Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/219

 CERIGO CEERETO 211 CERIGO (anc. Cythera), the southernmost of the Ionian islands, now an eparchy of the kingdom of Greece, situated at the E. entrance of the Laconian gulf, between lat. 36 7' and 36 22' N"., and traversed nearly through its centre by the meridian of 23 E. Its length from N. to S. is nearly 20 m., and its greatest breadth about 12; area, 106 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 10,637. The shores are abrupt and dan- gerous to shipping. Storms are frequent,. the currents round the island being from its pecu- liar position very strong, and the air is rarely quite calm. It is hilly, and abounds with streams. The soil is generally fertile; the products are corn, currants, wine, olive oil, and honey; cattle, goats, and sheep are reared. Many of the peasants resort annually to the Morea and to Asia Minor to work there during harvest time. It contains two curious natural caverns, which possess some stalactites of sin- gular beauty. According to Pliny, the island was once called Porphyrae. The ancient name of Oythera, the fabled birthplace of Venus, however, is as old as Homer. It was colo- nized by Phoenicians, and successively occupied by the Argives and Lacedaemonians. Its chief town in antiquity bore the name of the island. The modern chief town is Capsali, at its S. ex- tremity. The principal dependency of Cerigo is a little island called Cerigotto by the Italians (anc. dgilia now known as Li us to the in- habitants, lying about 20 m. S. E., midway be- tween Cerigo and Crete, and containing about 40 families ; length 5 m., breadth from 1 to 3 m. Cerigotto abounds with olive trees, and pro- duces some fine wheat. In former times it was a noted retreat of pirates. CERINTHIS, also called derisively MEBINTHUS (i. ., cord), a religious personage who is sup- posed to have come from Alexandria to Asia Minor, and to have resided at Ephesus simul- taneously with St. John. He was a leader among those Gnostic Christian sects which ap- peared soon after the death of Christ ; but, in common with the Ebionites, he considered an observance of the Jewish law essential to sal- vation, and believed in the notion of the vast chasm between God and the material world. He taught that it was not the Supreme God who revealed himself in the Jewish Scriptures, but a subordinate angel commissioned by the Supreme, with whom he identified himself. In this way he justified both the strictly divine character of Judaism to the Jew, and its subor- dination to Christianity to the Christian. Jesus he taught to be a mere man in his birth and existence until the baptism, when the Holy Ghost, which he considered to be the Christ, united itself with Jesus, and remained in this union until the crucifixion. Then, in time to leave the dying Jesus only a man again, the Christ or Divine withdrew. He attached no importance in the redemptive plan to the death of Jesus, but made salvation to depend on legal obedience. Caius, an anti-Montanistic writer, attempts to fasten upon Cerinthus the grossest and most sensual millennianism, and even accuses him of having interpolated the Apoca- lypse to make it suit his chiliastic doctrines. It is true that Cerinthus taught the coming of a millennium on the earth, when Christ was to make Jerusalem the centre of his empire. This time he supposed would come after the earth had stood 6,000 years, and would be a perpetual sabbath of 1,000 years, a view which was common among the Jews of that age. His disciples were called Cerinthians, and also Merinthians. A Historia Cerinthi was pub- lished by Paulus (Jena, 1799). CERITO, Francesco, commonly called Fanny, an Italian dancer, born in Naples in 1823. She made her debut at the San Carlo theatre in 1836, and although only 13 was received with great enthusiasm. At Milan in 1838, and for two years at the Karnterthor- Theater in Vien- na, and afterward in Paris and London, the same storm of applause greeted her appearance, especially in London. She was married to Saint-L6on, well known in Paris and London as a dancer and violinist, and was separated from him in 1850. CERIUM, a metal which was discovered simul- taneously in 1803 by Klaproth, Hisinger, and Berzelius, and was so called by the last named after the planet Ceres. It occurs in association with lanthanum and didymium in cerite, allanite or orthite, yttrocerite, and a few other rare minerals. Cerite, containing also lanthanum and didymium, is the most abundant of these minerals. Wohler prepared the metal in the following manner : The brown oxide, obtained by incinerating the oxalate, is dissolved in hydrochloric acid, and the resulting chloride mixed with about equal parts of chloride of potassium and chloride of ammonium, and evaporated to expel all of the ammonia, and finally fused. The slag thus obtained is pul- verized, and while still warm is mixed with sodium and projected into a crucible pre- viously heated. The reaction is continued until the soda flame disappears. The cooled mass contains metallic pellets. Cerium has a lustre between iron and lead, and loses its polish in the air. It is malleable, ductile, and soft as lead. Its specific gravity is 5-5 at 12 C. Before the blowpipe it glows to a brown oxide ; heated powerfully, it explodes with scintilla- tion. The pulverized metal takes fire at 100 C. It decomposes water slightly at the boil- ing point ; is rapidly dissolved by HC1, con- verted to brown oxide by concentrated nitric acid, and is easily dissolved by weak nitric acid. Its compounds have a limited use in medicine and the arts. CERRETO (anc. Cernetum), a well built town of Italy, on the Apennines, in the province and 12 m. N". W. of Benevento; pop. about 5,000. It has a cathedral, a collegiate church, a diocesan school, three convents, five annual fairs, and cloth manufactories. Near its site Pyrrhus was defeated in 275 B. C. In 1688 an earthquake destroyed a great part of the town.