachel (Gn 352") was of this kind. This was the prevailing application of the term among the Phoenicians (see Cooke, Text-book of N. Sem. Inscrips. 60). To this category may also be reckoned the memorial pillar which Absalom erected for himself in his own lifetime (2 S 18>8).

(6) In a second group may be placed the stones set up to commemorate, or, in Biblical phrase, ' for a witness ' of, some important incident (Gn 31«'-, Jos 24^') — in particular the appearance or manifestation of a Divine being (a theophany) at a given spot. Such, in the present form of the story — for the probable original form, see § 4 below — was the stone which Jacob set up and anointed at Bethel (Gn 28i8- =»; of. 31" 35"). Other examples of mazzibahs, interpreted by the Heb. historians as commemorative monuments, are the stone Ebenezer of 1 S 7", and the cromlech (gilgal) set up by Joshua after the crossing of the Jordan 'for a memorial unto the children of Israel' (Jos 4').

(c) The third and most important class of mazzebahs comprises the pillar-stones which stood beside the altar at every Canaanite sanctuary (see High Place). For this class AV has the misleading term 'image' (except Dt 12^), for which RV has substituted 'pillar,' with 'obelisk' in the margin. That the local sanctu-aries, in most cases taken over from the Canaanites, at which the Hebrews worshipped J" were provided with such pillar-stones, is evident both from the ref-erences in Hos 3* 10"-, and from the repeated con-demnation of them in the successive law codes (Ex 34" 23M, Dt 7s 12' etc.), and by the Deuteronomic historians (1 K 142', 2 K 18* 23» [for Judah) 17'» [Israel]).

A special variety of pillar associated with idolatrous worship emerges in the later writings, the chammanlm or sun-pillars (AV 'images,' RV 'sun -images'). They were probably connected with sun-worship (Lagrange, Etudes suT les relig. semit.^ 314 f.).

3. The OT evidence for the mazzebahs as an indis-pensable part of the furnishing of a Canaanite high place has been confirmed in a remarkable degree by the excavations of recent years, in the course of which pillar-stones of diverse shapes and sizes have been brought to light. Even to summarize "the archaeo-logical evidence would extend this article beyond due limits (see Vincent, Canaan d'apr^s I'exploration rScente [1907], 102-H5; Benzinger, Heb. Arch.^ [1907], 321 ff.; Kittel, Studien zur heb. Arch. [1908], 126 ff.). It must suffice to refer briefly to the magnificent series of mazzSbShs which formed part of the high place at Gezer (for full details see PEFSt, 1903, 23 ff., and Macalister, Bible Sidelights, etc., 54 ff.). Originally ten in number, eight of them are still standing in situ. ' They are unhewn blocks, simply set on end and sup-ported at the base by smaller stones . . . and range in height from 10 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft. 5 in.' The smaller dimensions are those of the second stone of the series, which is supposed to have been the original beth-d (see next §) of the high place. The fact that this stone, alone of the group, has its top smooth and polished, as if by long-continued anointing on the part of the wor-shippers, is greatly in favour of this view. Several of the larger stones are provided with cavities, either at the top or in one side. This provision, which is also characteristic of the mazzebahs found at Taanach and Megiddo, must evidently, as wiU presently appear, have some relation to the ritual of the worship of these ancient sanctuaries.

4. It now remains to deal with a question which may be thus formulated. What significance did the Canaanites, and the Hebrews alter them, attach to these mazzibahs, and what place did they hold in the ancient cult?

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