Dr. Thaddeus M. Harris, of Dorchester, Massachusetts (1824), quotes from an earlier work, "Scripture Illustrated," a curious account of a violent dispute between St. Jerome and St. Augustine in reference to the identification of this plant. According to this author "those pious fathers . . . not only differed in words, but from words they proceeded to blows; and Jerome was accused of heresy at Rome by Augustine. Jerome thought the plant was an ivy, and pleaded the authority of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and others; Augustine thought it was a gourd, and he was supported by the Seventy, the Syriac, the Arabic, &c. Had either of them ever seen the plant? Neither. Let the errors of these pious men teach us to think more mildly, if not more meekly, respecting our own opinions; and not to exclaim Heresy, or to enforce the exclamation, when the subject is of so little importance as—gourd versus ivy."
While endorsing the practical lesson which the author just cited extracts from his rather unpleasant story, I think I ought to append to this narrative another which is given in Gerard's Herbal (1597) which seems to be incompatible with the previously quoted account of the quarrel. This is what Gerard writes:—
"Ricinus, whereof mention is made in the fourth chapter and sixt verse of the prophecie of Jonas, was called of the Talmudists kik, for in the Talmud we reade Velo beschemen kik, that is in English, And not with the oile of kik; which oile is called in the Arabian toong Alkerua, as Rabbi Samuel the sonne of Hofni testifieth. Moreover a certain Rabbine mooveth a question saying What is kik? Hereunto Resch Lachisch maketh answer in Ghemara, saying Kik is nothing else but Jonas his kikaijon. And that this is
