Creation – Crispus

Creation

One of the most convincing proofs of the composite authorship of the Pentateuch has always been found in the existence side by side of two independent and mutually irreconcilable accounts of the creation of the world. The first, Gn l’-2*», forms the introduction of the Priestly Code (P), which was compiled, as is now generally acknowledged, in the 5th Cent. B.C. The second, Genesis 2: opens the JahwistiC document (J), whose latest portions must be dated at least a century and a half earlier than the compilation of P. These two narratives, while expressing the same fundamental religious ideas, differ profoundly in their concrete conceptions of the process of creation. The account of -P-SJiKts with a description (v. 2) of tbej)rimeval chaos — a dark formless watery abyss, out of which the world of light and order was to be evolved. Whether this chaotic matter owed its origin to a prior creative act of God is a question depending on a delicate point of grammatical construction which cannot be adequately explained here; but, looking to the analogy of the Babylonian Creation-story (see below) , it seems probable that the chaos is conceived as pre-existent, and that the representation of the chapter falls short of the full dogmatic idea of creation as production out of nothing, — an idea first unambiguously expressed in_^2 Mac 7’i.-- The w6rk of creation then proceeds in a series of eight Divine fiats, viz.: (1) Creation of light and separation of light from the primeval darkness, vv. 3–5; (2) division of the chaotic waters by the firmament, w.’-S; (3) separation of land and sea, vv. 9, 10; (4) clothing of the earth with vegetation, vv. 11–13; (5) formation of the heavenly bodies, vv. 14–19; (6) production of fishes and birds, w."-^; (7) land animals, v. 24 f.; and (8) the creation of man in the image of God with dominion over the creatures, v. 26 ff.:. The most remarkable formal feature of the record is a somewhat artificial but carefully planned and symmetrical arrangement of the eight works under a scheme of six days. The creative process is thus divided into two parallel stages, each embracing four works and occupying three days, the last day in each division having two works assigned to it. There is an obviously designed, though not quite complete, correspondence between the two series: (1) light (6) luminaries; (2) waters and firmament (6) fishes and fowls; (3) dry land (7, 8) terrestrial animals; (4) trees and grasses, and (on the sixth dsiy) the appointment of these as the food of men and animals. The significance of the six days’ scheme is revealed in the closing verses (2:1–3). where the resting of the Creator on the seventh day is regarded as the antitype and sanction of the Jewish Sabbath-rest. It is not improbable that the scheme of days is a modification of the original cosmogony, introduced in the interest of the Sabbath law; and this adaptation may account for some anomalies of arrangement which seem to mar the consistency of the scheme.

In^the-narratisa-of J- (2), -the-earth as originally made by Jahweh was an arid lifeless waste, in which no plant could grow for lack of moisture, and where there was no man to till the ground (vv. 5, 6). The ideg, of man’s superiority to the other creatures is here expressed by placing his creation, not at the end as in P, but at the beginning (v. 7) followed by the planting of the garden in which he was to dwell and from whose trees he was to derive his food (vv.) ; the forming of beasts and birds to relieve his solitude and awake his craving for a nobler companionship (vv. 18–20) and lastly of the woman, in whom he recognizes a part of himself and a helpmeet for him (vv. 21–23) The express reference to the welfare of man in each act of creation makes it doubtful whether a systematic account of the origin of things was contemplated by the writer, or whether the passage is not rather to be regarded as a poetic clothing of ideas generated by reflexion on fundamental facts of human life and society. It is probable, however, that it contains fragments of a fuller cosmogony which has been abridged and utilized as a prologue to the story of Paradise and the Fall. On either view, the divergence from the account of P is so obvious as to preclude the attempt to harmonize the two, or to treat the second as merely supplementary to the first.

Much ingenuity has been expended in the effort to bring the Biblical record of creation into accord with the facts disclosed by the modern sciences of Geology and Astronomy. Naturally such constructions confine their operations to the systematic and semi-scientific account of Genesis 1; for it has probably never occurred to any one to vindicate the scientific accuracy of the more imaginative narrative of J. But even if we were to admit the unique claim of the first chapter to be a revealed cosmogony, the difficulty of harmonizing it with the teachings of science is seen to be insurmountable as soon as the real nature of the problem to be solved is fairly apprehended. It is not sufficient to emphasize the general idea of gradation and upward progress as common to science and Scripture, or to point to isolated coincidences, such as the creation of fishes before mammals, or the late appearance of man on the earth: the narrative must be taken as a whole, and it must be shown that there is a genuine parallelism between the order of days and works in Genesis 1 and the stages of development recognized by science as those through which the universe has reached its present form. This has never been done; and after making every allowance for the imperfection of the geological record, and the general insecurity of scientific hypothesis as distinguished from ascertained tact, enough is known to make it certain that the required correspondence can never be made out. Thus the formation of the sun and moon after the earth, after the alternation of day and night, and even after the emergence of plant-life, is a scientific impossibility. Again, the rough popular classifications of Genesis (plants, aquatic animals, birds, land animals, etc.) are, for scientific purposes, hopelessly inadequate; and the idea that these groups originated as wholes, and in the order here specified, is entirely contrary to the ‘testimony of the rocks.’ But, indeed, the whole conception of the universe on which the cosmogony of Genesis rests opposes a fatal barrier to any valid reconciliation with scientific theory. The world whose origin is here described is a solid expanse of earth, surrounded by and resting on a world-ocean, and surmounted by a rigid vault called the firmament, above which the waters of a heavenly ocean are spread. Such a world is unknown to science; and the manner in which such a world was conceived to have come into being cannot truly represent the process by which the very different world of science and fact has been evolved. This fact alone would amply justify the emphatic verdict of Professor Driver: ‘Read without prejudice or bias, the narrative of Genesis 1 creates an impression at variance with the facts revealed by science: the efforts at reconciliation... are but different modes of obliterating its characteristic features, and of reading into it a view which it does not express’ ( Westm. Com. ‘Genesis,’ p. 26).

To form a correct estimate of the character and religious value of the first chapter of Genesis, it has to be borne in mind that speculative theories of the origin of the universe were an important element of all the higher religions of antiquity. Many of these cosmogonies(as they are called) are known to us; and amidst all the diversity of representation which characterizes them, we cannot fail to detect certain underlying affinities which suggest a common source, either in the natural tendencies of early thought, or In some dominant type of cosraological tradition. That the Hebrew cosmogony is influenced by such a tradition is proved by its striking likeness to the Babylonian story of creation as contained in cuneiform tablets from Ashurbanipal’s library, first unearthed in 1872. From these Assyriologists have deciphered a highly coloured mythological epic, describing the origin of the world in the form of a conflict between Marduk, god of light and supreme deity of the pantheon of Babylon, and the power of Chaos personified as a female monster named Ti’amat (Heb. TehSm’). Wide as is the difference between the polytheistic assumptions and fantastic imagery of the Babylonian narrative and the sober dignity and elevated monotheism of Genesis, there are yet coincidences in general outline and in detail which are too marked and too numerous to be ascribed to chance. In both we have the conception of chaos as a watery abyss, in both the separation of the waters into an upper and a lower ocean ; the formation of the heavenly bodies and their function in regulating time are described with remarkable similarity; special prominence is given to the creation of man; and it may be added that, while the order of creation differs in the two documents, yet the separate works themselves are practically Identical. In view of this pervading parallelism, it is clear that the Hebrew and Babylonian cosmogonies are very closely related; and the only question open to discussion is which of them represents more faithfully the primary tradition on which each is based. Looking, however, to the vastly higher antiquity of the Babylonian narrative, to its conformity (even in points which affect the Biblical record) to the climatic conditions of the Euphrates Valley, and to the general indebtedness of Israel to the civilization of Babylon, it cannot reasonably be doubted that the Hebrew narrative is dependent on Babylonian models; though it is of course not certain that the particular version preserved in the tablets referred to is the exact original by which the Biblical writers were influenced.

From this point of view we are able to state the significance of the Scripture account of creation in a way which does justice at once to its unrivalled religious value and to its lack of scientific corroboration. The material is derived from some form of the Babylonian cosmogony, and shares the imperfection and error incident to all pre-scientiflc speculation regarding the past history of the world. The Scripture writers make no pretension to supernatural illumination on matters which it is the province of physical investigation to ascertain. Their theology, on the other hand, is the product of a revelation which placed them tar in advance of their heathen contemporaries, and imparted to all their thinking a sanity of imagination and a sublimity of conception that instinctively rejected the grosser features of paganism, and transformed what was retained into a vehicle of Divine truth. Thus the cosmogony became a classical expression of the monotheistic principle of the OT, which is here embodied in a detailed description of the genesis of the universe that lays hold of the mind as no abstract statement of the principle could do. In opposition to the heathen theogonles, the world is affirmed to have been created, i.e. to have originated in the will of God, whose Personality transcends the universe and exists independently of it. The spirituality of the First Cause of all things, and His absolute sovereignty over the material He employs, are further emphasized in the idea of the word of God as the agency through which the various orders of existence were produced; and the repeated assertion that the world in all its parts was ‘good,’ and as a whole ‘very good,’ suggests that it perfectly reflected the Divine thought which called it into being. When to these doctrines we add the view of man, as made in the likeness of God, and marked out as the crown and goal of creation, we have a body of spiritual truth which distinguishes the cosmogony of Genesis 1 from all similar compositions, and entitles it to rank amongst the most important documents of revealed religion.

John Skinneb.

Creature

In AV ‘creature’ is used in the general (and original) sense of ‘what is created.’ Thus 2 Corinthians 5:17 ‘if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature’; 1 Timothy 4:4 ‘for every creature of God is good.’ In Ro 8, 20. 21 it is not merely living creatures in the modern use of the word that wait for deliverance, but the whole creation of God (as AV itself has it in v. 22).

Creditor

See Debt.

Creed

Creed (or Credo [AS. creda], taken from the first word of the Latin confession of faith = Greek ‘symbol’ [symbolon, symbolum]). — An ecclesiastical (non-Biblical) term, signifying ‘the faith’ objectively and as explicitly declared, ‘the articles of Christian’ belief drawn up in systematic and authoritative form. ‘The Creeds’ denote the three great historical Confessions of the early Church — ‘the Apostles’,’ the Nicene or Constantinopolitan (325, 381 A.D.), and the Athanasian (of Latin origin, 6th century) ; ‘the Creed’ commonly means the Apostles’ Creed alone. This last can be traced, in its simplest form, to the 2nd century; see Lumby’s Hist, of the Creeds, or Swete’s Apostles’ Creed. Shaped in their developed form by doctrinal controversy and Conciliar definition, the Creeds owe their origin to the necessities of worship and the instinct of public confession in the Church, felt at baptism to begin with. Christian believers formed the habit, when they met, of reciting their common faith, and this recitation assumed a fixed rhythmical form ; so that the creed is akin to the hymn and the doxology. Its beginnings are visible in the NT— see Matthew 16:16 28:19. Romans 10:9, 10. 1 Corinthians 8 12:3 (RV), Ephesians 4:4–6, 1 Timothy 3:16, 1 John 4:2) and further back, for the OT and the Synagogue, in the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4.

G. G. FiNDLAY.

Creeping Things

In the EV this term is the tr. of two distinct words, which have no etymological connexion, and in usage are not synonymous. The Hebrew words are remes and sherets. It is unfortunate that the latter term is tr. ‘creeping thing,’ for the root means to swarm. It includes both terrestrial and aquatic animals which appear in great swarms; in Genesis 1:20 it refers to the creatures that teem in the waters, while in other passages it includes insects, as locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers (Leviticus 11:20–23), together with the smaller quadrupeds as the weasel and mouse, as well as reptiles proper (Leviticus 11:29–31). The verb is used of frogs (Exodus 8:3). Etymologically remes signifies that which glides or creeps, and for its usage the two crucial passages are Genesis 1:24 and 1 Kings 4:33. In the latter the entire animal kingdom is popularly divided into four classes: beasts, birds, creeping things, and fishes (cf. Hosea 2). In Genesis 1:24 the land animals are put into three groups: cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the earth. By eliminating the first and third classes, which respectively include domesticated quadrupeds, and the wild animals, we see that the expression ‘creeping things’ is, roughly speaking, equivalent to our term ‘reptiles,’ exclusive of those which are aquatic. Delitzsch defines remes as ‘the smaller creeping animals that keep close to the earth’; Dillmann as creatures ‘which move along the ground either without feet or with imperceptible feet.’ From this discussion it is evident that the two are not interchangeable terms. Bem^s has also a wider signification: in Psalms 104:25 it is used of marine animals, in Genesis 9:3 (EV ‘moving thing’) it includes all living creatures. See, further, the careful discussion by Professor Driver in Hastings’ DB i. 517 f. James A. Kelso.

Crescens

A companion of St. Paul in his final imprisonment, sent by him to Galatia (2 Timothy 4:10). i.e. either to Asiatic Galatia, or possibly to Gaul. A late Western tradition treats him as the founder of the Churches of Vienne and of Mayence. His memory is honoured in the Roman Martyrology on June 27, in the Greels Menologion on May 30, and there he is treated as one of the seventy disciples, and a bishop of Chalcedon.

Crescents

SeeAMULETS, § 4, and Ohnamenib, § 3.

Crete, Cretan's

Crete, the modern Candia, is an island 60 miles S. of Greece proper, about ISO miles long, and varying in breadth from 30 t(j 7 miles, with mountains as high as 7000 feet. It is about equidistant from Europe, Asia, and Africa, and was inhabited from the earliest times of which we have any knowledge. The researches of Mr. Arthur J. Evans and others have revealed traces of a very ancient civilization, including an alphabet hitherto unknown. In historical times it was famed for its archers, who were valued in the armies of Europe. It was conquered by Rome in b.c. 67, and became, in conjunction with the district Cyrenaica on the N. of Africa, a Roman senatorial province, governed by a proconsul. Jews were early to be found there, and were very numerous. Some were present at Pentecost in the year of the crucifixion (Acts 2:11). St. Paul’s ship, on the voyage to Rome, sailed along the Cretan coast close in (Acts 27:7). and came to Fair Havens near Lasea. These places were on the S. coast, which had few harbours.

The epithets which a native of the island, the poet Epimenides (flourished b.c. 600), flung at the Cretans, are quoted in a somewhat un-apostolio manner in the Epistle to Titus (1:12). Epimenides styled them ‘always liars, evil beasts of prey, lazy gluttons.’ Such vituperation, though countenanced by others also, must not be taken too seriously. The ancients were much given to it, and it probably reveals as much of the natures of the persons who used it as of those to whom it was applied. Greeks in general are not, and were not. famous for truthfulness, for instance. When and by whom Christianity was planted in Crete cannot be said. It is probable that it was well established there in the 1st century. In the Epistle to Titus we find Titus introduced as having been left by St. Paul in charge of the churches. A. Souter.

Crib

Crib is the modern manger (Luke 2:7). which contained the fodder for oxen (Proverbs 14:4). asses (Isaiah 1:3). and doubtless other live stock as well.

Cricket

Leviticus 11:22 (AV ‘beetle’). See Locust.

Crime

In 1611 the word ‘crime’ had not lost its early meaning of accusation^ whence Acts 25:16 ‘the crime laid against him’ (RV ‘matter,’ but in Acts 23:29 the same Gr. word is translated ‘charge’ in both AV and RV). It is possible, that in Job 31:11 ‘crime’ is used in the more modern sense; elsewhere it means ‘charge.’

Crimes and Punishments

The term ‘crimes’ is here used loosely in the sense of punishable offences, including not merely crimes (.crimina) in the sense of breaches of the criminal law in the modern sense, and torts idelicla) or breaches of the civil law, but also those offences in the sphere of religion and worship to which definite penalties were attached. Within the limits of this article it is possible to present only a summary of the more important and typical punishable offences recognized in the various Hebrew law-codes. The latter, indicated by the usual symbols, are: (1) BC, the oldest code, known as the Book of the Covenant, Ex 20S2-23’‘, with which for convenience sake is joined the Decalogue of Exodus 20:2–17; (2) D, the Deuteronomio Code, Dt 12-28; (3) H, the Holiness Code, Lv 17-26; and (4) P, the great collection of laws known as the Priests’ Code, and comprising the rest of the legislative material of the Pentateuch. In the case of P alone will it be necessary to name the books (Ex., Lv., or Nu.) to which reference is made.

The penal offences of the Pentateuch may be conveniently grouped under the three heads of crimes against J", against society (including property), and against the individual.

1. A. Crimes against J", or offences in the sphere of religion and worship. — Although it is true that misdemeanours of every kind were in the last resort offences against J", who was regarded as the only fountain of law and justice, it will be convenient to group under this head those belonging to the special sphere of religious belief and its outward expression in worship. Among these the first place must be given to the worship of heathen deities — condemned in the strongest terms in BC (from 20:3 onwards) and D — and of the heavenly bodies, D 17:3 (cf. 4:19). The penalty is death under the ban (BC 22:20. D 13:12 ff. [see Ban]), or by stoning (D 17:5). Inseparable from this form of apostasy is the crime of idolatry, entailing the curse of God (D 27:15). Blasphemy, or profanation of the Divine name, is forbidden in all the codes; the penalty is death by stoning (H 24:13 ff.). The practice of magic, wizardry, and similar black arts, exposes their adepts and those who resort to them to the same penalty (H 20).

2. The punishment for doing ‘any work on the Sabbath day’ is death, but only in the later legislation (Exodus 31:15 [probably H] 35:2 [P]; cf. the very late Haggadic section, Numbers 15:32 ff.). For neglect of ordinances, to use a familiar phrase, such as failing to observe the fast of the Day of Atonement (H 23:29), or to keep the Passover (Numbers 9:13 [P], an offender was liable to be ‘cut off from his people’; see below). This was also the punishment prescribed for a number of offences that may be grouped under the head of sacrilege, such as partaking of blood (Leviticus 7:27 [P]), and the unauthorized manufacture and use of the holy anointing oil (Exodus 30:32 f. [P]).

3. B. Crimes against Society. — As the family, according to Hebrew ideas, was the unit of society, the crimes that mar the sanctities of family life may be taken first. Such pre-eminently was adultery, severely condemned in all the codes, the punishment for both parties being death (D 22:22. H 20:10). In a case of seduction the man was required to marry her whom he had wronged, if her father gave consent (BC 22:16 f.). paying the latter a ‘dowry,’ i.e. the usual purchase price (see Marriage), estimated in D 22:29 at 50 shekels of silver. On the other hand, the penalty for rape, if the victim was betrothed, was death (D 22:25 ff.), as it was for unnatural crimes like sodomy (H IS^^ 20:13 ‘thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind’) and bestiality (BC 22:19. H 20:15 f.). The marriage of near kin is forbidden in H 18:6–18 under seventeen heads (see Marriage). Incest with a step-mother or a daughter-in-law was punishable by thedeath of both parties (H20"‘), while for a man to marry’ a wife and her mother ‘was a crime that could be expiated only by the death of all three, and that, as many hold (see below), by being burnt alive ift>. v. 14). Ordinary prostitution is condemned by H 19 (cf. D 22:21) for a priest’s daughter the punishment was even death by burning (21:9) while the wide-spread heathen practice of establisliing religious prostitutes, male and female, at the local sanctuaries is specially reprobated in D 23:17 f.; where the male prostitute is to be recognized under the inexact term’ sodomite,’ and the contemptuous ‘dog.’

4. Tobit 7 or one’s parents to the extent of smiting (BC 21:15). or cursing them (BC 21:17. H 20:9). or even of showing persistent contumacy (D 21). entailed the extreme penalty of death at the hands of the local authorities.

5. Everything that would tend to impair the impartial and effective administration of justice is emphatically condemned in the Hebrew codes, the giving and receiving of bribes, in particular, being forbidden even in the oldest legislation (BC 23:8 ‘for a gift blindeth them that have sight’). Against those who would defeat the ends of justice by perjury and false witness, the law is rightly severe (D IQi’"). Tale-bearing (H 19:16). and the spreading of a report known to be false (BC 23:1). are condemned, while in the more heinous case of a man slandering his newly-wedded wife, the elders of the city are to amerce him in an hundred shekels (D 22).

6. Property had also to be protected against theft (BC 20:15) and burglary (22:2). with which may be classed the crime of removing the boundary-stones of a neighbour’s property to increase one’s own (D 19:14). and the use of false weights and measures (D 25:15 ff.: H 19:35 ff.). The earliest code likewise deals with trespass (EC 22:5). and arson or wilful fire-raising (ib. V.’), for which the penalty in either case was restitution.

i. C. Crimes against the Individual. — BC 21:15–26 deals with various forms of assault, a crime to which the pre-Mosaic jus talionis (see below) was specially applicable. Kidnapping a freeman was a criminal offence involving the death penalty (BC 21:16. D 24:17). Murder naturally has a place in the penal legislation of all the codes from BC 20 onwards. The legislators, as is well known, were careful to distinguish between murder deliberately planned and executed (BC 21:14. D 19:11 f.) ) and unpremeditated homicide or manslaughter (BC 21:13. D 19:4 ff.: and esp. P, Numbers 35:9 ff.). The former, with certain exceptions (BC 21:20 22:2). entailed capital punishment in accordance with the fundamental principle laid down in Genesis 9:6 ; in the case of ‘the manslayer’ special provision was made for the mitigation of the ancient right of blood revenge (see Refuge [Cities of]).

8. Punishments. — From the earliest period of which we have any record two forms of punishment prevailed among the Hebrews and their Semitic kinsfolk, viz. retaliation and restitution. Retaliation, the jus talionis of Roman law, received its classical expression in the oldest Hebrew code: ‘thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth tor tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe’ (BC 21:23 f.). ). xhe talio, as has already been mentioned, was specially applicable in cases of injury from assault. When life had been taken, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the right of enforcing the jus talionis lay with the dead man’s next of kin (see Kin [Next of]).

In BC restitution varies from fivefold tor an ox, and fourfold for a sheep that has been stolen and thereafter killed or sold, to twofold it the animal is still in the thief’s possession (BC 22:1–4). and finally to a simple equivalent in the case of wilful damage to a neighbour’s property (.ib. v. 5 f.). Compensation by a money payment was admitted for loss of time through bodily injury (BC 21:19). for loss of property (w.^^-^), but not, in Hebrew law, tor loss of life, except In the cases mentioned BC 21:30. The payments of 100 shekels and 50 shekels respectively ordained in D 22 appear to the modern eye as fines, but fall in reality under the head of compensation paid to the father of the women in question.

9. In the penal code of the Hebrews there is a comparative lack of what may be termed intermediate penalties. Imprisonment, for example, has no place in the Pentateuch codes as an authorized form of punishment, although frequent cases occur in later times and apparently with legal sanction (see Ezra 7). The use of the stocks also was known to the Jewish (Jeremiah 20:2 f.) as well as to the Roman authorities (Acts 16:24). Beating with rods and scourging with the lash were also practised. The former seems liltended in D ZS"‘-, but later Jewish practice substituted a lash of three thongs, thirteen strokes of which were administered (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:24). Many, however, would Identify the punishment of this passage of D with the favourite Egyptian punishment of the bastinado. Uutilation, apart from the ialio, appears only as the penalty for indecent assault

10. The regular form of capital punishment was death by stoning, which is prescribed in the Pentateuch as the penalty for eighteen different crimes, including Sabbath-breaking. ‘For only one crime — murder — is it the penalty in all the codes.’ The execution of the criminal took place outside the city (H 24). and according to D 17 the witnesses in the case cast the first stone (cf. John 8:7). In certain cases the dead body of the malefactor was impaled upon a stake; this, it can hardly be doubted, is the true rendering of D 21:22 f. (AV ‘hang him on a tree’), and of the same expression elsewhere. Hanging or strangulation is mentioned only as a manner of suicide (2 Samuel 17:23, Matthew 27:5). Crucifixion, it need hardly be said, was a Roman, not a Jewish, institution. Beheading appears in Matthew 14:10)). Acts 12:2. Revelation 20:4.

11. The meaning of the expression frequently found in P, ‘to be cut off from his people, from Israel,’ etc., is uncertain; most probably it denotes a form of excommunication, with the implication that the offender is handed over to the judgment of God, which also seems to be Intended by the banishment of Ezra 7:26 (note margin). A similar division of opinion exists as to the penalty of burning, which is reserved for aggravated cases of prostitution (H 21) and incest (20). Here the probability seems in favour of the guilty parties being burned alive (cf. Genesis 38:24), although many scholars hold that they were first stoned to death. The most extreme form of punishment known to the codes, in that a whole community was involved, Is that of total destruction under the ban of the first degree (see Ban) prescribed tor the crime of apostasy (BC 22:20. more fully D 13:15–17). A. R. S. Kennedy.

Crisping Pins

Isaiah 3:22 AV; RV satchel (see Bag).

Crispus

The chief ruler of the Jewish synagogue at Corinth (Acts 18:8). Convinced by the reasonings of St. Paul that Jesus was the Messiah, he believed with all his house. The Apostle mentions him (1 Corinthians 1:14) as one of the few persons whom he himself had baptized.