years (3'JU-422j. In addition to tliat ollice lie was the president of the court at Xehardea and introduced several chaiiL'es in the ritual (R. II. 'Slh, Suk. 55i(,
B.
IJ.
with Hab the
Ambrosius
THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
491
Jews
'Si(i); and on royal festivals he, tosrether Aslii and Mar Ziitra, ollicially re])resented at the court of Ye/digerd II. (Ket. Glr/).
On one of among the
these occasions, Ilunu
liar
Nathan was
a.ssenibled dignitaries, an<l the king, hap-
pening to notice that Iluna's girdle was deranged, adjusted it, remarking, "It is wrillen of you (E-. xi.. 6), Ye shall he a kingdimi of jirie.sts and a holy nation,' and you must therefore wear the girdle as priests do." When Ainemar heard of this, he sai(l to iluna, "On thee has been realized the prophetic prondse (Isa. .li.. 23), Kings shall be thy attendants'" (Zeb. l!ti/). Anieinar's erudition was continued in his son .Mar, who often quoted him to Hab Ashi (Fes. 7-t/y; f^uk. ii'-V/, 41//; B. M. (>»ii B. '
B. lT4rt); iind some of his hoiniletic (jbservations liave found their way into the Babylonian Talmud ((Solah, 'Jif. B. B. 4.-)(/). Biiil-IOGRAPUY: BncliiT, An. Vah.
Am.
p.
14t!.
B.
MAR
YANTJ?;A (YAN?;A)
A
Babylonian teacher of the tiflh and si.xth amoraic generations, who, together with the e.vilarch (Kesh (jaluta) lluna .Mar II. and Mesharsheya b. Pakod, lirsl sulVered martyrdom in the cause of Judaism on Babylonian soil victims of the persecutions inau.guratcd by King Kiruz (Pheroces, 4."i.S-8r)). Atiiemar was executed in the month of Adar 47U, two months
—
after the execution of his fellow martyrs. Kpl'ltc of Sherira (ia<in, ed. Neubauer; DuM.iOGRAPMV iirillz, (Jesrh. d. Juiirn, Sd ed., Iv. 405; Hellprln, Seder )iniHirm. ed. Muskllai/lm, p. 72; Zaouto, Yunasin, ed. Flll:
powskl,
p. ll.j.
M.
S.
Ixxxix. 53) make it apparent that the responsory was longer; and there exists a reliable traditiou (Tosef., Ber. vii. 22; Ta'anit, i.l 1,166; Yer.Ber.14c, end; Sotali, 40i) that at a period not far removed from the oldest Pharisaic traditions Amen was not generally eni])!oyed in the Temple liturgy. The opposite view of Graelz in his attemj)! to distort the evident meaning of the text in this Tosefta is disproved by Sifre, Deut. xxxii. 3. yOd. which clearly shows that in ancient times the usual responsive formula in the synagogue and the Temple was: Blessed be the name of the glory fif his king<lom for
ever and ever" (VyD"3"t'"3) inia^D TI33 Dt." Tn2 Thus the statement in the Tosefta becomes inlelligible: while synagogues adopted the Amen, the Temple preserved the longer form. Even in later times at least during the existence of the Temple the Amen could not entirely supplant the
IVI dSv^-
—
—
,
..
.
,
Litureical
Amen.
longerresponsorvlp'O 3 r L LL
C 3; andthe
OH'71 D71'? 1-130 N3-l n'DC' NH
pS
X'D^V ("Praised be the great Name [that is, the Tetragrammaton] for ever and ever ") is a combination of the synagogue Amen with the Temple formula V'^D 3 C"'3. the Aramaic enuivalent of which is -| C' H' N- This explains the great signilicance which the Talmud (Shah. 1 194) and the Midrash (Eccl. H. on ix. 14, 1.5) attaches to the blessing, a remnant of the Temple liturgy. (•lL"'niS)
M.
S,
AMEMAK
Amen
Since the rabbis paid strict regard to precise ar-
rangement of prayer-fortntdas, naturally the use of Amen in the liturgy was rigorously deU-rmined by them. The Amen as a responsory of the people is already spoken of by the rabbis, but it is to be noted that Amen was only the resjionsory to the reader's doxology "n' nns Tn3 (" Blessed art thou, O Lord " jMishnah Ta'anit, ii. 5; Suk. 51/>. It is here recorded that in the great synagogue of Alexandria the attendant, at the conclusion of the reader's doxology, signaled the congregation with a Hag to respond Amen). Of equal importance with this doxologjwas the priestly blessing, to each ver.se of which the congregation responded Amen (Mishnah Sotah, vii. 3). As expressly stated in a Baraita (Ber. 4-jiO. the use of Amen at the conclusion of a prayer, mentioned in Tobit, viii. 8, must have been very common among Jews in ancient times. Still, the Christian custom of concluding every prayer with Amen .seems to have brought this use of Amen into bad repute among the Jews (Ber. I.e.); and it was decided in Babylonia, about 400, that only at grace after meals the thini benediction (originally the last) should conclude with Amen (Ber. I.e.). while in Palestine (Yer. Ber. v. 4) Amen was used at the end of the last doxology. In the Middle Ages the Spanish ritual followed the Palestinian custom: the (Jerman and Polish Ji'ws conforming to the Babylonian usage (compare "Shidhan 'Aruk," t; 1, 136. end, and the conunentaries Ihircon). The use of Amen in response to the expression of a good wish can be traceil back to tlu' tirst century of the Christian era (ICet. tit;//); whence Desidera- is derived the medieval custom of suftive and lixing an Amen to every possible exResponsive jiression of ade>iire. Especially fa vor= pin 'n' [3 ite phrasi'S are T Amen. ("Amen! may this be the will" [of Ood]) generally used after pmyers which do not !
AMEN
A
or "So .shall it be"): word ii.s4(l at the conclusion of a jjrayer, or in other connections, to exjire.ss allirmation, approval, or desire. It is derived from the Old 'rest;iment Hebrew, and is [lerhaps the most widely known word in human speech; being familiar 1o .lews, Cliristians, and Mohammedans. It ipccurs thirteen limes in the Masorelic text of the Old Testament, and in the Sejjtuagint in three additional passages (Jer. iii. lit, xv. 11, From these ])assages it is possible Isa. XXV. 1). to trace in part the gnidual <levelopment of Amen from an adjective (or, according to Barth, " Die Nonunalbildung in den iSenutischen Spraclien," i)f,7i, a noun, meaning " lirnniess," "certainty ")iutoan inde-
("So
is it,"
clinable interjection.
The primitive use of Amen is in I Kings, i. 3fi, wlicre also it serves to introchice an allirmative answer. This introductory Amen occurs also in Jer. xxviii. (i; but in another (lassage (xi. T)) Jeremiah shows familiarity with he detached Amen. The detached Amen is that use of the Amen in which the expected answer is omitte<l and l<ft ti> be infeired from the context. Num. v. 'i'l (in which Amen is repealed twice), Deul. xx vii. l."> << .w/., and N'eh.v. i;!, show that the delached .iMeu was employed in solemn oalhs for which the luief Amen was more C'fTeclive than a whole sentence. Similar to thi' delached Amen is the use of the I
Amen
in N<'h. viii. (>, I t'hron. xvi. :!(>, and Ps. cvi. from which it is learned that during the Persian epoch Amen was the responsory of the i)eo|ileto the doxology of lln' priests and the Levites. Too little is known, however, of the Temple wiirship of that period to make it possible to delernnne whether, as Oraetz holds. Amen and Amen Halleluiah were w
4H,
only responsories used. pui"ullcl
to that cited
The passages
ubovo
(.xli.
14,
in
l.xxii.
Psjilms l.S-li),
OK
PN
= D'D'S nTTC !» live to .see good days. Amen "), a rormula usually appended to the name in letters; and X n!38<3U"And let us say Amenl "), with which conclude with a doxology; NC'Sw"
pN
D'31t2 ("
-^bi.V
I
