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Library / Calmet's Dictionary of the Holy Bible, Complete and Unabridged

Volume II · O

Onocentaurus

ONOCENTAURUS, a fabulous Animal, supposed to be a Compound of a Man and an Ass. It has the Body of a Man, and the Thighs and Legs of an Ass. St. Jerome makes Use of the Word Onocentaurus in Isaiah1: Occurrent Dæmonia Onocentauris. The Demons and the Onocentaures shall meet in the Ruines of the Country of Edom. The Hebrew Text has, the Ziims shall meet with the Jims; which may be thus translated, The Fishers shall there meet with Islands, or the Country shall be laid under Water and forsaken2.

Ælian, l. vii. c. 9. speaks of Onocentaures. It was half Man and half Ass, as the Centaur was half Man and half Horse. Onocentaure comes from two Greek Words, Onos an Ass, and Centauros a Centaur.

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Footnotes

  1. Isai. xxxiv. 14. ↩

  2. Translators’ note. Ono, second Son of Lod, Ezr. ii. 33. where I take Lod to be the City of Lydda, and that Ono is its Daughter, as in Scripture the Villages are named the Daughters of the great Cities, to which they owe their Original. Compare 1 Chron. viii. 12. ↩

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Augustin Calmet, O.S.B., “Onocentaurus,” in Calmet's Dictionary of the Holy Bible, Complete and Unabridged, English translation, Mind of the Church, https://mindofthechurch.com/works/calmet-dictionary/o/onocentaurus/.

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