ADVERTISEMENT TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. (continued 15)

But, farther, if punishing them by the hands of the Israelites rather than by a pestilence, an earthquake, a fire, or any such calamity, be still an objection, we may perceive, I think, some reasons for this method of punishment in preference to any other whatever; always bearing in our mind, that the question is not concerning the justice of the punishment, but the mode of it. It is well known, that the people of those ages were affected by no proof of the power of the gods which they worshipped, so deeply as by their giving them victory in war. It was by this species of evidence that the superiority of their own gods above the gods of the nations which they conquered, was, in their opinion, evinced. This being the actual persuasion which then prevailed in the world, no matter whether well or ill founded, how were the neighbouring nations, for whose admonition this dreadful example was intended, how were they to be convinced of the supreme power of the God of Israel above the pretended gods of other nations; and of the righteous character of Jehovah, that is, of his abhorrence of the vices which prevailed in the land of Canaan? How, I say, were they to be convinced so well, or at all indeed, as by enabling the Israelites, whose God he was known and acknowledged to be, to conquer under his banner, and drive out before them, those who resisted the execution of that commission with which the Israelites declared themselves to be invested, namely, the expulsion and extermination of the Canaanitish nations? This convinced surrounding countries, and all who were observers or spectators of what passed, first, that the God of Israel was a real God; secondly, that the gods which other nations worshipped, were either no gods, or had no power against the God of Israel; and thirdly, that it was he, and he alone, who possessed both the power and the will, to punish, to destroy, and to exterminate from before his face, both nations and individuals, who gave themselves up to the crimes and wickedness for which the Canaanites were notorious. Nothing of this sort would have appeared, or with the same evidence, from an earthquake, or a plague, or any natural calamity. These might not have been attributed to divine agency at all, or not to the interposition of the God of Israel.

Another reason which made this destruction both more necessary, and more general, than it would have otherwise been, was the consideration, that if any of the old inhabitants were left, they would prove a snare to those who succeeded them in the country; would draw and seduce them by degrees into the vices and corruptions which prevailed among themselves. Vices of all kinds, but vices most particularly of the licentious kind, are astonishingly infectious. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. A small number of persons addicted to them, and allowed to practise them with impunity or encouragement, will spread them through the whole mass. This reason is formally and expressly assigned, not simply for the punishment, but for the extent to which it was carried; namely, extermination: “Thou shalt utterly destroy them, that they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods.”

In reading the Old Testament account, therefore, of the Jewish wars and conquests in Canaan, and the terrible destruction brought upon the inhabitants thereof, we are always to remember that we are reading the execution of a dreadful but just sentence, pronounced by Jehovah against the intolerable and incorrigible crimes of these nations; that they were intended to be made an example to the whole world of God’s avenging wrath against sins, which, if they had been suffered to continue, might have polluted the whole ancient world, and which could only be checked by the signal and public overthrow of nations notoriously addicted to them, and so addicted as even to have incorporated them into their religion and their public institutions; and that the Israelites were mere instruments in the hands of a righteous Providence for effecting the extirpation of a people, of whom it was necessary to make a public example to the rest of mankind; that this extermination, which might have been accomplished by a pestilence, by fire, by earthquakes, was appointed to be done by the hands of the Israelites, as being the clearest and most intelligible method of displaying the power and the righteousness of the God of Israel; his power over the pretended gods of other nations; and his righteous indignation against the crimes into which they were fallen.

CANDACE, the name of an Ethiopian queen, whose eunuch coming to Jerusalem to worship the Lord, was baptized by Philip the deacon, near Bethsura, in the way to Gaza, as he was returning to his own country, Acts viii, 27. The Ethiopia here mentioned was the isle or peninsula of Meroë to the south of Egypt, which, as Mr. Bruce shows, is now called Atbara, up the Nile. Candace was the common name of the queens of that country. Strabo and Pliny mention queens of that name as reigning in their times. That the queen mentioned in the Acts was converted by the instrumentality of her servant, and that the country thus received Christianity at that early period, are statements not supported by any good testimony. See Abyssinian Church.

CANDLESTICK. The instrument so rendered by our translators was more properly a stand for lamps. One of beaten gold was made by Moses, Exod. xxv, 31, 32, and put into the tabernacle in the holy place, over against the table of shew bread. The basis of this candlestick was also of pure gold; it had seven branches, three on each side, and one in the middle. When Solomon had built the temple, he was not satisfied with placing one golden candlestick there, but had ten put up, of the same form and metal with that described by Moses, five on the north, and five on the south side of the holy place, 1 Kings vii, 49. After the Jews returned from their captivity, the golden candlestick was again placed in the temple, as it had been before in the tabernacle by 214Moses. The lamps were kept burning perpetually; and were supplied morning and evening with pure olive oil. Josephus says, that after the Romans had destroyed the temple, the several things which were found within it, were carried in triumph to Rome, namely, the golden table, and the golden candlestick with seven branches. These were lodged in the temple built by Vespasian, and consecrated to Peace; and at the foot of Mount Palatine, there is a triumphal arch still visible, upon which Vespasian’s triumph is represented, and the several monuments which were carried publicly in the procession are engraved, and among the rest the candlestick with the seven branches, which are still discernible upon it. In Rev. i, 12, 20, mention is made of seven golden candlesticks, which are said to be emblems of the seven Christian churches.

CANKER-WORM, ילק, Psalm cv, 34; Jer. li, 27, where it is rendered caterpillar; Joel i, 4; ii, 25; Nahum iii, 15, canker-worm. As it is frequently mentioned with the locust, it is thought by some to be a species of that insect. It certainly cannot be the canker-worm, as our version renders it; for in Nahum, it is expressly said to have wings and fly, to camp in the hedges by day, and commit its depredations in the night. But it may be, as the Septuagint renders it in five passages out of eight where it occurs, the bruchus, or “hedge-chaffer.” Nevertheless, the passage, Jer. li, 27, where the ialek is described as “rough,” that is, with hair standing onon end on it, leads us very naturally to the rendering of our translators in that place, “the rough caterpillar,” which, like other caterpillars, at a proper time, casts its exterior covering and flies away in a winged state. Scheuchzer observes that we should not, perhaps, be far from the truth, if with the ancient interpreters, we understood this ialek, after all, as a kind of locust; as some species of them have hair principally on the head, and others have prickly points standing out.

CANON, a word used to denote the authorized catalogue of the sacred writings. The word is originally Greek, κανὼν, and signifies a rule or standard, by which other things are to be examined and judged. Accordingly the same word has been applied to the tongue of a balance, or that small part which, by its perpendicular position, determines the even poise or weight, or, by its inclination either way, the uneven poise of the things which are weighed. Hence it appears, that as the writings of the Prophets, Apostles, and Evangelists contain an authentic account of the revealed will of God, they are the rule of the belief and practice of those who receive them. Canon is also equivalent to a list or catalogue, in which are inserted those books which contain the rule of faith.

For an account of the settling of the canon of Scripture, see Bible. The following observations of Dr. Alexander, in his work on the canon, proving that no canonical book of the Old or New Testament has been lost, may here be properly introduced.--No canonical book of the Old Testament has been lost. On this subject, there has existed some diversity of opinion. Chrysostom is cited by Bellarmine as saying, “that many of the writings of the prophets had perished, which may readily be proved from the history in Chronicles. For the Jews were negligent, and not only negligent, but impious; so that some books were lost through carelessness, and others were burned, or otherwise destroyed.” In confirmation of this opinion, an appeal is made to 1 Kings iv, 32, 33, where it is said of Solomon, “that he spake three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.” All these productions, it is acknowledged, have perished. Again it is said in 1 Chron. xxix, 29, 30: “Now, the acts of David the king, first and last, behold they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer; with all his reign, and his might, and the times that went over him, and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the countries.” The book of Jasher, also, is twice mentioned in Scripture. In Joshua x, 13: “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves on their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher?” And in 2 Sam. i, 18: “And he bade them teach the children of Israel the use of the bow: behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.”

The book of the wars of the Lord is referred to in Numbers xxi, 14. But we have in the canon no books under the name of Nathan and Gad, nor any book of Jasher, nor of the wars of the Lord. Moreover, we frequently are referred, in the sacred history, to other chronicles or annals, for a fuller account of the matters spoken of, which chronicles are not now extant. And in 2 Chron. ix, 29, it is said, “Now, the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer, against Jeroboam, the son of Nebat?” Now, it is well known that none of these writings of the prophets are in the canon; at least, none of them under their names. It is said, also, in 2 Chron. xii, 15, “Now, the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer, concerning genealogies?” Of which works nothing remains under the names of these prophets.

1. The first observation which may be made on this subject is, that every book referred to or quoted in the sacred writings is not necessarily an inspired or canonical book. Because St. Paul cites passages from the Greek poets, it does not follow that we must receive their poems as inspired.

2. A book may be written by an inspired man, and yet be neither inspired nor canonical. Inspiration was not constantly afforded to the prophets; but was occasional, and for particular important purposes. In common matters, 215and especially in things no way connected with religion, it is reasonable to suppose that the Prophets and Apostles were left to the same guidance of reason and common sense as other men. A man, therefore, inspired to deliver some prophecy, or even to write a canonical book, might write other books with no greater assistance than other good men receive. Because Solomon was inspired to write some canonical books, it does not follow that what he wrote on natural history was also inspired, any more than Solomon’s private letters to his friends, if ever he wrote any. Let it be remembered that the Prophets and Apostles were only inspired on special occasions, and on particular subjects, and all difficulties respecting such works as these will vanish. How many of the books referred to in the Bible, and mentioned above, may have been of this description, it is now impossible to tell; but probably several of them belong to this class. No doubt there were many books of annals much more minute and particular in the narration of facts than those which we have. It was often enough merely to refer to these state papers, or public documents, as being sufficiently correct, in regard to the facts on account of which the reference was made. The book of the wars of the Lord might, for aught that appears, have been merely a muster roll of the army. The word translated book has so extensive a meaning in Hebrew, that it is not even necessary to suppose that it was a writing at all. The book of Jasher (or of Rectitude, if we translate the word) might have been some useful compend taken from Scripture, or composed by the wise, for the regulation of justice and equity between man and man. Augustine, in his “City of God,” has distinguished accurately on this subject. “I think,” says he, “that those books which should have authority in religion were revealed by the Holy Spirit, and that men composed others by historical diligence, as the prophets did these by inspiration. And these two classes of books are so distinct, that it is only by those written by inspiration that we are to suppose that God, through them, is speaking unto us. The one class is useful for fulness of knowledge; the other, for authority in religion; in which authority the canon is preserved.”

3. But again: it may be maintained, without any prejudice to the completeness of the canon, that there may have been inspired writings which were not intended for the instruction of the church in all ages, but composed by the prophets for some special occasion. These writings, though inspired, were not canonical. They were temporary in their design; and when that was accomplished, they were no longer needed. We know that the prophets delivered, by inspiration, many discourses to the people, of which we have not a trace on record. Many true prophets are mentioned, who wrote nothing that we know of; and several are mentioned, whose names are not even given. The same is true of the Apostles. Very few of them had any concern in writing the canonical Scriptures, and yet they all possessed plenary inspiration. And if they wrote letters on special occasions, to the churches planted by them; yet these were not designed for the perpetual instruction of the universal church. Therefore, Shemaiah, and Iddo, and Nathan, and Gad, might have written some things by inspiration which were never intended to form a part of the sacred volume. It is not asserted that there certainly existed such temporary inspired writings: all that is necessary to be maintained is, that, supposing such to have existed, which is not improbable, it does not follow that the canon is incomplete by reason of their loss.

4. The last remark in relation to the books of the Old Testament supposed to be lost is, that it is highly probable that we have several of them now in the canon, under another name. The books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, were, probably, not written by one, but by a succession of prophets. There is reason to believe that, until the canon of sacred Scripture was closed, the succession of prophets was never interrupted. Whatever was necessary to be added, by way of explanation, to any book already received into the canon, they were competent to annex; or, whatever annals or histories it was the purpose of God to have transmitted to posterity, they would be directed and inspired to prepare. Thus, different parts of these books might have been penned by Gad, Nathan, Iddo, Shemaiah, &c. That some parts of these histories were prepared by prophets, we have clear proof in one instance; for Isaiah has inserted in his prophecy several chapters which are contained in 2 Kings, and which, I think, there can be no doubt were originally written by himself. The Jewish doctors are of opinion that the book of Jasher is one of the books of the Pentateuch, or the whole law. The book of the wars of the Lord has by many been supposed to be no other than the book of Numbers.

Thus, it sufficiently appears from an examination of particulars, that there exists no evidence that any canonical book of the Old Testament has been lost. To which we may add, that there are many general considerations of great weight which go to prove that no part of the Scriptures of the Old Testament has been lost. The translation of these books into Greek is sufficient to show that the same books existed nearly two hundred years before the advent of Christ. And, above all, the unqualified testimony to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, by Christ and his Apostles, ought to satisfy us that we have lost none of the inspired books of the canon. The Scriptures are constantly referred to, and quoted as infallible authority by them, as we have before shown. These oracles were committed to the Jews as a sacred deposit, and they are never charged with unfaithfulness in this trust. The Scriptures are declared to have been written “for our learning;” and no intimation is given that they had ever been mutilated, or in any degree corrupted.

As to the New Testament, the same author proceeds: With respect to the New Testament, 216I am ready to concede, as was before done, that there may have been books written by inspired men that have been lost; for inspiration was occasional, not constant; and confined to matters of faith, and not afforded on the affairs of this life, or in matters of mere science. And if such writings have been lost, the canon of Scripture has suffered no more by this means, than by the loss of any other uninspired books. But again: I am willing to go farther, and say that it is possible (although I know no evidence of the fact) that some things, written under the influence of inspiration, for a particular occasion, and to rectify some disorder in a particular church, may have been lost, without injury to the canon. For, since much that the Apostles preached by inspiration is undoubtedly lost, so there is no reason why every word which they wrote must necessarily be preserved, and form a part of the canonical volume. For example: suppose that when St. Paul said, “I wrote to you in an epistle not to company with fornicators,” 1 Cor. v, 9, he referred to an epistle which he had written to the Corinthians, before the one now called the First; it might never have been intended that this letter should form a constituent part of the canon; for although it treated of subjects connected with Christian faith or practice, yet, an occasion having arisen, in a short time, of treating these subjects more at large, every thing in that epistle (supposing it ever to have been written) may have been included in the two Epistles to the Corinthians which are now in the canon.

1. The first argument to prove that no canonical book has been lost, is derived from the watchful care of providence over the sacred Scriptures. Now, to suppose that a book written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and intended to form a part of the canon, which is the rule of faith to the church, should be utterly and irrecoverably lost, is surely not very honourable to the wisdom of God, and in no way consonant with the ordinary method of his dispensations, in regard to his precious truth. There is good reason to think that, if God saw it needful, and for the edification of the church, that such books should be written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, by his providence he would have taken care to preserve them from destruction. We do know that this treasure of divine truth has been, in all ages, and in the worst times, the special care of God, or not one of the sacred books would now be in existence. And if one canonical book might be lost through the negligence or unfaithfulness of men, why not all? And thus the end of God, in making a revelation of his will, might have been defeated. But whatever other corruptions have crept into the Jewish or Christian churches, it does not appear that either of them, as a body, ever incurred the censure of having been careless in preserving the oracles of God. Our Saviour never charges the Jews, who perverted the sacred Scriptures to their own ruin, with having lost any portion of the sacred deposit intrusted to them. History informs us of the fierce and malignant design of Antiochus Epiphanes, to abolish every vestige of the sacred volume; but the same history assures us that the Jewish people manifested a heroic fortitude and invincible patience in resisting and defeating his impious purpose. They chose rather to sacrifice their lives, and suffer a cruel death, than to deliver up the copies of the sacred volume in their possession. And the same spirit was manifested, and with the same result, in the Dioclesian persecution of the Christians. Every effort was made to obliterate the sacred writings of Christians; and multitudes suffered death for refusing to deliver up the New Testament. Some, indeed, overcome by the terrors of a cruel persecution, did, in the hour of temptation, consent to surrender the holy book; but they were ever afterward called traitors; and it was with the utmost difficulty that any of them could be received again into the communion of the church, after a long repentance, and the most humbling confessions of their fault. Now, if any canonical book was ever lost, it must have been in these early times, when the word of God was valued far above life, and when every Christian stood ready to seal the truth with his blood.

2. Another argument which appears to me to be convincing is, that in a little time, all the sacred books were dispersed over the whole world. If a book had, by some accident or violence, been destroyed in one region, the loss could soon have been repaired, by sending for copies to other countries. The considerations just mentioned would, I presume, be satisfactory to all candid minds, were it not that it is supposed that there is evidence that some things were written by the Apostles which are not now in the canon. We have already referred to an epistle to the Corinthians, which St. Paul is supposed to have written to them, previously to the writing of those which we now possess. But it is by no means certain, or even probable, that St. Paul ever did write such an epistle; for not one ancient writer makes the least mention of any such letter, nor is there any where to be found any citation from it, or any reference to it. It is a matter of testimony, in which all the fathers concur, as with one voice, that St. Paul wrote no more than fourteen epistles, all of which we now have. But still, St. Paul’s own declaration stands in the way of our opinion: “I wrote to you in an epistle,” 1 Cor. v, 9, 11. The words in the original are, Ἔγραψα ὑμῖν ἐν τῇ ἐπιϛολῇ; the literal version of which is, “I have written to you in the epistle,” or “in this epistle;” that is, in the former part of it; where, in fact, we find the very thing which he says that he had written. See 1 Cor. v, 2, 5, 6. But it is thought by learned and judicious commentators, that the words following, Νυνὶ δὲ ἔγραψα ὑμῖν, “But now I have written unto you,” require that we should understand the former clause, as relating to some former time; but a careful attention to the context will convince us that this reference is by no means necessary. The Apostle had told them in the beginning of the chapter, to avoid the company of fornicators, &c; but it is manifest, 217from the tenth verse, that he apprehended that his meaning might be misunderstood, by extending the prohibition too far, so as to decline all intercourse with the world; therefore, he repeats what he had said, and informs them that it had relation only to the professors of Christianity, who should be guilty of such vices. The whole may be thus paraphrased: “I wrote to you above in my letter, that you should separate from those who were fornicators, and that you should purge them out as old leaven; but, fearing lest you should misapprehend my meaning, by inferring that I have directed you to avoid all intercourse with the Heathen around you, who are addicted to these shameful vices, which would make it necessary that you should go out of the world, I now inform you that my meaning is, that you do not associate familiarly with any who make a profession of Christianity, and yet continue in these evil practices.” In confirmation of this interpretation, we can adduce the old Syriac version, which, having been made soon after the days of the Apostles, is good testimony in relation to this matter of fact. In this venerable version, the meaning of the eleventh verse is thus given: “This is what I have written unto you,” or, “the meaning of what I have written unto you.”

The only other passage in the New Testament which has been thought to refer to an epistle of St. Paul not now extant, is that in Colossians iv, 16: “And when this epistle is read among you, cause also that it be read in the church of the Laodiceans, and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.” But what evidence is there that St. Paul ever wrote an epistle to the Laodiceans? The text on which this opinion has been founded, in ancient and modern times, correctly interpreted, has no such import. The words in the original are, καὶ τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀναγνῶτε, “and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea,” Col. iv, 16. These words have been differently taken; for, by them some understand that an epistle had been written by St. Paul to the Laodiceans, which he desired might be read in the church at Colosse. Chrysostom seems to have understood them thus; and the Romish writers almost universally have adopted this opinion. “Therefore,” says Bellarmine, “it is certain that St. Paul’s epistle to the Laodiceans is now lost.” And their opinion is favoured by the Latin Vulgate, where we read, eamque Laodicensium, “that which is of the Laodiceans;” but even these words admit of another construction. Many learned Protestants, also, have embraced the same interpretation; while others suppose that St. Paul here refers to the epistle to the Ephesians, which they think he sent to the Laodiceans, and that the present inscription is spurious. But that neither of these opinions is correct, may be rendered very probable. That St. Paul could not intend, by the language used in the passage under consideration, an epistle written by himself, will appear by the following arguments: (1.) St. Paul could not, with any propriety of speech, have called an epistle written by himself, and sent to the Laodiceans, an epistle from Laodicea. He certainly would have said, ϖρὸς Λαοδικείαν, [to Laodicea,] or some such thing. Who ever heard of an epistle addressed to any individual, or to any society, denominated an epistle from them? (2.) If the epistle referred to in this passage had been one written by St. Paul, it would have been most natural for him to call it his epistle; and this would have rendered his meaning incapable of misconstruction. (3.) All those best qualified to judge of the fact, and who were well acquainted with St. Paul’s history and writings, never mention any such epistle: neither Clement, Hermas, nor the Syriac interpreter, knew any thing of such an epistle of St. Paul. But it may be asked, To what epistle, then, does St. Paul refer? It seems safest in such a case, where testimony is deficient, to follow the literal sense of the words, and to believe that it was an epistle written by the Laodiceans, probably to himself, which he had sent to the Colossians, together with his own epistle, for their perusal.perusal.

CANTICLES, the book of, in Hebrew, שיר השירים, the song of songs. The church, as well as the synagogue, received this book generally as canonical. The royal author appears, in the typical spirit of his times, to have designed to render a ceremonial appointment descriptive of a spiritual relation; and this song is accordingly considered, by judicious writers, to be a mystical allegory of that sort which induces a more sublime sense on historical truths, and which, by the description of human events, shadows out divine circumstances. The sacred writers were, by God’s condescension, authorized to illustrate his strict and intimate relation to the church by the figure of a marriage; and the emblem must have been strikingly becoming and expressive to the conceptions of the Jews, since they annexed ideas of peculiar mystery to this appointment, and imagined the marriage union to be a counterpart representation of some original pattern in heaven. Hence it was performed among them with very peculiar ceremonies and solemnity, with every thing that could give dignity and importance to its rites. Solomon, therefore, in celebrating the circumstances of his marriage, was naturally led, by a train of correspondent reflections, to consider that spiritual connection which it was often employed to symbolize; and the idea must have been the more forcibly suggested to him, as he was at this period preparing to build a temple to God, and thereby to furnish a visible representation of the Hebrew church. The spiritual allegory thus worked up by Solomon to its highest perfection, was very consistent with the prophetic style, which was accustomed to predict evangelical blessings by such parabolical figures; and Solomon was more immediately furnished with a pattern for this representation by the author of the forty-fifth Psalm, who describes, in a compendious allegory, the same future connection between Christ and his church.

2. But though the work be certainly an allegorical representation, many learned men, in an unrestrained eagerness to explain the song, 218even in its minutest and most obscure particulars, have too far indulged their imaginations; and, by endeavouring too nicely to reconcile the literal with the spiritual sense, have been led beyond the boundaries which a reverence for the sacred Scriptures should ever prescribe. The ideas which the sacred writers furnish concerning the mystical relation between Christ and his church, though well accommodated to our apprehensions by the allusion of a marriage union, are too general to illustrate every particular contained in this poem, which may be supposed to have been intentionally decorated with some ornaments appropriate to the literal construction. When the general analogy is obvious, we are not always to expect minute resemblance, and should not be too curious in seeking for obscure and recondite allusions. Solomon, in the glow of an inspired fancy, and unsuspicious of misconception or deliberate perversion, describes God and his church, with their respective attributes and graces, under colourings familiar and agreeable to mankind, and exhibits their ardent affection under the authorized figures of earthly love. No similitude, indeed, could be chosen so elegant and apposite for the illustration of this intimate and spiritual alliance, as a marriage union, if considered in the chaste simplicity of its first institution, or under the interesting circumstances with which it was established among the Jews.

3. This poem may be considered, as to its form, as a dramatic poem of the pastoral kind. There is a succession of time, and a change of place, to different parts of the palace and royal gardens. The persons introduced as speakers, are the bridegroom and bride, and their respective attendants. The interchange of dialogue is carried on in a wild and digressive manner; but the speeches are adapted to the persons with appropriate elegance. The companions of the bride compose a kind of chorus, which seems to bear some resemblance to that afterward adopted in the Grecian tragedy. Solomon and his queen assume the pastoral simplicity of style, which is favourable to the communication of their sentiments. The poem abounds throughout with beauties, and presents every where a delightful and romantic display of nature, painted at its most interesting season, and described with every ornament that an inventive fancy could furnish. It is justly entitled Song of Songs, or most excellent song, as being superior to any that an uninspired writer could have produced, and tending, if properly understood, to purify the mind, and to elevate the affections from earthly to heavenly things.

CAPERNAUM, a city celebrated in the Gospels, being the place where Jesus usually resided during the time of his ministry. It stood on the sea coast, that is, on the coast of the sea of Galilee, in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtalim, Matt. iv, 15, and consequently toward the upper part of it. As it was a convenient port from Galilee to any place on the other side of the sea, this might be our Lord’s inducement to make it the place of his most constant residence. Upon this account Capernaum was highly honoured; and though “exalted unto heaven,” as its inhabitants boasted, because it made no proper use of this signal favour it drew from him the severe denunciation, that it should “be brought down to hell,” Matt. xi, 23. This sentence of destruction has been fully realized; the ancient city is reduced to a state of utter desolation. Burckhardt supposes the ruins called Tal Houm, near the rivulet called El Eshe, to be those of Capernaum. Mr. Buckingham, who gives this place the name of Talhhewn, describes considerable and extensive ruins; the only remains of those edifices which exalted Capernaum above its fellows.

CAPPADOCIA, is called in Hebrew Caphtor. Cappadocia joined Galatia on the east, and is mentioned in Acts ii, 9, and by St. Peter, who addresses his First Epistle to the dispersed throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Asia. The people of this country were formerly infamous for their vices; but after the promulgation of Christianity, it produced many great and worthy men: among these may be reckoned Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssen, and St. Basil, commonly styled the Great.

CAPTIVES. The treatment of persons taken in war among ancient nations throws great light upon many passages of Scripture. The eastern conqueror often stripped his unhappy captives naked, shaved their heads, and made them travel in that condition, exposed to the burning heat of a vertical sun by day, and the chilling cold of the night. Such barbarous treatment was to modest women the height of cruelty and indignity; especially to those who had been educated in softness and elegance, who had figured in all the superfluities of ornamental dress, and whose faces had hardly ever been exposed to the sight of man. The Prophet Isaiah mentions this as the hardest part of the sufferings in which female captives are involved: “The Lord will expose their nakedness.” The daughter of Zion had indulged in all the softness of oriental luxury; but the offended Jehovah should cause her unrelenting enemies to drag her forth from her secret chambers into the view of an insolent soldiery; strip her of her ornaments, in which she so greatly delighted; take away her splendid and costly garments, discover her nakedness, and compel her to travel in that miserable plight to a far distant country, a helpless captive, the property of a cruel lord. Arrived in the land of their captivity, captives were often purchased at a very low price. The Prophet Joel complains of the contemptuous cheapness in which the people of Israel were held by those who made them captives: “And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.” The custom of casting lots for the captives taken in war appears to have prevailed both among the Jews and the Greeks. The same allusion occurs in the prophecy of Obadiah: “Strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem,” Obadiah 11. With respect 219to the Greeks, we have an instance in Tryphiodorus:--

“Shared out by lot the female captives stand,

The spoils divided with an equal hand;

Each to his ship conveys his rightful share,

Price of their toil, and trophies of the war.”

2. By an inhuman custom which is still retained in the east, the eyes of captives taken in war were not seldom put out, sometimes literally scooped or dug out of their sockets. This dreadful calamity Samson had to endure from the unrelenting vengeance of his enemies. In a posterior age, Zedekiah, the last king of Judah and Benjamin, after being compelled to behold the violent death of his sons and nobility, had his eyes put out, and was carried in chains to Babylon. The barbarous custom long survived the decline and fall of the Babylonian empire; for by the testimony of Mr. Maurice, in his history of Hindostan, the captive princes of that country were often treated in this manner by their more fortunate rivals; a red hot iron was passed over their eyes, which effectually deprived them of sight, and at the same time of their title and ability to reign. To the wretched state of such prisoners, the Prophet Isaiah alludes in a noble prediction, where he describes in very glowing colours the character and work of the promised Messiah: “He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,” as captives too frequently were by the weight of their fetters.

3. It seems to have been the practice of eastern kings, to command their captives taken in war, especially those that had, by the atrociousness of their crimes, or the stoutness of their resistance, greatly provoked their indignation, to lie down on the ground, and then put to death a certain part of them, which they measured with a line, or determined by lot. This custom was not, perhaps, commonly practised by the people of God, in their wars with the nations around them; but one instance is recorded in the life of David, who inflicted this punishment on the Moabites: “And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive: and so the Moabites became David’s servants, and brought gifts,” 2 Sam. viii, 2. But the most shocking punishment which the ingenious cruelty of a haughty and unfeeling conqueror ever inflicted on the miserable captive, is described by Virgil in the eighth book of the Æneid; and which even a Roman, inured to blood, could not mention without horror:--

“Quid memorem infandas cædes? quid facta tyranni,” &c.

Line 483.

“What words can paint those execrable times,

The subjects’ sufferings, and the tyrant’s crimes!

That blood, those murders, O ye gods! replace

On his own head, and on his impious race:

The living and the dead at his command

Were coupled face to face, and hand to hand,

Till, choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,

The lingering wretches pined away, and died.”

Dryden.

It is to this deplorable condition of a captive that the Apostle refers, in that pathetic exclamation, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Who shall rescue me, miserable captive as I am, from this continual burden of sin which I carry about with me; and which is cumbersome and odious, as a dead carcass bound to a living body, to be dragged along with it where-ever it goes?

CAPTIVITY. God generally punished the sins and infidelities of the Jews by different captivities or servitudes. The first captivity is that of Egypt, from which they were delivered by Moses, and which should be considered rather as a permission of providence, than as a punishment for sin. Six captivities are reckoned during the government by judges: the first, under Chushanrishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, which continued about eight years; the second, under Eglon, king of Moab, from which the Jews were delivered by Ehud; the third, under the Philistines, from which they were rescued by Shamgar; the fourth, under Jabin, king of Hazor, from which they were delivered by Deborah and Barak; the fifth, under the Midianites, from which Gideon freed them; and the sixth, under the Ammonites and Philistines, during the judicatures of Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, Eli, Samson, and Samuel. But the greatest and most remarkable captivities were those of Israel and Judah, under their regal government.

Captivities of Israel. In the year of the world 3264, Tiglath-pileser took several cities, and carried away captives, principally from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, 2 Kings xv, 29. In the year of the world 3283, Shalmaneser took and destroyed Samaria, after a siege of three years, and transplanted the tribes that had been spared by Tiglath-pileser, to provinces beyond the Euphrates, 2 Kings xviii, 10, 11. It is generally believed, there was no return of the ten tribes from this second captivity. But when we examine carefully the writings of the Prophets, we find a return of at least a great part of Israel from the captivity clearly pointed out. Hosea says, “They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of Assyria; and I will place them in their houses, saith the Lord,” Hosea xi, 11. Amos says, “And I will bring again my people Israel from their captivity: they shall build their ruined cities and inhabit them,” &c, Amos ix, 14. Obadiah observes, “The captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites,” &c, Obadiah 18, 19. To the same purpose speak the other Prophets. “The Lord shall assemble the outcast of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah,” Isa. xi, 12, 13. Ezekiel received an order from God to take two pieces of wood, and write on one, “For Judah and for the children of Israel;” and on the other, “For Joseph and for all the house of Israel;” and to join these two pieces of wood, 220that they might become one, and designate the reunion of Judah and Israel, Ezek. xxxvii, 16. Jeremiah is equally express: “The house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel; and they shall come together out of the north, to the land which I have given for an inheritance to their fathers,” Jer. iii, 18. See also Jer. xxxi, 7–9, 16, 17, 20; xvi, 15; xlix, 2, &c; Zech. ix, 13; x, 6, 10; Micah ii, 12. In the historical books of Scripture, we find that Israelites of the ten tribes, as well as of Judah and Benjamin, returned from the captivity. Among those that returned with Zerubbabel are reckoned some of Ephraim and Manasseh, who settled at Jerusalem with the tribe of Judah. When Ezra numbered those who returned from the captivity, he only inquired whether they were of the race of Israel; and at the first passover which was then celebrated in the temple, was a sacrifice of twelve he-goats for the whole house of Israel, according to the number of the tribes, Ezra vi, 16, 17; viii, 35. Under the Maccabees, and in our Saviour’s time, we see Palestine peopled by Israelites of all the tribes indifferently. The Samaritan Chronicle asserts that in the thirty-fifth year of the pontificate of Abdelus, three thousand Israelites, by permission of King Sauredius, returned from captivity, under the conduct of Adus, son of Simon.

Captivities of Judah. The captivities of Judah are generally reckoned four: the first, in the year of the world 3398, under King Jehoiakim, when Daniel and others were carried to Babylon; the second, in the year of the world 3401, and in the seventh year of the reign of Jehoiakim, when Nebuchadnezzar carried three thousand and twenty-three Jews to Babylon; the third, in the year of the world 3406, and in the fourth of Jehoiachin, when this prince, with part of his people, was sent to Babylon; and the fourth in the year 3416, under Zedekiah, from which period begins the captivity of seventy years, foretold by the Prophet Jeremiah. Dr. Hales computes that the first of these captivities, which he thinks formed the commencement of the Babylonish captivity, took place in the year before Christ 605. The Jews were removed to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, who, designing to render that city the capital of the east, transplanted thither very great numbers of people, subdued by him in different countries. In Babylon the Jews had judges and elders, who governed them, and who decided matters in dispute juridically, according to their laws. Of this we see a proof in the story of Susanna, who was condemned by elders of her own nation. Cyrus, in the year of the world 3457, and in the first year of his reign at Babylon, permitted the Jews to return to their own country, Ezra i, 1. However, they did not obtain leave to rebuild the temple; and the completion of those prophecies which foretold the termination of their captivity after seventy years, was not till the year of the world 3486. In that year, Darius Hystaspes, by an edict, allowed them to rebuild the temple. In the year of the world 3537, Artaxerxes Longimanus sent Nehemiah to Jerusalem. The Jews assert that only the refuse of their nation returned from the captivity, and that the principal of them continued in and near Babylon, where they had been settled, and where they became very numerous. It may, however, be doubted whether the refuse of Judah was really carried to Babylon. It appears from incidental observations in Scripture that some remained; and Major Rennell has offered several reasons for believing that only certain classes of the Jews were deported to Babylon, as well as into Assyria. Nebuchadnezzar carried away only the principal inhabitants, the warriors, and artisans of every kind; and he left the husbandmen, the labourers, and in general, the poorer classes, that constitute the great body of the people.

CARAITES, or KARÆITES, an ancient Jewish sect. The name signifies Textualists, or Scripturists, and was originally given to the school of Shammai, (about thirty years or more before Christ,) because they rejected the traditions of the elders, as embraced by the school of Hillel and the Pharisees, and all the fanciful interpretations of the Cabbala. They claim, however, a much higher antiquity, and produce a catalogue of doctors up to the time of Ezra. The rabbinists have been accustomed to call them Sadducees; but they believed in the inspiration of the Scriptures, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment. They believe that Messiah is not yet come, and reject all calculations of the time of his appearance: yet they say, it is proper that even every day they should receive their salvation by Messiah, the Son of David. As to the practice of religion, they differ from the rabbinists in the observance of the festivals, and keep the Sabbath with more strictness. They extend their prohibition of marriage to more degrees of affinity, and admit not of divorce on any slight or trivial grounds. The sect of Caraites still exists, but their number is inconsiderable. They are found chiefly in the Crimea, Lithuania, and Persia; at Damascus, Constantinople, and Cairo. Their honesty in the Crimea is said to be proverbial.

CARBUNCLE, ברקת, Exod. xxviii, 17; xxxix, 10; Ezek. xxviii, 13; and ἄνθραξ, Eccles. xxxii, 5; Tobit xiii, 17; a very elegant and rare gem, known to the ancients by the name ἄνθραξ, or coal, because, when held up before the sun, it appears like a piece of bright burning charcoal: the name carbunculus has the same meaning. It was the third stone in the first row of the pectoral; and is mentioned among the glorious stones of which the new Jerusalem is figuratively said to be built. Bishop Lowth observes that the precious stones, mentioned Isa. liv, 11, 12, and Rev. xxi, 18, seem to be general images to express beauty, magnificence, purity, strength, and solidity, agreeably to the ideas of the eastern nations; and to have never been intended to be strictly scrutinized, and minutely and particularly explained, as if they had some precise moral or spiritual meaning. Tobit, in his prophecy of the final restoration of Israel, Tobit xii, 16,17, describes the new Jerusalem in the same oriental manner.

221CARMEL, in the southern part of Palestine, where Nabal the Carmelite, Abigail’s husband, dwelt, Joshua xv, 55; 1 Sam. xxv.

2. Carmel was also the name of a celebrated mountain in Palestine. Though spoken of in general as a single mountain, it ought rather to be considered as a mountainous region, the whole of which was known by the name of Carmel, while to one of the hills, more elevated than the rest, that name was usually applied by way of eminence. It had the plain of Sharon on the south; overlooked the port of Ptolemais on the north; and was bounded on the west by the Mediterranean sea; forming one of the most remarkable promontories that present themselves on the shores of that great sea. According to Volney, it is about two thousand feet in height, and has the shape of a flattened cone. Its sides are steep and rugged; the soil neither deep nor rich; and among the naked rocks stinted with plants, and wild forests which it presents to the eye, there are at present but few traces of that fertility which we are accustomed to associate with the idea of Mount Carmel. Yet even Volney himself acknowledges that he found among the brambles, wild vines and olive trees, which proved that the hand of industry had once been employed on a not ungrateful soil. Of its ancient productiveness there can be no doubt; the etymology and ordinary application of its name being sufficient evidence of the fact. Carmel is not only expressly mentioned in Scripture as excelling other districts in that respect; but, every place possessed of the same kind of excellence obtained from it the same appellation in the language both of the prophets and the people. Mount Carmel is celebrated in the Old Testament, as the usual place of residence of the Prophets Elijah and Elisha. It was here that Elijah so successfully opposed the false prophets of Baal, 1 Kings xviii; and there is a certain part of the mountain facing the west, and about eight miles from the point of the promontory, which the Arabs call Mansur, and the Europeans the place of sacrifice, in commemoration of that miraculous event. Near the same place is also still shown a cave, in which it is said the Prophet had his residence. The brook Kishon, which issues from Mount Tabor, waters the bottom of Carmel, and falls into the sea toward the northern side of the mountain, and not the southern, as some writers have erroneously stated. Its greatest elevation is about one thousand five hundred feet; hence, when the sea coast on one side, and the plain on the other, are oppressed with sultry heat, this hill is refreshed by cooling breezes, and enjoys a delightful temperature. The fastnesses of this rugged mountain are so difficult of access, that the Prophet Amos classes them with the deeps of hell, the height of heaven, and the bottom of the sea: “Though they dig into hell,” (or the dark and silent chambers of the grave,) “thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down; and though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them,” Amos ix, 2, 3. Lebanon raises to heaven a summit of naked and barren rocks, covered for the greater part of the year with snow; but the top of Carmel, how naked and sterile soever its present condition, was clothed with verdure which seldom was known to fade. Even the lofty genius of Isaiah, stimulated and guided by the Spirit of inspiration, could not find a more appropriate figure to express the flourishing state of the Redeemer’s kingdom, than “the excellency of Carmel and Sharon.”

CART, a machine used in Palestine to force the corn out of the ear, and bruise the straw, Isaiah xxviii, 27, 28. The wheels of these carts were low, broad, and shod with iron, and were drawn over the sheaves spread on the floor by means, of oxen.

CASTOR and POLLUX. It is said that the vessel which carried Paul to Rome had the sign of Castor and Pollux, Acts xxviii, 11. Castor and Pollux were sea-gods, and invoked by sailors; and even the light balls or meteors which are sometimes seen on ships, were called Castor and Pollux. An inscription in Gruter proves that seamen implored Castor and Pollux in dangers at sea. It is to be observed, that St. Luke does not mention the name, but the sign, of the ship. By the word sign, the sacred writer meant a protecting image of the deity, to whom the vessel was in some sort consecrated; as at present in Catholic countries, most of their vessels are named after some saint, St. Xavier, St. Andero, St. Dominique, &c. It appears to be certain, that the figure which gave name to the ship was at the head, and the tutelary deity was placed on the poop.

CASUIST, one who studies and decides upon cases of conscience. Escobar has made a collection of the opinions of all the casuists before his time. M. Le Feore, preceptor to Louis XIII, said that the books of the casuists taught “the art of quibbling with God;” which does not seem far from truth, by reason of the multitude of distinctions and subtleties with which they abound. Mayer has published a bibliotheca of casuists, containing an account of all the writers on cases of conscience, ranged under three heads; the first comprehending the Lutheran; the second, the Calvinistic; and the third, the Roman casuists.

CASUISTRY, the doctrine and science of conscience and its cases, with the rules and principles of resolving the same; drawn partly from natural reason, or equity, and partly from the authority of Scripture, the canon law, councils, fathers, &c. To casuistry belongs the decision of all difficulties arising about what a man may lawfully do or not do; what is sin or not sin; what things a man is obliged to do in order to discharge his duty, and what he may let alone without breach of it. Although the morality of the Gospel is distinguished by its purity and by its elevation, it is necessarily exhibited in a general form; certain leading principles are laid down; but the 222application of these to the innumerable cases which occur in the actual intercourse of life, is left to the understanding and the conscience of individuals. Had it been otherwise, the Christian code would have swelled to an extent which would have rendered it in a great degree useless; it would have been difficult or impossible to recollect all its provisions; and, minute as these would have been, they would still have been defective,--new situations or combinations of circumstances modifying duty continually arising, which it would have been impracticable or hurtful to anticipate. When the principles of duty are rightly unfolded, and when they are placed on a sound foundation, there is, to a fair mind, no difficulty in accommodating them to its own particular exigencies. A few cases, it is true, may occur, where it is a matter of doubt in what way men should act; but these are exceedingly rare, and the lives of vast numbers may come to an end without any of them happening to occasion perplexity. Every man may be, and perhaps is, sensible, that his errors are to be ascribed, not to his having been at a loss to know what he should have done, but to his deliberately or hastily violating what he saw to be right, or to his having allowed himself to confound, by vain and subtile distinctions, what, in the case of any one else, would have left in his mind no room for hesitation. The manner, however, in which the Gospel inculcates the law of God, combined with other causes in leading to a species of moral discussion, which, pretending to ascertain in every case what ought to be practised, and thus to afford plain and safe directions to the conscience, terminated in what has been denominated casuistry.

The schoolmen delighted in this species of intellectual labour. They transferred their zeal for the most fanciful and frivolous distinctions in what respected the doctrines of religion to its precepts; they anatomized the different virtues; nicely examined all the circumstances by which our estimate of them should be influenced; and they thus rendered the study of morality inextricable, confounded the natural notions of right and wrong, and so accustomed themselves and others to weigh their actions, that they could easily find some excuse for what was most culpable, while they continued under the impression that they were not deviating from what, as moral beings, was incumbent upon them. The corruption of manners which was introduced into the church during the dark ages rendered casuistry very popular; and, accordingly, many who affected to be the most enlightened writers of their age, and perhaps really were so, tortured their understanding or their fancy in solving cases of conscience, and often in polluting their own imaginations and those of others, by employing them on possible crimes, upon which, however unlikely was their occurrence in life, they were eager to pronounce a decision. The happy change which the Reformation produced upon the views of men respecting the sacred Scriptures, tended to erect that pure standard of duty which for ages had been laid in the dust. Yet for a considerable time Protestant divines occupied themselves with the intricacies of casuistry, thus in some degree shutting out the light which they had fortunately poured upon the world. The Lutheran theologians walked very much in the tract which the schoolmen had opened, although their decisions were much more consonant with Christianity; and it was not uncommon in some countries for ecclesiastical assemblies to devote part of their time to the resolution of questions which might have been safely left unnoticed, which now are almost universally regarded as frivolous, and about which almost the most ignorant would be ashamed to ask an opinion. Even after much of the sophistry, and much of the moral perversion connected with casuistry, were exploded, the form of that science was preserved, and many valuable moral principles in conformity to it delivered. The venerable Bishop Hall published a celebrated work, to which he gave the appellation of “Cases of Conscience Practically resolved;” and he introduces it with the following observations addressed to the reader: “Of all divinity, that part is most useful which determines cases of conscience; and of all cases of conscience, the practical are most necessary, as action is of more concernment than speculation; and of all practical cases, those which are of most common use are of so much greater necessity and benefit to be resolved, as the errors thereof are more universal, and therefore more prejudicial to the society of mankind. These I have selected out of many; and having turned over divers casuists, have pitched upon those decisions which I hold most conformable to enlightened reason and religion; sometimes I follow them, and sometimes I leave them for a better guide.” He divides his work into four parts,--Cases of profit and traffic, Cases of life and liberty, Cases of piety and religion, and Cases matrimonial; under each of these solving a number of questions, or rather giving a number of moral dissertations.

Casuistry, as a systematic perversion of Christian morality, is now, in the Protestant world, very much unknown; though there still is, and perhaps always will be, that softening down of the strict rules of duty, to which mankind are led either by self-deceit, or by the natural desire of reconciling, with the hope of the divine favour, considerable obliquity from that path of rectitude and virtue which alone is acceptable to God. But the most striking specimen of the length to which casuistry was carried, and of the dangerous consequences which resulted from it, is furnished by the history of the maxims and sentiments of the Jesuits, that celebrated order, which combined with profound literature, and the most zealous support of Popery, an ambition that perverted their understandings, or rather induced them to employ their rational powers in the melancholy work of poisoning the sources of morality, and of casting the name and the appearance of virtue over a dissoluteness of principle and a profligacy of licentiousness, which, had they not been checked by sounder views, and by 223feelings and habits favourable to morality, would have spread through the world the most degrading misery. See Jesuits.

CATERPILLAR. חסיל. The word occurs Deut. xxviii, 38; Psa. lxviii, 46; Isa. xxxiii, 4; 1 Kings viii, 37; 2 Chron. vi, 28; Joel i, 4; ii, 25. In the four last cited texts, it is distinguished from the locust, properly so called; and in Joel i, 4, is mentioned as “eating up” what the other species had left, and therefore might be called the consumer, by way of eminence. But the ancient interpreters are far from being agreed what particular species it signifies. The Septuagint in Chronicles, and Aquila in Psalms, render it βροῦχος: so the Vulgate in Chronicles and Isaiah, and Jerom in Psalms, bruchus, the chafer, which is a great devourer of leaves. From the Syriac version, however, Michaëlis is disposed to understand it the taupe grillon, “mole cricket,” which, in its grub state, is very destructive to corn and other vegetables, by feeding on their roots. See Locust.

CATHOLIC denotes what is general or universal. The rise of heresies induced the primitive Christian church to assume to itself the appellation of catholic, as being a characteristic to distinguish itself from them. The Romish church now proudly assumes the title catholic, in opposition to all who have separated from her communion, and whom she considers as heretics and schismatics, while she herself remains the only true and Christian church. The church of Christ is called catholic, because it extends throughout the world, and endures through all time.

2. Catholic, general, Epistles. They are seven in number; namely, one of James, two of Peter, three of John, and one of Jude. They are called catholic, because directed to Christian converts generally, and not to any particular church. Hug, in his “Introduction to the New Testament,” takes another view of the import of this term, which was certainly used at an early period, as by Origen and others:--“When the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles constituted one peculiar division, the works of Paul also another, there still remained writings of different authors, which might likewise form a collection of themselves, to which a name must be given. It might most aptly be called the common collection, καθολικὸν σύνταγμα, of the Apostles, and the treatises contained in it, κοιναὶ and καθολικαὶ, which are commonly used by the Greeks as synonyms. For this we find a proof even in the most ancient ecclesiastical language. Clemens Alexandrinus calls the epistle which was despatched by the assembly of the Apostles, Acts xv, 23, the ‘catholic epistle,’ as that in which all the Apostles had a share, την ἐπιστολὴν καθολικὴν τῶν Ἀποστόλων ἅπαντων. Hence our seven epistles are catholic, or epistles of all the Apostles who are authors.”

CAVES, or CAVERNS. The country of Judea, being mountainous and rocky, is in many parts full of caverns, to which allusions frequently occur in the Old Testament. At Engedi, in particular, there was a cave so large, that David, with six hundred men, hid themselves in the sides of it, and Saul entered the mouth of the cave without perceiving that any one was there, 1 Sam. xxiv. Josephus tells us of a numerous gang of banditti, who, having infested the country, and being pursued by Herod with his army, retired into certain caverns, almost inaccessible, near Arbela in Galilee, where they were with great difficulty subdued. “Beyond Damascus,” says Strabo, “are two mountains, called Trachones, from which the country has the name of Trachonitis; and from hence, toward Arabia and Iturea, are certain rugged mountains, in which there are deep caverns; one of which will hold four thousand men.” Tavernier, in his “Travels in Persia,” speaks of a grotto between Aleppo and Bir, that would hold near three thousand horse. And Maundrel assures us, that “three hours distant from Sidon, about a mile from the sea, there runs along a high rocky mountain, in the sides of which are hewn a multitude of grottoes, all very little differing from each other. They have entrances about two foot square. There are of these subterraneous caverns two hundred in number. It may, with probability, at least, be concluded that these places were contrived for the use of the living, and not of the dead.” These extracts may be useful in explaining such passages of Scripture as the following: “Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds,” Judges vi, 2. To these they betook themselves for refuge in times of distress and hostile invasion:--“When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, for the people were distressed, then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits,” 1 Sam. xiii, 6. See also Jer. xli, 9: “To enter into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth,” became with the prophets a very proper and familiar image to express a state of terror and consternation. Thus Isa. ii, 19: “They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.”

CEDAR, ארז. The cedar is a large and noble evergreen tree. Its lofty height, and its far extended branches, afford spacious shelter and shade, Ezek. xxxi, 3, 6, 8. The wood is very valuable; is of a reddish colour, of an aromatic smell, and reputed incorruptible. This is owing to its bitter taste, which the worms cannot endure, and to its resin, which preserves it from the injuries of the weather. The ark of the covenant, and much of the temple of Solomon, and that of Diana at Ephesus, were built of cedar. The tree is much celebrated in Scripture. It is called, “the glory of Lebanon,” Isa. lx, 13. On that mountain it must in former times have flourished in great abundance. There are some cedars still growing there which are prodigiously large. But the travellers who have visited the place within these two or three centuries, and who describe trees of vast size, inform us that their number is 224diminished greatly; so that, as Isaiah says, “a child may number them,” Isa. x, 19. Maundrell measured one of the largest size, and found it to be twelve yards and six inches in girt, and yet sound; and thirty-seven yards in the spread of its boughs. Gabriel Sionita, a very learned Syrian Maronite, who assisted in editing the Paris Polyglott, a man worthy of all credit, thus describes the cedars of mount Lebanon, which he had examined on the spot: “The cedar grows on the most elevated part of the mountain, is taller than the pine, and so thick, that five men together could scarcely encompass one. It shoots out its branches at ten or twelve feet from the ground: they are large and distant from each other, and are perpetually green. The wood is of a brown colour, very solid and incorruptible, if preserved from wet. The tree bears a small cone like that of the pine.”pine.”

CELSUS. A Pagan philosopher of the second century, who composed a work against Christianity, in which he so expressly refers to the facts of the Gospels, and to the books of the New Testament, as to have furnished important undesigned testimony to their antiquity and truth.

CEMETERY. See Sepulchre.

CENSER, a sacred instrument made use of in the religious rites of the Hebrews. It was a vase which contained incense to be used in sacrifice. When Aaron made an atonement for himself and his house, he was to take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar of the Lord, Lev. xvi, 12. And Solomon, when he provided furniture for the temple of the Lord, made, among other things, censers of pure gold, 1 Kings vii, 50.

CENTURION, an officer in the Roman army, who, as the term indicates, had the command of a hundred men, Matt. viii, 5, &c.

CEPHAS, Κηφᾶς, from כיפא, a rock. The Greek Πέτρος, and the Latin Petrus, have the same signification. See Peter.

CEREMONY, an assemblage of several actions, forms, and circumstances, serving to render a thing magnificent and solemn. Applied to religious services, it signifies the external rites and manner in which the ministers of religion perform their sacred functions, and direct or lead the worship of the people. In 1646, M. Ponce, published a history of ancient ceremonies, showing the rise, growth, and introduction of each rite into the church, and its gradual advancement to superstition. Many of them were borrowed from Judaism, but more from Paganism. In all religions adapted to the nature of man there must be some positive institutions for fixing the mind upon spiritual objects, and counteracting that influence of material things upon habits and pursuits which is, and must be, constantly exerted. Without such institutions, religion might be preserved, indeed, by a few of superior understanding and of strong powers of reflection; but among mankind in general all trace of it would soon be lost. When the end for which they are appointed is kept in view, and the simple examples of the New Testament are observed, they are of vast importance to the production both of pious feelings and of virtuous conduct; but there has constantly been a propensity in the human race to mistake the means for the end, and to consider themselves as moral and religious, when they scrupulously observe what was intended to produce morality and religion. The reason is obvious: ceremonial observances can be performed without any great sacrifice of propensities and vices; they are palpable; when they are observed by men who, in the tenor of public life, do not act immorally, they are regarded by others as indicating high attainments in virtue; and through that self-deceit which so wonderfully misleads the reason, and inclines it to minister to the passions which it should restrain, men have themselves become persuaded that their acknowledgment of divine authority, implied in their respect to the ritual which that authority is conceived to have sanctioned, may be taken as a proof that they have nothing to apprehend from the violation of the law under which they are placed. But, whatever be the causes of this, the fact itself is established by the most extensive and the most incontrovertible evidence. We find it, indeed, wherever mankind have had notions of superior power, and of their obligation to yield obedience to the will of the supreme Being.

Under the system of polytheism which prevailed in the most enlightened nations previous to the publication of Christianity, this was carried so far, that the connection between religion and morality was in a great degree dissolved, rites and ceremonies, sacrifices and oblations, were all that it was thought requisite to observe; when these were carefully performed, there was no hesitation in ascribing piety to the persons who did perform them, however deficient they might be in virtuous and pious dispositions. Even under the Mosaical dispensation, proceeding as it did, immediately from heaven, and adapted, as in infinite wisdom it was, to the situation of those to whom it was given, the same evil early began to be experienced; and although it was lamented and exposed by the prophets, and the most enlightened men among the Jews, it was so far from being eradicated, that it continued to acquire strength, till it was exhibited in all its magnitude in the character prevalent among the Pharisees at the period of Christ’s manifestation. With this highly popular and revered class of men, religion was either merely a matter of ceremony, or was employed, for base and interested purposes, to cast a veil of sanctity over their actions. They said long prayers, but it was for a show; they gave alms, but it was after they had sounded a trumpet, that the eye of man might be fixed upon their beneficence; and, as to the point now under review, they were most strikingly described by our Saviour, when he said of them, “They pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, but they neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and truth.” The Christian religion not only expressly guards against an evil which had become so prevalent, but its whole spirit is at variance with it, its own ceremonial observances 225being few, and obviously emblematical of whatever is excellent and holy. But still the Gospel finds human nature as other religions found it; and ecclesiastical history, even from the earliest periods, shows with what astonishing perverseness, and with what wonderful ingenuity, men departed from the simplicity of Christianity, and substituted in its room the most childish, and often the most pernicious, practices and observances. The power of godliness was lost in forms; and the innovations of a profane will-worship became almost innumerable. The effect was, that men regarded God as less concerned with the moral conduct of his creatures, than with the quantum of service they performed in his temples; and religion and morals were so disjoined, that one became the substitute for the other, to the universal corruption of the Christian world.

CERINTHIANS. Of Cerinthus, the founder of this sect, Dr. Burton gives the following account: Cerinthus is said to have been one of those Jews who, when St. Peter returned to Jerusalem, expostulated with him for having baptized Cornelius, Acts xi, 2. He is also stated to have been one of those who went down from Judea to Antioch, and said, “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved,” Acts xv, 1. According to the same account, he was one of the false teachers who seduced the Galatians to Judaism; and he is also charged with joining in the attack which was made upon St. Paul, for polluting the temple by the introduction of Greeks, Acts xxi, 27, 28. I cannot find any older authority for these statements than that of Epiphanius, who wrote late in the fourth century, and is by no means worthy of implicit credit. He asserts, also, that Cerinthus was one of the persons alluded to by St. Luke, as having already undertaken to write the life of Jesus. But all these stories I take to be entirely inventions; and there is no evidence that Cerinthus made himself conspicuous at so early a period. Irenæus speaks of the heresy of the Nicolaitans, as being considerably prior to that of the Cerinthians. According to the same writer, Carpocrates also preceded Cerinthus; and if it be true, as so many of the fathers assert, that St. John wrote his Gospel expressly to confute this heresy, we can hardly come to any other conclusion, than that it was late in the first century when Cerinthus rose into notice. He appears undoubtedly to have been a Jew; and there is evidence that, after having studied philosophy in Egypt, he spread his doctrines in Asia Minor. This will account for his embracing the Gnostic opinions, and for his exciting the notice of St. John, who resided at Ephesus. He was certainly a Gnostic in his notion of the creation of the world, which he conceived to have been formed by angels; and his attachment to that philosophy may explain what otherwise seems inconsistent, that he retained some of the Mosaic ceremonies, such as the observance of Sabbaths and circumcision; though, like other Gnostics, he ascribed the law and the prophets to the angel who created the world. This adoption or rejection of different parts of the same system was a peculiar feature of the Gnostic philosophy; and the name of Cerinthus probably became eminent, because he introduced a fresh change in the notion concerning Christ. The Gnostics, like their leader, Simon Magus, had all of them been Docetæ, and denied the real humanity; but Cerinthus is said to have maintained that Jesus had a real body, and was the son of human parents, Joseph and Mary. In the other points he agreed with the Gnostics, and believed that Christ was one of the æons who descended on Jesus at his baptism. It is difficult to ascertain who was the first Gnostic that introduced this opinion. Some writers give the merit of it to Ebion; and yet it is generally said that Cerinthus and Ebion agreed in their opinions concerning Christ, and that Cerinthus preceded Ebion. Again Carpocrates is said to have held the same sentiments; and he is placed by Irenæus before Cerinthus: so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide the chronological precedence of these heretics. Perhaps the safest inference to draw from so many conflicting testimonies is this: that Carpocrates was the first Gnostic of eminence who was not a Docetist; but that the notion of Jesus being born of human parents was taught more explicitly and with more success by Cerinthus. Carpocrates is reported to have been distinguished by the gross immorality of his life; and whatever we may think of the imputations cast upon the Gnostics in general, it seems impossible to deny that this person, at least, professed and practised a perfect liberty of action. There is also strong evidence that in this instance Cerinthus followed his example.

There is a peculiar doctrine ascribed to this heretic, which, if it originated with him, may well account for the celebrity of his name. Cerinthus has been handed down as the first person who held the notion of a millennium; and though the fathers undoubtedly believed that, previous to the general resurrection, the earth would undergo a renovation, and the just would rise to enjoy a long period of terrestrial happiness, yet there was a marked and palpable difference between the millennium of the fathers and that of Cerinthus. The fathers conceived this terrestrial happiness to be perfectly pure and freed from the imperfections of our nature; but Cerinthus is said to have promised his followers a millennium of the grossest pleasures and the most sensual gratifications. It is singular that all the three sources, to which we may trace the Gnostic doctrines, might furnish some foundation for this notion of a millennium. Thus Plato has left some speculations concerning the “great year,” when, after the expiration of thirty-six thousand years, the world was to be renewed, and the golden age to return. It was the belief of the Persian magi, according to Plutarch, that the time would come, when Ahreman, or the evil principle, would be destroyed; when the earth would lose its impediments and inequalities, and all mankind would be of one language, and enjoy uninterrupted happiness. It was taught, in the Cabbala, that the world 226was to last six thousand years, which would be followed by a period of rest for a thousand years more. There appears in this an evident allusion, though on a much grander scale, to the sabbatical years of rest. The institution of the jubilee, and the glowing descriptions given by the prophets of the restoration of the Jews, and the reign of the Messiah, may have led the later Jews to some of their mystical fancies; and when all these systems were blended together by the Gnostics, it is not strange, if a millennium formed part of their creed long before the time of Cerinthus. It seems probable, however, that he went much farther than his predecessors in teaching that the millennium would consist in a course of sensual indulgence; and it may have been his notions upon this subject, added to those concerning the human nature of Christ, which led him to maintain, contrary to the generality of Gnostics, that Christ had not yet risen, but that he would rise hereafter. The Gnostics, as we have seen, denied the resurrection altogether. Believing Jesus to be a phantom, they did not believe that he was crucified; and they could not therefore believe that he had risen. But Cerinthus, who held that Jesus was born, like other human beings, found no difficulty in believing literally that he was crucified; and he is said also to have taught that he would rise from the dead at some future period. It is most probable that this period was that of the millennium; and the words of St. John in the Revelation would easily be perverted, where it is said of the souls of the martyrs, that “they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years,” Rev. xx, 4.

CHALCEDONY, χαλκηδών, Rev. xxi, 19; a precious stone. Arethas, who has written an account of Bithynia, says that it was so called from Chalcedon, a city of that country, opposite to Byzantium; and it was in colour like a carbuncle. Some have supposed this also to be the stone called נפך, translated “emerald,” Exodus xxviii, 18.

CHALDEA, or Babylonia, the country lying on both sides of the Euphrates, of which Babylon was the capital; and extending southward to the Persian Gulf, and northward into Mesopotamia, at least as far as Ur, which is called Ur of the Chaldees. This country had also the name of Shinar. See Babylon.

CHALDEAN PHILOSOPHY claims attention on account of its very high antiquity. The most ancient people, next to the Hebrews, among the eastern nations, who appear to have been acquainted with philosophy, in its more general sense, were the Chaldeans; for though the Egyptians have pretended that the Chaldeans were an Egyptian colony, and that they derived their learning from Egypt, there is reason to believe that the kingdom of Babylon, of which Chaldea was a part, flourished before the Egyptian monarchy; and that the Egyptians were rather indebted to the Chaldeans, than the Chaldeans to the Egyptians. Nevertheless, the accounts that have been transmitted to us by the Chaldeans themselves, of the antiquity of their learning, are blended with fable, and involved in considerable uncertainty. There are other circumstances, independently of the antiquity of the Chaldean philosophy, which render our knowledge of it imperfect and uncertain. We derive our acquaintance with it from other nations, and principally from the Greeks, whose vanity led them to despise and misrepresent the pretended learning of barbarous nations. The Chaldeans also adopted a symbolical mode of instruction, and transmitted their doctrines to posterity under a veil of obscurity, which it is not easy to remove. To all which, we may add that, about the commencement of the Christian æra, a race of philosophers sprung up, who, with a view of gaining credit to their own wild and extravagant doctrines, passed them upon the world as the ancient wisdom of the Chaldeans and Persians, in spurious books, which they ascribed to Zoroaster, or some other eastern philosopher. Thus, the fictions of these impostors were confounded with the genuine dogmas of the ancient eastern nations. Notwithstanding these causes of uncertainty, which perplex the researches of modern inquirers into the distinguishing doctrines and character of the Chaldean philosophy, it appears probable that the philosophers of Chaldea were the priests of the Babylonian nation, who instructed the people in the principles of religion, interpreted its laws, and conducted its ceremonies. Their character was similar to that of the Persian magi, and they are often confounded with them by the Greek historians. Like the priests in most other nations, they employed religion in subserviency to the ruling powers, and made use of imposture to serve the purposes of civil policy. Accordingly, Diodorus Siculus relates, that they pretended to predict future events by divination, to explain prodigies, and interpret dreams, and to avert evils, or confer benefits, by means of augury and incantations. For many ages, they retained a principal place among diviners. In the reign of Marcus Antonius, when the emperor and his army, who were perishing with thirst, were suddenly relieved by a shower, the prodigy was ascribed to the power and skill of the Chaldean soothsayers. Thus accredited for their miraculous powers, they maintained their consequence in the courts of princes. The principal instrument which they employed in support of their superstition, was astrology. The Chaldeans were probably the first people who made regular observations upon the heavenly bodies, and hence the appellation of Chaldean became afterward synonymous with that of astronomer. Nevertheless all their observations were applied to the sole purpose of establishing the credit of judicial astrology; and they employed their pretended skill in this art, in calculating nativities, foretelling the weather, predicting good and bad fortune, and other practices usual with impostors of this class. While they taught the vulgar that all human affairs are influenced by the stars, and professed to be acquainted with the nature and laws of their influence, and consequently to possess a power of prying into futurity, they encouraged much 227idle superstition, and many fraudulent practices. Hence other professors of these mischievous arts were afterward called Chaldeans, and the arts themselves were called Babylonian arts. Among the Romans these impostors were so troublesome, that, during the time of the republic, it became necessary to issue an edict requiring the Chaldeans, or mathematicians, (by which latter appellation they were commonly known,) to depart from Rome and Italy within ten days; and, afterward, under the emperors, these soothsayers were put under the most severe interdiction.

The Chaldean philosophy, notwithstanding the obscurity that has rendered it difficult of research, has been highly extolled, not only by the orientals and Greeks, but by Jewish and Christian writers: but upon recurring to authorities that are unquestionable, there seems to be little or nothing in this branch of the barbaric philosophy which deserves notice. The following brief detail will include the most interesting particulars. From the testimony of Diodorus, and also from other ancient authorities, collected by Eusebius, it appears, that the Chaldeans believed in God, the Lord and Parent of all, by whose providence the world is governed. From this principle sprung their religious rites, the immediate object of which was a supposed race of spiritual beings or demons, whose existence could not have been imagined, without first conceiving the idea of a supreme Being, the source of all intelligence. The belief of a supreme Deity, the fountain of all the divinities which were supposed to preside over the several parts of the material world, was the true origin of all religious worship, however idolatrous, not excepting even that which consisted in paying divine honours to the memory of dead men. Beside the supreme Being, the Chaldeans supposed spiritual beings to exist, of several orders; gods, demons, heroes: these they probably distributed into subordinate classes, agreeably to their practice of theurgy or magic. The Chaldeans, in common with the eastern nations in general, admitted the existence of certain evil spirits, clothed in a vehicle of grosser matter; and in subduing or counteracting these, they placed a great part of the efficacy of their religious incantations. These doctrines were the mysteries of the Chaldean religion, imparted only to the initiated. Their popular religion consisted in the worship of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, as divinities, after the general practice of the east, Job xxxi, 27. From the religious system of the Chaldeans were derived two arts, for which they were long celebrated; namely, magic and astrology. Their magic, which should not be confounded with witchcraft, or a supposed intercourse with evil spirits, consisted in the performance of certain religious ceremonies or incantations, which were supposed, by the interposition of good demons, to produce supernatural effects. Their astrology was founded upon the chimerical principle, that the stars have an influence, either beneficial or malignant, upon the affairs of men, which may be discovered, and made the certain ground of prediction, in particular cases; and the whole art consisted in applying astronomical observations to this fanciful purpose, and thus imposing upon the credulity of the vulgar.

CHAMBER. See Upper Room.

CHAPTERS. The New Testament was early portioned out into certain divisions, which appear under various names. The custom of reading it publicly in the Christian assemblies after the law and the prophets, would soon cause such divisions to be applied to it. The law and the prophets were for this end already divided into parashim and haptaroth, and the New Testament could not long remain without being treated in the same way. The distribution into church lessons was indeed the oldest that took place in it. The Christian teachers gave the name of pericopes, to the sections read as lessons by the Jews. Justin Martyr avails himself of this expression, when he quotes prophetical passages. Such is the case also in Clemens of Alexandria; but this writer also gives the name of ϖερικόπαι to larger sections of the Gospels and St. Paul’s Epistles. Pericopes therefore were nothing else but ἀναγνώσματα, church lessons, or sections of the New Testament, which were read in the assemblies after Moses and the Prophets. In the third century another division also into κεφαλαία occurs. Dionysius of Alexandria speaks of them in reference to the Apocalypse, and the controversies respecting it. Some, says he, went through the whole book, from chapter to chapter, to show that it bore no sense. In the fifth century Euthalius produced again a division into chapters, which was accounted his invention. He himself however lays claim to nothing more than having composed τὴν τῶν κεφαλαίων ἐκθεσίν, the summaries of the contents of the chapters in the Acts of the Apostles and the Catholic Epistles. In the Epistles of St. Paul, not even these are his property; but they are derived “from one of the wisest of the fathers, and worshippers of Christ,” as he himself says, and he only incorporated them into his stichometrical edition of the New Testament. The chapters must, therefore, have been in existence before Euthalius, if the father whom he mentions composed notices of their contents. But how old they are cannot easily be known. The Euthalian κεφαλαία are distinguished from the pericopes, or reading portions, by their extent. The Jews had divided the law into fifty-three parashim, according to the number of the Sabbaths, taking into account the leap year. Nearly so distributed were the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul’s and the Catholic Epistles, according to the Alexandrine ritual, which Euthalius follows in his stichometrical edition, namely, into fifty-six pericopes; three more than the number of κουριάκαι ἡμέραι, Sundays, probably for three festivals, which might be observed at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. The Gospels too had naturally in the same way many pericopes. Such in older times was the practice in Asia also; for Justin says, that the believers there assemble themselves for prayer and reading 228on Sunday only, ἐν τῇ τοῦ ἡλίου ἡμερᾷ. Since then the whole New Testament was distributed into so few sections, these must necessarily have been great, and a pericope in Euthalius sometimes includes in it four, five, and even six chapters. We have spoken hitherto only of the chapters of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. In the Gospels there occur to us κεφαλαία of two sorts, the greater and the lesser. The lesser are the Ammonian which Eusebius rejected, after which he composed his ten canons in order to point out in the Monotessaron of Ammonius the respective contents of every Evangelist. He has explained himself in the Epistle to Carpianus on their use, and on the formation of his ten canons, where he names his sections sometimes κεφαλαία, sometimes ϖερικόπαι. Matthew has three hundred and fifty-five of these, Mark two hundred and thirty-six, Luke three hundred and forty-two, and John two hundred and thirty-two. The other chapters are independent of these, which from their extent are also named the greater. Of these, Matthew contains sixty-eight, Mark forty-nine, Luke eighty-three, and John only eighteen. There are but very few manuscripts which have not both of them together. As to the church lessons, to come back to them once more, various alterations took place in them. As the festival days multiplied, the old division could no longer subsist, and in many churches the pericopes were shortened. At last as the ritual of ceremonies was enlarged, only certain portions were extracted from the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, which sometimes were very short. A codex of this sort was termed ἐκλογάδιον; in reference to the Gospels alone, εὐαγγελιϛάριον; and in respect to the other books, ϖραξαπόϛολος. This seems to have taken place among the Latins much earlier than among the Greeks. There are perfectly credible testimonies, which establish such an arrangement among the former at the middle of the fifth century, at which date nothing of the kind is perceptible among the latter. The expression, ϖραξαπόϛολος, appears indeed frequently in the Typicum of St. Sabas, who died in the beginning of the fifth century. But the Greeks do not disavow, that this Typicum or monastic ritual was not by himself, that it perished in the invasions of the barbarians, and was composed anew by John of Damascus, with references memoriter, [from memory,] to that of Sabas. He lived toward the middle of the eighth century, and with an earlier notice of lectionaries among the Greeks we are not acquainted. Finally, our present chapters come, as it is well known, from Cardinal Hugo de St. Cher, who in the twelfth century composed a concordance, and to this end distributed the Bible according to his own discretion into smaller portions. They are now moreover generally admitted in the editions of the Hebrew and Greek texts. The verses, however, are from Robert Stephens, who first introduced them in his edition of the New Testament, A. D. 1551. His son, Henry Stephens, was the first to record this for the information of posterity, in the preface to his Greek Concordance to the New Testament; in which he says, that two facts connected with it equally demand our admiration: “The first is, that my father, while travelling from Paris to Lyons, finished this division of each chapter into verses, and indeed the greater part of it [inter equitandum] when riding on his horse. The second fact is, that, a short time prior to this journey, while he had the matter still in contemplation, almost all those to whom he mentioned it told him plainly that he was an indiscreet man, as though he had a wish to spend his time and labour on an affair which would prove utterly useless, and which would not obtain for him any commendation, but, on the contrary, would expose him to much ridicule. But behold the result: in opposition to the opinion which condemned and discountenanced my father’s undertaking, as soon as his invention was published, every edition of the New Testament, whether in the Greek, Latin, French, German, or in any other language, which did not adopt it, was immediately discarded.” It perhaps will not be unedifying to add, that this passage has yielded mankind another proof that LEARNING is not always synonymous with WISDOM: for the phrase respecting riding, which occurs in it, has furnished matter of warm dispute to literary men; some of them contending that inter equitandum means, that Robert Stephens performed the greater part of his task while actually on horseback; but others, giving a more extended construction to the expression, assert that he was engaged in this occupation only when stopping for refreshment at inns on the road. Though the first interpretation would probably obtain the greatest number of suffrages from really learned and impartial men; yet it is quite sufficient for mankind to know, in either way, that this division into verses was completed in the course of that journey.