Macabre
The first use of this word shows up in 1493, in reference to a dance of death. Basically, it's an Old French translation of the Middle Latin Machabaeorum, meaning "dance of the Maccabees." For those of you who may not have any books in your Bible between Malachi and Matthew, Judas Maccabeus and the other Jews in his family staged a revolt after Antiochus suppressed their religious practices and sacrificed a pig in the Temple. Needless to say, many a Maccabee met a macabre end in the process. Lots of references to tongues being cut out of the mouths of Jews who refused to eat pork and such.
And as II Maccabees itself tells us, it's not macabre at all, but "a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead."
No comments:
Post a Comment