S. U. Driver. '•CREMATION.— It is sometimes stated that burn- ing was the ordinary mode of disposing of the dead among all ancient nations, except the Egyptians, who embalmed them ; the Chinese, who buried them in the earth ; and the Jews, who buried them in the sepulchres. This statement requires a gotid deal of qualification. Lucian tells us that the Greeks burned their dead while the Persians buried them (Ve Luctu, xxi.) ; and it is certain that among the Greeks bodies were often buried without being burned (Thuc. i. 134.6; Plat. Pha-do, 115 E ; Pint. Lye. xxvii.). Among the Romans both methods were in use ; and Cicero believed that burial was the more ancient (De Legibus, ii. 22. 56). So that Persians, Greeks, and Romans must be added as, at any rate, partial exceptions. Wliether religious, or sanitary, or practical reasons were uppermost in deciding between the different methods is uncertain. Where fuel was scarce, cremation would be difficult or impossible.
That the Jews' preference for sepulchres was determined by a belief in the resurrection of the body is very doubtful. The doctrine itself seems to have been of late development; and modern Jews, who accept the doctrine, do not object to cremation. Nevertheless, their forefathers rarely practised it, and ]>erh;ips then only as an alter- native to what would be more distasteful. The bodies of Said and his sons were burned by the men of Jabesh-gilead (1 S SV-), perhaps to secure them from further insult by the Philistines, and to m-ike it more easy to conceal the bones. Am 6'' gives a horrible (licture of a whole household having died, and a man's uncle and a servant being the only survivors left to burn the last body. But we are probably to iniderstand a plague, or something exceptional. That bodies were burned in the valley of Ilinnom in times of pe.'^tilence is an assertion which lacks support. However large the number of the dead, burial was the manner of disposing of them (Ezk 39'i-"'). The ' very great burning' made for Asa at his burial (2 Cii 10'*) is not a case of cremation, but of burning spices and furniture in his honour (comp. Jer .34''). 'When R. Gamaliel the elder died, Onkelos the pro.selyte burned in his honour the worth of seventy min(e of Tyrian money' (T. B. Alioda Zara lla). Comp. 2 Ch 21'". Nor is 1 K V.i- an allusion to cremation. Bones of men previously buried are to be burned on the altar to pollute it and render it abominable.
In the NT there is no instance of cremation, whether .Jewish, Christian, or heathen ; and there is abundant evidence that the early Christians followed the .Tewi.sh pr.actice of burial, with or without embalming (Minue. Felix, Oitav. xxxix. ; Tert. Apol. xlii.;'Aug. De Civ. Dei, i. 12, l'5). It was to outrage this well-known Christian senti- 'hnrJes Scrihtier's Sous
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nient that persecutors sometimes burned the bodies of the martyrs aud scattered their ashes in mockery of the resurrection (lius. H.E. v. 1.02, 63; comp. Lact. Inst. vi. 12). The example of the .Jews, the fact that Christ was buried, the association of burning with heathen practices, and perhaps rather material views respecting the resurrection, have contributed to make cremation unpopular among Christians. But there is notliing es.'sentially anti- christian in it : and charity reipiires us to adopt any reverent manner of disposing of the dead which science may prove to be least injurious to the living. A. PLUMMEU.
CRESCENS. — A companion of St. Paul in his final imprisonment, sent by him to (jalatia (2 Ti 4'), i.e. either to Asiatic Galatia, — a view sup- ported by 8t. Paul's usage elsewhere, and by the context, in which all the otiier places mentioned lie east of Kome (so Const. Apast. vii. 40 ; Tille- niont, Memoires stir St. Paul, Note 81 ; Smith, Dli- S.V.); or possibly to Gaul (so n C, reading raXX/ov; Kuseb. Ht! iii. 4; Kpiph. H(jer. 51. 11; Theodore and Theodoret ad 2 'I'i 4"' ; IJghtfoot, Gal. pp. -i and oO). A late Western tradition treats him as the founder of the Churches of Vienne and of .Mayence ((iams. Series Episc). Ills memory is honoured in the Roman martyrology on .Tune 27, in the Greek .Menologion on May 30, and there he is treated as one of the .seventy disciples, and a bishop of Chalcedon. [Acta tSaneturuyn, June 27 ; Menolo(iion, May 30.1 The name is Latin, and is found among the freedmen of Nero (Tac. Hist. i. 76), the centurions (Ann. xv. 11), and the priests of Phoebus (Inscr. Grcecce, Sic. et Ital. 102(1). W. Lock.
CRESCENTS.— RV tr. of ^T-y^ .Jg 8='- "^ (AV 'oriiaiiieiits'), Is 3" (AV 'round tires like the mnon';. As elearly indicated by its etym. (from Aram. suhrU, 'moon,' with nn as diminutive ter- mination,— for which .see Barth, XomindUiiUly. § 212), — the .sttAai-on was a crescent or moon-slia))ed ornament of gold (Jg 8-'''), introduced presumably by Syrian traders from Babylonia. In OT we find these crescents worn by Midianite chiefs (Jg 8-") , by the ladies of Jeru.s. (Is 3"), and hung by the former on the necks of their camels (.Ig 8-'). They were in all pmbability worn on the breast by a chain rnun<l the neck, like the crescents (hilitlat) of a modern Arab, belle (see Del. and Dillra. on Is 3'" ; Keil, Bihl. Arrlueol. Kng. tr. ii. 149 ; Nowack, Ileb. Arch. i. 129 ; cf. Jg 8-''', where the crescents seem to be distinguished from the chains by which they were suspended). Others {e.y. Moore, C'nmm. in loc.) consider the latter to have been 'necklaces or collars, the elements of which were little golden crescents.' Originally the crescents were amulets or charms (W. U. Smith in Journ. of riiiloloi/ii, xiv. 122-123;* Wellh. Skizzen, iii. 144), although by Lsaiali's time they may have become more purely ornamental. A. R. S. KiCN.nkky.