ClpptiB (Lat. a jMwO, a small, low column nsed by the ancient Romans as a mil&-post, or to mark divi- sions of land ; also a tomb-stone of small dimensians, containing a diminutive orifice or place to receive the ashes of the dead, being thus the original of the mod- em tomb-stone.
Cir^ama, a place whose people (Ik Kipa/iac ; Volg. Gramai), together with those of Gabdes, came up with Zorobabel fh)m Babylon (1 Esdr. v, 20); for which the Heb. texts (Ezra ii, 26 ; Neh. vii, 80) have Ramah (q.v.).
Circle (A^n, chug), any part of a carve, an arch. The word is applied (Job xxii, 14, where, however, it is translated " circuit") to the heavens, which the an- dents supposed to be a hollow jphere. They imagfai^
ciRCXjrr
34Y
CIRCUMCISION
tiiat the tky was solid, and extended like an arch mer tihe earth. The word is also referred to the earth in Isa. xl, 22, and to the snr&ce of the ocean in Proy. viii, 27, where it is rendered "compass;" in both ^vrhich passages it still seems to mean the celestial wault, as spanning these. In Wisd. xiil, 2, the Greek term kukKo^ is so rendered, with reference to the path of the stars. See Cibcoit.
Cironit Ol&.!lpt?, tehtphah^ signifies the act of going round, as, for example, the apparent diurnal xerolntion of the sun around the earth (Psa. zix, 6) ; it is alao used with reference to the completion of a year in the original of 2 Chron. xxiv, 28; Exod. xxxiv, 22 Cin which passages it is rendered " end") ; or of the term of pr^^ancy in 1 Sam. i, 20 ("when . . . was come about"). The Scriptures, however, afford us Terj little information as to the astronomical knowl- edge of the Jews. See Astronomt. In Job xxii, 14, the Heb. word is different. See Circlb. In 1 Sam. Tii, 16, and Eccles. i, 6, also, a different form of expression is used in the original to signify, in the for- mer passage (^^D, elsewhere usually rendered " com- pass")) A regular toi\r of inspection, and in the latter (3*^30) the periodkal series of gyrations, or, rather, directions of the winds, which in the East are quite regular in their seasons. In Ecdus. xxiv, 5, the orig- inal word is yvpoc, the roUUum of the heavens ; but in 2 Mace, vi, 4, it is simply iript/3oXoc, an eiK^omirej e. g. of the Temple.
CIRCUIT. In the Methodist Episcopal Church, a single church, supplied by a pastor, is called a tkOionf bat when one or more appointments, within a definite tenitoiy, are united into one charge, under one or more ministers, it is called a " circuit." The English minutes of 1746 give " the first intimation of definite circuits, though it is supposed they existed before. All England was mapped into seven of these itinerant districts." In America the circuit S3r8tem was uni- versal in the beginning of Methodism, and it is still widely in use in rural districts and in the Western States. — Stevens, History of Methoditn^ i, 818. See Methodist Episoopal Chuboh.
drcuincelliaxiB, a fanatical sort of Donatists in the fourth century, of uncertain origin. From their wandering habits, they were called Circwnc€Mione$ (from cettce, the cottages of the peasants around which they hovered, ceUoM circumieniet rusticorwn). They rambled up and down, plundering, burning houses, and murdering all who resisted them, professing to seek the crown of martyrdom. They called themselves 3ii&tes Ckriati Agonktid, There is no evidence to show that their conduct was approved by the Dona- tists, but their proceedings brought great odium on that party. — ^Mosheim, Ck, ffist, cent, iv, pt. ii, ch. v, and cent, v, pt. ii, ch. v ; Gieseler, Ch, History ^ per. ii, div. i, § 84; Gibbon, Det^M and FaUj ch. xxi, xxiii. See Donatists.
CironmolBlon (M^^iQ, mtUah'; Sept. and N. T. technically inpiroftri, which is translated by the Latin drcumcisiOf L e. a cuUmg around% a custom among many Eastern nations of cutting off part of the pre- puce, as a religious ceremony. Th9 Jews, through Abraham, received the rite from Jehovah ; Moses es- tablished it as a national ordinance ; and Joshua car- ried it into effect before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan (see generally Michaelis, Lawt ofMot^ iv, 80 6q.). Males only were subjected to the operation, and it was to be performed on the eighth day of the chOd's Hfe ; foreign slaves also were forced to submit to it on entering an Israelite's family. Those who are unacquainted with other sources of information on the subject besides the Scriptures might easily suppose that the rite was original with Abraham, characteris- tic of his seed, and practised among those nations only who had learned it ^m them. This, however, ap-
pears not to have been the case (Celsus, ap. Orig. coi^ tra Ctkun^ i, 17, 250 ; Julian, ap. Cyril, contra JuUan, X, 854; compare Marsham, Canon Chron. p. 78 sq.; Bauer, Cfottetdienstl. Verfa$t. t, 87 sq. ; Jahn, I, U, 277 sq. ; see Borheck, Itt die Besckneidung ursprHngUch hebrditchf [Duisb. and Lemgo, 1798]).