570 PEN 
that name till after Mofes’s time; (Numb, xxxii. 41. 
Deut. iii.14.) 
It is obferved alfo in the text of the Pentateuch, that 
there are fome places that are defective ; for example, in 
Exodus xii. 8. we fee Mofes fpeaking to Pharaoh, where 
the author omits the beginning of his difcourfe. The 
Samaritan inferts in the fame place what is wanting in the 
Hebrew. In other places, the fame Samaritan copy adds 
what is deficient in the Hebrew text; and what it con¬ 
tains more than the HebrewTeems fo well connected with 
the reft of the difcourfe, that it would be difficult to fe- 
parate them. Laftly, they believe that they obferve cer¬ 
tain ftrokes in the Pentateuch which can hardly agree 
with Mofes, who was born and bred in Egypt; as what he 
fays of the earthly paradife, of the rivers that watered it, 
and ran through it; of the cities of Babylon, Erech, 
Refen, and Calneh ; of the gold of Pifon, of the bdellium, 
of the ftone of Sohem, or onyx-ftone, which was to be 
found in that country. Thefe particulars, obferved with 
fuch curiofity, feem to prove, that the author of the Pen¬ 
tateuch lived beyond the Euphrates. Add what he fays 
concerning the ark of Noah, of its conftruttion, of the 
place where it refted, of the wood wherewith it was built, 
of the bitumen of Babylon, &c. But in anfwer to all 
thefe objections, we may obferve in general, from an emi¬ 
nent writer of our own country, (Jenkin’s Reafonablenefs 
of Chriftianity,) that thefe books are by the moft ancient 
writers afcribed to Mofes ; and it is confirmed by the au¬ 
thority of heathen writers themfelves, that they are of his 
writing: befides this, we have the unanimous teftimony 
of the whole Jewilh nation, ever fince Mofes’s time, from 
the firft writing of them. Divers texts of the Pentateuch 
imply that it was written by Mofes ; and the Book of 
jolhua, and other parts of Scripture, import as much ; 
and, though fome paflages have been thought to imply 
the contrary, yet this is but a late opinion, and has been 
fufficiently confuted by feveral learned men. The Sama¬ 
ritans receive no other Scriptures but the Pentateuch, 
rejecting all the other books which are ftill in the Jewifti 
canon. 
PENTATH'LON, or Pentathlum, f. [from the Gr. 
TTsm, five, and a. 9 Mv a conteft.] The five principal exer- 
cifes performed in the Grecian games. Thefe were, 
wreftling, darting, leaping, running, and quoit-playing. 
He who bore away the prize in them all was called pen- 
talhlus; by the Latins, quinquertio; as the five exercifes 
themfelves were by thofe latter people called quinquertium. 
The candidates in the pentathlon, as well as tnofe in all 
the other gymnaftic exercifes, contended naked, and were 
alfo anointed with oil. Although fome doubts have been 
fuggefted with regard to the conditions upon which the 
victory was awarded in the pentathlon, it is certain, that 
he who vanquilhed his antagonift in every one of the five 
exercifes was alone entitled to the crown. If all hopes of 
gaining the pentathletic crown were loft to him who was 
vanquilhed in any one trial, it has been queried why the 
vanquilhed Ihould contend any longer ? The reply to 
this queftion is, that the pentathletes were probably ob- 
liged by the law's of the Olympic games to go through all 
the five exercifes. Although all the competitors, except 
one, muft have defpaired of gaining the crown, even from 
the firft trial, yet they might ftill be defirous of carrying 
on the conteft through the four remaining exercifes, if 
they had not been required to do it by the Olympic laws, 
either with a view of fignalizing themfelves in fome of 
the other contefts, or the hopes of ravifliing the crown 
from him by whofe viCfory they had been excluded from 
the profpeCt of obtaining it. Pindar, in his thirteenth 
Olympic ode, congratulates Xenophon of Corinth upon 
his having gained in one day two Olympic crowns ; one 
in the ftadium, or fimple foot-race, the other in the pen¬ 
tathlon, which, as he fays, never happened to any man 
before. The reafon is, that the regimen of a pentathlete, 
as we are informed by both EpiCletus and Arrian, was 
very different from that of an athlete, who qualified him- 
P E N 
felf for a fingle exercife alone, as running, wreftling, or 
any other; whence, as both Plato and Longinus affure 
us, it feldom happened that a pentathlete, though very 
eminent in his profeflion, was able to contend with an 
athlete in that exercife, as, e. g. running or wreftling, to 
which alone he had applied himfelf altogether. The 
fame obfervation is applicable to all the athletes in gene¬ 
ral ; who differed from each other in their refpe&ive re¬ 
gimens and diets, as much or more than in the feveral 
exercifes to which they peculiarly applied themfelves. 
Weft's Pindar. 
PEN'TECOST, f. [pen’eeco|*?e, Sax. from wsflixoru, 
Gr. the fiftieth.] A folemn feaft among the Jews, fo called 
becaufe it was celebrated the 50th day after the fixteenth 
of Nifan, which was the fecond day of the feaft of the 
Paffover: the Hebrews call it the Feaft of Weeks, becaufe 
it was kept feven weeks after the Paffover: they then 
offered the firft fruits of the wheat-harveft, which then 
was completed: it was inftituted to oblige the Ifraelites 
to repair to the Temple, there to acknowledge the Lord’s 
dominion, and alfo to render thanks to God for the law 
he had given them from Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day 
after their coming out of Egypt. 
The modern Jews celebrate the Pentecoft for two days. 
They deck the fynagogue and their own houfes with 
garlands of flowers. They hear a fermon or oration in 
praife of the Law, which they fuppofe to have been deli¬ 
vered on this day. The Jews of Germany make a very 
thick cake, confiding of feven layers of pafte, which they 
call Sinai. The feven layers reprefent the feven heavens, 
which they think God was obliged to reafcend from the 
top of this mountain. See Leo of Modena, and Buxtorf’s 
Synag. Jud. ' J 
Whitsuntide, a folemn feaft of the Chriftian church, 
held in commemoration of the defcent of the Holy Gholt 
on the Apoftles, is alfo called Pentecoft becaufe the event 
it commemorates happened on the day of the Jewifti Pen¬ 
tecoft, which came to pafs on the fiftieth day after Eafter. 
Our heavenly Redeemer had frequently, before his 
paffion, promifed to his difciples fome extraordinary gifts; 
and at his afcenfion exprefsly commanded them to tarry 
at Jerufalem, until they Ihould be “ endowed with power 
from on high," which he had vouchfafed to affure them 
they Ihould receive. On the day of the Jewifti feaft of 
Pentecoft, when the apoftles were all affembled together 
in one place, Suddenly there came a found from heaven, as 
of a rujhing mighty wind, and it filled all the lwufe where 
t/tey were fitting: and there appeared unto them cloven 
tongues like as of fire, which fat upon each of them: and they 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to fpeak 
with other tongues, as the fpirit gave them utterance. Acts ii. 
In commemoration of this extraordinary fupernatural en¬ 
dowment, the church very early eftablilhed the day of Pen¬ 
tecoft, as a folemn Chriftian feftival; a name it ftill retains, 
though its more common appellation is that of Whit- 
Sunday, Dominica in Albis, one of the ancient names alfo 
of Low-Sunday. 
In the ancient church, Pentecoft finiftied the pafchal 
time, or Eafter feafon ; wherein, as Tertullian, St. Jerome, 
&c. obferve, Hallelujah was fung every-where, the office 
celebrated (landing, no falling allowed, &c. 
In the early ages of Chriftianity alfo, baptifm, except¬ 
ing in cafes of urgency, was adminiftered only at the two 
great feftivals of Eafter and Whitfuntide : at the former 
period from a conceived refemblance between the great 
events then celebrated of Chrift’s death and refurreftion, 
and that part of the fervice of baptifm which typifies the 
dying from fin, and rifing again unto righteoufnefs; while 
Whitfuntide was deemed alfo peculiarly appropriate for 
that holy facrament, not only from the apoftles having 
been baptized with the Holy Ghoft and with fire , but from 
their having commenced their public miniftry on that 
day ; and themfelves baptifed three thoufand perfons. In 
token of the fpiritual purity obtained by the holy parti¬ 
cipation of baptifm, the garments of thofe admitted to 
