terial office the trials and hardships he had encountered in discharging his duty, and the excellence of the gospel doctrines. The Corinthians are then cautioned against any connexion with unbelievers, and the Apostle expresses his great regard for them, his anxiety and concern on account of the irregularities which had prevailed among them, and his satisfaction at being informed of their penitence and amendment; and he again exhorts them to contribute liberally towards the relief of their brethren in Judea. The leading design of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians is thus interrupted by the occasional introduction of various matters, which can form no reasonable objection to the accuracy and beauty of the composition itself, for the transitions arise from some obvious and important sentiments which render them natural and just. In these digressions there is an admirable wisdom, because they relieve the minds of the Corinthians of that uneasiness which they must have felt from a constant attention to so disagreeable a subject as their unsuitable conduct towards the Apostle himself. In the latter part of the Epistle he again vindicates his character as an apostle, and enuinerates the various distresses and persecutions he had undergone in the cause of Christianity; and he concludes, as usual, with general exhortations and the apostolical benediction.

CRETE, carnal, fleshly, now called CANDIA, the name of a large and fine island of the Mediterranean, celebrated for its early legislative code, its civilization, its superstitions, its lofty mountains, wine, oil, and fruit. The island stretches east to west between the 35th and 36th parallels of north latitude, forming in its appearance an irregular parallelogram, of which the western side faces Sicily, and the eastern looks towards Egypt. On the north it is washed by the Cretan Sea, and on the south by the Libyan Sea, which intervenes between the island and the opposite coast of Cyrene. According to Pliny, the extent of Crete from east to west is about 270 miles, and nearly 539

in circuit; in breadth it no where exceeds fifty miles. The island contains no lakes, and the rivers are for the most part dry during the summer season. Crete is alleged to be the same as the Isle of the Caphtorim, Crittim, or Kerethim. As this island is the scene of no prominent transaction in biblical history, we merely observe that St Paul in his voyage to Rome "sailed under Crete, over against Salmone," a promontory on the eastern side of Crete, Acts xxvii. 7. The crew hardly passed the cape, when they "came unto a place called The Fair Havens, nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea." This description exactly agrees with a part of the coast of Crete which Stephanus calls the Fair Shore or Coast. St Paul strongly advised the crew to winter at Crete, but they paid no attention to his suggestion, and were accordingly overtaken by the storm recorded by the writer of the Acts of the Apostles in the 27th chapter. The gospel was early preached in this island of the "hundred cities," as it was proudly called, and Titus was appointed its first bishop, Titus i. 5. Some of the Cretes were present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, and heard the "wonderful works of God" in their own tongue. The Cretes, or Cretians, did not rank very high for morality, and we find St Paul quoting a character given of them by one of their own poets, who is supposed to be Epimenedes, Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies," namely, men of a brutal disposition, thirsting for blood, and intent on nothing but their own advantage, given up to sloth, and intemperate and luxurious in their mode of living. "This witness is true," adds the Apostle, "wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men, that turn from the truth." The island of Crete is celebrated in mythological history; and the Cretians pretended that Jupiter was educated among them. "In no part of the struggle," says Major Keppel, with reference to the Greek Revolution, "between the Greeks

"The

som.

and the Turks, had such horrors been committed as those to which Candia (or Crete) was then a prey. One instance out of a thousand will give an idea of the barbarities committed by the Greeks in Candia. Among the Turks who fell into their hands was a woman of sufficiently high station to induce them to spare her life, in the hope of a large ranThis was paid, but no sooner had they touched the money than she was delivered over a victim to the licentious passion of sixteen Greek soldiers, and then released." Crete or Candia, as it was called by the Venetians, contains upwards of 240,000 inhabitants, half of them Greeks, and the other half Turks. It was usually governed by a pacha of three tails, and divided into three districts, each of which was ruled by a pacha of two tails. Candia, the capital of the island, contains about 12,000 inhabitants, and is the residence of the pacha and the Greek archbishop, who is primate of the island, and archbishop of Gortyna. It possesses fourteen mosques, a Greek cathedral and church, an Armenian church, and a Roman Catholic monastery with its chapel.

CUSH, Ethiopians, or black, or Chus, a people or region so called from Cush, the eldest son of Ham and grandson of Noah. In the Vulgate and Septuagint, and by various interpreters, ancient and modern, Cush is very generally rendered Ethiopia. The Land of Cush was properly that district of Arabia in which the sons of Cush first settled, but it is often taken largely for a great tract of country, comprehending much more than the proper territory of the Cushites, extending east as far as the Tigris, and having for its western boundary the Nile. Josephus says that Cush was the father of the Ethiopians, who in his time were styled Cusheans, not only by themselves, but by all the inhabitants of Asia. Others conjecture that Cush located in that part of Persia still called Chusistan or Khuzistan, or the Land of Chus, whence his posterity might have passed into other countries. It appears from the Scriptures that a part of

Arabia near the Red Sea was anciently named Cush; that Cushan and Midian are frequently mentioned as dwelling together in tents; and that in other places the Arabians are spoken of as bordering on the Cushites, who cannot therefore be viewed as the Ethiopians. Bruce informs us that the Abyssinians have a tradition, which is equally received by Jews and Christians, that immediately after the Deluge Cush passed with his family through the low country of Egypt, and proceeded to the high lands which border the mountainous district of Abyssinia, where they settled, and their descendants built the city of Axum in the days of Abraham. It is impossible to decide on a subject the most of which is mere conjecture. It appears that

there were four countries named Cush in the Scriptures, and inhabited by Cushites, who by frequent removals dwelt widely separated from each other.-1. Cush in the vicinity of the river Indus. This is said to have been the original Ethiopia in the East. Strabo says that the Ethiopians are a twofold people, who lie extended in a long tract from the rising to the setting of the sun. The Syriac version of 2 Chron. xvi. 8, reads Indians for Ethiopians, and both the Syriac and Chaldee in Isa. xi. 11, and Zeph. iii. 10, read India for Cush.-2. There was a Cush in Assyria, west of the Caspian. St Jerome mentions that St Andrew preached the gospel to that people, whom he calls Ethiopians or Cushites.-3. Cush in Arabia Petræa, bordering on Egypt. 4. Ethiopia, south of Egypt, in Africa, is designated by the name of Cush. The reader will find more particulars concerning the Cushites in various parts of the present work.

CYAMON, a bean field, the name of a place opposite Esdraelon, Judith vii. 3.

CYPRUS, fair, beautiful, anciently among other names called the Fortunate Island, a large island in the Mediterranean, south of Cilicia and west of Syria, supposed to have been detached from the continent by a convulsion of nature, although the opinion of modern times is

that it has been always an island. Its greatest length is stated to be seventy leagues from east to west, its breadth from north to south thirty, and its circumference about one hundred and eighty. Its inhabitants were Phoenicians, Greek colonists from Arcadia, Attica, and the Isle of Salamis, and Ethiopians, transplanted to it by Amasis of Egypt, who conquered it to obtain possession of its ship timber. It is said to have contained nine kingdoms, but its ancient geography is involved in greater uncertainty than is common with the countries and islands of the Mediterranean. The wealth of the island attracted the Romans, and Augustus made Cyprus a Roman province, dividing it into four parts, in which condition it was in the apostolic times. It subsequently fell to the Emperors of the East, from whom it was conquered by the Saracens, who lost it also; and its native rulers were for some time afterwards dependent on princes of Egypt. It was again conquered by Richard Cœur de Lion of England, but it was attached to the Turkish Empire by Selim II. in 1570.

We are told by a recent traveller that Cyprus would require at least a population of one million to cultivate it as well as the excellency of the soil requires; but the population has been reduced by the tyranny of the government to between 60,000 and 70,000, of whom 15,000 are Greeks. It contains only two towns which deserve the name, the others being almost deserted. If the ancients extolled the fertility of this island, their accounts have not been contradicted by the moderns. Dr Clarke, however, avers that the climate is insalubrious, and that the fevers of Cyprus, unlike those caught upon other shores of the Mediterranean, rarely intermit, and are almost always malignant. "This island," he says, "that had so highly excited, amply gratified our curiosity by its most interesting antiquities, although there is nothing in its present state pleasing to the eye. Instead of a beautiful and fertile land, covered with groves of fruit and fine woods, once rendering it the paradise of the Levant,

there is scarcely upon earth amore wretched spot than it now exhibits. Few words may forcibly describe it-agriculture neglected, inhabitants oppressed, population destroyed, pestiferous air, contagion, poverty, indolence, desolation. Its antiquities alone render it worthy of resort." The most beautiful flowers grow wild in Cyprus, hyacinths, anemonies, ranunculuses, and the single and double narcissus; but it is generally admitted that its agriculture is neglected, and an unwholesome atmosphere infects some districts, caused probably by the stagnant water. "Imperfectly as it is cultivated," says another traveller, "it abounds in every production of nature, and bears great quantities of corn, figs, olives, oranges, lemons, dates, and indeed of every fruit seen in these climates; it nourishes great numbers of goats, sheep, pigs, and oxen, of which latter it has at times exported supplies to Malta."

The scriptural allusions to this island are very limited. Barnabas, the companion of St Paul, was born in Cyprus; and we are told that his real name was Joses, and that he was a Levite, Acts iv. 36. It is farther alleged that in his native island he suffered martyrdom. A few years after the martyrdom of St Stephen, the gospel was preached in "Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch;" but the inspired writer informs us that it was preached "unto the Jews only; and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord," Acts xi. 19, 20, 21. When St Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch, they were chosen from among "the prophets and teachers" in that city to "go to the Gentiles ;" and the two Apostles, after being consecrated, Acts xiii. 3, went first to the city of Seleucia, built by Seleucus, north-west of Antioch on the Mediterranean, from which they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, a town founded by Teucer, the son of Telamon, afterwards called Constantia, from its restorer the Emperor Constantine, and still called Costanza, they preached in the Jewish synagogue, and afterwards

proceeded "through the isle" to Paphos, on its western side, founded by the Phoenicians, and celebrated for the worship of Venus, the ruins of which are still to be seen. Here Sergius Paulus, the Roman deputy, was converted to the Christian faith; and Bar-jesus, a Jew, who endeavoured to "turn away the deputy," was smitten with blindness "for a season," Acts xiii. 6-12. The two Apostles soon afterwards left Cyprus, and proceeded to Perga in Pamphylia. In the "sharp contention" which took place between St Paul and Barnabas, and which caused their separation, the latter proceeded to his native island, while the former "went through Syria and Cilicia confirming the churches," Acts xv. 39, 41. St Paul subsequently twice passed the island, in his voyages to Jerusalem, Acts xxi. 3, and to Rome, Acts xxvii. 4, but he did not land. From the above notices it will at once be seen that Cyprus was one of the early scenes of apostolical labour.

CYRENE, a wall, or coldness, or a meeting, or a floor, a celebrated city of Libya in Africa, and the capital of the ancient Cyrenaica, originally peopled by a Greek colony, and on account of its five cities frequently designated Pentapolis. This city was once so powerful, that it competed for the pre-eminence with Carthage; its citizens from their Grecian origin were wont to call themselves Spartans. The foundation of Cyrene dates as far back as B. C. 628, and received its name from Cyrene, the mother of Aristæus, chief of the colonists. This city was the birth-place of Callimachus the poet, Eratosthenes the historian, Carneades the sophist, and Aristippus, the founder of the licentious sect of philosophers known by the name of Cyrenaics. Numbers of Jews were at Cyrene before the Christian era, the descendants, according to Josephus, of a colony of captive Jews settled there by Ptolemy Lagus; and one of them, who happened to be at Jerusalem on the eventful day of our Saviour's crucifixion, is immortalized by name in the Evangelical history. It was the custom to compel the person to carry the cross on

which he was to be impaled, which shows that it could not be the huge piece of wood represented in modern paintings; and our Saviour carried that on which he was to suffer for the whole world until, sinking under fatigue, a man of Cyrene, Simon by name," who was a spectator of the proceedings, was "compelled to bear his cross." He is described as having "come out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus," who were known as Christians of great repute in the Apostolic Church. The writer of the Acts of the Apostles informs us that Cyrenean Jews were present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost; some of them took part with their Alexandrian brethren in disputing about the proto-martyr St Stephen, Acts vi. 9; and certain Christian Jews of Cyprus and Cyrene, who had fled from. the persecution of their intolerant brethren, were among the first preachers of the gospel to the Greeks at Antioch, Acts xi. 20, one of whom was named Lucius, Acts xiii. 1. The city continued to flourish under the Romans, but in the fifth century it became a mass of ruins in the reign of Theodosius the Younger, and its wealth and honours were transferred to the episcopal city of Ptolemais. The Saracens completed the work of destruction, and for centuries not only the city, but the once populous and fertile district of which it was the ornament, has been lost to civilization, commerce, and almost even to geographical knowledge. During three parts of the year Cyrene is tenanted by wild animals of the Desert, and during the fourth part the wandering Bedouins pitch their tents on the low grounds in its neighbourhood. This city was built on a range of hills rising eight hundred feet above a fine sweep of table land, forming the summit of a lower chain, to which it descended by a series of terraces; and its total elevation is computed to have been about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, commanding a view over rocks, and woods, and the distant ocean, of almost unrivalled magnificence. It is now called CAIROON, or CORUNE.

DABARITA, or DARABITA, a village of Palestine, mentioned by Josephus as situated at the confines of Galilee and Samaria.

DABBASHETH, flowing with honey, or causing honey, a frontier town belonging to the tribe of Zebulun, Josh. xix. 11.

DABERATH, word or thing, or a bee, or submissive and obedient, the name of two towns, one belonging to the tribe of Zebulun, Josh. xix. 12, and the other to the tribe of Issachar, Josh. xxi. 28, 1 Chron. vi. 72, allotted to the Levites of the family of Gershom.

DABIR. See DEBIR.
DADAN. See DEDAN.

DAGON, corn, or a fish, the name of the celebrated idol of the Philistines, or false deity of Ashdod, commonly represented as a monster, half of its body resembling the human form, and the other half that of a fish, and hence the origin of its name, the Hebrew word dag meaning a fish. It is supposed that Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, and Ceres, were severally worshipped under this name; while Bochart alleges that the original of the idol Dagon was Japhet, the third son of Noah, to whom was assigned the divinity of the sea in the early mythology, because his descendants peopled the islands and peninsulas, and the continents beyond the sea, or the continent of Europe. Another writer thinks that Noah himself was thus worshipped. Dagon is first mentioned in the Book of Judges (xvi. 23) under this name, in connexion with the awful catastrophe which befell the chief men of the Philistines and their families at the death of Samson. The Scriptures inform us that when the Philistines took the ark o. God from the Israelites, they brought it o Ashdod, and placed it in the temple of Dagon, close to the image of the idol; but when they afterwards entered the temple, they found it laying prostrate on the ground with its head and hands

D

broken off. Dagon continued to have a temple at Ashdod till the time of the Maccabees, for we read that when the army which was vanquished by Jonathan Maccabæus fled to Ashdod, they attempted to shelter themselves in Beth-Dagon, or the temple of Dagon, but Jonathan having set fire to the city, the temple was burnt, and all those within it were destroyed. Dagon and Ashtaroth were distinct idols, which is proved from the circumstance, that the head of Saul was placed in a temple of the former, and his arms in that of the latter. Berosus, the Babylonian, who was a priest of Belus, and flourished at Babylon in the reign of Alexander the Great, represents Noah under the character of Oannes, the tradition concerning whom the reader will find under the article ANTEDILUVIANS, and describes him, from hieroglyphical representations upon the walls of the temple of Belus, as being compounded of a fish and a man, and as passing the natural instead of the diluvian night in the ocean, with other circumstances indicative of his life and character. According to Sanchoniathon, Dagon, which he says signifies bread-corn, was the son of Ouranus, or Heaven; he invented bread-corn and the plough, and was therefore called Zeus Arotrius, or Agrotes, or the labourer. Those who say that Noah was worshipped under the figure of Dagon, suggest that the name, by transposition, might be Dag-Nau, which may signify the Dag of Nau or Noah, or the fish of Noah, as the Hebrew word imports, or, figuratively, the vessel or preserver of Noah; for, as a fish exists in safety in its natural element, and is secure amidst storms and tempests, the idea of that structure in which a person or persons were preserved from the perils of the boisterous waves might easily in ancient times become connected with that of a fish. Some writers, again, arguing that the word dag figuratively denotes a ship or vessel, suggest that Jonah,