the first high-priest of the Jews, eldest son of Amram and Jochebed, and brother of Moses. By the father's side he was great-grandson, and by the mother's, grandson of Levi. He was born B.C. 1574 (Hales B.C. 1780), three years before Moses, with whom he was associated to conduct the children of Israel from Egypt to Canaan. To this office he received the Divine appointment in consequence of his persuasive fluency of speech, a quality in which Moses was his inferior (Ex. iv. 16; vii. 1).

During the absence of Moses in Mount Sinai receiving the tables of the law, the Israelites, regarding Aaron as their head, clamorously demanded that he should provide them with a visible symbolic image of their God for worship. With this demand he weakly complied, and out of the ornaments of gold contributed for the purpose he cast the figure of the calf, doubtless the same as the Bull-god Apis, the object of Egyptian worship at Memphis. For this sin the Israelites were decimated by sword and plague (Ex. xxxii.) In obedience to the Divine instruction received by Moses in the Mount, Aaron was appointed high-priest, his sons and descendants, priests, and his tribe, that of Levi, was set apart as the sacerdotal caste. The office was filled by Aaron for nearly forty years, his death occurring on Mount Hor, which he ascended with his brother Moses by the Divine command. He was 123 years of age when he died, his son and brother burying him in a cavern of the mountain.

Aaron, Ben Asser, a learned Jew of the fifth century, to whom has been ascribed the invention of the Hebrew points and accents, though some suppose them to be of much higher antiquity.

eminent physician at the beginning of the seventh century. He wrote in Syriac, as mentioned by Hali Abbas, and described the measles and smallpox, diseases then very little known, though in this he was perhaps anticipated by Rhazes in his Discourse of the Pestilence.

Caraita, a learned Jew who flourished about the year 1299. He left many works on the Old Testament, among which there is one entitled A Commentary on the Pentateuch, which has been much valued. It was written in Hebrew, and printed in folio with a Latin translation, at Jena, in 1710.

Aaron, another Caraita Jew, who lived in the fifteenth century, wrote a concise Hebrew Grammar, entitled The Perfection of Beauty, which was printed at Constantinople in 1581.

Aaron, Pietro, a Florentine monk of the sixteenth century, an elaborate writer on music. His chief works, which are curious, are Il Toscanello della Musica, and Elucidario in Musica di Alcune Oppenioni Antiche e Moderne. Venice, 1545, 4to.

Aaron and Julius, Saints, were brothers who suffered martyrdom together, during the persecution under the emperor Diocletian, in the year 303, about the same time with St Alban, the first martyr of Britain. We are not told what their British names were, it being usual with the Christian Britons, at the time of baptism, to take new names from the Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. Nor have we any certainty as to the particulars of their death; only that they suffered the most cruel torments. Two churches were dedicated to the brothers, in which their bodies were interred, at Caer-Leon, the ancient metropolis of Wales.

Haroun, Al Raschid, a celebrated caliph, or Mahometan sovereign of the Saracen empire; whose history is given under the article Bagdad.