y for lying,
but also for such sitting as is opposed to lying, even for sitting upright
at table after our custom.

3. There is not so great a difference betwixt our form of sitting and that
which the Jews used as our opposites allege. For as Didoclavius showeth
out of Casaubon;(1245) their sitting at banquets was only with a leaning
upon the left arm, and so not lying, but sitting with a certain
inclination. When, therefore, we read of _lecti discubitorii tricliniares,
in quibus inter coenandum discumbebant_,(1246) we must understand them to
have been seats which compassed three sides of the table (the fourth side
being left open and void for them who served), and wherein they did sit
with some sort of inclination.

Yet Bishop Lindsey is bold to aver,(1247) that the usual table gesture of
the Jews was lying along, and this he would prove from Amos vi. 4, "They
lie upon beds of ivory, they stretch themselves out upon their couches."

_Ans._ 1. If we should yield to this prelate his own meaning wherein he
taketh these words, yet how thinks he that the gesture of drunkards and
gluttons, which they used when they were pampering themselves in all
excess of riot, and for which also they are upbraided by the Spirit of
God, was either the ordinary table-gesture of the Jews, or the gesture
used by Christ and his apostles in their last supper?

2. If any gesture at all be touched in those words which the prelate
citeth, it was the gesture they used when they lay down to sleep, and not
their table-gesture when they did eat; for _mitta_ and _ngheres_ (the two
words which Amos useth) signify a bed or a couch wherein a man useth to
lay himself down to sleep. And in this sense we find both these words,
Psal. vi. 7, "All the night make I my bed (_mittathi_) to swim: I water my
couch (_ngharsi_) with my tears." The Shunnamite prepared for Elisha a
chamber, and therein set for him a bed (_mitta_), and a table, and a
stool, and a candlestick, 2 Kings iv. 10. The stool or chair was for
sitting at table, but _mitta_, the bed, was for lying down to sleep. Now,
the prelate, I hope, will not say, that the _lecti tricliniares_, wherein
the Jews used to sit at table, and which compassed three sides of the same
(as hath been said), were their beds wherein they did lie and sleep all
night.

But, 3. The place must be yet more exactly opened up. That word which is
turned in our English books, _they lie_, cometh from the radix _schachav_,
which