Several persons, however, still insist that religious flagellations were in use among the ancient Jews, and draw, it must be confessed, strong arguments from the words of David, in Psal. lxxiii. 14: “_For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning[10]._” But if we consider attentively these expressions of the Prophet, we shall find that they do not by any means signify that he lashed himself with a scourge every day, and all the day long. Those stripes of which he speaks are to be understood only in a figurative sense, and they only mean those misfortunes and tribulations which are frequently the lot of the righteous in this world: and indeed we see that David exclaims elsewhere, ‘_For I am ready to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me._’ Besides, we are to observe that St. Austin, a Writer of the highest authority, paraphrases the above-mentioned passage of Ps. lxxiii. in the following manner: “I am never free from afflictions from God; I discharge my duty, and yet I am beaten, &c.” Indeed the above is only the rational meaning of the passage in question; and we cannot with any degree of probability infer from it (as certain persons do) that the practice of scourging one’s self voluntarily, and lashing one’s hide with rods and whip-cords, was in use among the ancient Hebrews, and that such a whimsical notion ever entered their heads. It is true that Philo _the Jew_, and Eusebius of Cæsarea, relate, that the Esseans, or _Therapeutæ_ (whether they were a particular sect of the Jews, or are to be ranked among the first Christians, is not clear) were celebrated on account of the macerations which they practised; but then we are intirely ignorant of the methods which they used in order to mortify themselves, and we are no where told that they employed for that purpose either _disciplines_ or whips. Yet, this cannot be disallowed, that after the two Rabbins, _Mayr_, and _Asse the Son_, had compiled the Babylonian Talmud[11] that is to say, about the 476th year from the birth of our Lord, new practices began to prevail among the Jews. Fascinated, I do not know by what kind of superstition, they began to use, contrary to their former customs, a sort of voluntary discipline; though, we are to observe, they never inflicted such discipline on themselves with their own hands. We are informed of the above fact, in the Treatise intitled _Malkos_, in the 3d Chapter of which it is said, that the Jews, after they had finished their prayers and confessed their sins (which were exercises they derived from their ancestors) used to lash one another with scourges.