istic period were partly the Egyptians, whose royal house gave its name to different townships, and partly the Seleucids, after whom the most consider- able town of West Cilicia was named Seleucia on the Calycadnus.
In the NT 'Cilicia' invariably means Cilicia Pedeia. Though this country formed a part of the peninsula of Asia Minor, its political, social, and religious affinities were rather with Syria than with the lands to the north and west. The reason was geographical. It was comparatively easy to cross the Amanus range, either by the Syrian Gates (Beilan Pass) to Antioch and Syria, or by the Amanan Gates (Baghche Pass) to North Syria and the Euphrates. Hence it was natural that, at the redistribution of the provinces by Augustus in 27 B.C., Cilicia Pedeia, which had been Roman terri- tory since 103 B.C., should be merged in the great Imperial province of Syria- Cilicia- Phcenice. It was equally natural that St. Paul, who boasted of being ' a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia '(Ac 2P^ 22^), should regard ' the regions of Syria and Cilicia' as forming a unity (Gal P^). The Avriter of Acts does the same (15-^-*'), and the author of 1 Peter, who enumerates in his superscription the Roman provinces of Asia Minor, omits Cilicia, which lay beyond the barrier of Taurus and belonged to a different order of things.
The presence of Jews in Cilicia probably dated from the time of the early Seleucids, who settled many Jewish families in their Hellenistic cities, giving them equal rights with Macedonians and Greeks. St. Paul enjoyed the citizenship of Tarsus not as an individual, but as a unit in a Jewish colony which had been incorporated in the State. Jews of Cilicia are mentioned by Philo in his Leg. ad Gaium (§ 36). Among the Jews of Jerusalem who rose against Stephen there was a synagogue of Cilicians (Ac 6''). After his conversion St. Paul spent seven years in his Cilician homeland, engaged in a preparatory missionary work of which there are no recorded details. Probably he was founding the churches to which allusion is made in Ac 15"^" *^. He began his second missionary journey by pass- ing through Cilicia to confirm these churches, after which he must have crossed the Cilician Gates to Lycaonia ( 16^) ; and probably he took the same road on his third journey (18-^). Syria and Cilicia were the first centres of Gentile Christianity, from which the light radiated over Asia Minor into Europe.
Literature.— C. Hitter, Kleinasien, 1859, ii. 56 ff.; J. R. S. Sterrett, The Wolfe Expedition to Asia Minor, 1888 ; W. M. Ramsay, Uist. Geog. of Asia Minor, 1890, p. 361 S. ; Smith's Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Geog., i. [185CJ 617 ; see also art. ' Cilicia ' in HDB and Literature there cited.
James Strahan. CINNAMON {KLvvdfjLwvov ivom ]^n^p). — Cinnamon is mentioned in Rev 18^^ among the merchandise of ' Babylon,' i.e. of Imperial Rome. The name prob- ably came with the thing from the remote east ; Rodiger (Gesenius, Thes. Add., 1829, p. Ill) com- pares it with the Malay kainamanis. It was known to the Hebrews (Ex 30-^ Pr 7", Ca 4^*) ; and Hero- dotus (iii. Ill) speaks of ' those rolls of bark (raOra TO. Kdp(pea) which we, learning from the Phoenicians, call cinnamon.' The finest cinnamon of commerce is now obtained from Ceylon ; it is the fragrant and aromatic inner rind of the stem and boughs of a tree which grows to a height of 30 ft. Oil of cinna- mon, which is used in the composition of incense, is got from the boiled fruit of the tree. But the cinnamon of the ancients was probably the cassia lignca of S. China. James Strahan.
CIRCUMCISION. — The origin of circumcision and its practice by the Jews and other peoples may be studied in HDB and ERE. This article is concerned with the difficulties caused in the
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Apostolic Church by the desire of the Judaizing party to enforce the rite upon the Gentile Christians, The crisis thus brought about is described in Ac 15 and Gal 2i-i».
As the work of the Church extended, the problem of the reception of Gentile converts presented itself for solution. Should such converts be compelled to be circumcised and keep the Mosaic Law or not ? The answer to this question led to great ditt'erence of opinion and threatened to cause serious division in the Church. It must be remembered that the first Christians were Jews, born and brought up in the Law and taught to observe it. To them such rites as circumcision were almost second nature. To abrogate the Law of Moses was to them incon- ceivable. The idea of the passing awaj' of the Law had not yet penetrated their understanding. The headquarters of those who held these opinions were at Jerusalem, where the Temple services and the whole atmosphere served to strengthen them in this belief. The very name of the party — 'They that were of the circumcision' (Ac IP) — shows how closely they were attached to the observance of this rite. On the other hand, we can trace the gradual growth in the Church of the opposite view : the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch (q.v.) by Philip ; the admission of Cornelius and his friends by St. Peter ; the mission of certain evangelists to the Gentiles at An tioch ; and finally the work of St. Paul and St. Barnabas, who turned to the Gentiles and freely admitted them into the fellowship of the Church.