COR
603
CORAL
H> xnanj beads being used for the porpoee. This seiv vioe may be gone through while a person is walking, yr riding, or pursaing any ordinary employment.
IT. Pruaa Condiiion and EccUsituHoai Staiistics,— In some parts of Upper Egypt there are still villages escclusively inhabited by Copts, and in every village of moderate size is a moallim (a title given to all Copts e accept those of the poor class or peasants), who keeps tl&e register of the taxes. Most of the Copts in Cairo Are employed as secretaries and accountants or trades- men. They are the chief employ6s in the govem- xnent offices; and as merchants, goldsmiths, silver- smiths, jewellers, architects, boilders, and carpenters, they mre generally considered more skilful than the HiCoalems. In the villages they are employed in agri- cixltnre, like the rest of the peasantry. Petty causes x&xnong them are judged of by their clergy and the pMatriarcb, but appeal may be made to the cadi. They l>ear « h tred to other Chri^'Ian denominations, and ajre not permitted by their Church to intermarry with them. The clergy, on the whole, are poor and igno- rant. At the head of the clergy stands the patriarch of Alexandria, who resides, however, in Cafaro. His Jurisdiction extends also over Nubia and Abyssinia, for which latter country he has the right of consecrat- ing the abuna (q. v.). He himself is always chosen from among the monks of the convents of St Macarius, in the desert of Scete. It is customary for the patri- arch elect to decline the dignity, and only to yield to apparent force. Besides the patriarch, there are four metropolitans (Cairo, Lower Egypt, Codus, Mounoufia) and eleven bishops. They are appointed by the patri- arch, and generally chosen among laymen who are -widowers. Their income consists of titiies, which they collect for themselves and for the patriarch. The priests are generally simple mechanics, and, although they are at liberty to marry, they live mostly in cel- ibacy. The number of churches and convents is said to amount to about 150. A few years ago Tattam and Curzon discovered in some of these convents a num- ber of the most valuable manuscripts. The population i3 estimated from 150,000 to 250,000, of whom about \0,000 reside in Cairo. The number of Copts who have acknowledged the authority of the pope (United Copts since 1732) is about 10,000. In 1855 the pope appointed one of their priests vicar apostolic and bishop inptirHbus. — Makrizii Historia Coptorutn Christianorwn in ^gypto^ Arab, et in linguam Lot. transkUa^ ab H. J. Wetzer (Solisbaci, 1828) ; Schaflf, Histortf of the Chria- Han Church, § 145 ; Stanley, Eastern Church, Lect. i ; Churchman's Calendar for 1867, p. 168 ; Evangelical Repository, July, 1867.
Cor ("13, hor, properly a round vessel ; 6r. ff5(K>c), a measure both for liquids and solid?, containing ten ephabs or baths (Ezek. xlv, 14), and equal to the ho- mer (q. v.). In 1 Kings iv, 22 ; v, 11 ; 2 Chron. li, 10 ; xxvii, 5 ; Luke xvi, 7, it is rendered indefinitely ** measure" (q. v.) ; but in 1 Esdr. viii, 20, it is cor- rectly Anglicized. See Metroloot.
CorHcin (copacivoct a Latinized form for KopoKi- voc, from Kopa^y a raven), a kind offish (so called prob- ably from its black color), found, according to Jose- phns ( War, iii, 10, 8), in the spring of Capernaum (q. V.) and in the Nile (Theophyhict, Hiti, vii, 17 ; Oriba- sins, Medk. Collect, ii, 58); accustomed to leap like the salmon (Pliny, xxxii, 5, 10), and called likewise the saperda (Athennus, vii, 16) and other names (Ste- vens, Thes. Gr, s. v. ; Reland, Palmgt, p. 274).
Coral is usually understood to be denoted by the word rlT3X"n (rcmoth\ literaXly heights, i. e. high-priced or valuable things, or from its upright growth ; Sept. pir'napa, but in Ezek. 'Pa/io^), in Job xxviii, 18; Ezek. xxvii, 16; and this interpretation is not unsuitable (oomp. Niebuhr, Beschr. p. 41), although the etymol- ogy is not well made out (Pareau, De inunortaUieUis
noiiHit 16b [Daventr. 1808], p. 821 sq.), and the dia- lects afford little support. According to the Rabbins, it means red corals. The ancient translators were ev- idently much perplexed to determine whether the word 0*^3*^30 (petUnim', literally branches; rendered "rubies," Job xxviii, 18 ; Prov. iii, 15 ; viii, 11 ; xx, 15; xxxi, 10; Lam. iv, 7) meant corals or pearls. This will always be doubtAil ; but the text in Lam. iv, 7, by describing the article as red, suggests a pref- erence of the former. It is scarcely credible, indeed, that such a product should have circulated under two diffiBTent names (if ramoth also means coral) ; but sure- ly there is no difficulty in conceiving that one word may have denoted coral generally, while another may have distinguished that red coral which was the most esteemed, and the most in use for ornament (see Gese- nius, Thes. Heb, p. 1118, 1249).
Bmnch of ConU.
Coral is a hard, cretaceous marine production, aris- ing fh)m the deposit of calcareous matter by a minute polypous animal, in order to form the cell or polypi- dom into whose hollows the tenant can wholly or par- tially retire. The corals thus produced are of various shapes, most usually branched like a tree. The masses are often enormous in the tropical seas, where they top the reefs and cap the submarine mountains, fre- quently rising to or near the surface, so as to form what are called coral islands and coral reefs (see Kit- to, Pict. Bible, on Job xxviii, 18). These abound in the Red Sea (Wellsted, Trav. ii, 181 ; RQppel, Ahysnn, i, 140), from which, most probably, was derived the coral with which the Hebrews were acquainted ; but coral is also found in the Mediterranean. The coral brought by the merchants of Syria to Tyro must have come from the Indian seas, by the Euphrates and Da- mascus (comp. Plin. xxxii, 2). Coral was in higher esteem formerly as a precious substance than now, probably because the means of obtaining it in a fine state wero not so efficacious as those now practised. It is of different colors — white, black, red. The red was anciently, as at present, the most valued, and was worked into various ornaments (Plin. xxxii, 11 ; comp. Hartmann, Ht^r. i, 275 sq.). For the scientific cbissi- fication of corals, see the Penny Cyclop<Bdia, s. v. Poly- paria. — Kitto, s. v. The red variety is the stony skel- eton of a compound zoophyte, allied to the sea-ane- mones of our coasts. It forms a much-branching shrub, the beautiful scarlet stone constituting the solid axis, which is covered during life by a fleshy bark, out of which protrude hero and there upon the surface