290 PROF. ARCHIBALD R. S. KENNEDY, M.A., D.D., ON 



(6) in the Seleucid period the Attic monetary standard, of which 

 the drachm ranges from 67-63 grs., and (7) the syncretic weight- 

 system of the Roman period, combining and adjusting elements 

 of the Phoenician, Greek and Roman systems, with its talent of 

 10,000 Syrian-Attic drachms or 12,000 Phoenician drachms, or 

 Eoman denarii. 



II. — Measures of Length. 



The earliest standards of measurement everywhere are those 

 of Nature's own providing, the finger, the hand, the foot ; the 

 almost universal cubit is the length from the elbow to the tip 

 of the middle finger. The largest of the natural measures is 

 "the stretch." the Greek crania (Acts xxvii, 28) or fathom, 

 which is practically equal to the height of the individual, or 

 four times the cubit-length. The native Hebrew measures 

 were based on this natural scale, but without the foot and the 

 fathom. The names of the several members of the scale are 

 known to us from the Old Testament, and are given in the table 

 below. The three most important are the finger breadth or 

 digit, the handbreadth or palm of 4 digits, and the cubit of 

 6 palms or 24 digits. If, then, we can determine the absolute 

 length of any one of these, we can easily calculate the value of 

 the others. 



For this purpose one naturally turns first of all to the 

 Hebrew scriptures, but the result is disappointing. Take, for 

 example, the statement in Deut. iii, 11, regarding the basalt 

 sarcophagus of Og, King of Bashan. which is said to have 

 measured 9 cubits by 4, after the cubit of a man." In modern 

 English this means " in terms of the natural cubit," which, as I 

 have said, was reckoned in antiquity as one-fourth of the height 

 joi an average man. Four such natural cubits is the length 

 prescribed by the Jewish law for the last resting-place of the 

 human body (Baba bathra vi. 8). In Egypt this cubit was 

 reckoned at 17*7 inches, in Greece about 17'47 inches. There 

 and thereabouts we must place the Hebrew " cubit of a man." 



AVhen we turn to the Jewish historian Josephus, we find that 

 while he frequently gives us the value of the Jewish weights 

 and measures of capacity in terms of Greek metrology, he no- 

 where does this with the measures of length. The inference is 

 unavoidable that such a comparison was unnecessary, owing to 

 the practical identity of the Jewish and Greek measures of length. 

 This inference is confirmed by a comparison of Acts i, 12, where 

 the distance of the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem is given as 



