CESAREA-PHILIPPI

CHALDEA

After the destruction of Jerusalem, Cesarea became the capital of Palestine, and it appears to have been long a place of considerable importance. Eusebius the ecclesiastical historian was one of its bishops in the 4th century. It is often mentioned by the historians of the Crusades. Rabbi Benjamin speaks of it as a city very elegant and beautiful, situated on the seashore. Edrisi describes it as a very large town, surrounded by a suburb and defended by a strong citadel. It is mentioned by Abulfeda in the 14th century as overthrown.

Cesarea still retains its ancient name, under the form Kaisariyah, but it has long been desolate. The whole of the surrounding country is a sandy desert, while the waves of the Mediterranean wash the ruins of the moles, the towers, and the port, which were anciently both its glory and its defence towards the sea (Buckingham, Trav.) The ruins are very extensive along the shore to the north, where there are some remains of aqueducts. The wall of a fort surrounded by a moat still remains in tolerably good order. The ruins within it consist of foundations, arches, pillars, and great quantities of building materials. Various columns and masses of stone are seen lying in the sea close to the shore (Wilson, ii. 250). The place at present is inhabited only by jackals and other beasts of prey. Perhaps there has not been in the history of the world an example of any city that, in so short a space of time, rose to such an extraordinary height of splendour as did Cesarea, or that exhibits a more singular contrast to its former magnificence, by the present desolate appearance of its ruins. Not a single inhabitant remains. Its theatre, once resounding with the shouts of multitudes, echoes no other sound than the nightly cries of animals roaming about for their prey. Of its gorgeous palaces and temples, enriched with the choicest works of art, and decorated with the most precious marbles, scarcely a trace can now be discerned (Clarke, Trav. iv. 446).

CESAREA-PHILIPPI, a city situated near the easternmost source of the River Jordan, at the base of the lofty Jebel esh Sheik, or Mount Hermon. It was previously called Paneas, which has often been considered the same place as Laish or Dan (Judg. xviii. 7, 28, 29); but it appears from Eusebius and Jerome that they were different places, and lay about four miles from each other (Wilson, ii. 172). The Emperor Augustus gave Paneas and its district to Herod (Joseph. Antiq. xv. 10. 3); and his son Philip the Tetrarch enlarged and embellished it, and named it Cesarea in honour of the Emperor Tiberius (Ib. xviii. 2. 1). Hence it was called Cesarea-Philippi to distinguish it from Cesarea on the coast of the Mediterranean.

ministry, came, at least on one occasion, as far north as the coasts of Cesarea-Philippi,' and with his disciples visited its towns (Matt. xvi. 13; Mark viii. 27). It is now called Banias, which is merely the Arabic pronunciation of the ancient Paneas of the Greeks and Romans (Robinson, Res. iii. 359). This is a small town consisting of sixty or a hundred wretched houses built of mud mixed with chopped straw to give consistency and strength to the walls. Broken capitals and prostrate columns, and foundations of theatres and amphitheatres, bespeak the ancient grandeur of Cesarea-Philippi. A chief object of interest at Banias is the celebrated cave which forms one of the main sources of the Jordan (Wilson, ii. 176).

CHABAZZELETH. The word nn occurs twice in the O. T., and in both places is rendered in the E. T. rose: 'I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley' (Song ii. 1). The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose' (Is. xxxv. 1, 2). But it is very doubtful whether the Hebrew word signifies a rose. Rosenmüller alleges that it is not the rose which is intended in these passages; that 'the substantive part of the Hebrew name shews that it denotes a flower growing from a bulb. The narcissus is such a flower; and that name, accordingly, the Chaldee and the Arabic translators have put for the Hebrew word. In the East it frequently grows in meadows, and Chateaubriand expressly mentions the narcissus amongst the flowers of the beautiful plain of Saron (Rosen. Bot. 141). Gesenius is of the root indicates a bulbous flower. His explanasame opinion as Rosenmüller, that the Hebrew tion of it is a flower growing in meadows, which the ancient translators sometimes translate lily, sometimes narcissus; most accurately rendered by the Syriac translator, who uses the same word in its Syriac form, which, according the Syrian lexicographers, signifies the autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale or meadow saffron), an autumnal flower growing in meadows, resembling a crocus, of white and violet colour, growing from poisonous bulbs (Gesenius, Lex. 258).

to

CHALCEDONY. [PRECIOUS STONES.]

CHALDE'A, a country in Western Asia, forming part of the Babylonian Empire. It lay between the Euphrates and the Tigris; but its precise boundaries are not now known. Perhaps they were never very well defined, and might even vary at different periods. This we suspect was often the case of countries in ancient times, and hence we are so frequently unable to state, with anything like exactness, their extent and boundaries. In Gen. xi. 28, 31, we are told that Abraham and his relatives dwelt in 'Ur of the Chaldees' before they came forth to go unto the land of Canaan, and they came unto Haran and dwelt there;' and Stephen said to his persecutors, The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran' (Acts vii. 2, 4). Its capital city was Babylon, which is called

by Isaiah 'the daughter of the Chaldeans,' and | 'the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency' (Is. xiii. 19, 47). From these passages it appears that Chaldea extended at least so far north as to include Ur, which was in Mesopotamia, and at least so far south as to include Babylon. The land of Uz, where Job dwelt, appears to have been either in Chaldea or not far from it, for we find Chaldeans among the depredators on his property; and as we also find among them Sabeans, who are commonly considered as an Arabian tribe, this would appear to indicate that it lay to the west of Chaldea, either towards or in Arabia (Job i. 15, 17). It appears from this passage in Job, and also from Herodotus, that the Chaldeans were given to robbery like the neighbouring Arab tribes. It would also appear that they were first reduced to some kind of order by the Assyrians: Behold the land of the Chaldeans: this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness' (Is. xxiii. 13).

The Chaldeans are designated in the O. T. the Casdim, but who they were and whence they came is only matter of conjecture. In Dan. ii. 2, 4, 5, 10, the name is used in a restricted sense of a class of astrologers or soothsayers.

CHAMELEON. This word occurs in Lev. xi. 30, in our common version, as a translation of the Hebrew word ; but Gesenius gives, as the meaning of that word, 'a larger kind of lizard, probably so called from its strength,' and he refers to Bochart as an authority (Gesenius, Lex. 390). In the close of the verse we have the word non, which is rendered in the E. T. mole, and also in the LXX. and the Vulgate; but Gesenius gives, as the meaning of it,

an unclean animal mentioned in connection

with other kinds of lizards; according to Bochart the chameleon (from the root n, to breathe), from its having been supposed by the ancients to live wholly by inhaling air' (Pliny, viii. 33; Gesenius, Lex. 869).

Chameleons are a genus of lizards remarkable for peculiarity of structure and singularity of manners. The ordinary and best known species has long been celebrated for the variety of colour which it assumes on different occasions. Chameleons are found chiefly in the tropical

climates of the old continent, especially in Egypt and other parts of Africa (Edin. Encyc., art. Herpetology,' xi. 28). According to this interpretation of the Hebrew word, the chameleon was among the animals forbidden to be eaten by the law of Moses as unclean.

CHAMOIS. [ZEMER.]

CHARGOL) is rendered beetle in Lev. xi. 22, the only passage in which the word occurs in the Bible, but as the creature thus named is among animals which might be eaten by the law of Moses, and as beetles are not known to have been eaten by the Jews, and as the general description in ver. 21 is quite inapplicable to them, we may hold this to be a mis-translation. Gesenius and other interpreters understand by the word a species of locust, but what particular species it is impossible to determine.

tion in the Scriptures of such carriages (Gen. xli. 43; xlvi. 29; 1. 9), but we afterwards find them common in other countries. 2. Carriages used in war. It is also in Egypt that we first find mention of them. When the Israelites took their departure from that country Pharaoh took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them,' and pursued after them; but they were all lost in the Red Sea (Exod. xiv. 7, 28). The Canaanitish kings, whom Joshua fought and defeated at the waters of Merom, had horses and chariots very many' (Josh. xi. 4). Even in these early times the Canaanites had iron chariots (xvii. 18; Judg. 19), by which we are probably to understand that they had iron scythes fixed to their sides, so as that when furiously driven they might mow down the enemy (2 Maccab. xiii. 2). Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor, the captain of whose host was Sisera, had nine hundred chariots of iron' (Judg. iv. 2, 3). In the beginning of Saul's reign the Philistines are said to have brought into the field 30,000 chariots and 6000 horsemen' (1 Sam. xiii. 5); but the former number is so great that there is ground to doubt the accuracy of the reading. As the Hebrews were horses (Josh. xvii. 16; Ps. xx. 7), it appears to divinely discouraged to trust in chariots and have been long before they had recourse to them in their wars. When Joshua defeated the Canaanitish kings at the waters of Merom, he, agreeably to the divine command he had received, 'houghed their horses, and burned their chariots in the fire' (Josh. xi. 6, 9). When David took 1000 chariots from Hadarezer, king of Zobah, he destroyed 900 of them, and reserved only 100 to himself (1 Chron. xviii. 4). Solomon had 1400 chariots (1 Kings x. 26); but this was perhaps chiefly for state and daily use; at least we read of no military expedition in which he ever employed them. Even afterwards it does not appear that the Hebrews made much use of chariots in war. We merely read of certain of their kings, as Ahab, Jehosaphat, and Josiah, being in chariots on the day of battle (1 Kings xxii. 30-35; 2 Kings xxiii. 30), but not of any part of their armies being so (2 Kings xviii. 23, 24), or at least not to any great extent (2 Kings xiii. 7).

CHARITY is one of those words in the English

language which, in the course of time, has undergone a material change in its signification; at least

it has lost one of the senses in which it was anciently employed. It is now used chiefly in the sense of almsgiving, and also of a friendly construction of the opinions and actions of others; but formerly it was also used in the general sense of love, these being merely two examples or expressions of it. It is never, however, employed in the Scriptures in either of these two

senses.

CHEBAR

As to almsgiving, the charity or love spoken of by the apostle is expressly placed antithetically to it in ver. 3: Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and have not charity (or love), it pronteth me nothing.' In 1 Pet. iv. 8 the use of the word charity has led to a common and very unscriptural opinion, as if almsgiving might obtain for us the pardon of sin; yet that this was not the meaning of the passage any reader might have seen from what goes immediately before, as well as from the ordinary signification of the word: And above all things have fervent charity (love) among yourselves; for charity (love) shall cover the multitude of sins.'

The richness of

CHEBAR, a river which rises in the north of Mesopotamia and falls into the Euphrates, near the site of the ancient city of Carchemish or Circesium. In 2 Kings xvii. 6 we have in the Hebrew text the word (1127) Chabur (though written Habor in the E. T.), answering exactly to the Chaboras of the Greeks and Romans, and the Khabour of the Arabs. In Ezek. i. 1, 3; iii 15, 23; x. 15, 22, we have the word (1) Kebar (written Chebar in the E. T.) Some writers consider the words as names of the same river, others consider them as designating quite different rivers; and between these two opinions it is not easy to decide. Of the Khabour we have the following account by Layard:-' With the Bedouins, who were occasionally my guides at Mosul or Nimroud, as well as with the Jebours, whose encamping grounds were originally on its banks, the Khabour was a constant theme of exaggerated praise. its pastures, the beauty of its flowers, its jungles teeming with game of all kinds, and the leafy thickness of its trees yielding an agreeable shade during the hottest days of summer, formed a terrestrial paradise to which the wandering Arab eagerly turned his steps when he could lead his flocks thither in safety.' When Layard afterwards visited that part of Mesopotamia he says, "The glowing descriptions I had so often received from the Bedouins of the beauty and fertility of the banks of the Khabour were more than realised' (Layard, Nin. and Bab. 24, 273, 283). Such, according to the opinion of some, was one of the districts to which the kings of Assyria removed the tribes of Israel When they carried them captive (2 Kings xvii. 6; 1 Chron. v. 26). Thither also were Ezekiel and other captives carried by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, when he carried Jehoiachin, king of Judah, into captivity (Ezek. i. 1-3).

CHEMOSH, a god of the Moabites, and also of the Ammonites (Judg. xi. 24), but perhaps peculiarly of the Moabites (Num. xxi. 29; 1 Kings xi. 5, 7; Jer. xlviii. 7, 13, 46); though, as they were related and neighbouring nations (Gen. xix. 36-38), it might be common to both. Solomon, in his degenerate old age, built an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem.'

CHERETHIM, CHERETHITES. 1. The Philistines, or a particular branch of them (1 Sam. xxx. 14, 16; Ezek. xxv. 15, 16; Zeph. ii. 5). 2. David's body-guard, consisting of Cherethites and Pelethites, under the command of Benaiah, one of his chief mighty men (2 Sam. viii. 18;

CHITTIM

xv. 18; xx. 7; xxiii. 22, 23). There seems no reason to doubt that the former, probably both, were Philistines; though the latter may have been of a different nation. David perhaps preferred having his guard to consist of foreigners, like some princes in later times, as being more trustworthy than his own subjects.

while he was fed by ravens (1 Kings xvii. 3, 4). CHE'RITH, the brook of which Elijah drank It is thought to have run from the east into the Jordan, a little to the southward of Bethshan; but Bochart will have it to be the same as the River Kanah, and others will have it to be some other brook running from the west to the Jordan.

CHESTNUT TREE. [ARMON.]

CHINIM' (D) is rendered in our translation lice, in the account of the third of the Egyptian plagues (Exod. viii. 16-18; Ps. cv. 31); but this sense of the word has been much disputed. The LXX. render it by words signifying gnats; and as they were learned Jews resident in Egypt, their authority is entitled to much weight. Modern critics appear inclined to the opinion that the plague consisted in gnats not in lice; but yet they are by no means agreed in their opinion (Harris, Nat. Hist. 255).

CHIN'NEROTH, CHIN'NERETH, CIN'NEROTH, a fenced city' of the tribe of Naphtali, situated on the western side of the Lake of Gennesareth, which had also anciently the name of the Sea of Cinneroth (Josh. xii. 3; xix. 35). Cinneroth appears also to have given its name to a district of country (1 Kings xv. 20).

Paul

CHIOS, an island in the Grecian Archipelago, over against Smyrna, now called Scio. passed this way as he sailed southward from Mitylene to Samos (Acts xx. 15).

CHIS'LEU, the ninth month of the Jewish sacred year, and the third of the civil. It commenced, according to the rabbins, with the new moon of our November; but according to Michaelis and others who follow him, with that of December. On the 6th day of this month the Jews fast on account of the burning of Jeremiah's roll by king Jehoiakim; on the 7th they observe a feast of joy for the death of Herod the Great; on the 15th they fast for Antiochus' profanation of the temple; on the 21st they have a festival, pretended to be for Alexander's delivering up the Samaritans into their power; on the 25th they observe the feast of dedication to commemorate the purging of the temple by Judas Maccabæus. This feast lasted eight days.

CHITTIM, or KITTIM, one of the sons of Javan, and a grandson of Japhet. His name occurs in the list of Noah's descendants, by whom the isles of the Gentiles were divided

in their lands' (Gen. x. 4, 5). In the First Book of the Maccabees (i. 1) it is said, ' Alexander son of Philip the Macedonian, came out of the land of Chettim,' by which it would appear that Macedonia was meant; and this affords some ground for concluding that Kittim or his descendants may have settled in that country. In chap. viii. 5 of the same book Perseus, the king

CHRIST JESUS

individual, and only to one, to be employed as a proper name. 'This use,' says Dr. Campbell, *seems to have begun soon after his ascension: in his lifetime it does not appear that the word was ever used in this manner.' But there are various passages in the Gospel in which it has much the appearance of being used as a proper name, as in Luke ii. 11; xxiii. 2; John xvii. 3 (see Middleton on Gr. Art. 193). In the Epistles it may sometimes be difficult to determine whether it is to be taken as an appellative or as a proper name, but where there is a difficulty it is seldom of much consequence. Besides these two primary senses, the word is used figuratively in some other senses in the N. T., as

3. The Christian Church, or that society of which Christ is the head: For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ' (1 Cor. xii. 12; see also ver. 27 and Gal. iii. 16).

4. The doctrine of Christ: But ye have not so learned Christ' (Eph. iv. 20).

5. The spirit and temper of Christ: My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you' (Gal. iv. 19).

6. The benefits bestowed by Christ: We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end' (Heb. iii. 14; Campbell, Gospels, i. 217, 220, 223, 227, 228, 234).

CHRIST JESUS was born, according to the common chronology, in the year of the world 4000, four years before the commencement of what is called the Christian era. His birthplace was Bethlehem, a city of Judah a few miles south of Jerusalem; but while yet an infant he was carried by Joseph and Mary his mother into Egypt to escape being destroyed by Herod the king; but that prince dying soon after, they returned to the land of Judæa-not, however, to Bethlehem, but to Nazareth, a city of Galilee where they had previously dwelt (Matt. ii. 1, 14, 21-23; Luke ii. 4). Here he was brought up (Luke iv. 16); but the only incident related of his youth is, that when he was twelve years old he went up with his parents to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, and that when they set out on their journey homewards, he tarried behind them; and on their returning to seek him, they, after a search of three days, found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions; and on his mother saying to him, 'Son, why hast thou dealt thus with us?' he answered, How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business! (Luke ii. 41-49). It is often alleged that he wrought at the trade of a carpenter with Joseph his supposed father. It may be 80, as it was customary among the Jews to teach their children some trade; but we are scarcely entitled to found a statement of this kind on Mark vi. 3, when compared with Matt. xiii. 55, especially when we take into account the various readings of the former passage. When he was about thirty years of age (in A.D. 27 according to the common chronology) be was baptized by John the Baptist in the

L

CHRIST JESUS

But

river Jordan (Luke iii. 21-23); and this appears to have been immediately followed by his temptation in the wilderness (Luke iv. 1). he did not enter on his public ministry, according to that same chronology, until A.D. 30, about three years later, when he would be at least thirty-three years old. It would appear that John was not in prison when the circumstances occurred which are related John i. 2951; but Matthew and Mark appear to say that he was in prison when our Lord entered on his public ministry (Matt. iv. 12-25; Mark i. 1422); yet John represents him as exercising his ministry while the Baptist was still exercising his (John iii. 22-30). His ministry is commonly reckoned to have lasted about three and a half years; and according to this he must have been, at the time of his death, a.d. 33, between thirty-six and thirty-seven years of age. Such are obviously the results of the common chronology, though by ordinary readers our Lord is perhaps generally supposed to have suffered in the thirty-third year of his age-the first four years of his life included in A.M. (the years of the world) being lost sight of by them.

He

The limited extent of the field of our Lord's ministry is not unworthy of notice. It did not by any means extend over the whole country: Galilee was the chief scene of his labours. also made visits to Jerusalem, but so far as appears, it was only at the time of the great feasts of the Jews (John ii. 13, 23; v. 1; vii. 1, 2, 9, 10; x. 22, 23; xii. 1; xiii. 1; Matt. xxi. 1, 10, 11; xxvi. 2). There is no mention of his ever going further south, not even to Bethlehem, the place of his birth, though it was only a few miles distant. On the east, we find him on one occasion passing through Jericho (Luke xix. 1), and repeatedly crossing the Lake of Tiberias to its eastern shores (Matt. viii. 23, 28; xiv. 13, 22, 34; xv. 39; xix. 1). In the north he went into the towns of Cæsarea Philippi (Mark viii. 27); and in the west into the borders or coasts of Tyre and Sidon (vii. 24; Matt. xv. 21)—the only point in which he ever appears to have approached the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In journeying between Jerusalem and Galilee he repeatedly passed through the country of the Samaritans (John iv. 3-5, 43; Luke ix. 51-53; xvii. 11). The evangelists are not particular in giving us geographical notices of our Lord's ministry, but those now mentioned probably give us a general idea of the field of his labours, from which it would appear to have been of no great extent. It is somewhat remarkable that the first three evangelists give us no account of his being at Jerusalem before the time of his last sufferings.

In the constitution of his person Christ Jesus differs essentially from all the family of Adam. In him are united the nature of God and the nature of man. His manhood is acknowledged even by those who call in question his divinity; and is insisted on by them as if he were nothing more than a man. But the Scriptures teach his divinity no less plainly than his humanity.

1. He is associated with God the Father in a way and manner indicative of divinity, as in John x. 30; 1 Cor. viii. 6; Matt. xxviii. 19; 2 Cor. xiii. 14; 1 Tim. i. 2. This last is the common salutation of Paul in his Epistles.