Volume 2, Slice 2 Part 30 (1/2)

APHEMIA (from Gr. [Greek: a], without, and [Greek: pheme], speech), in pathology, the loss of the power of speech (see APHASIA).

APHIDES (pl. of Aphis), minute insects, also known as ”plant-lice,”

”blight,” and ”green-fly,” belonging to the h.o.m.opterous division of the order Hemiptera, with long antennae and legs, two-jointed, two-clawed tarsi, and usually a pair of abdominal tubes through which a waxy secretion is exuded. These tubes were formerly supposed to secrete the sweet substance known as ”honey-dew” so much sought after by ants; but this is now known to come from the alimentary ca.n.a.l. Both winged and wingless forms of both s.e.xes occur, and the wings when present are normal in number, that is to say two pairs. Apart from their importance from the economic standpoint, Aphides are chiefly remarkable for the phenomena connected with the propagation of the species. The following brief summary of what takes place in the plant-louse of the rose (_Aphis rosae_), may be regarded as typical of the family, though exceptions occur in other species: Eggs produced in the autumn by fertilized females remain on the plant through the winter and hatching in the spring give rise to female individuals which may be winged or wingless.

From these females are born parthenogenetically, that is to say without the intervention of males, and by a process that has been compared to internal budding, large numbers of young resembling their parents in every particular except size, which themselves reproduce their kind in the same way. This process continues throughout the summer, generation after generation being produced until the number of descendants from a single individual of the spring-hatched brood may amount to very many thousands. In the autumn winged males appear, union between the s.e.xes takes place and the females lay the fertilized eggs which are destined to carry the species through the cold months of winter. If, however, the food-plant is grown in a conservatory where protection against cold is afforded, the aphides may go on reproducing agamogenetically without cessation for many years together. Not the least interesting features connected with this strange life-history are the facts that the young may be born by the oviparous or viviparous methods and either gamogenetically or agamogenetically, and may develop into winged forms or remain wingless, and that the males only appear in any number at the close of the season. Although the factors which determine these phenomena are not clearly understood, it is believed that the appearance of the males is connected with the increasing cold of autumn and the growing scarcity of food, and that the birth of winged females is similarly a.s.sociated with decrease in the quant.i.ty or vitiation of the quality of the nourishment imbibed. Sometimes the winged females migrate from the plant they were born on to start fresh colonies on others often of quite a different kind. Thus the apple blight (_Aphis mali_) after producing many generations of apterous females on its typical food-plant gives rise to winged forms which fly away and settle upon gra.s.s or corn-stalks.

Closely related to the typical aphides is _Phylloxera vastatrix_, the insect which causes enormous loss by attacking the leaves and roots of vines. Its life-history is somewhat similar to that of _Aphis rosae_ summarized above. In the autumn a single fertile egg is laid by apterous females in a crevice of the bark of the vine where it is protected during the winter. From this egg in the spring emerges an apterous female who makes a gall in the new leaf and lays therein a large number of eggs. Some of the apterous young that are hatched from these form fresh galls and continue to multiply in the leaves, others descend to the root of the plant, becoming what are known as root-forms. These, like the parent form of spring, reproduce parthenogenetically, giving rise to generation after generation of egg-laying individuals. In the course of the summer, from some of these eggs are hatched females which acquire wings and lay eggs from which wingless males and females are born. From the union of the s.e.xes comes the fertile egg from which the parent form of spring is hatched.

See generally G.B. Buckton, _British Aphides_ (Ray Soc. 1876-1883); also ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. (R. I. P.)

APHORISM (from the Gr. [Greek: aphorizein], to define), literally a distinction or a definition, a term used to describe a principle expressed tersely in a few telling words or any general truth conveyed in a short and pithy sentence, in such a way that when once heard it is unlikely to pa.s.s from the memory. The name was first used in the _Aphorisms_ of Hippocrates, a long series of propositions concerning the symptoms and diagnosis of disease and the art of healing and medicine.

The term came to be applied later to other sententious statements of physical science, and later still to statements of all kinds of principles. Care must be taken not to confound _aphorisms_ with _axioms_. Aphorisms came into being as the result of experience, whereas axioms are self-evident truths, requiring no proof, and appertain to pure reason. Aphorisms have been especially used in dealing with subjects to which no methodical or scientific treatment was applied till late, such as art, agriculture, medicine, jurisprudence and politics.

The _Aphorisms_ of Hippocrates form far the most celebrated as well as the earliest collection of the kind, and it may be interesting to quote a few examples. ”Old men support abstinence well: people of a ripe age less well: young folk badly, and children less well than all the rest, particularly those of them who are very lively.” ”Those who are very fat by nature are more exposed to die suddenly than those who are thin.”

”Those who eject foaming blood, eject it from the lung.” ”When two illnesses arrive at the same time, the stronger silences the weaker.”

The first aphorism, perhaps the best known of all, which serves as a kind of introduction to the book, runs as follows:--”Life is short, art is long, opportunity fugitive, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult: it is necessary not only to do oneself what is right, but also to be seconded by the patient, by those who attend him, by external circ.u.mstances.” Another famous collection of aphorisms is that of the school of Salerno in Latin verse, in which Joannes de Meditano, one of the most celebrated doctors of the school of medicine of Salerno, has summed up the precepts of this school. The book was dedicated to a king of England. It is a disputed point as to which king, some authorities dating the publication as at 1066, others a.s.signing a later date. The dedication gives the following excellent advice:--

”Anglorum regi scribit schola tota Salernae.

Si vis incolumem, si vis te reddere sanum, Curas tolle graves: irasci crede profanum: Parce mero: coenato parum; non sit tibi vanum Surgere post epulas: somnum fuge meridianum: Ne mictum retine, nec comprime fort.i.ter anum: Haec bene si serves, tu longo tempore vives.”

Another collection of aphorisms, also medical and also in Latin, is that of the Dutchman Hermann Boerhaave, published at Leiden in the year 1709; it gives a terse summary of the medical knowledge prevailing at the time, and is of great interest to the student of the history of medicine.

APHRAATES (a Greek form of the Persian name Aphrahat or Pharhadh), a Syriac writer belonging to the middle of the 4th century A.D., who composed a series of twenty-three expositions or homilies on points of Christian doctrine and practice. The first ten were written in 337, the following twelve in 344, and the last in 345.[1] The author was early known as _hakkima pharsaya_ (”the Persian sage”), was a subject of Sapor II., and was probably of heathen parentage and himself a convert from heathenism. He seems at some time in his life to have a.s.sumed the name of Jacob, and is so ent.i.tled in the colophon to a MS. of A.D. 512 which contains twelve of his homilies. Hence he was already by Gennadius of Ma.r.s.eilles (before 496) confused with Jacob, bishop of Nisibis; and the ancient Armenian version of nineteen of the homilies has been published under this latter name. But (1) Jacob of Nisibis, who attended the council of Nicaea, died in 338; and (2) our author, being a Persian subject, cannot have lived at Nisibis, which became Persian only by Jovian's treaty of 363. That his name was Aphrahat or Pharhadh we learn from comparatively late writers--Bar Bahlul (10th century), Elias of Nisibis (11th), Bar-Hebraeus, and 'Abhd-isho'. George, bishop of the Arabs, writing in A.D. 714 to a friend who had sent him a series of questions about the ”Persian sage,” confesses ignorance of his name, home and rank, but infers from his homilies that he was a monk, and of high esteem among the clergy. The fact that in 344 he was selected to draw up a circular letter from a council of bishops and other clergy to the churches of Seleucia and Ctesiphon and elsewhere--included in our collection as homily 14--is held by Dr W. Wright and others to prove that he was a bishop. According to a marginal note in a 14th-century MS.

(B.M. Orient. 1017), he was ”bishop of Mar Mattai,” a famous monastery near Mosul, but it is unlikely that this inst.i.tution existed so early.

The homilies of Aphraates are intended to form, as Professor Burkitt has shown, ”a full and ordered exposition of the Christian faith.” The standpoint is that of the Syriac-speaking church, before it was touched by the Arian controversy. Beginning with faith as the foundation, the writer proceeds to build up the Structure of doctrine and duty. The first ten homilies, which form one division completed in 337, are without polemical reference; their subjects are faith, love, fasting, prayer, wars (a somewhat mysterious setting forth of the conflict between Rome and Persia under the imagery of Daniel), the sons of the covenant (monks or ascetics), penitents, the resurrection, humility, pastors. Those numbered 11-22, written in 344, are almost all directed against the Jews; the subjects are circ.u.mcision, pa.s.sover, the sabbath, persuasion (the encyclical letter referred to above), distinction of meats, the subst.i.tution of the Gentiles for the Jews, that Christ is the Son of G.o.d, virginity and holiness, whether the Jews have been finally rejected or are yet to be restored, provision for the poor, persecution, death and the last times. The 23rd homily, on the ”grape kernel” (Is.

lxv. 8), written in 344, forms an appendix on the Messianic fulfilment of prophecy, together with a treatment of the chronology from Adam to Christ. Aphraates impresses a reader favourably by his moral earnestness, his guilelessness, his moderation in controversy, the simplicity of his style and language, his saturation with the ideas and words of Scripture. On the other hand, he is full of c.u.mbrous repet.i.tion, he lacks precision in argument and is p.r.o.ne to digression, his quotations from Scripture are often inappropriate, and he is greatly influenced by Jewish exegesis. He is particularly fond of arguments about numbers. How wholly he and his surroundings were untouched by the Arian conflict may be judged from the 17th homily--”that Christ is the Son of G.o.d.” He argues that, as the name ”G.o.d” or ”Son of G.o.d” was given in the O.T. to men who were worthy, and as G.o.d does not withhold from men a share in His attributes--such as sovereignty and fatherhood--it was fitting that Christ who has wrought salvation for mankind should obtain this highest name. From the frequency of his quotations, Aphraates is a specially important witness to the form in which the Gospels were read in the Syriac church in his day; Zahn and others have shown that he--mainly at least--used the _Diatessaron_. Finally, he bears important contemporary witness to the sufferings of the Christian church in Persia under Sapor (Shapur) II. as well as the moral evils which had infected the church, to the sympathy of Persian Christians with the cause of the Roman empire, to the condition of early monastic inst.i.tutions, to the practice of the Syriac church in regard to Easter, &c.

Editions by W. Wright (London, 1869), and J. Parisot (with Latin translation, Paris, 1894); the ancient Armenian version of 19 homilies edited, translated into Latin, and annotated by Antonelli (Rome, 1756). Besides translations of particular homilies by G. Bickell and E.W. Budge, the whole have been translated by G. Bert (Leipzig, 1888).

Cf. also C.J.F. Sa.s.se, _Proleg, in Aphr. Sapientis Persae sermones homileticos_ (Leipzig, 1879); J. Forget, _De Vita et Scriptis Aphraatis_ (Louvain, 1882); F.C. Burkitt, _Early Eastern Christianity_ (London, 1904); J. Labourt, _Le Christianisme dans l'empire perse_ (Paris, 1904); J. Zahn, _Forschungen_ I.; ”Aphraates and the Diatessaron,” vol. ii. pp. 180-186 of Burkitt's _Evangelion Da-Mepharreshe_ (Cambridge, 1904); articles on ”Aphraates and Monasticism,” by R.H. Connolly and Burkitt in _Journal of Theological Studies_ (1905) pp. 522-539; (1906) pp. 10-15. (N. M.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Hom. 1-22 begin with the letters of the Syriac alphabet in succession. Their present order in the Syriac MSS. is therefore right. The ancient Armenian version, published by Antonelli in 1756, has only 19 of the homilies, and those in a somewhat different order.

APHRODITE,[1] the Greek G.o.ddess of love and beauty, counterpart of the Roman Venus. Although her myth and cult were essentially Semitic, she soon became h.e.l.lenized and was admitted to a place among the deities of Olympus. Some mythologists hold that there already existed in the Greek system an earlier G.o.ddess of love, of similar attributes, who was absorbed by the Asiatic importation; and one writer (A. Enmann) goes so far as to deny the oriental origin of Aphrodite altogether. It is therefore necessary first to examine the nature and characteristics of her Eastern prototype, and then to see how far they reappear in the Greek Aphrodite.

Among the Semitic peoples (with the notable exception of the Hebrews) a supreme female deity was wors.h.i.+pped under different names--the a.s.syrian Ishtar, the Phoenician Ashtoreth (Astarte), the Syrian Atargatis (Derketo), the Babylonian Belit (Mylitta), the Arabian Ilat (Al-ilat).

The article ”Aphrodite” in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_ is based upon the theory that all these were originally moon-G.o.ddesses, on which a.s.sumption all their functions are explained. This view, however, has not met with general acceptance, on the ground that, in Semitic mythology, the moon is always a male divinity; and that the full moon and crescent, found as attributes of Astarte, are due to a misinterpretation of the sun's disk and cow's horns of Isis, the result of the dependence of Syrian religious art upon Egypt. On the other hand, there is some evidence in ancient authorities (Herodian v. 6, 10; Lucian, _De Dea Syria_, 4) that Astarte and the moon were considered identical.

This oriental Aphrodite was wors.h.i.+pped as the bestower of all animal and vegetable fruitfulness, and under this aspect especially as a G.o.ddess of women. This wors.h.i.+p was degraded by repulsive practices (e.g. religious prost.i.tution, self-mutilation), which subsequently made their way to centres of Phoenician influence, such as Corinth and Mount Eryx in Sicily. In this connexion may be mentioned the idea of a divinity, half male, half female, uniting in itself the active and pa.s.sive functions of creation, a symbol of luxuriant growth and productivity. Such was the bearded Aphrodite of Cyprus, called Aphrodites by Aristophanes according to Macrobius, who mentions a statue of the androgynous divinity in his _Saturnalia_ (iii. 8. 2; see also HERMAPHRODITUS). The moon, by its connexion with menstruation, and as the cause of the fertilizing dew, was regarded as exercising an influence over the entire animal and vegetable creation.

The Eastern Aphrodite was closely related to the sea and the element of moisture; in fact, some consider that she made her first appearance on Greek soil rather as a marine divinity than as a nature G.o.ddess.

According to Syrian ideas, as a fish G.o.ddess, she represented the fructifying power of water. At Ascalon there was a lake full of fish near the temple of Atargatis-Derketo, into which she was said to have been thrown together with her son Ichthys (fish) as a punishment for her arrogance, and to have been devoured by fishes; according to another version, ashamed of her amour with a beautiful youth, which resulted in the birth of Semiramis, she attempted to drown herself, but was changed into a fish with human face (see ATARGATIS). At Hierapolis (Bambyce) there was a pool with an altar in the middle, sacred to the G.o.ddess, where a festival was held, at which her images were carried into the water. Her connexion with the sea is explained by the influence of the moon on the tides, and the idea that the moon, like the sun and the stars, came up from the ocean.

The oriental Aphrodite is connected with the lower world, and came to be looked upon as one of its divinities. Thus, Ishtar descends to the kingdom of Ilat the queen of the dead, to find the means of restoring her favourite Tammuz (Adon, Adonis) to life. During her stay all animal and vegetable productivity ceases, to begin again with her return to earth--a clear indication of the conception of her as a G.o.ddess of fertility. This legend, which strikingly resembles that of Persephone, probably refers to the decay of vegetation in winter, and the reawakening of nature in spring (cf. HYACINTHUS). The lunar theory connects it with the disappearance of the moon at the time of change or during an eclipse.