ARK
724
ARKANSAS
be utterly forgotten: "They shall say no more: The
ark of the covenant of Yahweh: neither shall it come
upon the heart, neither shall they remember it,
neither shall it be visited, neither shall that be done
any more" (Jer., iii, Ifi).
As to what became of the Ark at the fall of Jerusa- lem, in 587 B. c, there exist several traditions, one of which has found admittance in the sacred books. In a letter of the Jews of Jerusalem to them that were in Egypt, the following details are given as copied from a writing of Jeremias: "The prophet, being warned by God, commanded that the taber- nacle and the ark should accompany him, till he came forth to the mountain where Moses went up and saw the inheritance of God. And when Jeremias came thither he found a hollow cave and he carried in thither the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door. Then .some of them that followed him, came up to mark the place; but they could not find it. And when Jeremias perceived it, he blamed them saying: the place shall be unknown, till God gather together the congre- gation of the people and receive them to mercy. And then the Lord will shew these tilings, and the majesty of the Lord shall appear, and there shall be a cloud as it was also shewed to Moses, and he shewed it when Solomon prayed that the place might be sanctified to the great God" (II Mach., ii, 4-8). According to many commentators, the letter from which the above-cited lines are supposed to have been copied cannot be regarded as possessing Divine authority; for, as a rule, a citation remains in the Bible what it was outside of the inspired writing; the impossibility of dating the original document makes it very difficult to pass a judgment on its historical reliability. At any rate the tradition which it embodies, going back at least as far as two centuries before the Christian era, cannot be discarded on mere a priori arguments. Side by side with this tradition, we find another mentioned in the Apocalypse of Esdras; according to this latter, the Ark of the Covenant was taken by the victorious army that ransacked Jerusalem after having taken it (IV Esd., X, 22). This is certainly most possible, so much the more that we learn from IV Kings, xxv, that the Babylonian troops carried away from the temple whatever bra.ss, silver, and gold they could lay their hands upon. At any rate, either of these traditions is certainly more reliable than that adopted by the redactors of the Talmud, who tell us that the Ark was hidden by King Josias in a most secret place prepared by Solomon in case the temple might be taken and set on fire. It was a common belief among the rabbis of old that it would be found at the com- ing of the Messias. Be this as it may, this much is unquestionable; namely that the Ark is never men- tioned among the appurtenances of the second temple. Had it been preserved there, it would most likely have been now and then alluded to, at least on occasion of such ceremonies as the consecration of the new temi)le, or the re-establishment of the worship, both after the exile and during the Mach- abean times. True, the chronicler, who lived in the post-exilian epoch, says of the Ark (II Par., v, 9) that "it has been there unto this day". But it is commonly admitted on good grounds that the writer mentioned made use of, and wove together in his work, without as much as changing one single word of them, narratives belonging to former times. If, as serious commentators admit, the above-recorded
Caesage be one of these "implicit citations", it might e inferred thence that the chronicler probably did not intend to assert the existence of the Ark in the second temple.
Catholic tradition, led by the Fathers of the Church, has considered the .\rk of the Covenant as one of the purest and richest .symbols of the realities
of the New Law. It signifies, in the first .place, the
Incarnate Word of God. "Christ himself", says
St. Thomas .\quinas, "was signified by the Ark.
For in the same manner as the Ark was made of
setim wood, so also was the body of Christ composed
of the most pure human substance. The Ark was
entirely overlaid with gold, because Christ was filled
with wisdom and charity, which gold symbolizes.
In the Ark there was a golden vase: this represents
Jesus' most holy soul containing the fulness of
sanctity and the godhead, figured by the manna.
There was also Aaron's rod, to indicate the sacerdotal
power of Jesus Christ priest forever. Finally the
stone tables of the Law were likewise contained in
the Ark, to mean that Jesus Christ is the author of
the Law". To these points touched by the Angel
of the Schools, it might be added that the Ascension
of Christ to heaven after His victory over death and
sin is figured by the coming up of the Ark to Sion.
St. Bonaventure has also seen in the Ark a mystical
representation of the Holy Eucharist. In like man-
ner the Ark might be very well regarded as a mystical
figure of the Blessed Virgin, called by the Church
the "Ark of the Covenant" — Fcrdcris Area.
KiTTO, The Tabernacle and Its Furniture (London, 1849): L.^MV, De tabemacuto, de sanctA civilate et templo (Paris, 1720); LiGHTFOOT, Works, Vol. I. Dcscriptio templi hierosol,: PoELS. Eiamen critique de Vhistoire du sancluaire de i'arche (Louvain anil Leyden, 1897); Vigouroux. La Bible et Us dicouvertes modemes (Paris, 1889), II and III.
Chas. L. SotrvAY.
Ark of the Covenant. See Ark.
Arkansas, one of the United States of America, bounded on the north by the State of Missouri, on the south by the States of Louisiana and Texas, on the east by the States of Mississippi and Tennes- see, and on the west by the State of Texas and by Indian Territory, between latitude 33° and 37° and longitude 89° and 95°, has an area of 53,335 square miles. The boundaries are set forth with con- siderable particu- lanty in the state constitution, with which may be com- pared the Act of Congress, 15 June, 183G, admitting -Arkansas as a state. The motto of the State is Regnant
populi. The name was that of a tribe of Indians, formerly inhabitants of the region, a tribe also known as Quapaws or Osarks, and called also Al- kansas by Illinois Indians and other Algonquins (Charlevoix). A resolution passed in 1881 by the General Assembly of the State refers to confusion which had ari.sen "in the pronunciation of the name of our State " and resolves " that it should be pro- nounced in three syllables with the final 's' silent the 'a' in each syllable with the Itahan sound, and the accent on the first and last syllables".
The region now included in .\rkansas was a portion of the Louisiana purchase from France and ceded by the treaty of 1803. A census of the " province de In Louisiane", made in 17PS, states the popuhition of .Arkansas to be 1 19. An Act of Congress, 2(1 March 1801, provided that .so much of the ceded territory as was north of 33° of north latitude .should be named the ilistrict of Louisiana and governed by the gov- ernor of the Indian;i Territory. By .\ct of 3 March, 1805, the name was changed to "Territory of Louisi- ana" and a territorial government established. This name was changed to " .Missouri " by Act of
OF Arkansas
