CHARITY,

FEASTS

O F

later still by the Syrians

Macc.

I t was ,probably

the Persians who introduced this formidable addition
to the war-chariot.

the Heb. of the OT.

(Cp

Xenophon,

vi.

130.)

T h e

portions of the chariot receive special names

in

‘Wheels,’

are mentioned in Nah.

3

(cp Is.

27

Prov. 20 26). Another name, more

descriptive, was ‘rollers,’

(Is. 5

Ezek.

T h e ‘spokes’ of the wheel

were called

while the ‘felloes’ had the name

or

T h e wheel revolves by a have

round a n

See W

HEEL

. All these terms are to he found in the locus clas-

sicus,

I

K.

T h e pole of the chariot

was (according

to Mish.

14

4 24

fastened below

of the axle, passed under the

base of the ‘body’ of the chariot, and then, curving upwards
ascended to the neck of the horses. T o this, draught-animal;
were fastened by means of the yoke, assisted

cords or wide

leather straps.

Beyond these broad features it is doubtful

how far we are justified in following the details contained in a
treatise of the Mishna composed centuries after the latest

OT

literature.

That the chariot,

was

so

closely associated with

the

functions of Oriental monarchs. both in war

and in peace, entered into the religious
conceptions as an indispensable portion

of the paraphernaliaof divinemonarchy,

cannot awaken surprise. T h e chariot, therefore, has its
place in ancient Semitic religion.

as

the Hellenic

religious imagination endowed

with horses and

chariot (as the Homeric Hymn clearly testifies), so
Canaanite religion endowed the Sun-god

the

same royal accessories (cp H

ORSE

,

4).

This feature

in the

of the

the Hebrews blended with the

worship of

in the precincts of the sanctuary at

Jerusalem, in the days that preceded the Reformation of
Josiah

K.

23

The combination of

the God

of Israel’s armies and of the sky, with

Sun was not

unnatural to the Hebrew mind, as their literature testifies
both early and late.

Cp

I

K.

(an old fragment

of the Book of Jashar restored by We. from

in

I

K.

853);

has

chariots among his retinue.

were the chariots

and horses of deliverance whereon

rode forth to

conquer and terrify Israel’s foes in the days of the
Exodus (Hab.

3

8

)

With this graphic touch in the

Prayer of Habakkuk we may compare the fiery chariots
of

as

well as a phrase occurring in

the magnificent triumphal ode,

Ps.

68

CHARITY, FEASTS OF

(ai

[Ti. WH]),

AV.

See E

UCHA

R

IST

.

[BA]),

I

Esd.

I.

CHARMER

1811,

etc.

Is.

33

See M

AGIC

,

3.

one of the three rulers of Bethulia : Judith

6 1 5

106

[A]

in

1 0 6

[Ti. WH]),

RV

i.

CHASEBA

[BA],

om.

L),

an unknown

of N

ETHINIM

the great post-exilic list (see

9),

mentioned only in

I

Esd.

531,

between

the Nekoda and

of

Ezra 248 Neh.

7

CHAVAH

Gen.

EV

E

VE

.

See

A

DAM

A N D

E

VE

,

3.

CHEBAR

the name of a Baby-

lonian stream, near which Ezekiel

prophetic visions

cp

The Xakub-el, chariot of El’ (line

of

the Zenjirli

Panarnmu inscription furnishes an interesting parallel.

I t is

possible, however, that Rakub (cp the Ar.

camel

for riding’) may mean the divine steed (cp the Heb.

Ps.

13

but see

C

HE

R

UB

,

I

,

begin.). I t is mentioned frequently

along with the deities

El,

and Reshef. See

D. H.

Muller’s art.

Rev.,

April 1894.

c.

w.

73

CHEDOR-LAOMER

on

which is a gloss, see

T

EL

-

ABIB

).

In spite of

the apparent resemblance of the names (but note the
different initial letters), the Chebar cannot be the same

as

the H

ABOR

never included the

region watered by this river-but must be one of the
Babylonian canals (Bab.

cp

Ps.

This was first pointed out by Noldeke (Schenkel,

1508

The final proof has been given by

Hilprecht, who has found mention twice of the

a

large navigable canal a little to the

E.

of

the land of the

CHEDOR-LAOMER

so

eastern reading,

but

western reading [Ginsb.

to

ed.

conversely

Semitic

[AEL]

according

141

was

aking of Elam, whosedominion extended as far as the

SE.

of Canaan, where five kings, of whom those of Sodom
and Gomorrah were the chief, served him twelve years.

I n the thirteenth year, however, they rebelled, and in
the fourteenth year they were defeated by the Elamite
and his allies.

I n the sequel of the story

(vv.

12-24)

we are told how Abram with his own servants and some
allies pursued the victorious army and rescued not only

the captured kings but also his nephew Lot (see

A

BRAHAM

,

2).

The question whether this narrative

is trustworthy, and whether the

of the

Story and his allies are historical personages, is ruled by
the other,

as

to the date of the chapter containing it.
That the chapter is quite an isolated
and formed no part of the writings

from which the Hexateuch

composed, may

considered

as

certain.

Some scholars, however,

assign it to the eighth century B

.c.,

and

are of opinion that the author had an older writing
before him; according to others, it is not older than
the fourth century

The former

that the

antiquity and the authenticity of the story are attested
by the following facts

:-(

I

)

that

least the name of

the chief

is purely Elamitic

that the

the

and the Emim really occupied

in ancient times what afterwards became the dwelling
places of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites,
whilst the Horites (Gen.

according to Dt.

and

were the oldest inhabitants of Seir

( 3 )

that

the name of the people established,

according to

v. 7,

in Hazazon-tamar

Engedi,

Ch.

is the ancient name of the people of Canaan

(Gen. 1516

Am.

and that several names

(En-mishpat,

Shaveh), words, and expressions

not occurring anywhere else, as well

as

the exact

description of the campaign

(vu.

bear the impress

of antiquity and trustworthiness.

T h e arguments of those who ascribe the narrative to

a

post-exilic Jew, whose aim was to encourage his

contemporaries by the description of Abram’s victory
over the great powers of the East, his unselfishness,
piety, and proud magnanimity towards heathen men,
mostly take their starting-point in the second part of the
chapter.

I t is pointed ont that the names of Abram’s allies, Mamre

and Eshcol, occur elsewhere (Gen. 13

23 17

25 9 35

50

Nu. 13

23)

as

place names that Melchizedek

and

Abram are represented a s monotheists

and that the patriarch

pays tithes

the priest-king, a

not prescribed a t all in Dt.

(see

2F

but characteristic of the post-exilic

sacerdotal law

(Nu.

T h e criticism extends

also,

however, to the first part,

A tablet published by Dr. Clay in vol.

of Hilprecht’s

(pl. 50

No. 84,

I t should be added that

so

Canal.

See,

E.

Meyer,

1

Hex.

We.

42

Founders,

;

in

425

93).

CHEDOR-LAOMER

CHEESE

with which we are here chiefly concerned. I t is remarked
that there is no evidence of the historicity of the campaign
in question, which is, in fact, as closely as possible con-

nected with a view of Abraham which we know to have
been post-exilic (cp

I

).

Moreover, it

is

difficult

to resist the impression that the names of the kings of
Sodom and Gomorrah-viz.,

and

(com-

pounds conveying the idea of evil,' badness ')-and
the name given in the narrative to the town of

perdition (see BELA)-perhaps also that

of the king of

which the Samaritan text gives a s

slave-name '-are, some of them at least,

purely symbolical and therefore fictitious. (See, how-
ever, in each case, the special article.

)

What is certain is this : Chedor-laomer,

lagamar, is

a

purely Elamitic name, which

is not,

indeed, found as

a

royal name on the

monuments, but is of the same type as

in Old

the name of a king who in the be-

ginning of the twenty-third century

conquered the

whole and

the name of another king,

who, probably later, was master of a part of Babylonia.

occurs as the name of an

Elamitic deity, not only in

R

vi.,

6 ,

but

also in the

of

and seems

to be the same as Lagamal, the queen of the town of

( 2

R pl. lx.

146).

Hence the name cannot

be the invention of a Hebrew writer.

I t can hardly be

doubted, either, that Arioch, king

of

Ellasar, is really no

other than

servant of the Moon-god),

the well-known king of Larsa, son of

These discoveries have opened a wide field for ingenious

combinations.

I t has been observed that Kudur-mabuk is

called in one of the inscriptions of his

by the name

Adda-martu, 'Father

of

the West.'

Now,

word Martu

being commonly

at

least in later times, to designate

Western Asia, especially Canaan

(mat Ahawi, or perhaps

better

the land of the

has been interpreted to mean conqueror, and this has been taken
as

evidence that, in a very remote period, Canaan fell under

Elamite dominion. I t is a pity that we must call attention

to

a

weak

in this theorising.

Kudur-mahuk is not the same

a s Kndur-lagamar,

seems to he only a synonym

of

a

title which the same king, a s ruler of a

western province of Elam, bears in other inscriptions (see Tiele,

B A G

T h e attempts

to

make

the two other Eastern

to be historical personages must be considered

to

Jos.

is the famous Babylonian king

himself. whose name is ex-

plained in Semitic as

-

('am

=

whilst, according to Hommel

he is

father Sin-muballit,

because Sin is sometimes named Amar and
may conceivably have been condensed into

(See also

With more confidence

is

stated

to

be a Hebraised form of

(see Schr.

K A T ) .

Unfortunately, this is by

no

means certain.

Though

was king of Babylon, and there-

fore of

he was not king of

so

long

as

was king of Larsa.

Not till he had put an

end to the Elamite dominion in Babylonia could he be
called king of

and then neither Eri-altu nor an

Elamite king could join with him in the conquest of
Canaan. As to

king of Goyim, we may read

his name Thargal, following

we, may identify

the Goyim with the people of

we may even

go

so

far as

permits in theorising on the latest

discoveries

:

but

all this does not make

T

IDAL

All that we can

is that the writer of

Gen.

1 4

no more invented the names

of

Amraphel and

(or Thargal)

F.

H.

'Anzanische Inschriften in

Leips.,

p.

of separate copy).

This rather than Rim-sin has been proved by Schr. to be

the

reading

of the

k.

Ak.

24

Oct. 1895,

733

than those

of

Chedor-laomer and Arioch

the former

are very possibly corruptions of the names of historical
personages whom we are as yet unable to 'identify.
Nor do we assert that the whole story is the product
of the inventive faculty of the author.

That in very

remote times, Babylonian kings extended their sway
as far as the Mediterranean, is not only told in ancient
traditions

of Sargon I. but has also been proved

by the Amarna tablets.

From these we learn that as

late as the fifteenth centnry

B

.c.,

when the kings of

Babylon and Assyria had

no

authority beyond their own

borders and Egypt gave the law to Western Asia,
Babylonian was the official and diplomatic language of
the Western Asiatic nations.

Hence it is not impossible,

it is even probable, that a similar suzerainty was
exercised over these nations by the Elamites, who were
more than

masters of Babylonia. Our author,

whether he wrote in the eighth century

or,

which is more probable, in the fourth, may have found
this fact in some ancient record, and

it both for

the glorification of the Father of the Faithful and for
encouraging his contemporaries.

So much appears to be all that can be safely stated

in the present state of research.

Scheil, however, is

of

opinion ('96) that the
mar

(?)

whom he finds in

a

cuneiform

was the Elamite king of Larsa who

was conquered by

and Sin-idinnam, and,

therefore, cannot have been any other than the

son

of Kudur-mabuk, who, as king of Larsa

had

adopted the name of Rim-sin (Eri-aku

Pinches has

discovered

a

cuneiform tablet in the Brit. Mus. col-

lection which has naturally excited great hopes among
conservative critics. I t is sadly mutilated

but it is at

least clear that names which may be the prototypes of
Arioch, Tid'al, and possibly Chedorlaomer, were known
Babylonia when the tablet was inscribed. The tablet
dates, probably, from the time of the

but it

is tempting to assume that the inscription was copied
from one which was made in the primitive Babylonian
period.

I t should be noticed, however, that the form

of the first name is not Eri-aku but
and that the third name is not read with full certainty,
the second part being

which is only conjecturally

made into

There is also

a

second tablet on

which two of the names are mentioned again.

Pinches

reads the one

(possibly

and the other

I n a third inscription the

name

appears.

T h e second

of

the three names is mentioned only

in

the first tablet

as

Tu-ud-lpl-a, where, since the Babylonian

answers

to the Hebrew y in

Pinches and Schrader agree

in recogmising the Tid'al of Gen.

14.

But not by a

single word do these inscriptions confirm the historicity
of the invasion in the days of Amraphel.

[The doubts here expressed are fully justified by

L.

W.

King's more recent investigations.

Scheil's

and Pinches' readings of the respective inscriptions are
incorrect, and though

(

Ku-mal)

is

styled (in Pinches' inscriptions) a king of

Elam, there is

no

reason to suppose that he was

a

contemporary of

H e might have occupied

the throne at any period before the fourth century

To

the references already given may

Rawlinson,

Five

where older works are cited: Tiele,

B A G

Hommel,

Schr.

C

O

T

o

pert

1887

of

the

Geneva

Congress,

also

his paper read before the Victoria Institute, Jan.

1896

Schr.

'

Ueher einen

Herrschernamen' in SBA

no.

Fr. v. Scheil in

(Maspero)

'correspondance de

de Bahylone, avec

Sinidinnam, roi de Larsa,

oh

est

de

;

Hommel,

L.

W. King,

CHEESE

I

S .

2

S.

c.

P

.

H

.

Job

See M

ILK

.

734

one

of

the b’ne

in the

list of persons with foreign wives (see E

ZRA

,

5

end),

Ezra 1030

has joined

with the preceding

name Adna

and reads

[ B ; with

HA

[K],

[A],

[L]).

The

I

Esd.

has quite

different names-‘ and of the sons of Addi
and Moossias, Laccunus,’ etc.

however, reads

CHELCIAS,

RV

I

.

father of Susanna (Hist.

of

Sus.,

and [om.

cod. 871 63).

An ancestor of Baruch (Bar.

I

).

3.

A priest (Bar. 1 7 )

See L

ACUNUS

.

CHELLIANS

.

I n

mention

is

made of ‘ t h e

children of Ishmael, which were over against the wilder-
ness to the

of the land of the Chellians.’ T h e com-

paratively easier reading Chaldeans, which

is

attested,

and Vet. Lat.,

no doubt rightly con-

sidered by Grimm to be

a

deliberate rectification of the

text.

See C

HELLUS

.

mg.

probably through

the influence of

mentioned in the list

of persons with foreign wives (see EZ

RA

,

end),

Ezra1035

[A])

934.

[BA]).

CHELLUS

one of the places to which Nebuchadrezzar sent his
summons, according to Judith

19.

The

of Josh.

15

may be meant but the reading

suggests

rather

or

which

given by Jerome and Eusebius as

or

91

4,

etc.,

See C

HELLIANS

.

Another

identification should be mentioned.

Chellus is perhaps

the same as the place which in Jos. A n t . xiv. 1 4

is called

by Jerome and Eusebius

8 5 6

(Targ. Jer. Gen.

1614;

cp

Gen.

201

in

Ar., and see

or Elusa.

C p We.

48, n.

I

WRS,

of the sons of Chelod (Judith

1 6 )

assembled themselves

to battle in the plain of Arioch in the days of

and Arphaxad

What we ought to

understand by Chelod is quite uncertain.

Vet. Lat. has

and Syr. has ‘against the

One very improbable

is that

is

intended

;

another, hardly less unlikely, is that the word is the

Hebrew

(‘weasel ’), and that by the opprobrious designation

of

‘children of the weasel’ are meant the Syrians (Ew.

3

CHELUE

67, probably a variation

of

Caleb,

cp below).

(

I

)

A

doubtless to be identified with C

ALEB

4);

similarly We.

who reads ‘Caleb b. Heeron

(I

Ch.

[BAL],

[Peih

His designa-

tion ‘brother of Shuhah’

is not clear;

read

‘father of Achsah,’ possibly a correction (Ki.

SBOT).

Cp the

corrupt Pesh.

of

I

Ch. 2726

CHELUBAI

6 7 ,

a

: see

I

S.

25

3

used instead of the proper name C

ALEB

),

o

o

[Pesh.,

a

corruption])

see

3,

I

.

CHELUHI

[A]),

RV,

Cheluhu,

C

HELLUH

.

CHEMARIM

Zeph.

RV

K.

23

5

mg.

mg.

AV

Chemarims,

Zeph.

Rather

735

CHEMOSH

The original Heb. word appears also in

K.

where

EV

‘idolatrouspriests,’ and

Hos. 105, where EV has ‘priests.’

t is also highly probable that in Hos.

4 4

we

read, with

‘for my

people

is like its

however

perhaps an error for

transliterates

K.

is also

upported, see

ad

it apparently

in Zeph.;

Hos. it had a different Heb.). Vg. varies between

K.)

and

(Zeph.

Hos.);

Targ. between

K.

and

‘the ministers thereof’; Pesh. adheres

to

As

to the meaning, if we appeal to the versions, we

ind only the dim light which an unassisted study of the

can supply.

Evidently the term

was

applied

to

he priests of Baal, who served at the high places under

authority, but were put down by Josiah.

But

special idea did the word convey? In itself it

neant simply

priests

in Zeph.

14

and

are

side by side

to

express the idea of

a

of many members

and

in

Hos.

34

(if

the

proposed above be adopted) we have

used

the priests of N. Israel, when these are spoken of

and then

when the priests are

as

an organic unity.

But the word

also conveyed the

of

a

worship which

Syrian affinities. Certainly

it

cannot be explained

Hebrew

does

not

mean

to

be

(cp

E

CLIPSE

), and even if it did, the black-robed ones is a

improbable designation for ancient priests.

T h e

word is no doubt of Syrian origin (see the Aram. inscrip-
tions in

2

nos.

T h e

form

is

whence Aram.

(never used

an unfavourable

and Heb.

are normally formed. Lagarde

Stud.

2386)

compared

but it is

more obviously reasonable to compare the Assyrian

which

is

given as a synonym of

clean vesture’ (Del. Ass.

337

d.,

cp

254

The term

probably described the

Syrian and Israelitish priests in their clean vestments
(cp

K.

the Baal festival) when ministering to

their God. T o derive it from an Aram. root meaning

to be sad is much less natural.

Delitzsch compares

Ass.

‘ t o

down’; the

term, he thinks, describes the pries6 as those who prostrate
themselves in worship (Ass. and

41, 42; so

Che.

Finally, Robertson

noting that the word

belongs to a race in which the mass of the people were probably

not

circumcised (Hrrod.

cp Jos.

Ant. viii.

c.

while the priests were

(Dio

Cassius,

Ep.

9 6 ;

cp Chwolson,

2

conjectures that

means

‘the circumcised (Ar.

‘glans penis

’).

CHEMOSH

in

on name see

4,

end

11

the national god of the Moabites

(

I

K.

1 1 7 ,

Jer. 48713).

Moab is the

people of Chemosh; the Moabites are

his sons and daughters (Nu:

21

29

cp

the relation of

to

Israel, Judg.

Nu.

1 1 2 9

Judg.

11 Is.

45

TI

,

etc.

).

A king of Moab in the

of Sennacherib was named

cp Jehonadab)

the father of Mesha was

Chernoshmelech

a

gem found near

is inscribed

(cp Heb.

T h e

stele of Mesha king of Moab, contemporary with Ahab,
Ahaziah, and Jehoram of Israel

(2

K.

3),

in the middle

of the ninth century

B

.C.

(see M

ESHA

), was erected to

commemorate the deliverance which Chemosh

had

wrought for his people.

Continue,

‘and

shalt stumble,

0

priest, in the daytime’;

the close of the verse read, with

‘thy

(addressed to

priest).

A priest who had become unfit

for service put

black garments and departed. One who was

approved

the Sanhedrin clothed himself in white, and

went

in, and ministered

Cp

54.

3

‘Priest.’

2

C O T

Others read Chemoshgad.

Miss.

CHENAANAH

CHEPHIRAH

During the long reign of the theory-not yet

abandoned-that all the gods of the nations were

The inscription tells us that Omri had oppressed Moab for

a

time because Chemosh was wroth with his land

the Israelites had occupied the district of Medeha forty years,

Chemosh had now restored it to Moab

Chemosh

drove out the king of Israel before Moab from

;

at

the bidding of Chemosh, Mesha fought against Nebo and

took it

at

his command, he made war on Horonaim

and

Chemosh restored it to Moab

the inhabitants

captured cities were slaughtered a spectacle

for Chemosh

and Moab'

and children were devoted

t o Ashtar-Chemosh

(see B

AN

) the spoils of

Israelite sanctuaries were carried off

and presented to Chemosh

(ZZ.

The religion of Moab in the ninth centurywas thus very

similar to that of Israel

:

the historical books of the O T

furnish parallels to

every line of the inscription.

W e learn from the OT that human sacrifices were

offered to Cheniosh, at least in great national emergencies;
the king of Moab, shut

up

in Kir-hareseth and unable

to cut his way out, offered his eldest son upon the wall
the effect of this extraordinary sacrifice was

a

great

of Chemosh's fury upon Israel, which compelled

the invaders to return discomfited to their own land

Priests

of

Cheniosh are mentioned in Jer.

48

7

the language of Mesha,

Chemosh said to m e '

supposes an oracle, or perhaps prophets.

The worship of Chemosh as the national god did

not exclude the worship of other gods Mesha's inscrip-

tion speaks of Ashtar-Chemosh
-that is, most probably, an
(Astarte) who was associated in worship

with

perhaps at a particular sanctuary. T h e

worship of Baal-peor

(Nu.

25,

cp Hos.

was prob-

ably a local Moabite cult-there is no ground for
identifying the god with Chemosh. (See B

AAL

-

PEOR

.

)

[Beth] Baal-meon (Mesha,

9 ,

3 0 ;

OT)

was, as the

name shows, the seat of another local Baal cult. Mount
Nebo may have received its name in the period of
Babylonian supremacy but we do not know that the
worship of

Babylonian god was perpetuated by the

Moabites. Cp

The statement of Eusehius

(OS

that

inhabitants of Areopolis in his day called their idol

because they worshipped Ares,' seems to be the product of a

complex misunderstanding.

In Judg.

1124,

in the argument of Jephthah with the

king of the Ammonites, 'Chemosh thy god' is set

over against

our god' in such a

way as to imply that Chemosh was the
national

of Ammon.

From many

passages in the

O T

we know, however,

that the national god of the Animonites was
(see

M

I

LCOM

)

while Cheniosh was the god of Moab.

T h e hypothesis that Chemosh and

arc but two

names of the same god

originally a title) is

excluded by the contexts in which they appear side by
side

I

K.

Nor is it sufficient to

suppose

that

in Jndg.

24

is merely a slip on the part

of the author or a scribe for

closer examination

shows that the whole historical argument applies to
Moab only, not to Amnion. Whatever explanation
may be given of this incongruity (see Moore,

283 Bu. Richter,

the passage cannot be taken

as evidence that Chemosh

was

the god of Ammon a s

well as of the sister people Moab. The statement of

that Chemosh was a god of the

Tyrians and Ammonites is, as the context shows, a
confused reminiscence of

I

K.

11

7.

From the name

the second mythical Babylonian

ruler after the

Gr. 2

it has been surmised

that the worship of Cheniosh was of Babylonian

the

name of the city Carchemish on the Euphrates has heeh ex-
plained as

'

Citadel of Chemosh'; neither of these theories has

any other basis than a fortuitous similarity of sound.

Solomon built a high place for Chemosh

on

the

M

OUNT

O F

O

L

IVES (I

K.

11

a

where, according to

K.

it stood until Josiah's reform-more than

three hundred years.

and 'the Astarte in the

of

in the

inscription.

24

737

heavenlybodies or meteoric phenomena,
Chemosh was by some thought to be the
sun, by others identified with
Moloch-Saturn

the one

has

is

little foundation as the other.

In

Roman times

as

well as the more northern Ar-moab,

vas called Areopolis, and this name-perhaps originally

a

of Ar (Jerome)-was understood as

City of Ares.'

Coins

of

Kabbath-moab in the reigns of

and Severns

cp

v.

viii. 388) exhibit

a

standing warrior in whom

.he type of Mars is to be recognised; but even if we

sure that the old Moabite god of the city is

and not the

Dusares, we could

earn nothing about the nature of Cheinosh in O T times

so

late and contaminated a source. Confusion of

Yhemosh with Dusares is probably to be

in

.he statements of Jewish writers that the idol of Chemosh

a black stone-the same which is now adored by

Moslems in the Caaba at Mecca.

The etymology of the name Chemosh

is

quite un-

mown

:

a fact which gives good reason to believe that

is one of the older Semitic gods.

D.

Hackmann

'De Chemoscho

idolo,'

(in

1768, pp.

Movers,

1

6.

Literature.

den

;

in

Kemosch'

full literature); Baethgen,

G

.

F.

M.

CHENAANAH

73, towards Canaan (?)

.

.

[a]).

Father of the false prophet Zedekiah,

I

K.

22

[A]) 24

Ch. 18

[A]) 23.

CHENANI

: cp Chenaniah), Levite officiating

at constitution of congregation' (see

E

ZRA

,

ii.

13

(om. B.,

[for M T Bani

Chenani,

[L]).

CHENANIAH

and

cp Chenani), chief of the Levites, who was

over

'

the song,' or the carrying

'

of the ark

'-

text obscure

:

see Ki. and Be. ad

I

Ch.

RV

Chephar-ammoni

village of the Ammonite

see

B

EN

J

AMIN

,

3;- Kr. has

K

.

identified place in Benjamin, mentioned with O

PHNI

(Josh.

18

24

P).

T h e name is possibly of post-

exilic origin (cp P

AHATH

-

MOAB

).

See A

MMON

,

§ 6,

and B

BTHHORON

,

4,

T

OBIJAH

,

4.

CHEPHIRAH

in Josh.

' t h e

village'? or ' t h e l i o n ' ?
[L]), a town of the Hivites, member of the
confederation (Josh.

9

17 :

[A],

[BF],

afterwards assigned to

(Josh.

18

26

:

[B]), and mentioned in the great post-

hst (see

E

ZRA

,

ii. §

9 , 8

c.)

Ezra

Esd.

C

APHIRA

(or

E K

.

.

.

[A],

[L]), is the modern Kefireh,

about

m. WSW. from el-Jib (Gibeon).

I

Esd. 5

P

I

R

A

(AV om.

the

second

name after Caphira, is apparently a cdrrnpt
form of Caphira). Buhl

suggests that Kephirim

villages in Neh. 6 may be the same as Kephirah.

To6

on Nu.

By

a strange blunder

W.

L.

and Sayce (in Smith's

s.w.)

have turned this into a

black

The forms

etc., point to

a reading

(cp

2

Ch.

whilst

points

to

or

rather to

a

scribe's error for

(cp Ki., Chron.,

738

CHEQUER

WORK

CHEQUER

WORK

RV.

See

CHERAN

a Horite

CHEREAS, RV

and

[A],

E

MBROIDERY

,

W

EAVING

;

also

T

UNIC

.

name (Gen.

See

brother

Of

and com-

mander of the fortress at Gazara

CRERETHITES

in Sam. and

K.

o

or [by

to Pelethites]

o

Vg.

in Prophets

a

people in the south of Palestine.

I n the days of

and David a region in the Negeb adjoining Judah and
Caleb bore their name

(I

S.

30

14

[B]

[A]

[L]).

From

v.

1 6

it appears that the inhabitants

of this region were reckoned to the Philistines in Zeph.

and

Ez.

2516

(AV

also, Philistines and

Cherethites are coupled in such a way

as

to show that

they were regarded

as

one people.

Finally, in the

names mentioned in the prophecy against Egypt
in Ez.

where

AV

gives, ' t h e men of the land

that is in league,' we should restore the Cherethites

;

so

Cornill, Toy). I t is to he inferred that

the Cherethites were

a

branch of the Philistines

or,

perhaps, that they were one of the tribes which took part
with the Philistines in the invasion of Palestine, and that,
like the latter, they remained behind when the wave
receded (see

P

HILISTINES

,

C

APHTOR

,

T h e

translators of Zeph. and Ez. interpreted the name by

Cretans; and in this, although they

have been

guided only by the sound, they perhaps hit upon the

An early connection between Gaza and Crete

seems to be indicated by other evidence (see G

AZA

).

Except in the three passages already cited, the name

occurs only in the phrase,

Cherethites and

thites

gen.

as

the designation

of

a

corps of troops in the service of David-his body-

guard

S.

8

207

23

Kr.,

I

K.

1 3 8 44

Ch.

;

Jos. A n t .

54,

They were

commanded by B

ENAIAH

,

I

,

and remained faithful to

their master in all the crises of his reign

15

20

I

K.

1).

Only the strongest reasons could warrant our separat-

ing the Cherethites of David's guard from the people of
the same name spoken of in the same source

(I

30

There are no such reasons :

has the regular form of

a

gentile noun

;

and, although much ingenuity has been

expended on the problem, all attempts to explain the
word

as

an appellative have failed. T h e name Pelethite,

which is found only coupled with Cherethite in the
phrase above cited, also is a gentile noun the etymo-
logical explanations are even more far-fetched than in

the case of the Cherethites. T h e presumption is that
the Pelethites also were Philistines and this is confirmed
by the passages cited from Zeph. and Ez.

is

perhaps only

a

lisping pronunciation of

to make

it rhyme with

I t need not surprise

us

that David's guard was com-

posed of foreign mercenaries. The Egyptian kings

of

the nineteenth dynasty recruited their

corps

from

the bold sea-rovers who periodically descended on their
coasts Rameses

displays great pride in his

in

is obviously misplaced

;

this version has been

conformed

t o

the Hebrew; hence the insertion

Davidson's view

will hardly

stand.

three places

has

for Put. See C

HUB

,

G

EOGRAPHY

Ewald, Hitzig, Stade, and others. For another

view see C

APHTOR

.

readings vary : thus

in

S.

8

in

doublet

2

S.

5.1,

A

om. doublet

[A

;

L omits and

in

231 ;

and

in

I

Ch.

in

I

K.

138

Variants for Pelethites

are

in

[A

in doublet

15

and

I

Ch. 18 17.

L

has

but

in

S.

15

in

I

Ch. 18

and

in

; see B

ENAIAH

,

4

Ewald,

739

CHERITH

guards, and Sardinians and Libyans are the flower of
the army

of

Rameses

T h e Philistines were more

skilled in arms than the Israelites, and doubtless
fighting better : cp

the

and see A

RMY

, 4.

It is the opinion of some recent scholars that where
David's

(EV

mighty men seem to be spoken

of as a body, the Cherethites and Pelethites are meant
see especially

I

K.

1 8

IO

compared with

38.

This is,

however, not a necessary inference from the verses cited
and conflicts with

More prob-

ably the

were the comrades of David in the

days of his outlawry and the struggle with the Philistines
for independence. See D

AVID

,

I n

S.

for

Cherethites' the Heb. text ( K t . ) has Carites

I n

K.

11

4

where this name again

it prob-

ably means Carians.'

The Carians were a famous

mercenary folk, and it would not surprise us to find
them at Jerusalem in the days of Athaliah (see C

ARITES

). ,

That the soldiers of the guard in even later times were
usually foreigners has been inferred from

Zeph.

and

from

Ez.

: see

260

but also

T

HRESHOLD

.

For mercenary troops in post-exilic times

.

.

.

see A

RMY

,

7.

Joh. Benedict Carpzov

and Hen.

(1672)

in

457

;

J.

G.

Lakemacher

P.

Conrad

Behrend,

Die

und

from

pp.

;

Riietschi,

8

44

G. F.

M.

CHERITH

)

has just informed Ahab of the impending

drought, when we are abruptly told that

word

came unto him, saying, Get thee hence'

pre-

sumably from Samaria), ' a n d turn to the east
and hide thyself in the torrent-valley of Cherith which
is before

Jordan

(

I

K.

35).

This occurs in

the first scene of the highly dramatic story of Elijah.
I n the second he appears in the far north of Palestine
-at

which hardly snits Robinson's identifi-

cation

of

with the Wady

(which is rather the Valley of

at

least if these two scenes stood in juxtaposition from the
first. Besides this, the two names

and Cherith

begin with different palatals and since the expression

before Jordan is most naturally explained to the

E.

of the Jordan,' it is plausible to hold with Prof. G. A.
Smith that the scene of Elijah's retreat must be sought
in Gilead

Let

us,

then, look across

the Jordan eastward from Samaria (where Elijah may
have had his interview with Ahab). T h e

'Ajliin

and the

have been proposed by Thenius

the

by

But, as

C.

Niebuhr

(Gesch.

points out, Elijah would certainly go to

some famous holy place. Of the burial-place of Moses
(Niebuhr) we know nothing ; but

I

K.

suggests

that the sanctuary was in the far south.

I t

is

true,

Eus. and Jer.

already place Cherith

(Xoppa,

beyond Jordan.

Josephus, however,

Elijah depart

'

into the southern parts' ( A n t .

viii.

What

have to do is to find a name which

could, in accordance with analogies, be worn down and

Many other examples in ancient and modern times will occur

t o

the reader.

In

Kt.

is perhaps not a purely graphic

accident

;

cp also

S.

L

etc.

3

in geographical and topographical expressions means

commonly

East; cp

I

K.

11

7

K.

23 13

Dt.

Gen. 23

25

I

S,

etc. Besides the vaguer meaning of

Gen.

it is sometimes made definite by the addition of a word or of an
expression in order

denote a particular

Josh.

158, the mountain

the Valley of Hinnom

(Zech. 14

4),

and the Mount of Olives, which is

Jerusalem

the

East

: cp

Nu.

21

Josh. 18

Lastly, it is used in

the sense

of overlooking. cp Gen. 18

16

19 28 Nu. 23

28

(cp Dr.

on

I

Sam.

Di. on

and especially Moore,

163). In

K.

173,

'castward,' should be corrected to

'towards the desert (as 19

CHERUB

CHERUB

corrupted into

Such a name

is

Rehoboth.

T h e valley of Rehoboth (the

Ruhaibeh) would

be fitly described a s

fronting

(see

M

IZR

A

IM

)

cp Gen.

25

The alteration of

into

was made in

to suit the next story, in

which Z

EPHATH

)

had been already corrupted into

Z

AREPHATH

.

T. K. C.

CHERUB,

plural form

Cherubim

mology disputed

Ps. 1043 may allude

to a popular [post-exilic] identification
of

and

but

being,

like

a

loan-word,

a

Hebrew etymology is in-

admissible). I n the composite system of Jewish angel-
ology the cherubim form one of the ten highest classes
of angels, while another class is distinguished by the
synonymous term living creatures

These

two classes, together with the

or wheels,' are

specially attached to the throne of the divine glory, and
it is the function of the cherubim to be bearers of the
throne

on

its progresses through the worlds.

T h e

Jewish liturgy, like the T e Deum,' delights to associate
the praises of Israel (Ps. 22

3

with those offered to

God by the different classes of angels, and singles
for special

in

a

portion of the daily morning

service the

the

and the

W e find an approachto this conception

Apocalypse,

where the four

(Rev.

46-8),

though-like the

four

are always mentioned apart from

the angels, and discharge some altogether peculiar

functions, are yet associated with the angels in the
utterance of doxologies (Rev.

A similar view is suggested in the 'Similitudes' in

in

passage of which

(61

)

the cherubim,

seraphim, and

and all the angels of power

are combined under the phrase

host of God,' and

unite in the ascription of blessedness to the Lord of
Spirits,' while in another (chap.

)

the four faces on

the four sides of the Lord of Spirits (a reminiscence of
Ezek.

1 6 )

are identified or confounded with the arch-

angels.

Elsewhere, however, a somewhat different

view is presented of the cherubim. They are the sleep-
less guardians of the

'

throne of His glory

'

(71

7) ;

they

are the fiery cherubim

(14

and together with the

seraphim (exceptionally called serpents,'

are

closely connected with Paradise, and placed under the
archangel Gabriel

From these facts we gather

that in the last two centuries

B.C.

there were different

ways of conceiving the cherubim. Some writers had

a

[BAL]; ety-

stronger sense of the peculiarity of
the nature of the cherubim than
others, and laid stress on such

Isa.

as

their connection with the divine fire, and with

and its serpent-guardians.

Whence did they derive a

notion

so

suggestive of mythological comparisons

The most reasonable answer is, From the earlier

religious writings, supplemented and interpreted by a
not yet extinct oral tradition. A tale of the serpents by
the sacred tree (once probably shpent-demons) may
have been orally handed down, but the conception of the
fiery cherubim in God's heavenly palace is to be traced
to the vision in Ezek.

1,

and to the account of the

mountain of God in Eden, with its stones of fire

and

its cherub-guardian,

Ezek.

16.

These two

passages of Ezekiel form the next stage in our journey.
T h e latter must be treated first, as being evidently a
faithful report of a popular tradition.

Unfortunately

the received Hebrew text is faulty, and an intelligible
exegesis

of

the

is rarely given. Keil, for

instance, admits some reference to

but feels

The differences between the

of Revelation and those of

Ezekiel, both as to their appearance and as to their functions
are obvious. But without the latter how could the former
been imagined7 The traditional Christian view that the apoca-
lyptic

symbolise the

four

can hardly be seriously

defended.

obliged to infer from the epithet that covereth
that the place of the cherub in the sanctuary

(Ex.

was also present to the prophet's mind.'

Nor is the

difficulty confined

epithetand to the equally strange

word

which

renders 'extentus,' and EV

anointed

(so

Theodot.); the opening phrase

whether rendered

'

thou wast the cherub' or (pointing

differently) with the cherub,' baffles comprehension.
I t is necessary, therefore, to correct the text of
16d we shall then arrive'at the following sense

:-

' T h o u wast in Eden, the divine garden; of all

precious stones was thy covering-cornelian, etc. and
of gold were thy

.

.

.

worked in the day when thou

wast made were they prepared.

T o be

. .

.

had

I

appointed thee thou wast upon the holy, divine moun-
tain amidst the stones of fire

thou walk to and

Then

thou dishonoured (being cast) out of

the divine mountain, and the cherub destroyed thee
(hurling thee) out of the midst of the stones of fire.'

have here

a

tradition of Paradise distinct from that in Gen.

2

and

3.

Favoured men, it appears, could be admitted to

the divine garden, which glittered with precious stones
(or,

as

they are also called,

stones of fire like the

mythic tree which the hero

saw in the

Babylonian

or like the interior of the temples of

Babylon or

or like the walls and gates and

streets

of

the new Jerusalem in the Apocalypse. But

these privileged persons were still liable to the sin of
pride, and such

a

sin would be their ruin.

This Ezekiel

applies to the case of the king of Tyre, who reckoned
himself the favourite of his god, and secure of admission
to Paradise.

The idea of the passage

is

closely akin to that ex-

pressed in

Is.

The king of Babylon believes

that by his unique position and passionate devotion to
the gods he is assured of entering that glorious cosmic
temple of which his splendid terrace-temples are to him
the symbols. Towards Marduk he is humility itself,
but to the unnamed prophet of

he seems proud

even to madness. From that heaven of which in his
thoughts he is already the inhabitant, the prophet sees
him hurled

as

a

lifeless corpse to an ignoble grave.

This is just what Ezekiel holds out in prospect to the
king of Tyre, and the destroying agent is the cherub.

different this idea of the cherub from that of the

apocalyptic

!

W e have again

a

different conception of the

cherubim in Ezekiel's vision (Ez.

The prophet

has

not the old unquestioning belief in tradition, and

modifies the traditional data so

as to

produce effective

symbols of religious ideas. Out of the
elaborate description it is enough to

select

a

few salient points.

Observe then that the one

cherub of the tradition in ch. 28 has now become four
cherubim (cp Rev.

46-8),

each of which has four faces,

one looking each

that of

a

man, a lion, an ox,

and an eagle, and human

on his four sides.

They are' not, however, called cherubim, but

So

Co., following

but

other respects reading

v.

14

as ahove.

According to the ordinary view which makes the Tyrian

prince a cherub the plumage of the cherub of Ezekiel's tradition
was

as

if with gold and precious stones.

surely

it

was not merely as a griffin, nor as a griffin's fellow, that the

Tyrian prince was placed (as the prophet dramatically states) in
Paradise, hut as one

of the 'sons of

; and the covering

spoken

of is a state-dress besprinkled with precious stones+

of fire' means 'flashing stones,' like the Assyrian

stone

of fire,' one of the names of a certain precious stone

(Friedr. Del. Par.

3

Tablet

IX.

See Jeremias

For Babylon see

3

where he describes the beautification

of the temple

a t

great length. Gold and precious stones are specially mentioned.

of Tyre see Herod.

(the

brilliant pillars).

Gold was also lavishly used in the temple of

Solomon.

There is

a second description in

it is theattempt

of a later writer

t o

improve upon Ezekiel's account, and

to pre-

pare the y a y for

14 should he omitted as

a very care-

less gloss. See

and on

v.

cp

742

The sense now becomes fairly clear.

CHERUB

CHERUB

(‘living creatures’), until we come to

9 3 ,

and Ezekiel

tells us

that he did not ‘know that they were

cherubim’ till he heard them called

so

by God

By this he implies that his own description of them
differed so widely from that received by tradition that

without the divine assurance he could

not

have ventured

to call them cherubim,

Sometimes, however, he speaks

of them in the singular

the living creature,’

the cherub,’

9 3

if

M T

is correct), apparently to

indicate that, being animated by

one

‘spirit,’ the four

beings formed but one complex phenomenon.

The

fourfold character

the cherub is caused by the new

function (relatively to the account in ch.28) which is
assigned to it in fact, it has now become the bearer of
the throne of God (more strictly of the ‘firmament’
under the throne

But the whole appearance

was at the moment bathed in luminous splendour,

so

that the seer needed reflection to realise it. W e will
therefore not dwell too much on what must be to a
large extent peculiar to Ezekiel and artificially symbolic,
and in

so

far belongs rather to the student of biblical

theology.

All

that it is important to add is that the

divine manifestation

place within a storm-cloud,

and that a fire which gives out flashes

of

lightning burns

brightly between the cherubim

also that there are

revolving wheels beside the cherubim, animated by the
same spirit as the living creatures, and as brilliant

as

the chrysolith or topaz; and that in his vision of the
temple Ezekiel again modifies his picture of

cherubim,

each cherub having there but two faces, that of a man
and that of a lion

Another group of passages

on

the cherubim

is

found

in the Psalter, viz.

Ps.

18

I

O

80

I

99

I

,

and to

the

may join not only Ps.

2 2 3 [4]

but phrases in

I

S.

4 4

S.

37

I

Ch.

6

K.

19

All these passages are

In the first we read,

‘ H e bowed the heavens and came down, and thick

clouds were under his feet he mounted the cherub and
flew, he came swooping upon the wings of the wind.’
That there is a mythical conception here is obvious,

it has grown very pale, and does not express much

more than Ps.

T h e conception agrees with

that of Ezekiel the cherub (only one is mentioned, but
this does not exclude the existence of more) is in some
sense the divine chariot, and has some relation

to

the

storm-wind and the storm-clonds.

T h e other

passages appear at first sight to give a new conception
of the cherubim, who are neither the guards of the

mountain of God,’ nor the chariot of the moving

Deity, but the throne

on

which he

is

seated.

I t may

be questioned, however, whether

the

phrase enthroned

upon the cherubim is not simply a condensed expres-
sion for seated

on

the throne which is guarded by the

cherubim.’ Both in the Psalter and in the
books it is the heavenly throne of

which is

meant, the throne from which

(as

is implied in

Ps.

80

I

99

I

and

K.

19

15)

he rules the universe and

the destiny of the nations. That is the only

change which has taken place in the conception of the
cherubim

they have been definitely transferred to

heaven, and, strictly speaking, their occupation as
bearers of the Deity should have gone, for the angels
are sufficient links between God and the world of
Or rather there is yet another point in which the cherub
idea has been modified

it is indicated in

Ps.

2 2 3

where, if the text is

Yahwk is addressed

as

‘enthroned,’ not upon the cherubim, but ‘upon the

praises of Israel.’ The idea is that the cherubim in
heaven have now the great new function of praising
God, and that in the praiseful services of the temple,
where God is certainly in some degree present, the

I n the three passages from

and

the

has been interpolated (cp

A

RK

,

I

)

.

Che.

ad

where the text

of

the deeply

corrupt verse

restored with some confidence.

743

congregation takes the place

of

the cherubim. This at

any rate agrees with later beliefs, and may be illustrated
by the direction in

( P )

that the faces of the

cherubim on the ark shall be towards the mercy-seat

The meaning of the priestly theorist (for

the description is imaginary, the ark having long ago
disappeared) is, that the cherubim are a kind of higher
angels who surround the earthly throne of

and

contemplate and praise his glory.

I t is also stated

that their faces are to be ‘one to another,’ and, if
we add to this that they have to guard, not
but the sacramental sign of his favour, we get three
points in which the cherubim of the priestly writer are
closely analogous to the seraphim of the vision of Isaiah
(Is.

6).

W e now come to the cherubim in the temple of

Solomon. Carved figures of cherubim were prominent

in the decoration of the walls and the
doors, and two colossal cherubim stood
in the

or ‘adytum,’ where they

formed a kind of

one wing being horizontally

stretched towards the lateral wall, whilst the other over-
shadowed the ark, a felicitous arrangement resulting in
charming effects

(see

I

K.

6

23-35).

Obviously they

are the guards of the sacred ark and its still more sacred
contents.

Cp

T

EMPLE

.

There is

no

record of any myth which directly

accounts for the temple-cherubim. But an old tradition

said that after the first human pair had
been driven out of the divine garden,

‘stationed at the east of

Garden of Eden the cherubim and the blade of the
whirling sword,’ and the function of these two allied

independent powers was to guard the way to the

tree of life‘ (Gen.

Neither in this case, nor in the

preceding one, is any account given of the physiognomy
of the cherubim.

In the height of the niythological

period no such account was needed.

W e see therefore that the most primitive Hebrew

described the cherubim as beings of superhuman

power and devoid of

sympathies,

whose office was to drive away intruders
from the abode of God, or of the gods.

Originally this abode was conceived of as a mountain,
or as a garden on the lower slopes of a mountain, and
as glittering with a many-coloured brightness.

But

when the range of the supreme god’s power became
wider, when from an earth-god he became also a
heaven-god, the cherub too passed into a new phase
he became the divine chariot.

W e have no early

authority for this view, but the age which produced the
story of Elijah‘s ascent to heaven in a fiery chariot

may be supposed to have

of

fiery

cherubs on which Yahwk rode. At a still later time,
the cherubim, though still spoken of by certain writers,
were no longer

The forces of nature

were alike

guards and his ministers. Mythology

became a subject of special learning, and its details
acquired new meanings, and the cherub-myth passed
into an entirely new phase.

There is much that is obscure about the form of the

primitive Israelitish cherub.

It

was in the main a

but it had wings.

That is all that we know,

though a probable conjecture (see below) may lead us
further.

As

to the meaning of the cherubim, they have

been thought to represent the storm-clouds which some-
times hang around the mountain peaks, sometimes
rush ‘ o n the

wings

of the wind,’ sending forth

and Chipiez

A r t

The sword is not

sword of the

hut that

of

it is the same with which he ‘slew the dragon’ (Is.

Marduk.

too.

has such a sword (see Smith.

86

opp.

not

upon a cherub, but upon horses.

3

I n

a

very late

speaks

of

as riding,

This is a return

to

a

very

old myth (see tablet

4

of the Babylonian Creation epic,

p.

restoration

in

744

CHERUB

like flashes

of

lightning.

This theory is consistent with

the language of

Ez.

24,

and the passages

in Enoch. but hardly explains the symbolism of the

cherub in its earliest historically known

At any rate, we can affirm posi-

tively that the myth is of foreign origin.

Lenormant

thought that he had traced it to

on the

ground that

occurs on a talisman as a synonym

for

a common term for the divine bull-guardian of

temples and palaces. This theory however is not con-
firmed as regards the derivation of

(see

W e may indeed admit that Ezekiel probably

mingled the old Palestinian view of the cherub with the

Babylonian conception of the divine winged

bulls.

so

far as can be seen at present, the early

Hebrew cherub came nearer to the griffin, which was

not divine, but the servant of the Deity,

the origin

of which is now assigned to the Hittites of

The

idea of this mythic form is the combination of parts of
the two strongest animals of air and land-the lion and
the eagle,

a reminiscence of this may perhaps be

traced in the reference to these

in

1

It

was adopted by various nations, but to understand its
true significance we must go,

not

to. Egypt nor to

Greece, but to the Hittites, whose originality in the use
of animal-forms is well known.

The Hittite griffin

appears almost always, in contrast to many Babylonian
representations, not

a fierce beast of prey, but seated

in calm dignity like an irresistible guardian of holy
things.

It is only on later Syrian monuments that the

Sun-god is represented in a chariot drawn by griffins,
which agrees with a statement respecting the
sun-god in Philostratus’s

(3

48).

The Egyptians imported this form, probably from Syria
or Canaan at the beginning of the New Empire, but
the griffin never acquired among them the religious
significance of the

The

and

probably the Canaanites, and through them the Is-
raelites, evidently attached greater importance to the
griffin or cherub, and it is said that among the dis-
coveries at Zenjirli in

N.

A

RAMAIC

L

ANGUAGE

,

2 )

is

a

representation of this mythic

as

described in

Ez.

41

Whether the sculptured quad-

ruped with a bearded human head, Assyrian in type,

discovered by

M.

Clermont-Ganneau in the subterranean

quarries in the north

of

is rightly called a

cherub seems very doubtful.

For

a

general sketch of the different conceptions of winged

composite animals see

Teloni,

Z A

and cp

art.

Roscher,

Lex., cited already

;

also,

for

OT

criticism,

Die

des

A

L‘3

CHERUB

a

town or

district in Babylonia, unless Cherub-

Immer

should be taken as one name, Ezra259

[B].

[A]), where the former two of these

names are run together (C

HARAATHALAR

, RV

AATHALAN)

and the names are regarded as personal

rather than

as

local.

CHESALON

on the N. side of Mount Jearim, one of the places

See Lenormant, L e s

1

;

Schrader, C O T

140;

Frd. Del.

Par.

153;

Che.

2

Delitzsch,

however, still holds to a connection between

and

Ass.

‘mighty’

(Ass.

352).

Sayce com-

pares the

winged figures represented on

walls as fertilising the ‘tree of life,’ the date-palm

cp Tylor

PSBA 1 2

Bd.

art.

3

H.

perhaps

or

(G. Hoffmann) is one of the gods of the Syrian district of
Ya’di (Zenjirli inscriptions).

G.

Hoffmann explains Rekah’el

‘charioteer

of

11

in Roscher,

Bd.

cp

falsch-Richter,

See

9

forms.

T.

K

.

c.

Rev.

16

Mai,

745

CHILMAD

which

Joshua

(1510)

mark the northern frontier

of

the tribe of Judah.

It is the modern

2087 ft.

above sea-level, on a high ridge immediately

to

the

S.

of the

Ghurab, and about half-way between

Karyat el

(Robinson’s

(Eshtaol). (See Rob.

230

I n the time of

Eusebius and Jerome, who place it on the border, the one
in Benjamin and the other in Judah, it was a very large

village in the confines of Jerusalem’ (OS,

Stanley

496) fitly compares the name

and situation with that of

or

CHESED

[L]),

son of Nahor by Milcah (Gen.

the eponym

of a branch of the

See A

RAM

,

3,

A

RPHAXAD

.

TABOR

CHESIL

Josh.

B

ETHUL

.

CHESNUT

Gen.

RV P

LANE

.

CHEST.

I

.

in

K.

[

I

O

Ch.

24

8

used of a box with lid

see D

OOR

) and

hole

(in)

into which money might be dropped

C O K O M O C

[BAL],

Ant.

The

same word is used of acoffin (Gen.

see D

EAD

,

I

) ,

and of the Ark of the Covenant (see A

RK

, and cp

C

OFFER

).

2.

Ezek. 2724, EV chests of rich apparel,’

but though

(see

T

REASURE

H

OUSE

), like

(Mt.

might conceivably mean a repository for

costly objects, yet the parallel expression mantles (not

wrappings,’ as RV) of blue

broidered work shows

that

must mean ‘garments,’ or the like.

and

are

so

easily confounded that we need not hesitate to

read

(Che. rendering robes of variegated stuff.’

See EM

BROIDERY

, and cp D

RESS

,

CHESULLOTH

Josh.

1918.

See

CHETTIIM

I

Macc.

AV,

CHEZIB

Gen.

I

Ch.

CHIEF, CHIEFTAIN.

4.

LOTH-TABOR.

R V C

HITTIM

.

See K

ITTIM

.

See A

CHZIB

,

I

.

See N

ACHON

.

The former, like captain,’

is often used in AV

as

a substantive with a convenient

vagueness to render various Heb. words

as

which appear to be used in a more

or

less general sense.

For

‘chief

I

cp

P

RIEST

and

P

RINCE

for ‘chief

sed

;

and for ‘chief of Asia,’ (Acts 19

31)

see

C

HIEFTAIN

occurs only in Zech. 9 7 12

5f:

for

for

which see D

UKE

.

CHILDREN, SONG

OF

THE

THREE.

See

CHILEAB

4),

son

of

David

( 2

S .

33). I n

I

Ch.

3

I

he

is

called D

ANIEL

4).

CHILIARCH

[Ti.

WH]), Rev.

See A

RMY

,

IO.

74,

M

AHLON

[BAL],

sickness

and wasting,’ the names given to the sons of
in the narrative of Ruth

[B],

5

49

D

ANIEL

,

22.

CHILMAD

Ez.

MT,

usually supposed to be a place or land not far from
Assyria.

If this be correct, it must at any rate be some

fairly well-known place or land.

But

no name re-

sembling Chilmad occurs anywhere else, and, as two

Cp

Ass.

‘variegated cloth’ (Muss-Amok).

746

CHIMHAM

corruptions of the text have already been found in this
verse (C

ANNEH

,

iii.), we may presume a third.

Read with

' a n d Media'

Less

probably

'Babylon and Media'

Mez and

Bertholet,

Media'

should be dis-

regarded.

I t came from

h ;

the scribe began. to

write

too

soon.

fell out owing to the

which

CHIMHAM

66,

77, or

or [Jer.

Kt.]

if the text is right,

[cp

and note Nestle's view

on the

origin of

Ant.

vii.1114; in Jer.

[K],

[AQ"]), one of the sons of the Gileadite

whose stead he entered the service of David

S.

Most probably

his real name was Ahinoam

note the

in

Jer.

form, the

the Gr. forms with

and

and the Egyptian form

see below) with n-ma (Che.).

Following Ew.

(Hist.

Deans Stanley and Plumptre

have supposed that he carried on the family tradition of
hospitality by erecting at Bethlehem a khan or hospice
for travellers (see Jer. 41

place of Chimham'). This

however, is based

on

the faulty reading

This should be corrected

into

which

is

the reading of Jos. (see

Ant.

x.

of Aq., and of the Hexaplar Syriac (see Field), and
has been adopted by Hitzig and Giesebrecht. In the
text represented by

[see

the

in

had

become a

the hurdles, or

sheep

-

pens, of Chimham '-seems

a

probable name

for a locality in a pastoral district.

Chimham (or

Ahinoam?) is appended to distinguish this Gederoth
from other places

of

the same name.

I t is just

possible that the family of Chimham or Ahinoam 'had
property there. Among the names of the places in
Palestine conquered by Seti I. we find Ha(?)-ma-he-mu,

the city

of

in

which

belong to the same place (WMM

As.

Gidroth-chimham (Sayce, Pat.

P a l

CHIMNEY

Hos.

133.

See C

OAL

,

3,

(

I

).

CHINNERETH

in Josh.

[A]; in Dt.,

'from Chinnerefh

the name of one of the 'fenced cities of Naphtali

(Josh.

Possibly it is also referred to

I

K.

where we should perhaps read ' a n d

maacah, and Chinneroth, and all the land

of

I t is of great antiquity,

it

under the form

R n - n u - m - t u

the list of places conquered by

Thotmes

34

5

45

WMM

As.

84).

It is also given (

I

) , with the prefix 'sea of,'

to

the Galilean lake (Nu. 3411

BF,

AL] Josh.

1327)

to the same inland

sea'

without that prefix (Dt.

3

cp Josh.

11

and see below).

The site of the town can no longer be identified.

Jerome identified it with

some rabbins

a

town a t the

S.

of

the

lake called Beth-jerach (probably the

of

Josephus).

Others included Sanbari (the

bris of

97) under the designation ; a third extended

the application of the name to
par.

98,

Wunsche).

This vagueness sufficiently shows

nothing was known as to

of the ancient town. Cp

Neubauer,

precedes restore

T.

C .

or rather Gidroth-ahinoam.

T. K.

A. C.

the derivation of Chinnereth, see G

ENNESARET

.

The Kt. reading

Jer.4117, may safely be disre-

garded.

ni

may conceal

nul.

in

16

14, however,, presupposes

see Ki.,

SBOT).

T.

K . C.

747

CHISLOTH-TABOR

CHIBNEROTH ([Gins.]

or

the

of C

HINNERETH

) is the name

applied (

I

) , with the prefix 'sea of,' to the Galilean

lake in Josh.

[BFL],

[A]),

with-

out this prefix (cp Dt.

to the same lake in Josh.

11

[B],

[A],

[FL]),

in the spelling

(AV

only), to a district

(?)

in Naphtali

laid waste by Benhadad king of Damascus

(

I

K.

15

[B]). See C

ITY

,

n. The

second and third passages need a brief comment.

In

I

Ewald

(Hist.

n.

6 )

explains all Chin-

neroth

'

to mean the

W.

shore of Lake Merom and the

Sea of Galilee and of that part of the Jordan which
flows between those lakes; Thenius, the basin which
extends from Lake

to the upper point of the

Sea of Galilee.

Such

a

large extent of meaning,

however, is improbable.

Unless we adopt the cor-

rection suggested 'above (C

HINNERETH

) it is best to

suppose Chinneroth to mean here the shores (or the

W.

or

E.

shore alone) of that famous lake. I n support

of

this explanation, the second passage mentioned above
(Josh.

11

may be appealed to.

T h e rendering 'in

the Arahah south of Chinneroth'

(RV)

can hardly be defended.

The difficulty lies in

for which it is better with

to read

we shall then get the phrase

the

Arabah over against Chinneroth.'

This may be a designation

of the fertile plain called

the

of the

Synoptic Gospels, in which the town

of Chinnereth was

ably situated. Cp G

ENNESARET

, and

UPON J

ORDAN

.

CHIOS

[Ti.

WH]:

the beautiful and

fruitful

the central member of the triad of large

islands

off

the coast

of

Asia Minor.

I t has little

connection with biblical history, but the solitary mention
of it (Acts

20

15)

very clearly indicates its geographical

position.

Paul returning from Macedonia, to keep

Pentecost at Jerusalem, touched at Mitylene in Lesbos

next day he was over against Chios

probably somewhere about Cape

num. mod.

which was a place of anchorage

(Polyb.

168).

On

the third day at Samos. The ship

evidently anchored each night and sailed with the early
morning breeze, which prevails generally in the

during the summer, blowing from the

N.

and dying

away

the afternoon. T h e run from Mitylene to Chios

is something over

50

m.

Herod's voyage as related in

Jos.

Ant.

xvi. 22, in the reverse direction, illustrates the

apostle's journey.

Strabo describes the town as having a good harbour with

anchorage for eighty ships

(645).

Paul possibly lay becalmed

in the channel (ahout

7

wide) and may not have landed. The

island was noted for its wines

645,

657).

CRISLEU,

RV

in

Kisilivu,

cp

in Palm.

Cent.

nos. 24,

75) : Zech.

or

Neh.

1

I

;

AV has

in

I

Macc.

1 5 4

but

[A in

CHISLON

confidence'?

the

of

(Nu.

3421).

CHISLOTH-TABOR

loins or

of Tabor cp Aznoth-tabor, ears or peaks

Josh

or

in

on the border between Zebulun (Josh.

and

Issachar

It is the Xaloth

of Josephus

3 1

the

or

of

Eusebius

Jerome-described

them

as a

small

village on the plain below Mount Tabor, 8 R. m. from

or Sepphoris

91

4

59).

It is

represented by the modern

460 ft. above sea

level, 7 m.

SW.

from Sepphoris,

m.

N.

from

748

The text, however, is not quite correct.

See M

ONTH

,

5 .

CHITHLISH

and nearly 3 m.

W.

from the base of Mount Tabor.

The name has been suggested

as

an emendation for

or

in

I

Macc.

and of Chellus

in Judithlg (see C

HELLUS

). The position of the place

on the main road N., in the pass between Tabor and
the hills of Nazareth, explains its strategical value, as
witnessed in its various appearances in history.

CHITHLISH

Josh.

AV

K

ITHLISH

.

CHITTIM

Is.

231 AV,

etc.; Gen.

CHIUN

and

SICCUTH

Am.

RV,

'Yea, ye

house of Israel] have borne Siccuth your

CHOIR

at least intelligible (see Schr.

and cp

T h e phenomena of

text, however, and

also those of the MT, suggest the inference
that there may be

a

more deeply-seated

(see

A

MOS

,

13).

[For the

of Heb. text

Symm. give

(cp

Pesh.

Aq.

Vg.

Tg.

(Lag.)

which

MT.

For

(Heb. text and

Tg.), Aq. and Symm.

have

Theod.

(for

pointing of M T 'seems to he suggested by that

of

abomination

idol

cp

For references to recent

see

A

MOS

,

13,

and cp Che.,

Jan. 1897, pp.

CHLOE

[Ti.

WH]), a

woman of whom

nothing is known, save that they

of

Chloe'

were the first to let Paul know at Ephesus of the
division which had arisen in the Corinthian church

( I

Cor.

Whether she belonged to Ephesus or to Corinth

who

the

members

of her household were, whether even

was a

Christian

or not, are questions on all of which only conjectures

can be offered.

I t is possible, hut hardly probable, that

Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus

(

I

Cor. 16

may have

been servants

of

Chloe.

called in Judith

Chobai

[BRA],

[Lag.]),

is mentioned in connection with the

defensive measures of the Jews against Holofernes
(Judith 4

4).

721)

proposed the

of

the Tab. Peut. near Jericho, a site that would agree
with both the

and the Syriac of Judith

4

4

and

in connection with it Conder

points

to the ruin

and the cave

e l

on the Roman road

3

m. from

(see

and

from

CHOENIX

in

for

B

ATH

),

a

of capacity Rev.

6 6

(EV

measure

').

CHOIR.

The subject of the hereditary choirs, or

better, guilds of singers is considered elsewhere (see

R.

W.

R.

CHOBA

See WEIGHTS

AND

M

EASURES

.

king, and Chiun your images, the star of
your god.

AV,

differ by rendering

These words

the tabernacle (of).'

have long been a puzzle to scholars.

The primary

question is, whether they should be considered appella-
tives or proper nouns.

The problem is ancient,

as

appears from the phenomena

of

the versions (see below,

Into the syntactical and exegetical difficulties of

v.

26,

taken with its context, we cannot here enter our

object is to consider the explanation of the
mentioned words offered by Schrader

and

C O T

which, though widely accepted,

fails

to

satisfy some good critics. According to Schrader's

theory

is to be

and

the former

representing the divine name Sakkut, the latter
Oppert had already recognised in Chiun the Babylonian

and this identification may be regarded

as

almost certain. The word is of frequent occurrence in
Babylonian

and religious texts

as

the name

of

the planet Saturn.

It is of uncertain meaning and

etymology.

Other Semitic peoples have preserved the same name, prob-

ably as loan words, for Saturn is called by the

by the Syrians

and

the Persians

(for

references to the occurrence of the word in Babylonian texts, see
Jensen,

The name Siccuth presents much greater difficulties.

Schrader has shown that the name Sak-kut, which is
probably the same

as

the Siccuth of the text, is used in

a

Babylonian list

as

a

name, or an ideographic writing,

for the god Ninib

( 2

R.

Ninib, however, appears

to

be the god of the planet Kaiwanu or Saturn (see

Jensen,

Lotz,

de

W e seem, therefore, to be brought to the con-

clusion that

and Kaiwan are the same (which

would be still more clear'if it could be shown with

certainty that

R.

32

no. 3

25,

might be read

Sak-kut,

as

Oppert and Schrader believe). Not all the

steps in the argument made to connect Salr-kut and
Kaiwan are perfectly clear. Still, indirect confirmation
of the correctness of the result has lately come to hand,
the two words having been found together in

mytho-

logical text.

I n the

texts Sak-kut and

are invoked together ( 4

R.

col. 4

der

Bad.

1896,

p.

I O

I n this text at least the two words Sak-kut and Kaiwan
appear together

as

they do in Amos.

[Not improbably according to Che., there is a reference to

K.

(see

and

another to Kaiwan in a passage

of

Ezekiel.

The

of

jealousy' in Ezek. 8 3

5 is

pot a possible title;

seems

to

b e a corruption of

The word for 'image' is

it

was

probably a statue

of Kaiwan which Ezekiel saw

(in ecstasy)

'northward of the altar gate' in the outer court

of the temple,

unless indeed

(I

D

O

L

,

I C

.)

should rather be

one of the names for the colossal winged bulls which

guarded the entrances of Assyrian and Babylonian palaces and
temples (cp Ezek. 8 3

where, however, read

the

entrance with

Gra. for

At any rate, we now seem to

know thk period to which the interpolation

of

refers

(see further Che.,

Times,

T h e connection

of

Siccuth and Chiun with the Baby-

lonian name and the ideographic value for the planet
Saturn agree well with their juxtaposition in Am. 526,
and

and

are transposed, the verse

7-19

PSAL

M

S

).

content ourselves

with the Talmudic statements relative to

the Temple choir in the narrower sense

of

the word,

postponing, however, the question of choral psalms.
T h e Talmud affirms that the choir in the Second
Temple consisted of not less than twelve adult Levites.
nine of whom played on the instrument called the

(lyre?), two on the

(lute?), while the

remaining one heat the

(cymbals).

This

number might, however, be exceeded on the occasion
of festivals (Mish.

No statement is made

as

to the number

of

the singers whom these musicians

accompanied, from which Gratz infers that the instru-
mental and the vocal music were performed by the
same persons.

This seems

to

illustrate

Ps.

92

I

3

(Che.

)-

Good is it to give thanks to Yahwb
T o make melody to the name of thk Most High,
T o the sound

of the horn and the lute

T o the sweetly sounding notes of the

Certainly the most important duty of the choir

of

Levites was the service

of

song.

The Talmud also

states that boys' voices were called in to modify the
deep bass of the men's voices.

The choir-boys did not

stand on the platform with the Levites. but lower down,

so

that their heads were on

a

level with the feet of the

Levites. They were sons of persons of rank in Jeru-
salem

136).

See Gratz,

Del.,

and cp M

USIC

,

The duty of the choir is briefly summed up in Neh.

2

Ch.

I t is

to raise the

strain

of

praise

ye) and

thanksgiving

ye thanks). See

C

ONFESSION

,

3.

The formula of thanks-

7

CHOLA

giving which served as a refrain in the later eucharistic
songs was,

For he is good, for his loving-kindness is

for ever

Ch.

5

7

6 Ezra 3

11

Jer. 33

last

passage has been expanded by

a

late writer-and cp

the psalms beginning

Give thanks unto

Were there any female singers in the temple choirs?
From Neh.

7

67 Peritz infers that there were

Women

in the Ancient Hebrew

17

148

Strange t o say, the word 'choirs' occurs hut once and only

Mattaniah (if this mg. is right) was {over the

choirs'

Neh. 128.

Del.

Rv.. and

CHRISTIAN, NAME

O F

CHRISTIAN, NAME

OF.

W e can readily under-

that the followers of Jesus confessed to the name

of their Master whenever occasion arose. On the other
hand, the time, the place, and the circumstances of the
origin of the name

as a specific designation

are obscure. According to Acts1126 the matter seems
a simple o n e ; but, with this passage before

us,

it is

remarkable how seldom the name
occurs elsewhere in the records of

early Christianity. I n the N T the only other places
where it is found are Acts

2628

and

I

Pet.

It is

certainly not -alluded to in Acts

5

for the name' on

account of which the apostles here suffer dishonour was,
as we are expressly told in

40,

the name of Jesus.

This passage, accordingly, belongs to the same category
as

Mk.

besides, the words because ye

are Christ's' after

(so

Ti.) may be

merely the explanatory marginal gloss of some early
reader-and Mk.

In Ja. 27 also, the 'honourable

name by which the readers are called is not the name

'Christian,' but the name of Christ

as

their Lord

for the expression is to be explained in the same sense
as

9

(

the heathen, which are called by my name

by reference to

2

1228

(

lest

.

. .

it he called

after my name

').

All passages of this class must here be

left out

of

account, inasmuch

as

they do not presuppose

the specific name Christian.' The name is presupposed,

as

far as the N T

is

concerned, only

Lk.

6 2 2

Outside of the N T , according to the exhaustive re-

searches of

the name does not

in either

of the epistles ascribed to Clement

of

Rome; it is

absent from Barnabas, Hermas, Polycarp, the

Tatian, and the

The Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, as also

the Catholic Acts of Peter and Paul, have it only in a
few passages of later insertion

so

also with the Gnostic

writings. As

a

word in regular use it makes its earliest

appearances in the Apologists - Justin, Athenagoras,
Theophilus, Minucins Felix-and in the Epistle to

Diognetus,' in Ignatius, who uses also the word

in the 'Martyrdom of Polycarp,' in the

Catholic

in the letter of the churches of

and

(Eus.

HE

5

in

Tertullian, and Clement

of

Alexandria. T o this list

must be added the passage in the Teaching

W e

Twelve

discovered after the publication of

Lipsius's essay

Lipsius, it is true, points

out

allusions to the existence

of the name Christian

'

in older writings. As far as

Hermas, however,

is

concerned, the only valid passage

is

ix.

17

4.

The phrase is

Such expressions as

T

O

G

13

14

16

3)

or

13

7)

or

(Polycarp, 6

3)

do not

necessarily presuppose the word

and the simple

phrase

ix.

13

or

or

(ix.

28

3 5

;

Vis.

iii. 1

9

2

I

), in several cases

is clearly in juxtaposition to the words

or

ix. 13

2-6

Vis. iii. 5

I

Clem.

cannot with certainly be taken in

the sense which is

so

abundantly

in Justin

1 4 ) :

This play upon words seems,

besides, to be sufficiently explained by the consideration
that

had at that time the same pronunciation

as

Tertullian

3

however,

expressly says that the Gentiles

or

pronounced it

is the reading in

all three

N T

passages of the uncorrected

it pre-

ponderates in the inscriptions and Justin, according to

Blass

1895,

pp.

associates this word

with

in his Apology (i. 4

46

49 ii.

6,

where, as he

says,

ought to be read),

as in his

with

he associates it with

Blass

con-

'

den Ursprung

d.

Gehrauch des

namens ; Gratnlationsprogramm der theologischen

Jena fiir Hase, 1873, pp. 6-10.

.

.

Kau.

( H S )

however, give 'choir' as the rendering

of

in Neh. 12

where RV has 'companies that gave thanks.'

This may be Accepted, but the mg. choirs in 12

8

is but a con-

fession of the great improbability of MT. Neither

nor

(which Ry. and

prefer) can he naturally defended.

Read

'over the thanksgiving (Battch.,

E V

in Neh.

therefore, virtually corrects the text.

:

pointed

Neh. 11

and see

M

A

TT

AN

I

AH

,

CHOLA

[B]),

Judith154 RV, AV

T.

K.

C .

RV

COR-ASHAN

See

and

CHORAZIN

[Ti. W H ] Mt.

11

Lk.

10

Eus.

I n these two passages Jesus

calls woe upon Chorazin and Bethsaida (and immediately
after on Capernaum) as towns in which his wonderful
works have produced no effect. From his direct address
to

all three, they appear to have lain together within his

sight. Jerome

Chorozain) places Chorazin

from Capernaum (Euseb.

but this

seems a copyist's error). I n his commentary on

Is.

9

I

Jerome describes the town as on the shore of the lake-
like Capernaum, Tiberias, and Bethsaida.

From this

Robinson

argues for the site at Tell Ham.

But about

I

m.

N.

of Tell

in

a

shallow

running from the

into the hills, there are

black basalt ruins, including those of a large syna-
gogue, with Corinthian columns, which bear the name

Now,

(722)

says that he went from Capernaum to Bethsaida, thence
to Chorazin, and thence to the sources of the Jordan-a
course which, in spite of what Robinson asserts, suits
Kerazeh as it does not suit either Tell Hiim, or any
other site

on

the Lake.

Accordingly, most moderns,

since Thomson discovered the site in

1857,

agree that

is Chorazin, and take Jerome's statement as

either vague or inaccurate.

(Robinson thinks the name

may have drifted from Tell

to

Jesus

calls Chorazin a city and treats it as comparable with
Tyre and

The ruins are extensive, and there

are traces of a paved road connecting the site with the

great

road from Capernaum to Damascus.

The Bab. Talmud

praises the

of

Chorazin

cp Neuhauer

I n the days

Eusebius and Jerome

and

A

.

D

.)

the place was in

ruins. Willibald found a Christian Church there.

A.

[BA]),

I

name follows Simon

(

in

Ezra

and

hence may represent one of the three names in Ezra
1032 otherwise omitted in

I

Esd.

Possibly in a

poor

MS

only the final

of Malluch and the third name

Shemariah were legible, and out of these the scribe made
Choshamiah (Ball,

Otherwise the name has

arisen from

33

but the Syr.

still remains a difficulty.

CHOZEBA, RV C

OZEBA

I

Ch.

See

CHRIST

[Ti. W H ] ) ,

See

Z

ACCAI

.

A

CHZIB

,

I.

M

ESSIAH

,

end.

CHRISTIAN, NAME

OF

jectures from this that the Pagans to whom the

Apology is

addressed had derived the wosds anointed,

followers of the anointed,' which were mysterious to
them, by a popular etymology from

and Justin,

for simplicity's sake, accepted the derivation without

seeking to correct it.

W e have thus

that the name was left unused by

a

series of Christian writers at a time when it was already

familiar to the younger Pliny

in

A . D . ,

to Tacitus ( A n n .

A

.

D . ,

and to

(Nero, 16) in

T h e plain fact is that they did

not need it.

For designating their community there lay

a t their command an ample variety of

such

as 'brethren,' saints,' 'elect,' 'called,' that believed,'

'faithful,' disciples,' 'they that are

'they that

are in the Lord,' 'they that are Christ's,' and ['any

. . .

of the way'?].

I t follows that, notwithstanding its

absence from their writings, the name of Christian may
very well have originated a t a comparatively, early time.

It can hardly, however, have been current at

so

early

a

date as that indicated in Acts

11

26.

The famine predicted at that time, according

to

Acts 11

occurred in Palestine between the years

44

and

48.

(The belief

that it extended over the whole of the

world

is a mis-

take.) The prediction itself must, of course, have been
Indeed the expression 'which came to pass in the days of

may be held to imply that it was made before the

accession of that emperor-that is to say, before

47

A

.D.

With

this

it agrees that the death of Herod Agrippa I.

(44

is

mentioned in the following chapter (12).

Some fifteen years later, or more, the claim to be

'of Christ' was made by

a

single party in Corinth

( I

Cor.

Presumably certain personal

disciples of Jesus had first applied

this designation

to

themselves, whilst denying to

Paul

the right

to be so called, as also his right

to

the apostleship

Cor.

7).

on the other hand, takes great pains to establish the right

all believers in Christ to the designation (

I

Cor.

3 23 ;

also

7

23

Rom.

8

I

Gal. 3

5

24).

Thus it can hardly have been already a current name.
As for Jesus himself, it is permissible to doubt whether

h e used in their present forms such expressions as we
now find in Mk.

1313-that

is

to say, with the

emphasis upon his own name.

T h e theory that he pre-

supposes the currency of the name Christians in

Lk.

622

is

absolutely excluded by the consideration that,

ac'cording to the same gospel, he does not himself lay
claim

to

the name of Christ till later

and even then

wishes it to be kept secret, and further that, according to
the same author (Acts

11

the name Christians did

not arise till a considerable time after his death.

All this makes it more than doubtful whether the

writer had even here any trustworthy authority for
assigning the occurrence to so early

a

date. His reason

for doing so may have been simply that the founding

of the first Gentile Christian church seemed to be the
most likely occasion for its coming into use.

The suddenness with which the name, Christian

becomes one of frequent occurrence in the writings of

the apologists shows that the word first
became necessary for Christians in their
dealings with Pagans.

In speaking to

the latter, such

as

'those of Christ were

found to be inadequate : a definite name was wanted.

In

fact, it is probable enough that the name came from

the heathen themselves in the first instance.

With such

a

view of its origin

fits

in very well. At all

events, the name did not come from the Jews. These
were still looking for their Messiah.

By using a name

which signified those of the Messiah,' they would by

have justified the sect that regarded Jesus

as such, and so have stultified themselves. Even Herod
Agrippa II., notwithstanding his Greek training and the
indifference towards his ancestral religion which this
carried with it, could not have gone so far moreover,
he still held by Judaism to the extent at least that he

753

insisted

King

of Emesa and

Polemo of

being circumcised before being allowed to marry

his sisters

and

(Jos.

xx.

7

I

If,

accordingly, the saying attributed to

him in Acts 2628

authentic, the name Christian

'

must by that time have become

so

thoroughly established

that

its

etymological meaning was no longer thought of.

The whole scene. however,

is

in full accord with the

tendency of Acts (see A

CTS

,

51) to set forth Paul's

innocence, and a t the same time the truth of Christianity,
as accepted by the Roman authorities; and this of course
is more effectively done by the mouth

of

a

Jew. An

obvious parallel is the statement of Herod Antipas in
the gospel by the same author (Lk.

but its

historicity

is

open to grave suspicion, 'both in view of

what we know of Herod's relations to John the Baptist
and in view of the fact that the story is absent from the
other gospels.

Even if Paul's meeting with Herod

Agrippa

is historical, the word

may very

easily have come into the narrative out of the author's
own vocabulary.

W e are informed by the same

(Acts

24

5 )

with much greater precision that 'sect of the

Nazarenes'

was the name given

by the Jews to the Christians, as we learn also
Tertullian (Ado.

4

8 )

and Jerome (in Jes. ch.

5

497

It was not till afterwards that the expression

was restricted to a particular sect of Christians-a fact
by which Epiphanius allowed himself to be misled.

H e

tellsus

that the Jews, in their public prayers,

which were offered three times daily in their synagogues,
pronounced a solemn curse upon this sect-a curse
which, as we learn from Justin

16 and elsewhere),

and indeed as we see from the nature of the case, applied
rather to all

Its Hebrew name,

Minim, shows that the Jews had still another name for
the Christians-and this name could also be
into

As

for the place where the name Christian arose, the

apparent Latin termination used to be thought to point to

a

western, indeed

Ann.

1544)

to a

Roman, origin ; but that it was there that
the name first

into use is by no

means said by Tacitus, whilst in such

a

word as

Herodian,

3 6

and elsewhere), we have

evidence

in the Greek-speaking

this col-

loquial Latin formation of personal names
riani), in incorrect imitation of forms like Pompeiani
(where the

is part of the root), was not unknown.

The ancient Greek grammarians recognise the termina-
tion

for derivatives from town and country names,

and even designate it specially as the

as

being

with, not in Greece itself, but in Asia

(Buttmann,

1 1 9 5 4 ;

many

examples in Lipsius, 13-16). In this matter, therefore,

is

not open to criticism (yet see above,

The time a t which the name arose could not with

assurance be placed earlier than 79

A

.

even if a certain

inscription (which hisappeared soon after

its discovery) at

on the wall of

a

building (at first supposed to have been

a

Christian meeting-house), had

contained the

letters

This reading might very

well

have been a derivative from the

tolerably frequent proper name

(see above,

I

)

; but,

in point of fact the reading

is only a conjecture and according

t o

Kiessling's

transcription (which

is

the

word really was

may mean.

T h e architecture

of

the house shows it to have been

a n inn

provided even with a

mere-

where, accordingly, it is hardly likely that Christian

The best-attested reading

(unless

we

are to

with

or,

with A

or, to conjecture with Hort,

(instead of

is

perhaps mast easily explained a s

a

:

are persuading me somewhat

t o

act the part

of a Christian'

so

1889,

This solemn curse

is said to have first taken shape a t Jabueh

in the time of

754

meetings would have been held in fact, the inscription,
which begins with the words, Vina Nervii,' was prob-
ablv an advertisement of

answer to our question can, therefore, be hoped

for only from examination of the history of the Christian

The character of these

has been placed in an entirely new
light by the proposition of Mommsen

in 1885

Gesch.

5520,

which has since then

been more fully and elaborately developed by him
in Sybel's

Hist.

64

389-429

and accepted

by C. J. Neumann (Der.

a.

d.

and by Ramsay (chap.

5)

-that the persecution of the Christians

was

always

similar to that of robbers.' On this view, every pro-
vincial governor had, without special instructions, the
duty of seeking out and bringing to justice

(kidnappers), and

(Dig.

18

and for this end was invested, over

and above his ordinary judicial attributes, with a very
full power of magisterial coercion, which was not
limited to definite offences, or to a regular form of

process, or to any fixed scale of punishments.

Only,

as

far as Roman citizens were concerned, banishment

was forbidden, and the capital penalty was reserved for
the judgment of the emperor.

i.

Status

Christians. -While actually throw-

ing into still further obscurity the date of the origin
of the Christian name, this discovery of Mommsen's
(above,

sheds much light upon the question of legal

position.

points on which the scholars named,

as

well as others, are agreed are, briefly, these. Among the
duties of a Roman citizen a fundamental place was held
by that of worshipping the ancestral gods.

By these in

the earliest period were

only those of .the city of

Rome but subsequently those of

were included,

and finally all those

of

Italy and Greece, as soon

as

they had been formally recognised by decree of the
senate.

Non-citizens were forbidden to proselytise to

strange gods, but not to

them,

so

far

as

this

did not appear to be of danger to the state.

The

Christian religion, however, was held to be dangerous
in this way, as denying the existence of the gods of the
state.

T h e Jewish religion was, strictly, under the

same ban and, therefore, circumcision

was

laid under

severe penalties

Hadrian, and,

as

far

as

were concerned, by Antoninus

and

Severus also.

For themselves, however, the Jews,

apart from the prohibition by Hadrian just mentioned,
possessed religious freedom

the ground of special

privileges conceded to them, particularly by Julius Caesar
and Augustus, in accordance with the favoured position
which they had enjoyed, long before the Roman rule,

in Egypt and elsewhere in the East.

These privileges

included exemption from military service, which would
have interfered with their strict observance of the
sabbath, and exemption from the obligation to appear
before the courts on that day.

When Caesar, on

account of suspected

activity, suppressed

cuncta

the Jews were expressly exempted.

New corpora-

tions in the older

senatorial) provinces required

the sanction of the senate; in the imperial provinces
still under military government that

of

the emperor

himself was doubtless sufficient. I t is probable that
burial societies had a general sanction from the senate.
Apart from these, however, there were many societies

which had never obtained any special concession.
They were left alone if they did not appear to be

dangerous but at any moment they could be
by the police.

In the cases of those which had been

sanctioned by the senate, suppression was made lawful

So

Victor

1881.

pp.

and

also,

as

regards the text

T h e inscriptio:

ought not therefore, to be

on, as it

still relied on

by

Ramsay

chap.

5,

p.

268,

and

Paul, chap. 15,

I

,

ed. 1896,

346).

755

persecutions.

only by a new senatorial decree. Now, the Christians
could never have obtained such a concession, for their

did not

to the class of

gions.

I n their case, accordingly, the well-known

ule

221)

did not apply :

permittitur

stipem menstruam conferre,

tamen

in mense coeant

. .

.

sed) religionis causa coire

on prohibentur, dum tamen per hoc non fiat contra

quo illicita collegia arcentur.'

had, therefore, to hold their meetings simply on

ufferance, and were never for a moment free from the
isk of police interference. Still, they did not expose
hemselves to persecution or to death merely by holding

meetings.

For such an offence these

were much too severe. When a

this sort was

up, unless its object had been

n itself criminal, the members were subjected only
o

a mild punishment.

In fact, they were allowed

o

divide among themselves the fnnds of the society,

vhich were confiscated in the case of all capital

Persecution and capital punishment fell to

he lot of the Christians, therefore, only because their

was regarded as criminal.

I n the case of

citizens it implied a violation of the duty to

vorship the gods of the state; in the case of

who were not citizens,

as

against the

gods

of the place was in like manner implied.

a

(legally) very lax sense they were accused of

which originally meant only theft of sacred

Over and above this, all Christian subjects

chargeable with the offence of refusing to worship

.he

an offence legally construed

as

majestas,

majestatis-more precisely,

as

Imperatorum-the majestas

not being

by this class of offences. Thus, either

as

iacrilege or as majestas, Christianity could at all

prosecuted, and-certainly in the case of

probably

also

in that of citizens---by the mere

of arbitrary coercive power.

The penalties

inder either charge were, approximately, the same.

Correspondence

and

we

a

new light on the correspondence between Pliny

Trajan (see above,

2).

. Let it be premised that

the

as

may be gathered from the

in the words

e t

were certainly intended the

and the

which, as we learn from Justin

212)

and other writers of the second century,

vere laid to the charge of the Christians. Acts208
already appears to be intended to meet the familiar
accusation. T h e story ran that before the beginning of
these orgies all lights were put out.

Pliny's question,

then, whether the mere fact of being Christian (nomen

or

whether only the crimes associated therewith

ought to be punished, is, from what we have seen,
already answered in the first sense, and is

so

decided

by Trajan also. On the other hand, Trajan's injunction,

non

sunt,

with which also is to be associated

his order to disregard anonymous

of accusation,

is an important mitigation of the law, as is his other
direction that a Christian who formally renounces his
Christianity by sacrificing to the images of the gods
shall

exempt

punishment.

Such a degree

of

favour could, from the nature of the case, never be

shown to the robber or to the thief, with whom,
nevertheless, the Christian is classed.

Let it be

noted,

also, that Pliny had no difficulty in deciding on

his own responsibility the earlier cases that came
before

His reference of the

to the

emperor was first occasioned by the largeness

of

the

number of those who ultimately came to be denonnced,
and

certain leanings, on grounds of policy, towards

clemency

to

which Trajan gives his sanction by

both of his decisions.

W e must, therefore, no longer hold to the view that

in this rescript (which, although originally intended

CHRISTIAN, NAME

O F

only for Pliny,

shortly afterwards published, along

with the whole correspondence, and taken as a
by other provincial governors) the persecution of the

Christians was now for the first time authorised.
Accordingly, we must proceed to investigate such notices

as

we have of earlier persecutions,

especially to

discuss the question whether in these cases the

was known to the authorities and consti-

tuted the ground of accusation.

we are informed by

Suetonius

(

25)

that

It

is quite im-

possible, however,

to

determine whether by

(on the form of the name, see above,

I )

we are here

to

understand Jesus, the preaching of whom by

Christians divided the 'Jews in Rome into two parties,
or whether Suetonius conceived him to have been
personally present in Rome, or whether we should take

to be a Jewish agitator of

nothing further

is

known.

is by no means decisive for the first

or the second alternative, even if we are to suppose that

and Prisca were already Christians when they

came to Corinth.

iv.

Pomponia

we

learn from Tacitus

(Ann.

1332) only that

57

A.

D.

she

was accused

superstitionis

and that she was

acquitted of the charge by her husband, the consular

A.

before whom she had been brought for

trial. At that time, however, the Jewish and Egyptian
religions were regarded

as

foreign, just as much as

the Christian, which has been supposed to be meant in
her case

Ann.

2

85

;

Suet.'

36).

For full

details see Hasenclever,

pp.

47-64.

v.

Persecution.-The notices we have of

the Neronian persecution are very obscure.

Tacitus

(Ann. 1544)

says: 'abolendo rumori (of having

the burning

of

Rome) Nero subdidit

et

affecit,

per flagitia invisos

vulgus

appellahat

.

. .

primum correpti qui fatebantur deinde

eorum

ingens

haud

in

quam odio

geueris

humani coniuncti

here

could

mean only

that

the

was

added

t o

the

3); the

reading

is

a

conjectural emendation

almost

universally adopted.

At the outset the only thing quite clear

is

that the

Christians were from the first accused

not

as Christians,

but

as

incendiaries.

Otherwise Nero could not have

been freed from the suspicion of being the guilty party.
T h e Christians, however, were innocent (subdidit) and

the ground

on

which they were condemned, accordingly,

was not so much

the evidence that they

had been incendiaries as the odium generis

humani.

this expression there cannot be understood a hatred of

which they were the objects : Roman society, which
alone could be regarded

as

cherishing it, cannot

possibly have been spoken of

as

genus

by

Tacitus. Still, understood

cherished by the Christians,

hatred of the human race'

is

no less an idea foreign

to

all legal conceptions, nor could it be supposed to

represent another ground

of

accusation against them,

over and above that of incendiarism.

Weizsacker

(A).

478,

ed.

462

ET

2

and

11,

2

4) try

indeed

to

make out that this actually

was

hrought

as

a charge against them

referring

to

Suetonius

(Nero 16) :

genus

superstitionis

ac

holding that

witchcraft and poisoning

are

meant

and

that

it

was

precisely

for these offences against society

the two

punishments

and

were

threatened and (according

to Tacitus) inflicted. These same punishments: however

were

attached

to many

other

crimes also. Suetonius says

about

the

conflagration as having occasioned

the

accusation

against

the

Christians. In

other

words,

he

follows an

entirely

different

account

and

we are

not justified

seeking

to

explain

Tacitus by

to Suetonius. The

authors agree only

in believing that the occurrence in question was confined

to

Rome.
The main question, then, in the case of Tacitus,

is

as

to what it was that the persons first accused made
confession of (fatedantur). The answer seems to lie to

our

hand :

Such

a

confession may

757

well have been made by them, though innocent,

inder torture.

As regards the

ingens

nothing

was required than merely some vague suspicions, or

few false witnesses, to whom the judges, on account of

he commonly assumed general perversity of the Chris-
ians (their odium

h u m a n i ) , were only too ready

o

give credence.

There remains, therefore, a

that the religion of the accused did not come into

at

all, and that Tacitus and Suetonius have,

carried back the name

from

.heir own time

that of Nero.

Were this not

so,,

.he reader, moreover, would expect to find

Tacitus a

indicating the characteristic attribute of those

by it after

one

would expect not

but some such expression

Another interpretation of

is

not less pos-

sible.

It is

that at first only

who had already

habitually confessed themselves in public to be Christians

fatedantur

esse)

were apprehended, a n d

that only

on the evidence obtained from these

in the course of the legal proceedings, a great number

ingens

of

those who had not hitherto made

such public profession shared the same fate.

T h e

Christians were laid hold

of

because it was hoped that

popular belief would readily attribute the incendiarism

to

them.

Although, on this supposition also, their re-

constituted no ground of accusation, it was

nised as distinct from the Jewish whereas if the other

is adopted the Christians may

have been regarded simply as Jews : Tacitus

( Hist.

5

5 )

ittributes

adversus

odium to the Jews also.

Clement of Rome further

51-62) tells us only that

the Christians suffered, without informing us why and
Paul's trial in Rome could throw light upon the question
before

us

only if we

what was its result.

Gallio

was not led by the accusation,

as

cited in

to suppose that

Paul

taught a religion dangerous to the

state.

The representation,

too

(though not necessarily

the fact), is open

to

suspicion on account of the tend-

ency' observable in Acts (see A

CTS

, §

In

a

word, the little that we really

of the Neronian

period does not enable

us

to come to

a

decision on

question

as

to the date and origin

of

the name

Christian.'

.

Ramsay, however (chap.

11,

6J)

considers that

the

second stage the Neronian persecution

permanent

otherwise

than

in

first

stage.

As

the

persecution

is

by

tonius along with other

measures

of

police which

must

have been

of

a permauent

nature,

he holds that it must have had the same

character

:

in

t h e

second stage, of

the persecution was not

on account

of

incendiarism

hut on

of

alleged witchcraft

and

Ramsay believes,

also

gives proof

of

this permanence

of

the persecution under Nero

when

he says,

. . .

sed

and Sulpicius Severus

is

understood to speak to

the same

effect-hoc initio

in

:

post

esse

non

Immediatelyupou

this,

I

;

3rd ed.,

pp.

244,

Ramsay explains

that the

word post refers to

emperors than Nero, and also concedes that

the

expressions

and

are

'loosely and inaccurately' employed

by

Sulpicius. Further, the

in

Tacitus traces

the

to the horrors

of

the public celebration

of

the executions

and

personal

participation

in

them-incidents which

were, of

course, not of

constant recurrence. The argument based

on

the

context

in

Suetonius

is

too precarious to

rest

history upon, even

apart from the doubtful interpretation

of

vi.

and

read in Sulpicius

Severus

that, in

a

council of war,

finally

decided on the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem

Christianorum

:

has

ex

:

Now, even were we to reject,

as

a

falsification of

history from motives of complaisance, the very different
statement of Josephus,

an

eye-witness

that

Titus wished the temple

to

be preserved, and were we

to carry back the words of Sulpicius Severus

to

Tacitus,

758

CHRISTIAN,

NAME

OF

whom he elsewhere always follows, we should still be a
long way from having proved the account of Severus to
be historical.

I t is in the highest degree improbable

that Titus had such erroneous ideas as to the depend-
ence of the Christians on the temple, while
to

them such dangerous qualities and so great a degree

of independence as apart from the Jews.

Even

sen

Gesch.

5539

on whose

authority Ramsay relies, detects here traces a t least of a
Christian editor.

Ramsay, however (chap.

1 2

re-

garding the speech as

a

programme for treatment of

Christians, holds it to be a historical document of the
utmost importance,' and further assumes that the pro-

gramme was actually carried out by Vespasian.

For

this he has not a word of proof to allege apart from the
statement of Suetonius

(

est

el

(by the three last words he

conjecturally fills a hiatus)

et

ingemnit-which, he considers, we are entitled

to

interpret as referring

to

processes against Christians.

Were this the case, it would be natural a t least to
expect that these should have begun immediately after
the destruction of the temple; but, according to

Ramsay, they did not begin till towards the end of the

reign of Vespasian.

As

far

as

the documents are

concerned, this last hypothesis finds still less support
than that of Vespasian's Christian persecution as a
whole.

All

that can be said for the hypothesis is that

it is requisite in order that, by the shortness of the per-
secution nnder Vespasian, the silence of Christian writers
respecting them may be explained (see below,

16).

Domitian.

-With regard to Domitian, Suetonius

tells

us

that eight niunths before his death

. .

.

in

ipso

Cassius Dio

14

),

according to

excerpt of the

Xiphilinus, adds

that a t the same time his wife,

was

banished to the island of Pandataria :

Now, Chris-

tian legend, and in particular the Pseudo-Clementine

and

of Flavius Clemens

as Bishop of Rome, and of his father as, like the
consular in Suetonius, related to the

family

the daughter of his sister (also called Flavia
became involved in

a

Christian persecution, and was

banished to

(the island adjacent to Pandataria).

This last statement is all the more important because
Eusebius (Chron. ann.

Abrah.:

H E

takes it from

a

heathen chronographer, Bruttius or

who wrote before

A

.D.

For further

details see Lipsius,

It

is alike natural and difficult

to

assume that Clement

and Domitilla represent each only one person, and that
person

a

Christian.

The charges in Cassius

taken

by themselves alone, show either that the question was
one not of Christians but of Jews, or that Christians at
that time still remained undistinguished from Jews.

T h e view that they were Jews can hardly be main-
tained.

I n the heathen writer Bruttius, Domitilla figures expressly

a

Christian, and in all later Christian writings Domitian

represented as a violent persecutor of the faith (see,

Euseb.

H E

H e is called

Tertullian

portio

de

and, though the heathen Juvenai

it is

says something to the same effect,

bases his

expressly upon the persecution

his brethren in the faith.

W e are, then, left with the second

o

the words of Cassius

that they relate to Christians.

Ramsay's method of evading this (chap.

12,

4)

is

forced-that in Dio's time

A

. D . )

,it was

fashion and a n affectation among a certain class o
Greek men of letters to ignore the existence of
Christians and

to

pretend to confuse them with

Jews.'

Further, in the collection of temple

759

now

a

state-fax) from the Jews, accdrding to Suetonius

were taken account of

qui

vel

(or

vitam) vel

As

at that

ime the

est, it would

very remarkable if here we were not intended to

both the Jewish Christians regarded as

persons and the Gentile Christians regarded

proselytes.

The Roman officers, we know from

Suetonius, in cases where it was necessary, satisfied

as to the fact of circumcision by inspection.

Even though greed may well have been a motive for

a t the profession of the Christian religion, it is

that the danger to the state presented by the Chris-

cannot have been taken very seriously.

W e

ire led to the same conclusion by the story

(as

far

it can be believed) of Hrgesippus (in Eus.

3

)

that Domitian released the grandchildren

Jude, the brother of Jesus, as not being dangerous
persons, although they confessed themselves

to

be not

only descendants of David, but also Christians.

It

was

not till the end of his reign that the persecution began.

viii.

far as the accusations under

had reference to Christians they are covered by the

regulations of Nerva (Cassius Dio, Ixviii.

1

after

Tertullian

and

(Eus. H E

20 5)

erroneously attribute the regulations to Domitian himself. T h e

text

of Cassius

Dio

is :

. . .

..

.

.

The preceding discussion of the Christian persecutions

makes it evident that the grounds upon which these

were conducted were by no means clearly
set forth, and that (partly on this account,
but mainly from want of information) we

can hardly venture to suppose the persecutions to have
been of

so

great frequency as we should have expected

on the principles laid

by Momnisen and Ramsay.

In particular, had they been so frequent, the hesitation
of Pliny-or, a t all events, that of Trajan-would be
quite inexplicable. Ranisay'sanswer (chap.

10,

6 ) ,

that

Trajan's

in

to

Pliny's doubt whether or

not

the question of age should

be allowed to make

a

difference in the punishment, is

quite inadmissible.

does not refer to the

decision upon a matter which was still in question.

It

refers, in commendation, to a judgment which Pliny had
already taken

:

.

.

.

Thus Ramsay's conjectures of some archive which
Trajan caused to

searched for the decisions of his

predecessors upon previous references by other pro-
curators must also be rejected.

Whatever the principles

of

the government, and however strongly they may

have led, if rigidly interpreted,

to

unremitting search

for and punishment of Christians once these had been
definitely distinguished from Jews, they can have been
carried into practice only in an intermittent way.

In

the conditions of privacy in which,

as

we know, the

Christians carried out the exercises of their religion,
no direct danger to the state can have manifested

In Pergamum Antipas was the only martyr

(Rev.

Therefore, Trajan's

sunt

was

a

mitigation

principle, indeed, but not

necessarily in practice.

If only parties could be

found to denounce, persecutions could be instituted,
after Trajan's time, on a much greater scale than
before under the influence of the stricter-but seldom
used--principle of

Such, according to all

documents, was in reality the case.

For

the period before Trajan we know of persecutions only

under Nero and Domitian. Tertullian, for example, was not
aware of aiiy others

5),

Melito in his Apology to

Antoninus

H E

iv.

expressly says that only

Nero

and Domitian

had

given u p the Christians to the slanders of denouncers. T o the

CHRISTIAN,

NAME

OF

same purpose we have

the

statement of

38)

that

. .

.

over against

which

the

spoken of

by Clemens

G

I

)

in

the reign of

Nero, and

the

ingens

of Tacitus,

must,

of course,

not he

overlooked.

I n view of such definite statements as these,

it is

not

possible to explain the silence of our authors-especially
that of Christian authors-on the persecutions which

Ramsay infers to have been instituted under Vespasian
and Titus,

as

being due only to the shortness of those

reigns-or rather the shortness of the portions of them
in which persecutions occurred (above,

6, vi. end)-

or

to

the fact that the Christians had no eyes for any-

thing except the imminent end

of

the world (Ramsay,

chap. 12,

Ramsay, it

true, finds support by assigning

I

Pet.

to about the year

-that is to say, the

of

Titus (chap.

75-79

the

reign of Vespasian

Oct. 1893,

p. 286). H e does so, however, on grounds

the validity of which depends on that of his hypothesis.

He shows with truth

that

the

epistle

presupposes accusations

on account

of the mere

and

that

it

was

composed at

the

beginning of

a

persecution

(4

3

2

14).

It

has also been rightly

urged

that

there

is

no reason for

assign-

ing

it

to the year

o n

the

mere

gronnd

that then for

the

time a

persecution

of

Christians

over

the whole

became possible. On

the other

hand before

that date there

had been

no

persecution which had

or

threatened

the

provinces

named

in 1

I

and gave cause

to

anticipate

its extension

over

the whole habitable world.

When the contents of this letter are considered, no

one who can be reached by critical considerations
will unreservedly maintain its genuineness, containing
as

it does

so

little that is characteristic of Peter and

so

much that is reminiscent of Paul.

The presence

in

of the words

and

which here are

superfluous

and

disturbing, and

have

appropriate

place

only in

1

I

3,

shows its dependence

on

that

epistle, which

in its turn

depends not

only on the

Epistles

of

Paul but also

on

that

to

the

Hebrews (11

cp

2

Dependence

on

is

shown

also

in

I

Pet.

5

which

is borrowed

from

In

the latter

passage

the

is

logical

44

. . .

and

in the former,

therefore,

in

like

the

of

v.

5

should

have been

followed

some

such

as

'submit yourselves one to another,'

if

the

writer

had been following

a

natural

and

not

a borrowed

train of

thought.

As

for the word

the only satis-

factory explanation of its use in

I

Pet. 4

to

denote a

criminal of the same class as

and

is

that of Hilgenfeld, according to whom what

is

intended

is the class of

who made

a

trade of denunci-

ation, which was first made criminal by Trajan

).

By

Ramsay under-

stands people who stir up strife between

of

the same family, or between servants and masters.
This accusation could be very easily brought against
Christians,

as

soon as they began to attempt conversions.

Ranisay's

however, that Nero gave power

to the courts of justice thenceforward to regard
such persons as magicians and to punish them as
criminals (chap.

rests upon no documentary evi-

dence

:

it proceeds solely upon his own interpretation of

the

of Suetonius (above,

6, v.).

Nor has

Ramsay made out (chap.

8,

I

that

I

Pet. presupposes search for Christians to have been

made by the state.

Were this so, the epistle could,

of

course, have been written

only either before Trajan's decision,

sunt, or

after the

re-enactment of

by Marcus Aurelius

;

but

here again it has

to

be remarked that,

if

only there

were

de-

nunciations enough-and Ramsay himself (chap. 10,

is aware

how readily

these could

at any

time appear

among

the class

of

sellers

of

sacrificial

animals

(Pliny to Trajan,

I

O

),

or among

people

in

the

position

of

Demetrius (Acts

24-34),

or

of the

masters

of

the

damsel with

the

spirit

of

divination

Pet.

3

5

become intelligible enough, even

after

the publication

of

Trajan's

conquirendi

non

sunt.

W e may still hold, therefore, that

I

Pet. was written

in

I

A.

D.

The

new thing we have learned

is

that, when

I

Pet. touches upon the subject of punishment for the

mere name of Christian

it is describing not

a

new attitude

of

the authorities but one that they have

been taking for some time.

This very fact makes it

to use this passage as

does as fixing

the date of the epistle for the transition period during
which punishmeiit of Christians only for

was

giving place to a system of

for the mere

name. Ramsay (chap. 13,

I

)

argues that this last mode

of persecution must have been new to the author,
because at the same time his language constantly pre-
supposes the

of the old state of things

but the exhortation in

that

should suffer as a

person is not in any case out of place, even if

had not thitherto been the only ground on which

the punishment of Christians

against such

Paul also constantly warns his readers (Gal.

5

I

Cor.

6

2

Cor.

and

that at

a

time when there was no thought of Christian

persecution. Further, the hope of being able by seemly
behaviour and good works

to

convince the secular

power of the injustice of persecution

( I

Pet.

2

3

etc.)

is

one that Christians can never have wholly abandoned,

and it found

a

reasonable justification in the plea of

Pliny

for mild treatment of those who had been

denounced. W e

understand its persistence most

easily on the assumption, as made above, that persecu-

tion was only then beginning.

The very positions argued for by Mommsen (and

accepted by Ramsay)

it clear that there never

had been a period during which
Christians, although recognised

as

a

distinct religious society, were punished
merely, and not on account of the

The strength

of Mommsen's view lies precisely in this: that the
name, as soon as it was known, also became punish-
able. According to

must also conclude,

conversely, that where

alone are punished the

is

not yet known.

Even for the

of Nero

this argumentation would be conclusive, had he not
wanted incendiaries.

But if,

as

Ramsay says, Chris-

tians under Nero were already recognised as distinct

Jews, then

other than fire-raising-as, for

example, witchcraft-cannot, even in the second stage
of the Neronian persecution (on the assumption of there
having been such a stage at all), have been the sole
ground on which condemnation proceeded.

On

the question as to the date at which Christianity first
began to be recognised

as

a distinct religion we must

confess ourselves completely at a loss.

Only this much

is certain

:

that it had come about before the time

of

Pliny's governorship.

From what has been said above,

the view of Neumann (and Lipsius) appears the most
plausible

:

the view, namely, that the distinction first re-

ceived recognition under Domitian, and, more precisely,
in the last year of his reign.

T o this Weizsaclcer and

others' object, with good reason, that it is highly
able that Christians should have passed for Jews

so

long.

T h e simple facts that they did not accept circumcision,
and frequented, not the synagogues but meeting-places

of their own, and moreover often came into conflict
with the Jews, made the recognition of a distinction
inevitable-especially as the Roman authorities, most
notably in

affecting societies, were wont to

take careful cognisance

of

even the minutest trifles, and

course, in

a

formal investigation, had means readily

a t their disposal for eliciting every detail.

If we had

nothing but Suetonius's account of Nero

to

go upon,

these considerations would certainly be held to be
conclusive even for the time of Nero; but

have

Tacitus, who makes

us

hesitate

what is said about

Domitian goes against

conclusion. Chris-

tian sources give no hope of

a

decision. Ramsay's citation

of

I

Pet. does not hold good that of the Apocalypse

Keim, the

only

one besides Lipsius

Carr, Expos.

June

pp.

who has

taken up

the

of

the

of

the name

of Christian

(Aus

dent

fhum,

1878,

CHRONICLER

is worthless as long as the unity and the date of the
book continue to he as questionable

as

they are and

the Pastoral Epistles are too doubtful.

Moreover, it is

not at all certain that they speak of

as the

ground

of

persecution,

so

as to necessitate their being

assigned to the period of Nero, even if Ranisay’s
view is adopted as correct; for

2

does not

necessarily

that Paul suffers

he is regarded

as a

can just

as

well mean that he suffers

the same penalties as those to which a

is

liable, but that the cause of them is in his case his
preaching of the gospel

(B

Y

other words, his

Christianity. I n like manner, it is quite as conceivable in

that the

n o m e n

is the cause of the sufferings

of all Christians as that

are.

As for the Third

Gospel and Acts, according to what has been said above

they show only that their author, about

was acquainted with the name, and knew nothing

as to its origin that rendered it impossible for him to
place its date ahout the year

40.

All that the

present discussion can be regarded

as

contributing

towards the solution of the question is the conjecture
that the Pagans, in as far as they knew the true
character of Christianity at a time before that which we
have definitely ascertained, hardly took any cognisance
of

it-on account of the infrequency with which it came

under public notice.

P.

w.

s.

CHRONICLER

S.

816

Is.

EV

R

ECORDER

CHRONICLES

I

K.

See H

IS

-

TORICAL

L

ITERATURE

, § 13

CHRONICLES,

BOOKS OF.

I n the Hebrew canon

Chronicles

is

a

single book, entitled

Events

of

the Times.

T h e

full title would he

Book

Events

Times;

and this again appears to have been a designation

commonly applied to special histories in the more

1.

Name.

definite

the

Times

or

the like

(I

etc.).

T h e Greek translators divided the long book into two, and
adopted the title

[often]

in the other historical books ; cod. A adds
the kings or

: see

T W

Jerome, following the sense

of the Hebrew title, sug-

gested the name of

instead of

et

The hook of Chronicles begins with Adam and ends

abruptly in the middle of Cyrus’s decree of restoration.

Hence the English

The continuation of the narrative is
found in the Book of Ezra, which

begins

repeating

Ch.

36

and

filling

the fragment of the decree

of

Cyrus. A closer

of chose parts of Ezra and

Nehemiah which are not extracted word for word from
earlier documents or original memoirs, leads to the
conclusion that Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah was origin-
ally one work, displaying throughout the peculiarities
of language and thought of a single editor (see

3 ) .

Thus the fragmentary close of

Chronicles marks

the disruption of

a

previously-existing continuity. I n

the gradual compilation of the canon the necessity for
incorporating in the Holy Writings an account of the
establishment of the post-exilic theocracy was felt, before
it was thought desirable to supplement Samuel and

Kings by adding

a

second history of the pre-exilic

period.

Chronicles

is

the last book of the

Hebrew Bible, following the hook of Ezra-Nehemiah,
which properly is nothing else than its sequel.

Whilst the original unity of this series of histories can

hardly he questioned, it will he more convenient in the
present article to deal with Chronicles alone, reserving the
relation of the several books for the article H

ISTORICAL

L

ITERATURE

The author used

class

of

sources for the history of the pre-exilic and the

post-exilic periods respectively

and thus the critical

questions affecting Chronicles are for the most part quite
distinct from those which meet us in the book of

763

CHRONICLES,

BOOKS

O F

Besides, the identity

authorship cannot

conclusively demonstrated except by a comparison of

esults drawn from a separate consideration of each book.

Of the authorship of Chronicles we know only what

:an be determined hy internal evidence. The colour

of the language stamps the hook as one

of

the latest in the OT (see

hut

t leads to

no

exact determination of dare.

In

I

Ch.

which refers to the time of David,

a

of

noney is reckoned by

( h i t see D

RAM

), which

implies that the author wrote after that

Persian coin had long been current in Judea.

The

passage appealed to by critics to fix the date,

is

I

Ch.

where the descendants of

seen to be reckoned to six generations (so

Bertheau, etc.

T h e passage is confused, and

reads it

so

as

to give as

nany a s eleven

(so

Zunz

Nold., Knen.

29 ; cp

54

; whilst on the other

those who plead for an

date are disposed to assume an interpolation or a corruption

the text or to separate all that follows the

of Jesaiah

n

what

Keil).

seems impossible,

by

any fair treatment of the text to obtain fewer than

;ix generations, and this

agrees with the probability that

who, on the interpretation which we prefer,

to

the fourth generation from

was a

of Ezra (Ezra

Thus the Chronicler lived at least two generations after

Ezra. With this it accords very well that in Nehemiah
five generations of high priests are enumerated from
Jeshua

and that the last name

is

that of

Jaddua, who, as we know from Josephus, was a
contemporary of Alexander the Great.

That the

Chronicler wrote after the period of the Persian
supremacy was past has been argued by Ewald (Hist.

and others, from the use of the title King

Persia

Ch.

3623).

T h e official title of the

was not King

of

Persia,’

‘ t h e King, ‘the Great King,’ the ‘King

of Kings,’. the

King of the Lands,’ etc. (see

5

Y

and the first

of

these expressions is that

Ezra

(7

8

I

etc.), Neh. (1

2

and other Jews writing under the

Persian

(Hag. 1

Zech. 7 Ezra 4

8

5

etc.).

What seems to be certain and important for

a

right

estimate of the book is that the author lived a consider-
able time after Ezra, probably indeed (Nold.
after 300

B.

and was entirely under the influence

ot

the religious institutions of the new theocracy.

.

This

standpoint determined the nature of his interest in the
early history of his people.

The

importance of Hebrew history had always

centred in the fact that this petty nation was the people of

.

the spiritual God. The tragic

interest which distinguishes the annals

of

Israel from the

history

of

Moab or Damascus, lies wholly in

long con-

test which finally vindicated the reality of spiritual things
and the supremacy of

purpose, in the political

ruin of the nation which was the faithless depositary

these sacred truths.

After the fall of Jerusalem it was

impossible

to

write the history of Israel’s fortunes other-

wise than in a spirit of religious pragmatism.

Within

the limits of the religious conception of the plan and
purpose of the Hebrew history, however, more than

one

point of view might be taken up. T h e book of Kings
looks upon the history in the spirit of the prophets-in
that spirit which is still echoed by Zechariah

:

Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, could

they live for ever?

my words and my statutes, which

I

commanded my servants the prophets, did they not

overtake your fathers? so that they turned and said, Like
as

of Hosts thought to do unto us

. . .

so

hath he

dealt with us.’ Long before the Chronicler wrote, how-
ever, there had been a great change. The new Jerusalem
of Ezra was organised as a municipality and a church,
not as a nation.

The centre of religious life was no

longer the living prophetic word, but the ordinances of the
Pentateuch and the liturgical service of the sanctuary.
The religious vocation of Israel was no longer national,

764

CHRONICLES, BOOKS

OF

but ecclesiastical

or

of the nation

municipal,

was vividly

and the historical
realised only within the

walls-of Jerusalem and the courts of the temple, in the

solemn assembly and stately ceremonial of a feast day.

These influences naturally operated most strongly

on

those who were officially attached to the sanctuary. T o
a

Levite, even more than to other Jews, the history of

Israel meant above all things the history of Jerusalem,
of the temple, and of the temple ordinances.

Now

the author of Chronicles betrays

on

every page his

essentially levitical habit of mind.

I t even seems

possible, from a close attention to his descriptions of
sacred ordinances, to conclude that his special interests
are those of a common Levite rather than

of

a priest,

and that of all levitical functions he is most partial to
those of the singers, a member of whose guild Ewald
conjectures him to have been.

T o such a

the older delineation

of

the history of

Israel, especially in Samuel and Kings, could not but
appear to be deficient in some directions, whilst in other
respects its narrative seemed superfluous or open to
misunderstanding, as for example by recording, and
that without condemnation, things inconsistent with the
pentateuchal law.

T h e history of the ordinances of

worship holds a very small place in the older record.
Jerusalem and the temple have not that central place in
the

Book

of Kings which they occupied in the minds

of

the Jewish community in post-exilic times.

sections of the old history are devoted to the religion and
politics of the northern kingdom, which are altogether
unintelligible and

when measured

a

strictly levitical standard

and in general the whole

problems and struggles of the earlier period turn on
points which had ceased to be cardinal in the life of the
new Jerusalem, which was no longer called upon to de-
cide between the claims of the Word of

and the

exigencies of political affairs and social customs, and
which could not comprehend that

absorbed in

deeper spiritual contests had no leisure for such things
as the niceties of levitical legislation.

Thus there seemed to be room for a new history,

confine itself to matters still interesting to

the theocracy of Zion, keeping Jerusalem and the
temple

in

the foreground, and developing the divine

pragmatism of the history, with reference, not so much
to the prophetic word

as

to the fixed legislation of the

Pentateuch (especially the Priest's Code), so that the
whole narrative might be made to teach that Israel's
glory lies in the observanceof the divine law and ritual.

The book falls naturally

into three parts.

I

.

Introductory

(

I

Ch.

the sake of systematic completeness

the author begins with Adam, as is the

custom with later Oriental writers. He bad nothing,
however, to add to the Pentateuch, and the period from
Moses to David contained little that served his purpose.

He, therefore, contracts the early history

( I

Ch.

1-9)

into

a series of

which were doubtless by no

means the least interesting part of his work at

a

time

when every Israelite was concerned to prove the purity
of

his Hebrew descent (see

and cp

G

E

N

E

-

A

LOGIES,

I.

§ 3). The greatest space

is

allotted natur-

ally to the tribes of

and

6

;

but, except where the author derives his

-materials from the earlier historical books (as in

1

his lists are meagre

and

imperfect, and his data

evidently fragmentary.

however, the

stances and interests of the author betray themselves
for even in these chapters his principal object is
to explain, in a manner consonant with the conception!
of his age, the origin of the ecclesiastical institutions

o

the post-exilic community.

Observe that

I

Ch. 9

is excerpted (with merely

differences) from Neh. 11

(on

the

see

E

Z

R

A

,

5

[

I

] a);

and that the

to

the genealogies

See the articles

on

the several tribes.

I.'

of

Chronicles.

Ch. 3

and 8

(cp

35-44, and see

B

E

N

J

AM

IN

,

are

shows that their purpose is to give the pedigree of post-

who traced their descent from David and Saul

spectively. I n ch. 2 We.

c p more briefly

[ E T

has shown that

the

of the chapter, relate to pre-exilic Judah, whilst

1-24 34-47

(like the greater part of

4

1-23) have reference

the

of the post-exilic community

;

the chief aim

'ch. 2 is to explain how the Calebites, who before

fall

had their home in the

S.

of Judah, had in post-exilic

mes to find new homes

in the more

Darts of Tudah

ee

C

A

LEB

,

Israel before the

( I

Ch.

Ch. 11.-From

death of

(

I

Ch.

'the history becomes fuller

nd runs parallel with Samuel and Kings.

The

ons of the author's interest in past times appear in the
mission, among other particulars, of David's reign
Iebron, of the disorders'in his family and the revolt of

of the circumstances of Solomon's accession,

nd of many details as to the wisdom and splendour of

sovereign as well as of his fall into idolatry.

Ch.

the

iter history the northern kingdom is

neglected, and

affairs in Judah receive attention, not in

to their intrinsic importance, but according as

serve to exemplify God's help to the obedient

is chastisement of the

That the author is

unwilling to speak of the misfortunes of good

tilers, is not to be ascribed with some critics

to

a

eliberate suppression

of

truth, but shows that the book

throughout composed not in purely historical

but with a view to inculcate a single practical

Additions

to

I

.

The more important

which the Chronicler makes to the old

consists of ( a ) statistical lists

( I

Ch.

12,

see

iii.) ;

full details on points connected

the history of the sanctuary (see

and the great feasts (see

the

of

the Levitical

(see

I

Ch.

1 3

15 1 6

(these three chapters

remarkably from

6 )

22-29

Ch. 29-31

etc.

)

;

and (c) narratives of victories and defeats,

sins and punishments, of obedience and its reward,

which could be

to point a plain religious lesson in

avour of faithful observance of the Law.

See the following passages

:-

-2

Ch. 13

1 4 9-15

Zerah), 15

I

-15

the prophet Azariah),

and

Hanani) 19

(Jehoshaphat and the prophet Jehu) 20 Jehosha-

and

etc.), 21

25 5-10

(Amaziah)

These narratives often include prophetical discourses,

the same principle of the theocratic

of

success and failure, with much uniformity

ot

and in a tone very different from that of the

prophets who appear in Samuel or Kings.

Attention should be directed also to the

short

insertions, introduced often into the narratives excerpted

the older historical books, for the purpose of

supplementing them at some point where they appeared
to the author to need explanation or correction.

Such are the notes on

I

Ch. 15

(David) ; Ch.

5

13

13-15

(Solomon); 236

13

(middle)

(from

19

(deposition of Athaliah); 349 ('the Levites')

(from

'and the')

etc. the reflections in

I

Ch. 21

Ch. 8

(Solomon's

wife's palace); 12

(Rehoboam

himself); 18

delivers Jehoshaphat) ; 2238 46 (cause

of

wickedness);

(to

cause of plot

against Amaziah); 26

23

(middle;

consequences of

leprosy)

;

27

6

(effects of

piety) 33 23 (char-

acter of

T h e minor variations of

from Samuel and

Kings are analogous

in

principle to the larger additions

and omissions, so that the whole work has a consistent
and well-marked character, presenting the history in
quite a different perspective

that of the old

narrative.

Is

the change

of perspective wholly due to a different selection

of

items from authentic historical tradition

?

May we assume that everything which is

new in Chronicles has been taken exactly from older

Here, then, a critical question arises.

CHRONICLES, BOOKS

OF

sources, or must we judge that the standpoint

of

the

author has not only governed

selection of facts, but

also coloured the statement of them?

all his

novelties new data, or are some of them inferences of
his own from the same data as

lie

before

us

in other

books of the

O T ?

T o answer these questions we must first inquire what

were the materials a t his command.

The Chronicler

makes frequent reference to earlier histories which he
cites by a great variety of names.

I

.

The

Book of

the

the names Book

of the Kings of Israel and Judah,' Book of the Kings
of Judah and Israel.'

Book of the Kings of Israel,'

and Affairs of the Kings of Israel

( 2

Ch. 33

)

refer to a single work

is

not disputed.

Under one or

other title this

is

cited some ten times

(

I

Ch. 9

I

368,

3232, noted below).

That it is not the canonical Kings is manifest from

what is said of its contents.

I t must have been quite an extensive work, for among other

things it contained genealogical statistics

as well as

other particulars, not mentioned in the existing Book of Kings
(see

33

18

and it incorporated certain older

writings

of (or about) prophets-in particular the

or rather

Matters,

History) of Jehu ben Hanani

where read with RV, 'which is inserted in') and

the Vision

Isaiah

Ch. 32

32).

Now it is noticeable that, where the Chronicler does

not cite this comprehensive work a t the close of a king's
reign, he generally refers to some special authority
which bears the name of a prophet

(

I

Ch. 29

Samuel,

Nathan,

Gad

2

Ch.

9

Nathan, Ahijah, and Iddo

and Iddo

Iddo

Isaiah).

Never, however, are both the Book

the

Kings

and

a

special prophetic writing cited for the same reign.

It

is

therefore highly probable that, in other cases as

well as in those of Jehu and Isaiah (see above), the
writings cited under the names

of

various prophets were

known to the author only as parts of the great

of

tile Kings.

Even Ch. 33

(cp

v.

where

AV departs from the received

Hebrew text, hut probably expresses the correct reading seems

to

confirm

to

oppose this conclusion (which' is now

disputed by very few scholars) except in the case of Isaiah's
history of Uzziah

( z

Ch.

where the form of the

is different.

T h e references to these

will thus not imply

the existence of historical monographs

the

prophets with whose

they are connected

they

will merely point to sections of the

Book

of

Kings,

which embraced the history of particular prophets, and
were hence familiarly cited under their names.

The

of

the Book

of

the Kings.-Whether

the Book of the Icings is

with the

(RV,

badly,

of

the Book of

the

Kings

Ch.

not certain.

On the one hand, the peculiar

title would suggest

a

distinct work on the other hand,

it is not apparent why, if (as-its title shows) it was

a

comprehensive work, dealing with the kings generally,
it should be cited for only one reign.

The term

Midrash,' moreover, from

t o

out,

investi-

gate,-as applied to Scripture, to discover or develop a

thought not apparent on the surface,-denotes a didactic
or

homiletic exposition, or a n edifying religious story

(such, for instance, as that of Tobit or Susannah) ; the
Midrash here referred to will thus have been a work
intended to develop the religious lessons deducible from
the history of the kings.

This, however, is just the

guiding motive in many of

narratives, peculiar to

Chronicles, for which the author cites as his authority
the Book

the

Kings;

the last-named work, therefore,

if not identical with the Midrash

of

the Book

of

'The Seers' : so

Bertheau, Kuenen, Ball,

Oettli,

Budde and Kittel read

Lis

(cp

Those who follow

M T

(as Ew.

Hist.

1184,

Keil) find

in

v.

19

an unknown prophet

(cp

Though common in Rabbinical literature, it occurs other-

wise in the

OT

only in Ch. 13

767

the Kings (as

We. Kue. with much probability

suppose), will nevertheless have been similar in character
and tendency (cp below,

T h e ,

of

the prophet

( 2

Ch. 1 3

z z )

will

have been either a particular section of the Midi-ash of

the Book

of the

Kings,

or, more probably, perhaps, a

separate work of the same character, which was attributed
to Iddo as its author, or in which the prophet Iddo
played a prominent part.

For allusions to other

authorities, see

I

Ch.

Ch.

3.

Conclusion.-All these writings must have been

post-exilic works

nor is it probable that, except for

some of his statistical information, the Chronicler had
access to any sources of early date other than the
canonical histories of the OT. The style (see below,

is conclusive evidence that no part of the additional

peculiar to Chronicles is a n excerpt from any

pre-exilic writing.

The general conclusion

is

that it is very doubtful

whether the Chronicler used any historical work not
accessible to us, with the exception of this lost Book of

the

Kings.

Even his genealogical lists may have been

derived from that work

(

I

Ch. 9

I

) ,

though for these he

also have had other materials a t command.

4.

of

the Canonical Kings.-Now we know

that the two chief sources of the canonical hook of

Kings were entitled

[

events of the times

of

the

Kings of

and Judah respectively.

That the

lost source of the Chronicles was not independent

of

these works appears probable both from the nature
of the case and from the close and often verbal
parallelism between many sections of the two biblical
narratives

Whilst the canonical Book of Kings, how-

ever, had separate sources for the

N.

and the

S .

king-

doms, the source of Chronicles was a history of the two
kingdoms combined, and

so,

no doubt, was a more

recent work, in great measure extracted from the older
annals.

Still it contained also matter not derived from

these works, for it is pretty clear from

21

17

that

the

of

the

Kings

of

gave no account of

repentance, which, according

Ch. 33

was narrated in the great Book

of

the

of

5. Dependence

of

on

was

formerly the opinion of Bertheau, and other scholars

,

Keil), that the parallelisms of Chronicles with Samuel

and Kings are

explained by the ultimate

common

from which both narratives drew.

Most critics hold, however, that the Chronicler also
drew directly from the canonical Samuel and Icings, as
he unquestionably did from the Pentateuch.

This

opinion

is

probable in itself, as the earlier books of the

OT

cannot have been unknown to the author

;

and the

critical analysis of the canonical Book of Kings shows
that in some of the parallel passages the Chronicler
uses words which

not taken from the

but

written by the author of Kings himself.

In particular,

Chronicles agrees with Kings in those short notes of the
moral character of individual monarchs which can hardly
be ascribed to a hand earlier than that of the final
author of the latter book (cp

Ch.

[Asa]

with

I

K . 2243;

with

K.

123

[Jehoash];

[Amaziah], with

2

etc.). It is of

course possible, as Bertheau (xliv.

and

32

suppose, that the author of the chief source of

Chronicles had already incorporated extracts from our
canonical book of Kings and in general the connec-
tions of the successive historical books which preceded
the present canonical histories are sufficiently complex
to make it unwise to indulge in positive assertions
on a matter in which

so

many

may be

suggested.

g,

end).

Including the genealogies and statistical matter, which (in

so

far

as they are not

lists of names) show

able marks of the Chronicler's hand, and must therefore be
regarded as his compilations : see,

late

expressions in

I

421

2233

etc.

CHRONICLES,

BOOKS

OF

In

studying Chronicles

a sharp

distinction o u g h t

to

be

d r a w n between t h e parts excerpted (without

substantial alteration) from

thk

earlier

canonical

historical

books a n d t h e

The

aarts

to the

Chronicler.

recently

published

of

Chronicles

by Kittel

(SBOT),

in

which such excerpts

are

coloured light red,

will materially assist t h e reader

in

d o i n g this.

The

question arises, W h a t

is

t h e historical value of

the

passages

peculiar

to

Chronicles? After what

has

been

said,

it can

hardly

be

doubtful t h a t , except f o r

some

of

his

statistical information, his o n e genuine

ancient source w a s t h e series of

the

F o r m e r Prophets,’

Samuel

and

( m o r e

largely)

Kings.

The

MSS

of

these

books which

he

employed preserved occasionally

a

better

reading than is found

in the

existing

where

he

a d d s

to

the

earlier narrative

or

d e p a r t s

from

it, his variations

are seldom

such

as to

inspire con-

fidence.

In large

measure these variations

are

d u e

to

his

assumption,

the

validity

of

which

he

never questions,

that the

religious institutions

of his own

time

h a v e

existed

in

t h e s a m e f o r m

in

old Israel.

I.

High

in a

time

when

h i g h places

were

universally regarded

as

idolatrous, t h e Chronicler

could n o t imagine

that

a

g o o d k i n g

had

tolerated them.

whereas

I

15 14 2243 state that Asa and Jehoshaphat

did not

the high places, the Chronicler

says that they

did

abolish them.

Levitical

Choirs.- Again,

he

assumes t h a t

the

Levitical organisation of his own time, a n d especially

the

three choirs of singers, were

established

by

David.

Had this really been the case, the silence of the older history

would he inexplicable. indeed the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah
shows that, even at

time of the return from Babylon, the

system with which the Chronicler was familiar had not been
elaborated for the ‘singers’ there still form

a separate class

not yet

with the Levites.

The narrative in

S.

6

of the removal of the ark to Zion

say

a word respecting the presence of Levites upon the

occasion. In

I

Ch. 13

this omission is made good

:

the

Levites, including the singers, take

a prominent part in the

ceremony: the mishap of

is represented

as due to

the fact that the ark had not at first been properly carried by
the Levites, and

a psalm composed of parts of

(105

1-15

106

I

is placed in David’s mouth

I n

I

K.83 the ark is borne by priests (in accordance

and

all

pre-exilic allusions);

in Ch. 54 Levites

is

substituted for ‘priests,’ to

the passage into conformity

with the later Levitical law.

(c)

In

K . l l

Jehoiada’s assistants in the revolution which

cost

Athaliah her life are the foreign body-guard which we

know to have been

in the temple down

the time

of

Ezekiel (44 7) hut in Ch. 23 the Carians (see C

HERETHITES

)

and the foot-guards give place to the Levites in accordance
with the rule of the second temple, which did

allow aliens

to approach

so near to the holy things. ‘Deliberate altera-

tions’ (Be.) are in

introduced throughout the

narrative: and

a new colouring is imparted to the whole

There are other incidental allusions, also, which show that

the author is really describing institutions of a date later than
the age

to which he refers them. Thus

not only do the

gates mentioned in

(under David) presuppose the

existence of a temple, but also the Persian name
given to one of them

(u.

shows that the writer is thinking

the post-exilic temple.

The allusions in

(in the

speech put into Abijah’s month) to the golden candlestick and
the evening burnt-offering, point also to the

of the same

age

:

in the pre-exilic

the

of golden candlesticks

was not one but ten

(I

K.

see however C

ANDLESTICK

I

),

and the evening sacrifice

the

was not

holocaust

a

cereal oblation

:

I

K.

18 36

K.

16

In

his descriptions

of

pre-exilic solemnities,

as

in

t h e

speeches which

he

places i n

the

m o u t h

of

pre-exilic

characters,

the

Chronicler i s unconsciously a n

A portion of Robertson Smith’s article in the

is here

omitted; and this and the following section ($8)

the (pre-

sumably) more matured view expressed

the author in

Cp

I

Ch. 21

(excusing David

s

sacrifice on Arannah’s

threshing-floor and explaining why he could not go to

Ch.

the worship at the high-place of Gibeon

c p

I

(

I

K.

altered

to harmonise

the practice of

post-exilic temple); and the short notices

relating to ritual, especially the functions of the singers, instanced

5,

25

peachable

witness to

the

religious

usages

and

beliefs

of his own t i m e

it is

inconsistent

with sound

historical

principles t o treat

his

testimony with

regard to

antiquity

as

of equal valne with

that

of the older a n d m o r e

nearly

contemporary

writings, where t h e two,

whether directly

or by

legitimate inference,

are at

variance.

Another principle traceable i n

the

Chronicler’s addi-

tions

is

the

tendency n o t merely t o

lay stress

u p o n

the

doctrine

of

divine retribution,

but

also

to

represent i t

as

acting immediately

(see

especially below

[ e ] ) .

To the

earlier

prophets t h e retributive justice

of

G o d

is

manifest i n t h e general course of t h e history- -the fall

of

t h e H e b r e w nation is t h e fruit of

sin

a n d rebellion a g a i n s t

m o r a l

God’s

justice is mingled

with long-suffering,

the

prophets

d o n o t s u p p o s e

that

every

is

punished promptly,

and

that

temporary

g o o d fortune

is

always t h e reward

of

righteousness.

T h e a i m of very m a n y of t h e additions m a d e in

Chronicles t o t h e old history,

is

to

show t h a t i n Israel

retribution followed immediately

on

g o o d

or

bad

con-

duct, especially o n obedience

or

disobedience t o

pro-

phetic warnings.

In

I

we read that Jehoshaphat built

ships

great

vessels) at

for

the

Arabian gold-trade hut the ships were wrecked before starting.

For

this the Chronicler seeks a religious reason.

As

I

K.

proceeds to relate that, after the disaster, Ahaziah

of

offered to join Jehoshaphat in a fresh enterprise and the latter
declined, the narrative of

I

is so altered ’in Ch.

376 as to represent the king of Israel as having been partner in
the ships that were wrecked; whilst in

there is an

addition stating that Jehoshaphat was warned by

a prophet

of

the certain failure of an undertaking in which he was associated

with the wicked Ahaziah.

(6) I n

K.

3 we read of a war with Moah in which Jehosha-

phat was associated with the wicked house of

and came

off scathless. In Chronicles this

is entirely omitted and in

its place we have

Ch. 20) an expedition of Jehoshaphk alone

against Moab, Ammon, and

in which the Jewish king,

having opened the campaign-with the assistance of the Levites
-with suitable prayer and praise, has no further task than to

the dead of the enemv who have fallen bv one another’s

.

(c)

Kings states simply

as a fact that Shishak invaded Judah

and carried off the treasures of the temple and palace : the
Chronicler inserts between

I

K.

and

26 a notice explaining

that this was because Rehoboam had forsaken

but that,

as he

and

his princes had humbled themselves, they should not

he entirely destroyed (z Ch.

cp

v.

I n Kings, Asa, who according to

I

K. 15 14 was a good

king

all his days, had in his old age

(u.

a

disease in his feet.

With the object, apparently, of accounting for this, the Chronicler
explains

Ch.

; cp the addition in

that three

years previously he had shown a distrustful spirit by contracting
an alliance with Benhadad (which is mentioned in

I

without any

of disapproval on the part of the narrator).

T h e singular dates in

2

Ch. 15

16

I

(which place Baasha’s

invasion a t

a period which according to

I

168 was ten

years after his own

are most naturally

as

an

attempt to hring the fault sufficiently near the punishment.

(e)

Similarly the misfortunes of Jehoash,

and Azariah

are explained by sins of which the older history knows nothing

265

and Pharaoh Necho

himself is made a prophet that the

and death of Josiah

may be due to his

of a

divine warning

whilst on the other hand, Manasseh, whose character as depicted
in

K.

21

23

(cp

Jer.

is without a redeeming

feature, is represented

as a penitent

Ch. 33

in order,

it would seem, to justify his long

All this is eniirely i n t h e style of

the

Jewish M i d r a s h

it

is not

history, b u t

r o m a n c e

a t t a c h i n g t o historical n a m e s

and

events.

The

Chronicler

himself,

it will be

remembered (see

above,

6

gives

the-name

of Midrash’

to-two of

the

sources

f r o m

which

Where the ‘yet’ of

RV

should he ‘and

also’

as

well

as

in the alliance with Benhadad).

K.

15 5 mentions only the fact that

became a leper.

I

Ch. 10

(the cause assigned for Saul’s death),

invasion), 21

227 25

I

troubles attributed

to

his

idolatry),

In

the older narratives of

Kings have been not less curiously transformed than in

2

Ch.

(see above, 7

Be.,

ad

5

30

31

We.

[ET

The correspondence

and Solomon

Ch. 2

I

K.

has

been rewritten by the Chronicler (with reminiscences from other
parts of Kings) in his own style.

CHRONICLES, BOOKS

OF

his materials were derived. There need be no uncer-
tainty, therefore, as to the nature of his work when it
departs from the older narratives of

and

K.

Another peculiarity of the Chronicler is to be found

in the incredibly

with which he deals.

David

Ch. 22

amasses

ooo

9.

Exaggerations.

talents of gold and

talent; of

silver for the temple (contrast the much

more modest estimate of even Solomon’s revenue in

I

K.

10

;

the army of Ahijah numbers 400

ooo

men, that of Jerohoam

of

whom 500 ooo perish

one day

Ch. 13 3 17) ; Asa

580,000

Zerah

I

ooo

Jehoshaphat

(17

he complains that he

has

no

; of the army of Ahaz

are slain in one day, while

women and children

are taken captive (2868).

T h e

past was magnified,

as

it was also idealised.

empire of David and his successors was imagined on a
scale of unsurpassed power and magnificence

;

pre-exilic

Judah was’ pictured

as

already in possession of the in-

stitutions, and governed-at least in its greater and
better men-by the ideas and principles which were
in force at

a

later day.

The past was read in the

light of the present, and the history, where necessary,
re-written accordingly.

No

doubt in many instances a

traditional element lies

at

the basis of the Chronicler’s

representation ; but this element has been developed

by him, and embellished with fresh details, for the pur-
pose of giving expression to the ideas which he had at
heart, and of inculcating the lessons which he con-
ceived the history

to

teach.

I t is probable that the

new conception of Israel’s past history, and the char-
acteristic didactic treatment of it, did not originate with
the Chronicler himself, but had already appeared in
the Book of

the

Kings

of

and

or the

of

the

Book

of

Kings,

which he

so

frequently cites as

his authorities (cp Re. xxxvii.).

A

usage, not peculiar

to

the Chronicler among O T

writers, which must be carefully taken into account by

Manifestly such figures cannot be historical.

the historical critic, is that of giving
information that is really statistical in
the form ,of a narrative.

This is the

principle which underlies many of the

O T

statements of

genealogical relationships, and which alone explains the
variations between different accounts of the genealogy
proceeding from

a

single ancestor : information

as

to

the subdivisions of clans, the intermingling of popula-
tions, and the like, is thrown into a genealogical form
(see G

ENEALOGIES

,

I

).

The most striking example of

the application of this principle is the ethnographical
table of Gen.

10

(cp also

13-16,

and parts

of

36)

;

but these instances by no means stand alone

there are many in

I

Ch.

Thus it is avowedly the

of 2 24 42-45 49-55 4 2-5 11-14

17-23

to indicate

of local populations : in 2 43

the town, has ‘sons.

Several of the names in 2 4 are also

of Edomite clans (Wellh.

De

etc.

these

came

gradually to be treated as belonging

to

Judnh, and the con-

nection was afterwards exhibited artificially in a genealogical
scheme.

Caleb and

were not originally Israelite ;

Caleb belonged to the Edomite clan (Gen. 36

of the

(Jos.

and clans bearing the name of Caleb and

are in ’David’s time (

I

27

cp 30

note also

the terms of

still distinguished from Judah: in

course of time, however, they were regarded as a n integral part
of the tribe and a genealogy was formed

(I

Ch. 2

25)

to give

expression

the

A

different application of the same principle seems

So

in

7

Ephraim is not a n individual, but the tribe

;

and

Cp

in

and

are,

no doubt, Ephraimite clans.

Bennett in

chap.

iv.

esp.

to lie in the account of the institutions of Levitical
service which is introduced in connection with the trans-
ference of the ark to Jerusalem by David.

The

is not concerned to distinguish the gradual steps by
which the Levitical organisation attained its

develop-

ment. H e wishes to describe the system in its complete
form, especially

as

regards the service of the singers,

and he does this under the reign of David, who was the
father of Hebrew psalmody [cp

223

and

the restorer of the sanctuary of the ark.

The style of the Chronicler has remarkable peculiari-

ties.

I t is not merely that it presents characteristically

late linguistic novelties (which are not con-
fined to the vocabulary, but, as Konig’s

Syntax

der

fully shows, extend to the

Syntax), but it has

also

a

number of special mannerisms.

Even the reader of a translation can see that this must
be the case.

Modern words, often with Aramaic

ties, inelegant syntax, cumbrous and uncouth sentences,
in strongest possible contrast to the ease and grace of
the earlier Hebrew historical books,-

these are the

predominant marks of the Chronicler’s style; and

so

constant are they that there is hardly a sentence, not
excerpted from Samuel or Kings, in which they are not
observable.’ For details we must refer to the Intro-
ductions and Commentaries (see

xiv.

Dr.

F. Brown, Hastings’

It might be thought, by those unacquainted

with the Chronicler’s manner, that the speeches in

Chronicles might form as a whole an exception to
what

is

here stated, and that they might conceivably

be based on some special

of older date.

this would be a great mistake. The tone and literary
style of the speeches which have parallels in Samuel
and Kings are both very different from those which
have been added by the Chronicler.

The latter not

only reflect, almost uniformly, the ideas and point of
view of the Chronicler himself, but also exhibit frequently
the same literary peculiarities. There can be

no

reason-

able doubt that they are, one and all, his own
sition.2

work in the

2 1873) is still

a most

helpful commentary

;

Keil

in Lange’s

Oettli

12.

Bibliography.

(‘89);

(‘73);

Ball (learned), Ellicott’s

Bennett (suggestive)

(‘94).

On isagogic questions

(structure, sources,

of narrative,

the principal

works are D e
d.

vol. 1); Keil,

(‘33).

and

;

Movers,

(‘34)

Graf

Das

der Chron. als Geschichtsquelle,‘

in

Die Gesch.

p.

(see also Be.

viii.); Ew.

Hist.

1169

De Wette-Schr.

We.

[ E T

Kue.

28-32

thorough) Dr.

Letter-

$ 2 5 ‘

$

54.

Cp also

Bu. Vermutungen

der

in

1892,

p. 37

(speculative) ; Ki.

Edition, etc., with

Notes,

SBOT (Hebrew), ’95 ; W.

E.

Barnes, Religious Stand-

point of the Chronicler,’ Am.

Sent.

and

Oct.

‘Chronicles a

Ex.

Times, 8316

(‘97);

t o

Chronicles in

a rather surprising number of variants in the

primary MSS)

F. Brown, art. ‘Chronicles,’ Hastings’

R .

R .

The peculiarities in question may often he observed even

in the short sentences which the Chronicler sometimes intro-
duces into a narrative otherwise excerpted without material
alteration from Samuel or Kings:

I

Ch. 21

I

3

end

end

1 8 3

end,

etc.

For illustrations see Dr.

Speeches in Chronicles,’

Apr. and

772

CHRONOLOGY

CHRONOLOGY

CHRONOLOGY

CONTENTS.

A. OLD TESTAMENT.

I.

D

IFFICULTIES

1-15).

Lack of System

dates late and hypothetical

Astrononiy

3-15).

S

OURCES

OF

H

E L P

.

Introductory

I.

L

I F E

OF

J

ESUS

42-63).

I

.

Baptism

43).

Length of public ministry

3. Its beginning

47-49).

Assyriology

23-26).

Menander

30).

Caution

27).

certain

OT

dates

28).

Approximate earlier dates

31

B.

NEW

TESTAMENT.

R

ESULTS

.

4. Year

of death

5. Year of birth

57-62).

6.

Conclusions

63).

L

IFE O

F

P

AUL

64-80).

I

.

Entry into Europe to

ment at Rome

64-71).

Chronology

of the several periods

I

.

Solomon to Jehu

32).

Certain dates : Jehu t o fall

of

Samaria

33).

3. Chronology of

N.

Israel

34).

4. Chronology of Judah

35-37).

Earlier period

3. Closing period

Confirmation

results

(55

76-78).

C

HUR

C

HES

I N

P

ALE

S

T

IN

E

D

ATES

TABLES.

A. OLD

5. Survey : Solomon

to Herod

38)

6. Secular History
7. Life of Jesus

63).

8.

Paul’s

middle period

71).

Paul

:

first period

(5

75).

TO

.

Paul : last period

Other dates

84).

I

.

data as

t o

reigns

7)

theories ($

3. Assyriological dates

25).

4. Reigns : Solomon

t o

Jehu

32).

B. NEW

T E S T A M E N T -

BIBLIOGRAPHY

85).

A . OLD

TESTAMENT.

The advantages afforded by

a

fixed and uniform

chronological system of defining historical events seem

so

evident that one might expect to find

some such method of determining dates
in

use

from the very earliest times.

History, however, shows that

a

long development

was needed to lead to this simple result.

Only in

connection with a universal history did the desire
for a uniform and comprehensive method of determining
dates spring up. T h e impulse towards a real universal
history and a general chronology came, not when the
attempt was made to collect and record all human
events, but when men learned to look at them from a

single point of view and to comprehend them in

a

single

plan.

T h e roots of such a universal history lie in the

prophets of Israel, who regarded the plan of

as

realising itself in the experience of the nations of

the earth as well as in the history of Israel; and its
actual beginnings, strange as it may seem, are to be
found in the Apocalyptic writers, who regarded history

as a

comprehensive whole (see A

POCALYPTIC

,

This mode of regarding history was continued by
Christianity.

I t is not strange, therefore, that Chris-

tianity felt the need for a universal chronology and
found

way of meeting that need, thus proving its

own world-embracing significance.

This is not the

place to enter upon the long and involved history of
the adoption of the Christian era, which, after its author,
the Roman abbot Dionysius Exiguus of the first half

of

the sixth century,

is

also called the Dionysian era.

In

order, however, to obtain a fixed starting-point from

which to reckon, we must simply state here that the
year

the year of the birth of Christ-is equivalent

to the year 754 of the era of

the era of the

city of Rome,-and to the first year of the
Olympiad; and, also, that King Herod died in the

year

of the city of Rome, and

so

in the year

4

(cp Schiir.

T h e same phenomenon of gradual arrival at a satis-

factory chronological method is repeated in the narrower
sphere of the national history of the several nations.
W e never find a settled era, a definite date from which
years were counted, at the very beginning or even at
an early period of

a

nation’s history. If anything of

this kind has seemed to appear in early times, it has
always turned out to be in the highest degree uncertain,
or really to rest on later calculations.

Nor is the

773

O T any exception to this rule.

Only once had the

Jews before Christ

a

national era, and that was for a very

short time. When Simon the Maccabee had obtained
from the Syrians complete freedom from taxation along
with the acknowledgment of the political independence
of Judea, documents and contracts were dated by years

of Simon, the High Priest and Prince of the Jews, the
first year of Simon the High Priest

(

I

representing the 170th year of the era of the

Seleucides

On

the other hand, since the time when the Jews

fell under the dominion of Syria, they had used the
so-called era of the

I

Macc.

1

[Assyrian = Syrian],

Jos.

Ant.

67

amongst

the Jews, and year

amongst the Syrians).

This era has for its starting-point the defeat

of

Nicanor,

the general of Antigonus, by Seleucus

and the

final establishment of the dominion of the
in Syria and Babyloniain

01.

117,

312

B

.

C.

I t is used

in

the

Books

of the Maccabees, but

there, it would seem, with this difference, that in the
first book it begins, not, as was usual elsewhere, in
the autumn, but in the spring of

thus about half

a

year

This era reached in general as far

as

the Syrian power, and although, usually, where states
were able to obtain freedom they introduced new eras
of their own, none was able to maintain itself so long

as

that of the

It

remained in use, indeed,

among the Syrians for centuries alongside of the Arabic
era, which counts from the Hegira

flight of

Mohammed), 16th July, 622

A.

D

.

Real eras are not met with in the

O T

in earlier times.

cannot cite

as

an exception the practice of the Jews

during the Exile, of counting the years since they were
carried away from their land

Ezek.

and

K.

also Jer.

and Ezek.

and, without mention of the point from which the

reckoning is made, Ezek.

81

201 291

In truth,

they desired nothing more eagerly than to be delivered
from the need of counting in this way.

Besides, there

Whether the numbers

that are

found

on silver shekels

and half-shekels

with

the inscription

or

refer

to another era than this

of Simon’s, and, if

so,

t o

some pre-Christian era has not been decided.

That Simon

had coins stamped

is hardly to he doubted (cp

I

Macc. 1 5 6 ; also

1

636.6:).

So

1 3 3 ; We., however

regards this

a s unnecessary (cp Y

E A R

,

774

CHRONOLOGY

CHRONOLOGY

was along with it a reckoning from the final fall of
Jerusalem (Ezek. 40

I

) ,

while Ezek.

1

I

(if the text has

reached us intact)

rest on still a third mode of

reckoning.’

It is, moreover, a very unsafe hypothesis

which ventures to retain in the case of the statement of

Ch.

16

I

(as a whole’clearly untenable) at least

ber 36 as based on trustworthy tradition, and proposes
to find therein a trace of a

era, thought to date

from the division of the

(Sharpe,

Chronology

of

the

29 ; cp Braudes,

62).

Nor,

lastly, are we any more justified in finding any trace

of

a real era counting from the Exodus in the late

passage

I

K.

where the building of Solomon’s

temple is assigned to the 480th year after that event.
This number does not rest on tradition : it has been
reached by calculation based

on

some hypothesis. No

corroboration can be obtained from the numbers in
the late Priestly Code-if the passages containing them
are original even there-numbers which date the events
of the journey through the wilderness by years from the

Egypt

Ex.

16

I

19

I

Nu.

1

I

9

I

3338).

Nor can any support,

in fact, be found for the notion that the Jubilee period
was turned to chronological purposes. There is not the
slightest trace of a real carrying out of the regulations
concerning it mentioned in Lev.

even the Books

of the Maccabees speak only of Sabbatic years, never of
Jubilee years

(

I

Macc.

6 4 9 53

cp

Jos.

Ant. xiv.

I n

spite

of

this lack of a proper era, the

O T is

not without notes and data intended to serve

as

a

means of fixing events chronologically.

In

addition to isolated observations

(none the less important that they are

incidental) setting an occurrence in relation to another
prominent event

to the death of the king, as

in

Is.

6 1

1428,

or to an important expedition, as in

Is.

to the building of a city, as in Nu.

or to

extraordinary natural phenomenon, as in Am.

1

I

),

we

generally find, in the case of any important O T person-
age, the year of his life or his reign specified ; and in
the books edited during the Exile the date of the events
narrated begins to he given by years of
king.

Besides, there are the various synchronistic data

often supplied

headings of books

in the case of

certain of the prophets), and by the Books of Kings,
which have a complete synchronistic record for the time
of the coexistence of the two kingdoms of Israel
Judah. Finally, the evidence of the contemporaneous-
ness of certain events furnished at times by the historical
narrative itself is of the highest importance.

The weightiest question, howeser,

is,

to what degree

of credibility this chronological material can lay claim.

Before undertaking the examination of this
question for the several points of the history,
we must premise some general considera-

tions that

themselves on our notice. First of all,

there is the remarkable fact that these chronological
notes are to be found in greatest abundance in those
parts of the historical books that are confessedly to be re-
garded as the youngest.

In

the Pentateuch they belong to

the post-exilic Priestly Code or to additions of even later
date in the other historical books into which the older

I n that case nothing would meet the requirements

of

the

passage but

a reckoning that counted from the reform of Josiah

(622).

suchmodeofreckoningweknownothing, anymore

than we do of

a reckoning by Jubilee periods, or of a Babylonian

era meeting the requirements of the text (cp Kue.

2

60

n.

4).

( A T

94-96)

therefore alters the text, and reads

[read

or

tread

which must he under-

stood like 8

I

,

and give an earlier date than 8

I

.

I t would be

better, however, to assume the original reading to have been ‘in
the fifth

the following verse)-i.e

that from the fact of Jeremiah’s having

seventy years

for the Exile

(25

cp 29

IO)

while Ezekiel gave only forty (4

6 )

a

later writer drew the inference that Ezekiel prophesied

years after Jeremiah, and accordingly inserted a s a date in Ezek.
1

I

the thirtieth year of the Exile

77.5

sources have been worked, they are due, in the main, to
the latest exilic editors. Then, it must be regarded as
proved that the superscriptions of the prophetic books
containing detailed information concerning the time of
the respective prophets do not

from the prophets

themselves,

are much younger additions, such as the

erudition of later ages delighted in. This appears from
the inexplicable double date (by kings of Judah and of

Israel) found in Hosea and Amos, as well as from the

inaccuracy, or tlie crowding, of the data in

Is.

Jer. and

Ezek.

Nor is the remarkable addition in Amos1

I

,

‘two

years before the earthquake,’ any exception to this rule

:

the fact that a later event

is

employed to define the date

shows that the statement is a subsequent addition, and
it is therefore very probable that it rests on the exegesis
and calculation of the scribes (cp Hoffmann,

Lastly, it is remarkable that the text

presents no uniformity of reading in the matter of re-
cording dates : nay, that there are even to be found un-
filled blanks.

Thus in

I

S.

131

the numbers have been

omitted from the formula giving the age of Saul and the
length of his reign, and in

the whole verse is

There are also other places

in

the LXX where

such chronological data are

Jer.

I

[BAR]-and elsewhere in the old versions we come
considerable variations from the traditional Hebrew text.
All these are marks that indicate a late origin for the
chronological numbers and warn us in the most emphatic

way to submit them to a thorough examination.

As

regards the oldest period, with which Genesis

deals, the time down to the Exodus, it is known that

the numbers supplied by the Samaritan
and the LXX texts, and even by the Book of
Jubilees

the first century

A

.

D . ) ,

differ in many points fronithose of the

text:

T h e divergence will be made most plain by a comparison

showing the sum of the years according to each tradition. I n
Gen.

5

the period from

creation of the world to the beginning

of

flood is, according to the Hebrew text, 1656 years

;

accord-

ing to the Samaritan

.

and according to

2242

I n Gen.

11

the interval

of Shem to

birth

ham

according to the Hebrew text,

years; according to

the

and according to the text of

I n this no

of the variations

hy

the other

MSS

of

itself nor is it inquired whether the

tradition represented hy any

given text is free from internal

inconsistency (cp,

Gen. 11

I

O

‘two years after the flood

with Gen. 532

7 6 ,

11

further Gen.

with

11 26,

32).

This state

matters shows, what was indeed probable

to begin with, that there was no fixed tradition concern-
ing the early history of Israel

:

that, indeed, even at so

late a time as that of the LXX and the Book of Jubilees,
there was no clear idea of how the period in question
should be measured. Thus the numbers of the Hebrew
text, since they are not earlier than

Priestly Code,

go back at the best only to the fifth century

B.

and

do

not rest on tradition, but have been reached by the

application of some artificial theory.

Since they are

therefore, at least for chronology (if indeed one

could ever have hoped to obtain

such

a thing for those

earliest times) it is unnecessary to attempt to discover
what the actual theory underlying them is.

I t will be enough tomention that v.

observed that

number of years resulting from the summation of the

Massoretic numbers for the period (Gen. 5 to Ex.

from

the creation of Adam to the

is exactly two-thirds

of

years. These

years be

represent

a period (of

TOO

generations of

40

years each) assigned for the duration of

the world. In this way he sought to explain the artificial

of the system (cp Nold.

des A T

follows

MT,

is lacking a t this point

further

Dr.

The number

2666 resultsfrom the addition of

the

number of years from the creation of the world to the beginning
of the flood (cp Gen. 5)

the sum of the years from the

flood to the birth of

(cp Gen.

to the

departure

of Abraham from

(Gen. 124)

to the

departure

of Jacob for Egypt

to the birth of Isaac [Gen.

2151

to the birth of Jacob

years of

life [Gen.

years

of stay in Egypt

(Ex. 12 40).

776

CHRONOLOGY

CHRONOLOGY

I t is worth while, however, noticing the relation

according to Oppert

(GGN 1877, pp.

the Chaldean

numbers for the first ages

and the statements in

Genesis stand to each other. The Chaldeans reckon from the
beginning of the world to Alexander

myriads of years, of

which

47

myriads represent the time from the first man to

Alexander. Thus they allow for the creation

of

years. Now, the

7

days of the biblical account of the creation

give

hours. Thus in the creation age a myriad of years

represented in the biblical account by a n hour. Again, for the
time of the first ten men down to the flood the Chaldeans reckon
432

Genesis 1656. If both

be divided by

72,

we

and 23 respectively, and 23

days-

represent

weeks, while

years is 5 times

years.

Hence the Chaldeans seem to have reckoned 5 years

60

months) as

a lustrum

where

Genesis

has reckoned

I

week.

years

weeks;

This remark-

able relation, which can hardlyrest on pure accident, presupposes
a complicated calculation, and a very late origin for these
numbers. Whatever be the theory underlying the numbers of
Genesis, one thing, therefore, is certain

:

for

a sure chronology

of the times before the Exodus, the O T numbers, appearing as
they do for the first time in the youngest sources of the Penta-
teuch, afford no security.

T h e case is no better with the chronology of the

interval that extends from the Exodus to the building

of the temple of Solomon. W e have
here, indeed, a check in

I

6

I

which

makes the building ,of the temple begin

in the 480th year after the Exodus; but this number
did not make its appearance till

a

time when the temple

of Solomon was no more (cp above,

I

).

I t bears,

moreover, the clear

of being artificial; for it

plainly counts from Moses to David twelve generations
of forty years each, which

w e

can easily identify as

follows : Moses, Joshua, Othniel, Ehud, Deborah,
Gideon, Jephthah,

Eli,

Samuel, Saul, and

David.

This explanation of the origin of the number

is corroborated by the fact that the five “little”

Judges in

1 2

appear to have been inserted

into the Deuteronomistic Book of Judges later (on
the object of their insertion, see

9).

Nor

can anything certain be obtained from the individual
numbers, since they are neither quite clear nor free
from gaps.

I t remains obscure,

how the numbers relating to the

supremacy of the Philistines and the judgeship of Samson (13

I

and 16

are related to each other how the twenty years

from the arrival of the ark a t Rirjath-jearim to the victory of

Samuel over the Philistines are to be fitted

into Samuel’s

history

(

I

S.

and how the ninety-four years of foreign

oppression are to

combined with the data concerning the

length

of rule of the individual

The tradition also presents gaps, however, since it does not

mention the time during which Joshua was the leader of the

and in

S. 13

I

the numbers for Saul are entirely

wanting. Finally,

allows

Eli in

418 only twenty

years instead of the forty of

M T

: and the frequently recurring

round numbers-such as

40

for Moses, Othniel, Deborah-Barak,

Gideon,

Eli

and David: 80

for E h u d ; and

(=

for Samson, for

Eli

(according to

for Samuel and

(approximately) for

and

t o set

still

clearer light the unhistorical character of the data.

The matter may rest, then,

as

Noldeke left it at the end

of his chronology of the period of the Judges
with the verdict that neither for the several divisions
of the period of the Judges nor for its whole duration

Cp

n.

If we reckon together the numbers for this period we get as

follows

:-40

(stay in the wilderness)

+40

(Othniel,

3

(Ehud

330)

+40

(Deborah-Barak 5 31) +40

(Gideon,

+23

127) f 7

1211)

(Abdon 1214)

(Samson

(Eli,

I

S.

(Samuel

+40

(David,

2

(Solomon,

I

K.

6

If we deduct the ‘little’ Judges

Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and

we shall have a total

of only

years. For Joshua and Saul for whom the numbers

are lacking, there still remain, to

the 480 years accord.

to the first calculation

years according to

second

IIO.

If, however, we are to insert detween the periods of the

several

the

O

A

of

[tiglon

+18

cp

we get j34

464

years-according to the first reckoning already

54

years

many, with nothing left for Joshua and Saul ; according to
second only sixteen years for these two together,

a

period fat

from

for the deeds

of

both.

777

a chronology any longer attainable.’ It is, therefore,

useless to seek, by calculation from these numbers,

ascertain the time of the leadership of Joshua and

reign of Saul.

‘The furthest we can

go

is to

from passages like Am.

525,

that an old

estimated the journey through the wilderness

forty years. (On the

of the

Book

of

see J

UDGES

,

I t is much harder to deal with the chronological

for the period from the building of the temple by

Solomon to the conquest of Jerusalem
by Nebuchadrezzar.

I n various im-

portant instances we now meet with
statements concerning the year of the

reigning king to which the event narrated belongs.
r h u s in regard to events of war we read: ‘ I n
fifth year of King Rehoboam Shishak King of Egypt

up

against Jerusalem’

(

I

K.

and

‘

In

the

ninth year of Hosea the

of Assyria took Samaria

So

also in regard to home affairs : In the

three and twentieth year of King Jehoash the priests
had

not repaired the breaches of

house’

K.

1 2 7 ) .

Clear as such passages seem to be, we need to know
which year of a given king was called the first-the
year in the course of which he ascended the throne,

or

the first complete year at the beginning of which he
was already seated on the throne.

Sound information

on this point is still more indispensable, however, for the
understanding of the further data for

our

period supplied

by the

B o o k s

of Kings.

These give the sum

of

the

years of reign of each several king.

If, however, for

any interval that can he defined by means of events
related, we add together these amounts, the totals for
the parallel kingdoms of Judah and Israel do not agree.
The question becomes very complicated when at each
accession the date is regularly defined
by years of the contemporary ruler

of

the

kingdom of Israel or Judah. This synchronism again
leads to a reckoning of its own.

What we have first

to do is to estimate the value

of

the various chrono-

logical data which form

a

sort of framework for the

whole history of the period. Then

we

can determine the

importance and range of the individual dates assigned

by

years of accession.

The statements concerning the duration of

a

reign

as

well a s the synchronism of its

form Darts of

the brief reviews which pass judgment
on

each king from the standpoint of

the Deuteronomic law

K

INGS

.

B

OOKS OF,

The two chronological elements,

however, have a diverse origin

for the synchronistic

notes betray their character as subjective additions of
the Epitomator.’

It is clear, to begin with, that

this

synchronism was not in actual use during

the existence of the two kingdoms : apart from dates

of

accessions, we find it only once-at the fall of

Samaria

K.

18

IO

),

the point where the system comes

to an end.

I t would

natural to maintain that the very construction

of the chronological notes

their diverse origin : the

verb

has

in the same sentence one meaning for the words

that precede and another for those that follow. I t

is to be

construed

( = ‘ h e became king’) a s well a s pro-

gressive ( = ‘ h e reigned’). For instance

in

‘ I n the

fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of

king

of

Judah,

Jeroboam the

son of Joash, king of Israel

(=became king,

and

years

in

Samaria.’

If

here

and

(

I

K.

15

25

16

22

52

:

K. 3

I

15

13)

is

added to

this only proves, it would seem,

a sense of

irreconcil-

ability of expressing

the date of accession and the duration

of the reign hy the simple verb

T h e double sense of

verb however, is peculiar to such annals and is to be explained b y
the

of the style. Exactly so

list of kings of T y r e

given

by Josephus

(c.

118) from Menander of Ephesus,

is used in both senses at the same time : ‘ h e

became king’ a s well

as

‘and he reigned.’

T h e decisive proof, however, of the secondary char-

acter of the synchronistic numbers

is

reached only when

778

CHRONOLOGY

we compare them with the years of reign.

I t then

appears that the former has been attained by calculation
from the latter, although the method that has been
followed cannot in all points be

A

tabular

years

..

I

year

CHRONOLOGY

exhibition of the data will be the best way to make this
clear. I n the first column we give the date reckoned
from an imaginary era of the division of the kingdom,
and in the last the references from the Books of Kings.

years

K.

..

1533

..

..

..

I
I

..

41

I

..

3

year

K.

8

TABLE

T

ESTAMENT

D

ATA

AS

T

O

R

EIGNS

:

S

OLOMON TO

F

ALL

SYNCHRONISMS AND

L

ENGTH

OR

R

EIGNS

.

I

S

R

A

EL

.

I-

year of

Jeroboam

.

. .

18th

Jeroboam.

.

..

Jeroboam.

.

Nadab

. .

year

.

.

1st

..

Ela

. . .

vear

.

4

years

'Omri

.

Ahab

.

Ahab

.

Ahaziah

.

Jehoram

.

Jehoram

.

Jehoram

.

Sum of Years of reign in Israel

. .

98

. .

..

Jehu.

.

.

Jehoahaz.

.

Jehoash

.

.

..

. .

Jeroboam

.

63

Zechariah

.

I

year

.

.

o

.

.

.

.

..

.

.

Pekah

.

.

27

Hoshea

.

.

..

Hoshea

.

.

..

Hoshea

. .

Jehoash

I-

-

258

years

This table shows that at the end of the 258th year

after the division of the kingdom, there had elapsed 258
synchronistic years,

years

of

reign in Israel, and

260 such years in Judah and we have thus the singular
equation

The result is even more

singular, however, when we examine separately the parts
before and after the first point of coincidence obtained
through a contemporaneous accession in both lines.
Before the year of accession of Jehu and Athaliah there
were only 88 years according to the synchronisms for
98 years of reign in Israel and 95 in Judah but for the
second part there are 170 years according to the syn-
chronisms for only

years of reign in Israel and

165 in Judah. Whilst thus, in the first period, the

number, according to the synchronistic calculation, is
smaller than the sum of the traditional years, in the
second period, which is longer by about

a

half, it ex-

ceeds the traditional years not inconsiderably. Similar
variations for smaller periods can easily be proved by a
glance at the table.

Nor

can

we equalize the

It

has recently been shown

den

1899,

that the synchronisms start from

two different points and proceed upon two distinct methods of
reckoning, one

of which is followed hy preference in the Hebrew

text and the other in

779

I

Synchronistic Date.

year

of

Rehoboam

.

Abijah

.

.

Asa

. . .

Asa

.

. .

3rd

Asa

. .

.

,,

Asa

. .

.

Asa

. . .

Asa

.

. .

Asa

7th

Jehoshaphat

.

-8th

Jehoshaphat

.

Jehoram

.

.

Ahaziah

. .

References

to the Books

of

Kings.

Length of Reign.

I

Sum of Years of reign in Judah

.

year of

Athaliah

. .

Jehoash

. .

Jehoash

. .

Jehoash

. .

Amaziah

. .

Amaziah

.

.

,,

Azariah

. .

Azariah

.

.

Azariah

.

.

Azariah

.

.

Azariah

.

.

Azariah

.

.

.

.

Ahaz

.

.

,,

Ahaz.

. .

Hezekiah.

7th

Hezekiah to

of

.

95

I

52

2

IC.

15 8

..

..

..

chronistic and the traditional numbers by assuming that
the latter represent a popular way of counting according
to which from the middle of the first to the beginning
of the third year was considered three years, as in the
case of the siege of Samaria

K.

The excess

of the traditional values in the period before Jehu could
perhaps be thus explained,

but

not their defect in the

following period.

Nor

is it possible by altering the

individual numbers to bring the synchronisms into
harmony with the years

of

reign even were one

to

alter

all the synchronistic statements, this would do nothing
towards removing the differences between the numbers
for Israel and those for Judah.

Thus, almost along the

whole line, the discrepancy between synchronisms and
years of reign

is

incurable.

W e must not fail, however, to appreciate a

agreement. The sum of the synchronistic years

is

very nearly equal to the sum of the

of reign for

Judah

(258

260).

The slight difference of two years

can have no weight, and can perhaps be entirely
removed.

In

the surprising statement of

K.

1 3

that

the accession

of

Jehoash

of

Israel happened in the. 37th

year of Jehoash of Judah, we may follow

I

and change

37

to 39 for, according to that verse, Jehoahaz, who

had acceded in the 23rd year of Jehoash of Judah,