Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/615

CHASIDIM. CHASIDIM, kas,-'dini i Hel).. saints). A niinif t'liipluvt'd at different periods of history to desigiiatt" a sect of Pietists among the Jews. ( 1) Beginning in the time of the high priest Simon the Just ( B.C. 300-270 ), a sect of Jews arose which was distinguished by its strict obserance of ceremonial regulations. They firmly opposed all Hellenizing tendencies, and clung closer and closer to the ceremonies of .Judaism. The mem- bers even suffered death in preference to trans- gressing the rites of their religion. They carried out to the letter the Sabbath laws and incuriTd loss and personal danger rather than extinguish a tire on that day; but they were no less strin- gent in carrying out the purely ethical features of the law. and were noted for their kindness and charity. I'nder Matt.iithias, the Ilasmonean, they took part in the .Jewish wars for independence, and were keen patriots, although lacking the ardor and spirit of the Hasmoneans themselves. In the days of John Hyrcanus, when Judsea was again independent, the Pietists withdrew into a life of retirement, and became the sect of Essenes (q.v.). while those of the Chasidim who were not willing to resign participation in political affairs branched off into the sect of Pharisees (q.v.). These Chasidim are mentioned in the Apocrypha (cf. I. ilac. ii. 42), as 'Asidseans' or 'Hasida>ans.' Consult Hamburger, Realen- ctiklopadie fiir Bibel und Talmud, Vol. II. (Leip- zig, 18961.

(2) In modern times the name Chasidim is applied to a sect w'hieh originated in Poland under the leadership of Israel of iliedziboz (died 1759), and after his death of Beer of iliz- ricz (died 1772). Israel was called "Baal Shem,' •master of the name,' because he professed to perform miracles by using the name of God. and the sect that followed him was characterized by a belief in miracles, and in the approach of the coming of the Messiah. They opposed Talmudic learning, because their leader was not a Tal- mudist. Their worship became characterized by its noisiness and the almost frenzied gyra- tions of its devotees. Beer was dignified with the title Zaddik' (righteous), and claimed to represent God upon earth. The members of the sect formed a kind of fraternity, and it spread rapidly, numbering about fifty thousand in 1770. The new division provoked great oppo- sition on the part of the Talmudists, and in 1781, in Vilna. the Chasidim were declared to be here- tics, but the sect continued to flourish, and to- day has a large niunl«'r of adherents. Willi their antipathy to the Talmud on the one hand, the Chasidim combine an aversion to all modern cul- ture on the other, their literature consisting of mystical, cabalistic works. Consult Schechter, Studies ill ./udaism (New York. 1896).

CHASING (short form of enchase; Fr. en- chasser. from en + chasse, frame, OF. casse. It. cassn. Cat., I.at. copsa. case, from capere. to hold). The art of working in metals l)y indent- ing. This is an art of very early times, and was practiced largely Ijy the (Jrceks in ornamenting the clra|)erie~ and costumes of religious figures for the temples. It is produced by punching from behind the general character of the design, which is afterwards perfected by chiseling the details. This results in a kind of embossed engraving, often of great richness. The favorite metal used for this purpose was silver, although gold, and in verj" early times even iron, was thus orna- mented. That the art was kno^vn at a very early |)eriod may be inferred from the shield of Achilles, the ark of t'ypselus, and other produc- tions of the kind. Such portions of the c<dossal statues made by Phidias and Polycletus as were not of ivory were produced by this art. The statue of Athena was riclily adorned in this manner. Besides Phidias and Polycletus, Myron, Mys, and Mentor were celebrated toreutic artists in antiquity, and among many moderns the most famous is Benvenuto Cellini.

CHAS'KA. A city and county-seat of Car- ver County. Minn., 22 miles southwest of Min- neapolis, on the Minnesota River, and on the Minneapolis and Saint Louis and the Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul railroads (Map: Min- nesota, E.6). It is the seat of an extensive brick-making industry, and has also a flour-mill, creamerv. foundrv and machine shops, etc. Popu- lation, isOO. 2210; 1900, 2165.

CHASLES, .shal, Michel (1793-1880). A French mathematician. He was bom at Eper- non. entered the Ecole Polyteehnique, of Paris, in 1812, took part in the defense of Paris in 1814, and reentered the school in the following year. At graduation he secured the much coveted pro- motion to a commission in the engineer corps, but resigned it, with rare generosity, to allow one of his fellow classmates to take the place, retiring to Chartres for the purpose of studying geometry. For a quarter of a century Chasles devoted the leisure which his wealth afforded to a profound study of this science. After a perusal of the works of Lagrange or Laplace, he read Apollonius and Archimedes, and sought to clarify the obscure passages of Pappus. Chasles's classi- cal work. Aper^u historique sur I'origine et le de- veloppement des methodes en geometrie (1837, 2d ed., 1875), while modest in title, is powerful in exposition, clear in style, and rich in ingenious comparisons. In 1841 he was made professor of geodesy and mechanics at the Ecole Polyteeh- nique, and in 1846 professor of geometry at the Sorbonne, which chair he occupied for twenty- one years. The appendix to the AperQU histo- rique contains the general theory of homography and reciprocity. Synthetic or projective geom- etry was elaborated by him, as was also the "method of characteristics,' the basis of enumer- ative geometry afterwards extended by Schubert to n-dimensional space. Chasles contributed also some valuable propositions to integral calculus; his discussions of the displacement of solid bodies and of st,atic electricity have become classics in the field of science, and his solution (1845) by projective geometry' of the difficult problem of the attraction of an ellipsoid on an external point is noteworthy. The words of an illustrious Englishman, "M. C>iiasles is the emperor of geom- etry," rightly suggest his title to fame.

It is not an uninteresting fact that Chasles was duped by the notorious forger Vrain Lucas. In lsii7 Cliaslcs aniiininccd that lie was in |ios- sessioM of 27.000 letters and documents of great value ; among them were papers believe<l to have been written by Dante. Petrarch. Rabelais. .Tulius Caesar, and Shakespeare, as well as some by Pas- cal, which were intended to prove that Pascal had anticipated some of the greatest discoveries of N'ewton. Scarcely one hundred of them prov- ing genuine. Chasles suffered not only the em- barrassment of being deceived, but also the loss of his expenaiturc of 200.000 francs.