Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/530

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506 SAADIA BEN JOSEPH SABELLIUS it into English prose and verse (1862). The Gulistan has been translated into German by Olearius (Schleswig, 1654) and Graf (Leipsic, 1846) ; and into French by Gaudin (Paris, 1791), Semelet (1828 ; 2d ed., 1834), and Charles De- fremery (1858). (See PERSIA, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OP, vol. xiii., p. 323.) SAADIA (or Siadiah) BE.V JOSEPH, a Jewish writer, born in Egypt in 892, died in Baby- lonia in 941 or 942. He became the leading teacher (gaori) at the great school of Sura in Babylonia in 928. His principal work is " Re- ligions and Doctrines," written in Arabic, and now generally known nnder its title Emunoth vedebth in Judah beiv Tibbon's Hebrew trans- lation (German translation by Furst, Leipsic, 1845). He translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Arabic, and wrote in Hebrew didactic poems on the laws and history of the Jews. SAARBRllCK, or Saarbrieken, a town of Rhe- nish Prussia, 40 m. S. E. of Treves, on the Saar, which here becomes navigable; pop. in 1871, 7,686. A bridge connects the town with the suburb Sanct-Johann (pop. 9,143). There are Catholic and Protestant church- es, and a palace, once the residence of the princes of Nassau-Saarbruck. The town is an important centre of the coal trade, the adjoining mines producing in 1871 upward of 60,000,000 quintals and employing about 15,000 persons. Saarbruck was bombarded by the French, under Gen. Frossard, on Aug. 2, 1870, in the presence of Napoleon III., who reported that his son there received the u bap- tism of fire;" but four days afterward the French, intrenched on the Spichern heights, were defeated by the Germans. 8AARDAM, or Zaandam, a town of the Neth- erlands, in the province of North Holland, at the junction of the Zaan with the Y, 6 m. N. W. of Amsterdam; pop. in 1867, 12,341. It is surrounded by hundreds of windmills, some of them of enormous size, used for grinding corn, and for making oil and paper. Peter the Great of Russia worked here in disguise as a ship carpenter for a short time in 1697, and the house where he lived was bought by the late queen of Holland, a sister of Alexander I., who had a marble tablet placed over the ohimneypiece. The celebrated ship yards have almost all disappeared. SAAVEDRA, ingd de. See RIVAS. SAAVEDRA T FAXARDO, Diego. See FAXARDO. SABA. See ARABIA, vol. i., p. 620, and SHEBA. 8AB.EAVS. See SHEBA. 8ABAISM (Ar. fzaba, to rise in splendor, as a star ; Heb. tzeba hashxhamayim, the host of heaven, the stars, tzebaoth, the heavenly host), the name given to the worship of the heaven- ly bodies as deities. It prevailed in antiquity, nnder various forms, in large parts of western Asia, was kindred to the element worship of the Persians and other nations, gave rise to astrology, and in Mesopotamia maintained it- self to a late period. Arabian historians speak of it as the oldest religion in the world, and Palgrave finds many traces of it in modern Arabia. According to one tradition, it was handed down from Enoch; according to an- other, from Sabai, son of Seth, son of Adam. Ibn el-Wardi mentions two Sabian works, a book of prayers and the " Book of the Law," which were attributed to Enoch. SABBATH (Heb. shabbath, day of rest), the name of the seventh day of the week among the Hebrews, dedicated to an entire cessation from worldly labor. It began on Friday evening, and extended to the evening following. Whether it was instituted by Moses or was of ante-Mo- saic origin is disputed. A wilful violation of the sabbath was punished with death. In later times the provisions of the Mosaic law respect- ing the sabbath were greatly extended by the Jews; travelling was forbidden, and only "a sabbath day's journey" (2,000 paces beyond the limits of one's town or village) allowed. In the time of the Maccabees many zealous Jews permitted themselves to be slaughtered by the enemy rather than defend themselves on the sabbath. Christ reproached the sect of the Pharisees for the stress they laid on a mere external strictness in observing the sab- bath without corresponding purity of heart and life. The Mishnah enumerates 39 principal sorts of business which must not be performed on the sabbath, and each of them has again its subdivisions. Stated meetings for worship seem not to have been connected with the sab- bath until after the exile. The sabbath before the passover was called the great sabbath. Every seventh year was called the sabbatical year, in which the fields remained uncultivated and debts could not be collected. The great majority of the Christian churches celebrate the first day of the week, Sunday, instead of the seventh (sabbath) ; but a few small denom- inations, as the Seventh Day Baptists, the ad- herents of Joanna Southcote, &c., maintain that the change was made without Scriptural warrant, and therefore adhere to the religious celebration of the seventh day. There is also a small sect of Sabbatarian Christians in Tran- sylvania. (See LORD'S DAT.)

  • SABELLIANS. See SABELLIUS.

SABELLIDS, the originator of the doctrine de- scribed in the history of the church as Sabel- lianism. He was a native of Africa, a pres- byter of Ptolemais, a city of the Libyan Pentapolis, and lived about the middle of the 3d century. The doctrine of Sabellins, so far as it can be gathered from the fragments preserved in the writings of his opponents, dif- fered from the Patripassian tenets of Noetus and Praxeas. They held that the divine in Christ was God or the Father, who became and was called the Son only when he willed to become incarnate. Subellius taught that the Logos or Word existed before the incar- nation, but not as a distinct person, being immanent in the essence of the Deity as the divine reason. He was regarded as therein differing from St. John in the fourth gospel,