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4 ABDITORIUM ABIF
Among the faithless, faithful only he ;
is to be
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
considered simply as an appellative or
Unshaken, unreduced, unterrified,
surname, he preserves the Hebrew form, his
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal . (894-7
translation being as follows : " Machte Huram
.) Abif dem Konige Salomo ." The Swedish veraname
became the synonym of his aHyrainstead of "
honor faithfulness .
father," gives us " m Abiv." In thee
Abditorlum. A secret place for the deposit Latin Vulgate, as in the English version, the
of records-a Tabularium . words are rendered " Hiram pater ejus . I
Abelites . A secret Order which existed have little doubt that Luther and the Swedish
about the middle of the 18th century in Ger- translator were correct in treating the word
many, called also " the Order of Abel." The Abif as an appellative. In Hebrew, the word
organization was in possession of peculiar ab, or " father, is often used, honoris causa,
signs, words, and ceremonies of initiation, as a title of respect, and may then signify
but, according to Gadicke (Freimaurer Lexi- friend, counselor wise man, or something else
con), it had no connection with Freemasonry. of equivalent cf,aracter. Thus, Dr. Clarke,
According to Clavel the order was founded at commenting on the word abrech, in Genesis
Griefswald in 1745. xli . 43, says : " Father seems to have been a
Abercorn, Earl of. James Hamilton, Lord name of office, and probably father of the king
Paisley, was named Grand Master of Egland or father of Pharaoh might signify the same as
by the retiring G. Master, the Duke of Rich- the king's minister among us . And on the
mond in 1725 . He was at that time the very passage in which this word Abif is used,
Master of a Lodge, and had served on the he says : " :X, father, is often used in He-
Committee of Charity during that year . He brew to signify master, inventor, chief operator ."
succeeded his father as Earl of Abercorn in Gsenius, the distinguished Hebrew lexi-
1734. cographer, gives to this word similar signifi-
Abercorn, Duke of . Grand Master of Ire- cation, such as benefactor, master, teacher,
land 1874-85 .
and says that in the Arabic and the Ethiopic
Aberdour, Lord . Grand Master of Scot- it is spoken of one who excels in anything.
land, 1755-6 . Also of England 1757-61 . This idiomatic custom was pursued by the
Abib. The original name of the Hebrew later Hebrews, for Buxtorf tells us, in his "Talmonth
Nisan, nearly corresponding to the mudic Lexicon, that among the Talmudists
month of March, the first of the ecclesiastical abba, father, was always a title of honor,"
year . Abib is frequently mentioned in the and he quotes the following remarks from 'a
Sacred Scriptures, and signifies green ears of treatise of the celebrated Maimonides, who,
corn or fresh fruits .
when speaking of the grades or ranks into
Abibale . The name of the first Assassin in which the Rabbinical doctors were divided,
the Elu of the Modern French Rite . says : " The first class consists of those each
Derived most probably from the Hebrew of ,whom bears his own name, without any
abi and balah, " :X and y~ :, which mean father
title of honor ; the second, of those who are
called
of destruction, though it is said to mean " le
Rabbanim • and the hird, of those who
meurtrier du Pire"
are called Rabbi, and the men of this class also
Abide by. See Stand to and abide by .
receive the cognomen of Abba, Father ."
Abif (or Abiff, or perhaps more correctly
Again, in 2 Chronicles ii. 13, Hiram, the
Ablv) King of Tyre, referring to the same Hiram,
. An epithet which has been applied in the widow's son, who is spoken of subse-
Scripture to that celebrated builder who was quently in reference to King Solomon as
sent to Jerusalem by King Hiram, of Tyre, to father," or
" his
superintend the construction of the Temple Abif in the passage already cited,
. writes to Solomon : " And now I have sent a
The word, which in the original Hebrew is cunning man, endued with understanding, of
)" :N, and which may be pronounced Abiv or Huram my father's
Abif, is
." The only difficulty in
compounded of the noun in the con- this sentence is to be found in the prefixing of
struct-state I:X, Abi, meaning "
and the pronominal suffix 1, which, with father," the letter lamed > before Huram which has
preceding vowel sound is to be sounded as iv caused our translators, by a strange blunder,
or if, and which means!` his" ; so that the word to render the words l Huram abi, as meaning
thus compounded Abif literally and gram- " of Huram my father's," * instead of
matically signifies " his father ." The word is "Huram my father ." Luther has again taken
found in 2 Chronicles iv. 16, in the following the correct view of this subject, and translates
sentence : " The pots also, and the shovels, the word as an appellative : So sende ich
and the flesh hooks, and all their instruments nun einen weisen Mann, der Berstand hat,
did Huram his fathr make to King Solomon . ' Huram Abif" that is, " So now I send you a
The latter part of this verse is in the original wise man who has understanding, Huram
as follows : Abif ." The truth, I suspect, is, although it has .
escaped all the commentators, that the lamed
nn5ln `15r~5 1':X a7 in 'IVY) in this passage is a Chaldaism which is some-
Shelomoh lamelech Abif Huram gnasah times used by the later Hebrew writers, who
Luther has been more literal in his version
of this passage than the English translators, the
*
true
It may
meaning,
be remarked
for the
that
father
this
of
could
King
not
Hiram
be
and appearing to suppose that the word Abif was not another Hiram, but Abibal.