Coelestine (Pope). See Celestike.
CcelestiiiB. See CfeLEsriNS.
CcelestitiB, a native of Ireland (or of Bretagiie ?) of noble birth. According to Marius Mercator (Com- momtorittm, 2), he was a law student at Borne when Pe- lagius arrived there. Embracing the views of Pela- gius, he accompanied him in 408 (or 409) to SicUy, and in 411 to Aftica. By his character and talents he suc- ceeded, even better than Pelagius, in diffusing the views which they held in common. He was accused of heresy before the bishop of Carthage, A.D. 412, and condemned. He appealed to Bome ; and on his way stopped at Sicily, and there spread 1^ opinions very successfully. Thence it is supposed that he went to Ephesus, where he was ordained presbyter. In 417 Pope Zozimus, at Bome, was so ^r satisfied by the explanations of Ccelestius that he recommended the African bishops to restore him. In 428 he was con- demned by a synod at Bome, and went to the East for safety ; but about 429 he was banished ^m Con- stantinople by order of the emperor. The Council of Ephesus condemned him A.D. 431. His later years are involved in obscurity. **He wrote a Confessio Fidei Zotimo Papa dbUUa, and various epistles and appeals, the substance of most of which can be gather- ed from the excerpts given by Augustine and Jerome ; but none of his writings have come down to us entire. Ccelestius was a man of pure morality, and more zeal- ous and active (perhaps more honest) than Pelagius as a controvertist. Jerome says of him (in an epistie to Ctedphon, A.D. 416), * Although a schoku- of Pela. gins, he is yet leader and master of the whole host* *' — Cave, Hist. Lit, Anno 407, i, 246; Murdoch's Mos- heim, C^karch History, N. Y., 8 vols., i, 870 ; Wiggers, Auffustinism and Pelagiamsm, Emerson*s transl., p. 40 sq. ; Schaff, Historff of the Christian Churdi, iii, § 147. See Pblaoius.
Coeld-Syria (fi Koikri Svp/a; Yulg. Ctdesyria), " the hollow Syria,** was (strictly speaking) the name given by the Greeks, in the times of the ^leucidsB, to the remarkable valley or hollow (xoiXia) which inter-
CCELE^YRIA
400
COFFIN
▼enes between Libanns and Anti-Libanas, itretchhig from lat 83^ 20^ tx> 84<=> 40', a distance of nearly a hundred miles. As applied to this region the woid is strikingly descriptive (see Dionysios, Perieg. 899-900). Thns a modem traveller observes: ** We finally look- ed down on the vast green and red valley — gre^ from its yet nnripe com, red from its vineyards not yet ver- dant— which divides the range of Lebanon and Anti- Lebanon ; the former reaching its highest point in the snowy crest to the north, behind which lie the Cedars ; the latter in the still more snowy crest of Hermon — the culmination of the range being thus in the one at the northern, in the other at the sonthem extremity of the valley which they bonnd. The view of this great valley is chiefly remarkable as being exaeUff to the ejfe what His on mopf— the ' hollow' between the two moontain ranges of Syria. A screen through which the Leontes (Litany) breaks 9ut closes the south end of the plain. There is a similar screen at the north end, but too remote to be visible" (Stanley's Pakftine, p. 899). The plain gradually rises towards its centre, near which, but a little on the southern de- clivity, stand the rums of Baalbek or Heliopolis. In the immediate neighborhood of Baalbek rise the two streams of the Orontes (Naht-el-Asy) and the Litany, which, flowing in opposite directions to the north-west and the south-east, give freshness and fertility to the tract enclosed between the mountain ranges. Amgce, the name of the plain through which the Orontes flow- ed (jb 'AfivKiji wtdiovy Polyb. v, 69), is derived by Bochart from the Syriac Kp*^»9, AmicOj which means deep, and is nearly synonymous with the Greek Cede {peogr. Sae. I, i, 1).
The term Coele-Syria was also used in a much wider sense. In the first place it was extended so as to in- clude the inhabited tract to the east of the Anti-Liba- nus range, between it and the desert, in which stood the great city of Damascus ; and then it was further carried on upon that side of Jordan, through Trachoni- tis and Perasa, to Idumsa and the borders of Egypt (Strab. xvi, § 21 ; Polyb. v, 80, § 8 ; Josephus, Ant. i, 11, 6). Ptolemy (v. 15) and Josephus {Ant. xiii, 13, 2) even place Scythopolis in CoBle-Syria, though it was upon the west side of Jordan ; but they seem to limit its extent southwards to about lat. 81^ 80^, or the country of the Ammonites (Ptol. v, 16 ; Josephus, Ant. i, 11, 5). Ptolemy distinctly includes in it the Damas- cus country. In the time of David, Ccele-Syria was probably included in "Syria of Damascus," which was conquered by that monarch (2 Sam. viii, 6), but recovered from Solomon by Rezon, the son of Eliadah (1 Kings xi, 24). The possession of it was an object of many struggles between the SeleucidsB and the kings of Egypt (Polyb. i, 8; ii, 71; iii, 1; v, 40; xvi, 89 ; xxvii, 17).
There can be little doubt that a part at least of CcBle-Syria was included in that "Valley of Lebanon" Cjisa^n njjDa) mentioned by Joshua (xi, 17 ; xii, 7), the extent of which has been too much restricted by recent geographers. The name * * Valley of Lebanon' ' could scarcely be applied with propriety exdutwdy to that section of the great valley which lies at the base of Hermon, at a considerable distance fitnn the range of Lebanon. Doubtless Baal-Gad was situated " un- der Mount Hermon ;*' but we have reason to believe that the "Valley of Lebanon" includes the whole of that valley which separates the ridge of Hermon from that of Lebanon. It seems that at a subsequent pe- riod this valley was called by Amos, apparently in contempt, "the valley of idols'* CjIK n?;5a, chap, i, 6). See AvBN. The name was most appropriate. The whole sides of the valley are thickly studded with old heathen temples. Mr. Porter visited no less than fourteen of them, and he heard of several oth- '''^. Some of them were of great size and splendor, \ as those of Baalbek, Mejdel, Niha, and Hibbari-