CYMBAL (kvh^oXov, from Kvfj.^o?, 'a hollow'). — The word signifies one of a pair of brass or bronze plates which make a ringing sound when brought sharply together. The word appears only in 1 Co 13', w'here Ki-jx^oKov dXaXd^ov is used to describe the man whose lack of love despoils even his un- doubted gifts of intellect and eloquence. The ad- jective is better translated as 'clanging'; cf. the cymhalum concrepans of Jerome on Gal 5^. Pliny (HN Prsef. § 25) has an expression which is suggestive : ' hie quem Tiberius Ca?sar cymbalum mundi vocabat ' ; and in modern days, Goethe is said to have thought of 1 Co 13^ when he read Byron's poems.
Little is known for certain of Jewish music in the Apostolic Age, and we rely mostly on inference. As a race the Hebrews did not deserve Cicero's tribute to the ancient Egyptians, but they culti- vated music and were probably influenced by the Egyptians and Assyrians (but cf. J. L. Saalschlitz [Geschichte unci Wiirdigung der Musik bei den Hebrdern, 1829, p. 67], who believed that the Jews preserved their o^^^l national music). Harmony and counter-point were almost unknown, though C. Engel (The Music of the Most Ancient Nations, 1864, pp. 320, 356) holds that the Hebrews were acquainted with some form of harmony ; and, consequently, much attention was devoted to form and volume of sound, and to combinations of in- struments. This accounts for the prevalence of
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CYPRUS
GYRENE, CYRENIANS
percussion instruments, especially those, like the cymbal, whicli had a shrill, clanging sound. Cym- bals were in the hands of the chief musicians, and were used to mark time, as they were used in Egypt, Greece, and Kome, where they played their part in the festivals of Cybele and Bacchus. From 1 Ch 15^" we learn that cymbals were made of brass, but, if we can trust Josephus (whose account of Jewish music is at times perplexing), thev were also made of bronze. He describes them as large broad plates of bronze (Ant, vii. xii. 3). In Wellhausen's 'Psalms' (Haupt's PB, 1898), Appendix, there are two illustrations of Assyrian musicians which make it plain that cymbals were of two varieties : the one depicts bell-shaped cymbals with handles which permit the player to strike them together, the one on the top of the other ; the second shows flat cymbals, similar to modem dinner-plates, with cord handles, and these were beat against each other sideways.
In the OT, to which one must turn for knowledge of cymbals, the two words used are d:i?^S!3 and □'^¥^x. In Ps 150' the latter word appears, and it has been supposed that 'loud cymbals' are cas- tanets (cf. Engel, op. cit. p. 312), but Wellhausen thinks this very doubtful. Zee 14^" presents diffi- culties to the exegete, but it is possible to compare the noise of tinkling trappings of horses with the clanging of miniature cymbals. Cymbals are still used in the East at religious and secular festivals (see W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, new ed., 1910, pt. iv. p. 698). Archibald Main.
CYPRUS (Ki/Vpos). — The name is given to a large island in the N.E. angle of the Mediterranean, 46 miles S. of Cilicia and 60 miles W. of Syria. In fine weather the Taurus and the Lebanon ranges are both distinctly visible from its higher ground. Its greatest length from W. to E. is 140 miles (including the eastern promontory, which is 45 miles long), and its greatest breadth 60 miles. It consists mainly of two mountain ranges, running E. and W., separated by a wide and loAv-lying
Slain, which is drained by the Pediaeus. Strabo escribes it as a land of wine, oil, and com (xiv. vi. 4). The fragrance of its flowers won for it the epithet ei^wSvjs. For centuries it derived a great revenue from exports of copper and timber, the supply of which has long been exhausted. The word 'copper' itself conies from 'Cyprus.' The island owed much to Phoenician and Greek colonists, but it never developed the nobler aspects of Hellenic culture and art. Its Oriental character always predominated, and the Cyprian queen, whom the Greeks identified with Aphrodite, was really the Astarte of Syria.
The Cypriotes never had energy enough to establish themselves as an independent nation. After having been successively under Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, and Greek influence, they be- came subject to Rome in 57 B.C. Cyprus was at first an Imperial province, but in 22 B.C. Augustus gave it to the Senate in exchange for S. Gaul (Dio Cass. liii. 12), so that St. Luke is strictly accurate in calling the governor at the time of St. Paul's visit ' the proconsul ' (ivdinraTos, Ac 13^). An in- scription of Soli on the north coast of the island is dated ' in the proconsulship of Paulus,' who was probably the Sergius Paulus of Acts (D. G. Hogarth, Devia Cypria, London, 1889, p. 114). The names of several other proconsuls of the province are found on coins and inscriptions [op. cit. Appendix). The presence of Jews in Cyprus during the Maccabsean period is indicated by 1 Mac 15-^, and probably many others were attracted to the island when Augustus farmed the copper mines to Herod the Great (Jos. Ant. XVI. iv. 5).
The part which Cyprus played in the progress of apostolic Christianity was singularly honour- able. She helped to liberalize the primitive Church. Her Jewish population had the gospel preached among them by Christians whom persecution drove from Jerusalem after the death of Stephen (Ac IV^), and some Christian Jews of Cyprus, along with others from Cyrene, initiated a new move- ment by preaching at Antioch ' to the Greeks also ' ( 1 P"). This reading, rather than ' to the Hellenists,' is required to bring out the contrast to 'Jews only ' in the previous verse ; and where the MS authority is about equal the sense must decide. Barnabas, who discovered St. Paul (11^^) and be- came his first comrade in missionary labour, was a native of Cyprus. It was probably at the instance of Barnabas that the island became the earliest scene of their united evangelism (13'*).