SAVIAS

sinned. An inquiry was taken to the oracle, and the fault was found to He with Jonathan, who confessed to having tasted honey. He was, however, delivered by the people from the penalty, for Saul had sworn that he should die (14"-«).

This narrative (chs. 13. 14) is interrupted at 13*-" by an accotint which represents Samuel as taking issue with Saul for sacrificing at the end of an appointed period of seven days, and announcing his rejection (see art. Samtjbl, p. 823"). We have from another source (ch. 15) a story of the encounter with Amalek, against whom Samuel sent Saul with instructions to destroy men, women, children, and spoil. Saul, however, spares Agag, and part of the booty. This is now assigned as the reason for his rejection. Saul acknowledged his fault, but begged Samuel to honour him before the people by sacrificing with him. In his importunity he lays hold of Samuel's garment, which is rent, and becomes the symbol of the kingdom wrested from Saul. Samuel relents and worships with him.

The second stage of Saul's life concerns his relations with David. Saul is advised to employ music as a relief from a deep-seated mental trouble, called ' an evil spkit from the Lord.' David, a skilled harper and celebrated soldier, is engaged. Saul loves him, and makes him his armour-bearer (16"-23). The Philistines again assemble, this time at Socoh; Goliath issues his challenge, but no one responds. The lad David, who had come to the camp to visit his brethren, learns of the proffered reward, meets the boaster m single combat, and kills him. In this story Saul seems weak, irresolute, and unacquainted with David (ch. 17). David's growing popularity and prowess lead Saul to attempt his life. Michal, Saul's daughter, is offered to him in marriage in return for one hundred Philistines. The hazard involved faUed to accomplish his death. Then David's house is surrounded, but Michal manages David's escape through a window (18«-» 20" 19"-"). Merab, Saul's elder daughter, was also offered to David, but withdrawn when he should have had her. This seems to be an effort to explain why David did not receive Saul's daughter after he had slain the giant. David flees to Ramah, and Saul, seeking him there, is seized with the prophetic frenzy and rendered powerless (19"-"). David again flees, and receives help from the priests at Nob. So enraged was Saul that he ordered the slaughter of the entire priesthood there (chs. 20-21). Saul had David all but captured in the hills of Ziph, when a raid of the Philistines called him away (23"-^'). Twice Saul was in the power of David, who refused to harm the Lord's anointed (chs. 24. 26).

The circumstances connected with Saul's death are told in a dramatic way. The Philistines had gathered together at Aphek, while Saul held the fateful plains of Megiddo at Jezteel. Answer came from neither prophet nor priest. Then in despair he applied to the necro-mancer at Endor, but received only a hopeless message. The battle joins; Saul's sons are slain; sore pressed, he calls on his armour-bearer to slay him, but being refused he falls upon his sword and dies. The following day the Philistines severed the heads of Saul and his sons, and exposed the bodies on the walls of Beth-shan, whence the grateful Jabesh-gileadites brought them away by night (chs. 28. 31). An Amalek-ite, who brought the story of Saul's death to David, claimed that he himself slew him, and was promptly executed by David (2 S l'-").

2. Saul of Tarsus. See Paul. J. H. Stevenson.

SAVIAS (1 Es 8«) = tTzzi, Ezr T. SAVIOUR.— See Salvation.

SAVOUR. — The word ' savour ' is used in AV literally for taste, as Mt 5" 'If the salt have lost his savour,' and for smell, as 2 Es 2" 'an ointment of sweet savour.' It is also used figuratively in the sense of reputation, < Ex 6" 'Ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh' (lit. 'our smell to stink' as AVra).

SCIENCE

"The verb 'to savour' is either 'to taste or smell of,' as in Pref. to AV 'to savour more of curiosity than of wisdom'; or 'to seek out or to search by tasting or smelling,' used fig. in Mk 8" 'Thou savourest not the things that be of God.'

SAW. — See Arts and Crafts, § 1.

SCAB. — See Medicine, p. 699''.

SCALING LADDER.— See FoHTimoATioN and Sieqe-

CRAFT, § 6.

SCALL. — See Medicine, p. 600".

SCAPE-GOAT. — See Azazel, Atonement [Day of].

SCARLET.— See Colours, § 4.

SCEPTRE, as tr. of shibet, may stand either for a short ornamental sceptre such as appears in some representations of the Assyrian king, or for a long staff reaching to the ground, which characterizes some portrayals of the Persian monarchs. The long sceptre is simply an ornamented staff, the short one is a develop-ment of the club or mace. On On 49" see Lawgiver and Shiloh. On the difficulty of approaching the presence of the Persian kings referred to in Est 4", cf. also Herod, iii. 118, 140.

SCEVA. — At Ephesus, where St. Paul worked ' special powers' (Ac 19i"'-), certain itinerant Jews (RV 'stroll-ing' perhaps conveys too much the idea of 'vagabond') endeavoured to exorcise evil spirits by naming over them the name of Jesus. Among them were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish 'chief priest' (probably one of the high-priestly family). In v.'« the demoniac overcomes "both of them' (RV). Sceva himself is not said to have been present. The Incident led to many conversions, and several brought and destroyed their books of magic.

_ ThereiaadifiBoultyinthetext. Seven sons are mentioned in v.", and theseare reduced to two in v.". Perhaps St. Luke is here abbreviating a written source which detailed the incident more f uUy , and explained that two out of the seven sons tried to exorcise tliis particular demon. Inferior MSS (followed by AV) substitute 'them' for 'both of them,' and the Bezan Codex (D) omits the word ' seven' altogether, calls Sceva merely *a pnest,' and adds other phrases which are expansions of our text. But these seem to be but explanations of a difficult original text; and the RV is

grobably correct. The word 'seven' could never have een inserted if it were not St. Luke's.

Prof. Ramsay thinks that the whole passage Is un-worthy of Luke (.St. Paul the Traveller', p. 272f.). But it is unsafe to judge first-century thought by that of our own day. The Apostolic age firmly believed in posses-sion by evil spirits; and there is really nothing in this chapter unlike what we read elsewhere in NT.

A. J. Maclean.

SCHISM. — See Heresy.

SCHOOL, SCHOOLMASTER.—' School ' occurs in EV only in Ac 19» for the lecture-room of an Ephesian rhetorician (cf . Education, p. 2041") ; ' schoolmaster ' only in Gal 3"- » AV, for which RV has ' tutor.' The original is paidagSgos, lit. 'child-conductor,' 'pedagogue' — an old and trusty slave, who accompanied the Greek child to and from school and ' was bound never to lose sight of him, to carry his lyre and tablets, and to keep him out of mischief (Gardner and Jevons, Manual of Gr. Antiq. 303). He had nothing to do with the teaching, as is suggested by both the English renderings. The same word is rendered ' instructors ' in 1 Co 4" A V (RV, as before, ' tutors ') . In AV the latter word is found only in Gal i' as the tr. of an entirely different word, correctly rendered ' guardians ' by RV. For the duties of guardians in Gr. law see op. cit. 652 f. A. R. S. Kennedy. i

SCHOOLS. — See Education.

SCIENCE. — The word 'science' occurs in AV only twice (Dn 1', 1 Ti 6"), and in both places it simply means 'knowledge'; as in Barlowe's Dialoge, p. 109,

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