JERICHO 



3139 



JEROME OF PRAGUE 



to be an historical addition made by some later 

 writer, possibly Ezra, and serves as an intro- 

 duction to Lamentations, which follows. 



JERICHO, jer'iko, an ancient city of Pales- 

 tine, whose strongly-fortified walls fell at the 

 shout of the Israelites, after they had marched 

 around the city for seven days by divine direc- 

 tion, under the leadership of Joshua (Joshua 

 VI, 20). Because of the amount of spoils 

 recorded, the city was long reported to be 

 very rich, and accounts of recent excavations 

 prove this supposition to be true. Although 

 much of the city was destroyed by the Israel- 

 ites, it was later rebuilt. When Hiel of Bethel 

 tried to fortify it during Ahab's reign, Joshua's 

 curse, that anyone who tried to put up de- 

 fenses would lose his eldest and youngest son, 

 descended upon him. After it had been plun- 

 dered by the Romans, Herod the Great rebuilt 

 and beautified the city, erecting a royal palace 

 on the hill behind the city, but to-day all that 

 remains is a small village named Er-Riha. 



JERICHO ROSE, a small Arabian plant of 

 the mustard family. After flowering, the leaves 

 fall off and the branches curve in toward the 

 center, giving the plant almost a spherical ap- 

 pearance. In this form it detaches itself from 

 its roots, rolls 

 around and is 

 often blown by 

 the wind into 

 water. When 

 moist the 

 branches expand, 

 and the pores 

 open and release 

 the seeds. If 

 taken up before 

 it is quite dry, 

 the plant will re- JERICHO ROSE 



tain for some time its characteristic of con- 

 tracting in dryness and expanding and growing 

 greenish in moisture. 



JEROBOAM, jerobo'am, the name of two 

 kings who ruled over the tribes of Israel. 



Jeroboam I, the energetic king of the Ten 

 Tribes of Israel, was elected when the ten 

 separated from the tribes of Judah and Benja- 

 min, at the death of Solomon in 931 B. c. As 

 first king of this new union, he established two 

 places of worship, one at the north and one at 

 the south end of his kingdom, instead of letting 

 his people go to the Temple at Jerusalem. At 

 both places he built golden calves, thereby 

 introducing idolatry into the worship which 

 gradually degraded the nation. 



Jeroboam II, the most prosperous of the 

 kings of Israel. He raised the kingdom from 

 a very depressed state upon ascending the 

 throne in 790 B. c., and succeeded in restoring 

 its former prestige by capturing Damascus, 

 the capital of the Syrian empire, and Ham- 

 math, one of the Hittite towns. Amos and 

 Hosea prophesied during his reign against the 

 wickedness and idolatry which prevailed. 

 JEROME, jerohm', JEROME KLAPKA (1859- 

 ), an English novelist and dramatist, whose 

 Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, published 

 in 1889, brought him fame as a humorist. 

 Before succeeding as an author he had been 

 successively clerk, stenographer, tutor, actor 

 and journalist. Among his other books are 

 Three Men in a Boat; John Ingerfield, and 

 Other Stories; Stage Land; Novel Notes and 

 several comedies. One of his latest books, 

 The Passing of the Third Floor Back, has 

 been dramatized. It is a play which exploits 

 a spiritual element, and has drawn a class of 

 persons to the theater who seldom go to see 

 a play. It was one of the successes of the 

 theatrical season of 1909-1910. The theme is 

 the nobility of service; the spirit is that of 

 the Master himself. It is an allegorical story 

 of selfish, vulgar people in a boarding-house 

 who are made into kindly, generous folk merely 

 by the presence of the Christlike spirit. 



JEROME, SAINT, a learned father of the 

 Church and a prolific writer of theological and 

 historical works, various letters, translations 

 and works on the Bible. He was born at 

 Stridon, a small town on the southern slope 

 of the Illyrian Alps, about the year 340. From 

 374 to 379 he led the life of a recluse in the 

 desert of Chalcis, southwest of Antioch. After 

 these four years he went to Antioch, where 

 he was ordained priest; he then went to Con- 

 stantinople, where he acted as teacher and 

 friend to Gregory of Nazianzus, and in 382 he 

 returned to Rome. On the death of Pope 

 Damasus he was compelled to leave Rome, as 

 his position became a very difficult one on 

 account of harsh criticisms which made him 

 many bitter enemies. He settled in a mon- 

 astery near Bethlehem in 386 and again be- 

 came a recluse and student. His Biblical 

 knowledge gave him rank among ancient ex- 

 pounders of the Bible. His Latin interpreta- 

 tion of the Old Testament was the founda- 

 tion of the Vulgate (which see). 



JEROME OF PRAGUE (1360-1416), a re- 

 ligious reformer who was burned at the stake 

 for heresy in 1416. He was a companion and 



