Purple
Purple
(אִרגָּמָן, aryaman, from the Sanscrit raga, red; see (esen. Thes. s.v.; Chald. אִרגּוָן, ayrevdn, from the same root, in 2Ch 2:7; Da 5:7,16,29; Sept. and Greek Test. πορφύρα; Vulg. purpura) occurs in Ex 25:4; Ex 26:1,31,36; Ex 27:16; Ex 28:5-6,8,15,33; Ex 35:6,23,25,35; Ex 36:8,35,37; Ex 38:18,23; Ex 39:1-3,5,8,24,29; Nu 4:13; Jg 8:26; 2Ch 2:14; 2Ch 3:14; Es 1:6; Es 8:15; Pr 31:22; Song 3:10; Song 7:5; Jer 10:9; Eze 27:7,16; Ecclesiasticus 45:10; Bar. 6:12, 72; 1 Macc. 4:23; 8:14, 10:20, 62; 2 Macc. 4:38; Mr 15:17,20; Lu 16:19; Joh 19:2,5; Ac 16:14; Re 17:4; Re 18:12,16. In many of these passages the word translated "purple" means "purple cloth," or some other material dyed purple, as wool, thread, etc.; but no reference occurs to the means by which the dye was obtained, except in 1 Macc. 4:23, where we have πορφύρα θαλασσία, ' purple of the sea" (comp. Diod. Sic. iii, 68; Josephus, War, v, 5, 4). There is, however, no reason to doubt that it was obtained, like the far-famed Tyrian purple, from the juice of certain species of shell-fish. Different accounts are given by the ancients respecting the date and origin of this invention. Some place it in the reign of Phoenix, second king of Tyre, B.C. 500; others at the time that Minos I reigned in Crete, B.C. 1439, and consequently before the Exodus (Suidas, s.v. ῾Ηρακλῆς, ii, 73). But the person to whom the majority ascribe it is the Tyrian Hercules, whose dog, it is said, instigated by hunger, broke a certain kind of shell-fish on the coast of Tyre, and his mouth becoming stained of a beautiful color, his master was induced to try its properties on wool, and gave his first specimens to the king of Tyre, who admired the color so much that he restricted the use of it by law to the royal garments (Pollux, Ononm. i, 4; Achilles Tatius, De Clitoph.; Palaephat. in Chronicles Paschal. p. 43). It is remarkable that though the Israelites, as early as the first construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness, appear to have had purple stuff in profilsion (Ex 25:1-4), which they had most likely brought with them out of Egypt, yet no instance occurs in the pictorial language of the Egyptians, nor in Wilkinson's Ancient Manners and Customs, of the actual process of dyeing either linen or woollen, although dyes similar to the Tyrian were found among them. These facts agree, at least, with the accounts which ascribe the invention to the earliest of these two periods, and the pre-eminent trade in it to the Tyrians. The Greeks attributed its first introduction among themselves to the Phoenicians (Eurip. Phoen. 1497). Their word φοίνιξ, Phoenix, means both Phenician and purple. The word πορφύρα is, according to Martinius, of Tyrian origin. Though purple dyes were by no means confined to the Phoenicians (comp. Eze 27:7, "purple from the isles of Elisha," supposed to mean Elis, "and from Syria," ver. 16), yet violet purples and scarlet were nowhere dved so well as at Tyre, whose shores abounded with the best kind of purples (Pliny, Hist. Nat. 9:60, p. 524, ed. Harduin), and which was supplied with the best wool by the neighboring nomads. The dye called purple by the ancients, and its various shades, were obtained from many kinds of shell-fish, all of which are, however, ranged by Pliny under two classes: one called "buccinum," because shaped like a horn, found, he says, in cliffs and rocks, and yielding a sullen blue dye, which he compares to the color of the angry raging sea in a tempest; the other called "purpura," or "pelagia," the proper purple shell, taken by fishing in the sea, and yielding the deep-red color which he compares to the rich, fresh, and bright color of deep-red purple roses and to coagulated blood, and which was chiefly valued (ibid. c. 61,62). The latter is the Murex trunculus of Linnaeus and Lamarck (see Syst. Nat. p. 1215, and
Animaux sans Vertebres [Paris, 1822], 7:170). Both sorts were supposed to be as many years old as thev had spirals round. Michaelis thinks that Solomon alludes to their shape when he says (Song 7:5), "The hair of thine head is like purple," meaning that the tresses (Sept. πλόκιον κεφαλῆς, Vulg. comoe capitis) were tied up in a spiral or pyramidal form on the top. Others say that the word "purple" is here used like the Latin papuureus, for beautiful, etc., and instance the "purpurei olores," "beautiful swans" of Horace (Carm. 4:1, 10), and the "u purpureus capillus" of Virgil (Georg. 1, 405); but these phrases are not parallel. The juice of the whole shell-fish was not used, but only a little thin liquor called the flower, contained in a white vein or vessel in the neck. The larger purples were broken at the top to get at this vein without injuring it, but the smaller were pressed in mills (Aristot. Hist. An. v, 13, 75; Pliny, Hist. Nat. 9:60). The Murex trunculus has been demonstrated to be the species used by the ancient Tyrians by Wilde, who found a concrete mass of the shells in some of the ancient dye- pots sunk in the rocks of Tyre (Narrative [Dublin, 1840], ii, 482). It is of common occurrence now on the same coasts (Kitto, Physical History of Palestine, p. 418), and throughout the whole of the Mediterranean, and even of the Atlantic. In the Mediterranean, the countries most celebrated for purples were the shores of Peloponnesus and Sicily, and in the Atlantic the coasts of Britain, Ireland, and France. Horace alludes to the African (Carm. ii, 16, 35). There is, indeed, an essential difference in the color obtained from the purples of different coasts. Thus the shells from the Atlantic are said to give the darkest juice; those of the Italian and Sicilian coasts, a violet or purple; and those of the Phoenician, a crimson. It appears from the experiments of Reaumur and Duhamel that the tinging juice is perfectly white while in the vein; but upon being laid on linen, it soon appears first of a lightgreen color, and, if exposed to the air and sun, soon after changes into a deep green, in a few minutes into a sea-green, and in a few more into a blue; thence it speedily becomes of a purple red, and in an hour more of a deep purple red, which, upon being washed in scalding water and soap, ripens into a most bright and beautiful crimson, which is permanent. The ancients applied the word translated "purple" not to one color only, but to the whole class of dyes manufactured from the juices of shell-fish, as distinguished from the vegetable dyes (colores herbacei), and comprehending not only what is commonly called purple, but also light and dark purple, and almost every shade between. Various methods were adopted to produce these different colors. Thus, a sullen blue was obtained from the juice of the buccinum alone; a plain red, yet also deep and brown, from the pelagia; a dark red by dipping the wool, etc., first in the juice of the purpura, and then in that of the buccinum; a violet (which was the amethyst color so much valued by the Romans) by reversing the process; and another, the most valued and admired of all-the tyriamethystus-by again dipping the amethyst in the juice of the pelagia. This Pliny calls diblapha Tyria; so named, he says, because "bis tincta" (Hist. Nat. 9:39). No reference to this process occurs in the Scriptures, but it is often alluded to in Roman authors. Thus, Horace (Epod. 12:21): "Muricibus Tyriis iteratae vellera lanue" (the wools with Tyrian purple double dyed). Other varieties of color may have been produced by the use of various species of mollusks, and of those from different coasts. The Phcenicians also understood the art of throwing a peculiar lustre into this color by making other tints play over it, and producing what we call a shot color, which seems to have been wonderfully attractive (Pliny, 9:41).
Purple was employed in religious worship both among Jewns andl Gentiles. It was one of the colors of the curtains of the tabernacle (Ex 26:1); of the veil (ver. 31); of the curtain over the grand entrance (ver. 36); of the ephod of the high-priest (Ex 28:5-6), and of its girdle (ver. 8); of the breastplate (ver. 15); of the hem of the robe of the ephod (ver. 33); (comp. Ecclesiasticus 45:10); of cloths for divine service (Ex 39:1; comp. Nu 4:13), resumed when the Temple was built (2Ch 2:7,14; 2Ch 3:14). The material upon which the Jews used purple and other brilliant colors, at least in their sacred paraphernalia, seems to have been exclusively wool, which, it is well known, takes colors better than linen. SEE TABERNACLE. Pliny records a similar use of it among the Romans: "Diis advocatur placandis" (Hist. Nat. 9:60; Cicero, Epist. ad Atticumtni, ii, 9). The Babylonians arrayed their idols in it (Jer 10:9; Bar. 12:72). It was at an early period worn by kings (Jg 8:26). Homer speaks as if it were almost peculiar to them (II. 4:144; 1 Macc. 8:14). Pliny says it was worn bv Romulus and the succeedilg kings of Rome, and by the consuls and first nagistrates under the republic. Suetonius relates that Julius Caesar prohibited its use by Roman subjects, except on certain days; and that Nero forbade it altogether, upon pain of death. The use of it was bestowed by kings upon favorites, etc.; Josephus says by Pharaoh on Joseph (Ant. ii, 5, 7). It was given by Ahasuerus to Mordecai (Es 8:15); to Daniel by Belshazzar (Da 5:7,16,29). It was the dress of an ethnarch or prince, and as such given by Alexander to Jonathan (1 Macc. 10:20, 62, 64, 65; comp. 2 Macc. 4:38). In the last chapter of the Proverbs it is represented as the dress of a matron (ver. 22). It was at one time worn by Roman ladies and rich men (Livy, 34:7, and Valerius Max. ii, 1). See also the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lu 16:19). In Es 1:6, it appears as part of the royal furniture of Ahasuerus; and in Song 3:10, as the covering of the royal chariot; and Pliny refers to its general use, not only for clothes, but carpets, cushions, etc. (ix, 39). The robe in which the Prnetorian guard arrayed the Saviour, called χλαμὺς κοκκινη by Mt 27:28, and πορφύρα by Mr 15:17,20, and ἱμάτιον πορφυροῦν by Joh 19:2, and which appears to have been the cast-off sagum of one of their officers, was no doubt scarlet-that is, proper crimson, as will hereafter appear of a deeper hue and finer texture than the sagum or chlamys of the common soldier, but inferior in both respects to that of the emperor, which was also of this color in the time of war, though purple during peace. The adjectives used by the evangelists are, however, often interchanged. Thus a vest, which Horace (Sat. ii, 6, 102) calls "rubro cocco tincta," in 1, 106 he styles "purpurea." Braunius shows that the Romans gave this name to any color that had a mixture of red (De Vestitu Sacerdotun [Lugd. Bat. 1680], i, 14). Ovid applies the term "purpureus" to the cheeks and lips (Amor. i, 3). In Ac 10:14, reference is found to Lydia, of the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple cloth. The manufacture seems to have decayed with its native city. A colony of Jews which was established at Thebes in Greece in the 12th century carried on an extensive manufactory for dyeing purple. It ultimately became superseded by the use of indigo, cochineal, etc., whence a cheaper and finer purple was obtained, and free from the disagreeable odor which attended that derived from shell-fish (Martial, 1, 50, 32). The method of the ancients in preparing and applying it, and other particlars respecting its history, uses, and estimation, are most fully given by Pliny (Hist. Nat. 9:36-42). The best modern books are Amati, De Restitutione Puiypuracrum (3d ed. Cesena, 1784); the treatise by Capelli, De Antiqua et Nupera Purpura, with notes; and Don Michaele Rosa, Dissertazione delle Porpore. etc. (1768). See also Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles, 43, 219, etc.; Bochart, edit. Rosenmuller, iii, 675, etc.; Heeren, HistoricalResearches, translated (Oxford, 1833), ii, 8, etc. Steger, De Pupura, Sacroe Dignitatis Insigni (Lips. 1741).
Crimson (leb. karmiil', כִּרמַיל, a Persian word akin to Sanscrit krimi, Eng. crimson. It occurs in 2Ch 2:7-14; 2Ch 3:14; Sept. κόκκινος,
Vulg. coccinum). This word is by some supposed to signify another kind of shell-fish, yielding a crimson dye, so called because found on the shore near Mount Carmel. If so, these words (Song 7:5), "thine head upon thee is like Carmel," may contain another reference to the shape of some sort of purpura (Bochart, iii, 661, etc.). Gesenius says it is a mword belonging to later Hebrew, and most probably of Persian or Armenian origin.
The purple dye itself was a liquor, contained in a vein situated in the neck of the animal, which when first opened resembled cream in color and consistence. Small shells were collected and bruised in mortars, butt the larger ones were opened singly, the fluid carefully removed, and mingled with salt to prevent decomnposition. It was diluted with five or six times as mmuclh water, and kept moderately hot in leaden or tin vessels for eight or ten days, during which the liquor was often skimmed, to separate all the impurities. After this, the wool to be dyed, being first well washed, was immersed, and kept therein for five hours, then taken out, cooled, and again immersed, and continued in the liquor till all the color was exhausted (Thomson, Hist. of Chemistry, i, 91). Prior to the researches of Mr. Wilde, noticed above, it had been concluded that the purpura of Plinly was the Murex trunculus of Linnaeus from indirect evidence. The buccinum uof the same ancient writer is thought to be the Purpurat patula of Lamarck; and probably the P. lapillus, one of the most abundant of species on the rocky shores of Europe, including Great Britain, may have been the chief of the smaller sorts. It has been supposed by some that the conchyliu;m of Pliny, which gave a paler and bluer purple, was our Janthina fragilis; but this is out of the question, because though this snail-like mollusk discharges a violet fluid, it is exceedingly volatile, and therefore wholly unfit for dyeing, whereas unalterable permanency characterized the Phoenician purples. Scalaria clathrus, another European shell-fish whicl discharges a coloring fluid, is liable to the same objection, unless the ancients had some mode of fixing what we find evanescent. Colonel Montagu instituted some experiments on this. "The purple juice," he says, "may be collected either from the recent or dried animal, by opening the part behind the head; and as much can be procured from five individuals as is slufficient, when mixed with a few drops of spring-water, to cover half a sheet of paper." Neither volatile nor fixed alkali materially affects it; mineral acids turn it a bluish green or sea-green; sulphuric acid renders it a shade more inclining to blue; vegetable acids probably do not affect it. since cream of tartar did not in the least alter it. These colors, laid on paper, were very bright, and appeared for some months unchanged by the action of the air or the sun; but being exposed tor a whole summer to the solar ravs in a south window, they almost vanished. The application of alkali to the acidulated color always restores it to its primitive state, and it is as readily changed again by mineral acid (Montagu, Testacea Brit. Supp. p. 122). The circumstance that the fluid effused by Janthina and Scalariat is purple from the first is conclusive against its being the purple dye of the ancients, who tell us distinctly that this was white or cream-like while within the vein. This agrees accurately with the genera Murex and Purpura, as may be readily tested in the case of P. lapillus, the common dog-whelk of the British coast. Montagu thus records the result of his experiments on this species: "The part containing the coloring-matter is a slender longitudinal vein, just under the skin on the back, behind the head, appearing whiter than the rest of the animal. The fluid itself is of the color and consistence of cream. As soon as it is exposed to the air it becomes of a bright yellow, speedily turns to a pale green, and continues to change imperceptibly, until it assumes a bluish cast, and then a purplish red. Without the influence of the solar rays, it will go through all these changes in the course of two or three hours; but the process is much accelerated by exposure to the sun. A portion of the fluid, mixed with diluted vitriolic acid, did not at first appear to have been sensibly affected; but, by more intimately mixing it in the sun, it became of a pale purple, or purplish red, without any of the intermediate changes. Several marks were now made on fine calico, in order to try if it were possible to discharge the color by such chemical means as were at hand; and it was found that after the color was fixed at its last natural change, nitrous no more than vitriolic acid had any other effect than that of rather brightening it; aqua regia, with or without solution of tin, and marine acid, produced no change; nor had fixed or volatile alkali any sensible effect. It does not in the least give out its color to alcohol, like cochineal, and the succus of the animal of Turbo (Sclariat) clathrus; but it communicates its very disagreeable odor to it most copiously, so that opening the bottle has been more powerful in its effects on the olfactory nerves than the effluvia of assafetida, to which it may be compared. All the markings which had been alkalized and acidulated, together with those to which nothing had been applied, became, after washing in soap and water, of a uniform color rather brighter than before, and were fixed at a fine unchangeable crimson" (Test. Brit. Sulpp. p. 106). The changes of color are absolutely dependent on the stimulus of light. Dr. Bancroft found that linen stained with the fluid of the Purpura might be kept for years shut between the leaves of a book witllout any visible change, which at the expiration of its incarceration presently passed through all the changes, under the influence of light, to a glowing purple (On Perman. Col. i, 145). Reaumur asserts that the immature egg-capsules of the same mollusk will yield the dye more abundantly, and with more facility. than the animal itself (Hist. Acad. Sci. 1711). It would appear as if the knowledge of this art had never been lost, but had been perpetuated even in Great Britain from the classical ages. Bede, in the 8th century, alludes to it familiarly, and with admiration of the brilliancy and permanency of the hue (Hist. Ecclesiastes Ang. i, 1); and Richard of Cirencester speaks of it in the 14th (Descr. of Brit. p. 28). About the same time the following description was given in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon: "Ther is allso of shel that we dyeth with fine reede. The reednesse ther of is wondre fayre and stable and steyneth nevyr with colde withwith hete ne with drie but ever the eldere the hew is fayrere" (Of Bretacyne, i, 38). Three hundred years later the art was practiced for profit by persons on the coast of Ireland, who guarded it as an heirloom secret. Cole, however, found that the Purpura lapillus was the shell employed. See Bible Educator, 3, 327 sq.; 4:217; and SEE COLOR.
