ORIENTATION
305
ORIENTIUS
and A. Morton (Concise Dictionary of Egyptian Ar-
cheology, London, 1901); J. P. Mahaffy (The Em-
pire of the Ptolemies, London, 1895); H. Walhs, J.
Capart, H. Schneider, J. H. Breasted, A.. Wiedemann,
M. C. Strack, P. Pierret, K. Piehl, A. Ermann etc.
Connected with Egyptology is the study of Coptic, the
language of the descendants of the ancient Egyptians.
The extant Coptic literature is almost exclusively
Christian, and except for hturgical purposes, it fell
into disuse after the Moslem supremacy in Egypt in
the seventh century. Among the scholars who have
made a specialty of this branch of Oriental studies
may be mentioned E. Renaudet (eighteenth century),
E. M. Quatremere (Recherches critiques et histo-
riques sur la langue et la httcrature de I'Egypte, Paris,
1808); A. J. Butler (Ancient Coptic Churches of
Egypt, Oxford, 1884), B. T. Evetts, E. Am<ilineau,
E. C. Butler, W. E. Crum, and H. Hyvernat, profes-
sor of Oriental languages and archaeology at the Cath-
olic University in Washington, who has published in
monumental form the text and translation of the
"Acts of the Martyrs of the Coptic Church".
Explorations in Syi-ia and Palestine. — Explorations in the Bible lands proper were taken up later than those in Assyria and Egypt and thus far they have been less fruitful in archaeological results. The first work, chiefly topographical, was undertaken by Dr. Ed- ward Robinson of New York in 1838 and again in 1852. The results of his investigations appeared in "Biblical Researches", 3 vols., Berlin and Boston, 1841 (3rd edition, 1867), but he is better known through the publication of liis popular work entitled "The Land and the Book". In 1847 the American Government commissioned Lieutenant Lynch of the U. S. Navy to explore the Valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. In 1865 the Palestine Exploration Fund was organized in England, and among other impor- tant resultsof its activities has been an accurate survey and mapping out of the territory west of the Jordan. From 1.867 to 1870 the Fund conducted excavations at Jerusalem under the direction of Sir Charles Warren. They proved valuable in connexion with the identification of the ancient Temple and other sites, but little was found in the line of archeological remains. In 1887 a German Piilestine Exploration Fund was organized, and beginning in 1884 it carried out under the direction of Dr. Schumacher a careful survey of the territory east of the Jordan. The most important archaeological discoveries in Palestine are the inscription of Mesha, King of Moab (ninth century B. c.) found at Dibon by the German missionary Klein in 1S68, the Hebrew inscription, probably of the time of Ezechias, found in the Siloam tunnel beneath the hill of Ophel, and the Greek inscription discovered by Clermont-Ganneau. In this connexion mention should be made of the still more important finding by natives in Egypt (1887) of the famous Tel el-Amarna tablets (q. v.), or letters written in cuneiform charac- ters and proving that about 1400 B. c, prior to the Hebrew conquest, Palestine was already permeated by the Assyro-Babylonian civilization and culture. Further excavations in Palestine have been conducted at various points by W. Flinders Petrie, the Egyptian explorer, (1889) and by the American savant F. J. Bliss (1890-1900). Of still greater importance for Oriental studies bearing on the Bible has been the estabhshment (1.S93) by the Dominican Fathers at Jerusalem of a school of Biblical studies under the direction of F. M. Lagrange, O. P. This institute, which has for its object a theoretical and practical training in Oriental subjects pertaining to Holy Scripture, numbers among its staff of instructors such scholars as Father Scheil and Father Vincent who with their co-workers publish the scholarly "Revue biblique Internationale". Similar schools were later founded at Jerusalem by the Americans (1900) and by the Germans (1903). XL— 20
Besides the works already mentioned, see Condamin. Bahylone
et la Bible in Diet, apologel. de la joi cathol. (Paris, 1909); HlL-
PBECHT, Explorations in Bible Lands during the Nineteenth Century
(Philadelphia, 1903) ; Peters in the Encyclopedia Americana, s. v.
Oriental Research; Jastrow, Religion of Assyria and Babylonia
(Boston, 1898); Oussani, The Bible and the Ancient East in the
New York Review (Nov.-Deo., 1906) ; Idem, The Code of Ham-
murabi (loc. cit., Aug.-Sept., 1905); Duncan, The Exploration of
Egypt and the Old Testament (New York, 1908) ; Ermoni. La bible
et Varcheologie syrienne (Paris, 1904) ; Idem, La bible et I' egyptologie
(Paris, 1905) ; Rogers. History of Babylonia and Assyria (New
York, 1900); Maspebo, Dawn of Ciiilization (1894); Idem, The
Struggle of the Nations (New York, 1S97) ; Paton, Early History of
Syria and Palestine (New York, 1901); Pinches, The Old Testa-
ment in the Light of the History of .Assyria and Babylonia (London,
1902).
James F. Driscoll.
Orientation of Churches. — According to Ter- tullian the Cliristians of his time were, by some who concerned themselves with their form of worship, be- lieved to be votaries of the sun. This supposition, he adds, doubtless arose from the Christian practice of turning to the east when praying (.-ipol., c. xvi). Speaking of churches the same writer tells us that the homes "of our dove", as he terms them, are always in "high and open places, facing the hght" (Adv. Val., c. iii), and the Apostolic Constitutions (third to fifth century) prescribe that church edifices should be erected with their "heads" towards the East (Const. Apost., II, 7).
The practice of praying while turned towards the rising sun is older than Christianity, but the Christians in adopting it were influenced by reasons pecuhar to themselves. The principal of these reasons, accord- ing to St. Gregory of Nyssa, was that the Orient con- tained man's original home, the earthly paradise. St. Thomas Aquinas, speaking for the Middle Ages, adds to this reason several others, as for example, that Our Lord lived His earthly Ufe in the East, and that from the East He shall come to judge mankind (II-II. Q. Ixxxiv, a. 3). Thus from the earUest period the custom of locating the apse and altar in the eastern extremity of the church was the rule. Yet the great Roman Basilicas of the Lateran, St. Peter's, St. Paul's (originally), St. Lorenzo's, as well as the Basilica of the Resurrection in Jerusalem and the basilicas of Tyre and Antioch, reversed this rule by placing the apse in the western extremity. The reasons for this mode of orientation can only be conjectured. Some writers explain it by the fact that in the fourth cen- tury the celebrant at ISIass faced the people, and, there- fore in a church with a western apse, looked towards the East when officiating at the altar. Others con- jecture that the peculiar orientation of the basilicas mentioned, erected by Constantine the Great or under his influence, may have been a reminiscence of the former predilection of this emperor for sun-worship. In the Orient the eastern apse was the rule, and thence it made its way to the West through the reconstructed Basilica of St. Paul's, the Basilica of S. Pietro in Vincoli, and the celebrated basilica of Ravenna. From the eighth century the propriety of the eastern apse was universally admitted, though, of course strict adherence to this architectural canon, owing to the direction of city streets, was not always possible. Kraus, G'esch. d. christ. Kunst, I (Freiburg. 1895) ; Realency^ klopddie d. christ. AUertiimer, 9. v. Orientirung (Freiburg, 1886); LowRiB, Monuments of the Early Church (New York, 1901); En- lart, Manuel d' archeologie fran^aise, 1 (Paris, 1902).
Maurice M. Hassett.
Orientius, Christian Latin pool of the fifth cen- tury. He wrote an elegiac poetii {('(iiniiioiiilorium) of 1036 verses (divided into two books) (lisrrihing the way to heaven, with warnings ag.-iiiisl ils liiiidrances. He was a Gaul (II, 184), who had been convert ed after a life of sin (I, 405 .sq.), was evidently mii experienced pastor, and wrote at a time when his country was be- ing devastated by the invasion of savages. All this points to his identification with Orientius, Bishop of Augusta Ausciorum (Auch), who as a very old man
