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Rh valuable geographical writers of antiquity. His errors were those of his age, and rest chiefly on his reverence for the traditional interpretation of the Bible. But he was an acute observer and vivid describer, and his good faith is unquestionable. He seems well acquainted with the Indian peninsula, and names several places on its coast. He describes it as the chief seat of the pepper trade, of which he gives a very rational account, and mentions Mali, in which Montfaucon recognizes the origin of Malabar, as much frequented by traffickers in that spice. He furnishes a detailed account of the island of Taprobana (Ceylon), which he calls Sielidiba, then the principal centre of trade between China (he calls the Chinese Τζινίτζαι) and the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, where the merchants exchanged their costly wares, and the nations of the East obtained the advantages of commercial intercourse, which rapidly increased and had in his time assumed considerable importance. The connexion between Persia and India was at that time evidenced by the existence of a large number of Christian churches, both on the coast of India and the islands of Socotra and Ceylon, served by priests and deacons ordained by the Persian archbp. of Seleucia and subject to his jurisdiction, which had produced multitudes of faithful martyrs and monks (lib. iii. 179). These congregations appear to be identical with the Malabar Christians of St. Thomas. His 11th book contains a very graphic and faithful description of the more remarkable animal and vegetable productions of India and Ceylon, the rhinoceros, elephant, giraffe, hippopotamus, etc., the cocoa-nut tree, pepper tree, etc.

His remarks on Scripture manifest a not altogether uncommon mixture of credulity and good sense. He mentions that, to the discomfiture of unbelievers, the marks of the chariot wheels of the Egyptians were still visible at Clysma, where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea (v. 194); but he explains the supposed miraculous preservation of the garments of the Israelites (Deut. xxix. 5) as meaning no more than that they lacked nothing, since merchants visited them from adjacent countries with clothing and with the wheat of which the shewbread was made (v. 205). The catholic epistles he plainly relegates to the "Amphilegomena," making the erroneous statement that such was the universal ancient tradition and that no early expositor comments upon them. The Ep. to the Hebrews he ascribes to St. Paul, and asserts that it, as well as the Gospel of St. Matt., was rendered into Gk. by St. Luke or St. Clement. Cosmas preserves a monument of very considerable historical value, consisting of two inscriptions relating to Ptolemy Euergetes, B.C. 247‒222, and an unnamed king of the Axumitae, of later date. These were copied by him from the originals at the entrance of the city of Adule, an Aethiopian port on the Red Sea; the former from a wedge-shaped block of basanite or touch-stone, standing behind a white marble chair, dedicated to Mars and ornamented with the figures of Hercules and Mercury, on which the latter inscription was engraved. Notwithstanding the different localities of the inscriptions and the fact that the third person is used in the former, the first in the latter, the two have been carelessly printed continuously and regarded as both relating to the conquests of Ptolemy, who has been thus accredited with fabulous Aethiopian conquests. (So in Fabricius, Bibl. Graec. lib. iii. 25; cf. Vincent, Commerce, ii. 533‒589.) They were first distinguished from each other by Mr. Salt (Voyages and Travels to India, etc., 1809, vol. iii. 192; Travels in Abyssinia, 1814, p. 412), and are printed with full comments by Böckh (Corpus Inscript. Graec. 1848, vol. iii. fasc. ii. 508‒514). The inscription relating to Ptolemy describes his conquest of nearly the whole of the empire of the Seleucidae, in Asia, which, says Dean Vincent (Ancient Commerce, ii. 531), "was scarcely discovered in history till this monument prompted the inquiry, and was then established on proofs undeniable." Cf. Chishull, ''Antiq. Asiat. p. 76; Niebuhr, Vermischte Schriften, p. 401; Letronne, Matériaux pour l’hist. du Christianisme en Egypte, etc. (1832), p. 401; Buttmann, Mus. der Alterthumsw.'' ii. 1, p. 105.

A full account of this work is given by Photius (Cod. xxxvi.), under the inappropriate title Ἑρμηνεία εἰς Ὀκτάτευχον, but without the author's name. From this, Fabricius very needlessly questions whether the author was really named Cosmas, or whether that was an appellation coined to suit the subject of the work, like that of Joannes Climacus. Photius censures the homeliness of the style, which he considers hardly to approach mediocrity. But elegance or refinement of diction is not to be expected from a writer, who, in his own words (lib. ii. 124), destitute of literary training and entangled in business, had devoted his whole life to mercantile pursuits, and had to contend against the disadvantages of very infirm health and weak eyesight, incapacitating him for lengthened study. We learn from his own writings that Cosmas also wrote:

(1) A Cosmographia Universalis, dedicated to a certain Constantine (lib. i. 113), the loss of which is lamented with tears by Montfaucon.

(2) A work on the motions of the universe and the heavenly bodies, dedicated to the deacon Homologus (lib. i. 114, vii. 274).

(3) Ὑπομνήματα on the Canticles, dedicated to Theophilus (lib. vii. 300).

(4) Exposition of the more difficult parts of the Psalms (Du Cange, Gloss. Graec. s.v. Ἰνδικοπλευστής; Bibl. Coislin. p. 244).

(Montfaucon, Collect. Nov. Pat. Gk. (Paris, 1706), vol. ii. 113‒346; Gallandi, Bibl. Vet. Patr. (Ven. 1765), vol. ix.; Cave, Hist. Lit. i. 515; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. lib. iii. 25; Vincent, Commerce, ii. 505‒511, 533‒537, 567; Bredow, Strabo, ii. 786‒797; Thevenot, Coll. des voyages, vol. i.; Gosselin, Géogr. syst. des Grecs, iii. 274; Mannert, Einleit. in der Geogr. d. Alten, 188‒192; Charton, Voyages, vol. ii.) [E.V.]  Cyprianus (1) Thascius Caecilius. Name.—He is styled Thascius Cyprianus by the proconsul (Vit. Pontii), and styles himself "Cyprianus qui et Thascius" in the singular heading of Ep. 66. He took the name Caecilius, according to Jerome (Cat. Ill. Vir. v.), from the presbyter who converted him, and is called Caecilius Cyprianus in the proscription (Ep. 66).

Cyprian was an orator, and afterwards even 