76 Rev. Dr Scot cm the Fine Linen 



or Indians. From one or other of these, at least, if not from the 

 Egyptians, the Greeks got this word, and adding their own ter- 

 mination OS, they were furnished with Byssos, the other term 

 translated fine linen in the English New Testament ; and which 

 has passed from Greek into Latin, and even the botanical lan- 

 guage of the present day. 



Now, that the ideas which we have thrown out about shesh, 

 chens, buts and byssos, are quite correct, will further ap- 

 pear, if we consider that the learned Greeks at least understood 

 that byssos was the woolly product of a shrub or tree, which 

 signified wood. Accordingly, when they had occasion to speak 

 of this shrub or tree, they sometimes gave it the name of xylon^ 

 which every novice in Greek knows to signify wood, and its 

 product, just referred to, eriozylinon, or ivooden zvool, which 

 is the literal translation of byssos. 



The same phraseology is used by Pliny, who copies servilely 

 from the Greeks. On this subject he uses xylon^ or lignum ; 

 lana xylma, or lignea. 



The Latins, too, have a term, commonly, though erroneously, 

 translated fine linen, of which there are no traces in Greek. 

 This is carhasus, which, from a list of I-ndian plants made by 

 Sir William Jones, we learn to be a Sanscrit term, signifying 

 the cotton-tree, or cotton ; and probably was adopted by the Ro- 

 mans, when, in their attempts at universal empire, they first 

 came into contact with the Asiatic nations. 



Such are the grounds on which we think the fine linen of the 

 Eno-lish Bible to be what is now called cotton. To those, 

 indeed, who peruse the English Bible, there is an evident rela- 

 tion betwixt linen and fine linen, but there is no relation what- 

 ever betwixt the original terms, by which these substances are 

 expressed. Neither shesh nor buts, neither sindon nor byssos, 

 necessarily imply such an idea. Fine linen is entirely to be con- 

 sidered as a paraphrastic account of that material, whatever it be, 

 denoted by each of these terms. 



We are not to be staggered in this persuasion, because this 

 material has the epithet twined applied to it in the Old Testa- 

 ment. Fine tzdned Ihien is a phrase often occurring in the Eng- 

 lish Bible, but the translation is wrong. If fine linen is to be 

 retained, the translation must hejine linen tzvined. 



Now we apprehend that twined is an epithet more suitable to 



