Apples in Early History

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 4 June 1908, Page 15

Apples in Early History

In Deuteronomy God is said to have kept his people ' as the apple of His eye ' (says Dr. J. M. Buckley in the '"Christian Advocate'). The Psalmist prays: 'Keep me as the apple of the eye,' and again in Proverbs God is represented as calling upon men to keep His commandments, to keep His law ' as the apple of thine eye,' and in the song of Solomon the statement is made that 'as the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons ' ; in the Lamentations of Jeremiah there is a prayer, ' Let not the apple of thine eye cease ' ; in Joel the palm tree and the apple tree are spoken of together, and in Zachariah God's people are told that he that touches them ' toucheth the apple of His eye.' Apples are also spoken of in three passages, one of which is one of most beautiful in the Bible : ' A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures .of silver ' ; but it is difficult to find any fruit now called ' apple ' which can be identified as being any fruit mentioned in the Bible" by any word in the original translated apple. The difficulty is equally great in studying the matter from the point of view of the history of the English word ' apple.' The origin of the word is unknown, as is its relation to the Teutonic language. It has been in the English language a little more than a thousand years, standing for the tree known as crabapple in Europe and southwestern. Asia. There is a curious prescription nearly 400 years old. I quote it just as it is spelt : ' Rough tasted appules are holsome where the stomache is weake.' Another definition of the word is : ' Any fruit, or similar vegetable production ; especially such as in some respect resemble the apple, but, from the earliest period, was used with the greatest latitude.' In 1555 ' venomous apples ' arc spoken of, wherewith certain tribes poisoned their arrows. Exactly 3CO years ago a writer spoke of the fruit or apples of palm trees. At one time the pomegranate was called apple punic, and then the apple of Sodom, or Dead Sea fruit. These have been spoken of in thrt English language for the last 700 years. Se^eiv.i centuries ago a writer mentioned ' Apples of Sodom which dye betwixt the hand and the mouth." Some persons of high, intelligence think that the Bible speaks of Eve eating an apple, and" are greatly surprised when asked to find any such thing in the Bible. It is not there, and never was ; but the ' forbidden fruit' was so spoken of nearly 1000 years, ago in English, and Milton says : ' ' Him by fraud have I seduced from his Creator ■ . . . with an appie.' There are alligator apples, balsam apples, ' cherry apples, custard apples, elephant" aptrtes, kangaroo apples, oak apples, pineapples, prairie apples, thorn apples, and fir anples. - ~ The ' apple of the eye ' was so called because it was supposed to be a globular solid body. — ' Boston Pilot.'