[1] A shortened form of Chalcocondyles, from [Greek: chalkos],
copper, and [Greek: kondylos], knuckle.
CHALDAEA. The expressions "Chaldaea" and "Chaldaeans" are frequently
used in the Old Testament as equivalents for "Babylonia" and
"Babylonians." Chaldaea was really the name of a country, used in two
senses. It was first applied to the extreme southern district, whose
ancient capital was the city of _Bit Yakin_, the chief seat of the
renowned Chaldaean rebel Merodach-baladan, who harassed the Assyrian
kings Sargon and Sennacherib. It is not as yet possible to fix the exact
boundaries of the original home of the Chaldaeans, but it may be
regarded as having been the long stretch of alluvial land situated at
the then separate mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates, which rivers now
combine to flow into the Persian Gulf in the waters of the majestic
_Shatt el 'Arab_.
The name "Chaldaea," however, soon came to have a more extensive
application. In the days of the Assyrian king Ramman-nirari III.
(812-783 B.C.), the term _mat Kaldu_ covered practically all Babylonia.
Furthermore, Merodach-baladan was called by Sargon II. (722-705 B.C.)
"king of the land of the Chaldaeans" and "king of the land of Bit Yakin"
after the old capital city, but there is no satisfactory evidence that
Merodach-baladan had the right to the title "Babylonian." The racial
distinction between the Chaldaeans and the Babylonians proper seems to
have existed until a much later date, although it is almost certain that
the former were originally a Semitic people. That they differed from the
Arabs and Aramaeans is also seen from the distinction made by
Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) between the Chaldaeans and these races.
Later, during the period covering the fall of Assyria and the rise of
the Neo-Babylonian empire, the term _mat Kaldu_ was not only applied to
all Babylonia, but also embraced the territory of certain foreign
nations who were later included by Ezekiel (xxiii. 23) under the
expression "Chaldaeans."
As already indicated, the Chaldaeans were most probably a Semitic
people. It is likely that they first came from Arabia, the supposed
original home of the Semitic races, at a very early date along the coast
of the Persian Gulf and settled in the neighbourhood of Ur ("Ur of the
Chaldees," Gen. xi. 28), whence they began a series of encroachments,
partly by warfare and partly by immigration, against the other Semitic
Babylonians. These aggressions after many centuries ended in the
Chaldaean supremacy of Nabopolassar and his successors (c. 626 ff.),
although there is no positive proof that Nabopolassar was purely
Chaldaean in blood. The sudden rise of the later Babylonian empire under
Nebuchadrezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, must have tended to produce so
thorough an amalgamation of the Chaldaeans and Babylonians, who had
theretofore been considered as two kindred branches of the same original
Semite stock, that in the course of time no perceptible differences
existed between them. A similar amalgamation, although in this case of
two peoples originally racially distinct, has taken place in modern
times between the Manchu Tatars and the Chinese. It is quite evident,
for example, from the Semitic character of the Chaldaean king-names,
that the language of these Chaldaeans differed in no way from the
ordinary Semitic Babylonian idiom which was practically identical with
that of Assyria. Consequently, the term "Chaldaean" came quite naturally
to be used in later days as synonymous with "Babylonian." When
subsequently the Babylonian language went out of use and Aramaic took
its place, the latter tongue was wrongly termed "Chaldee" by Jerome,
because it was the only language known to him used in Babylonia. This
error was followed until a very recent date by many scholars.
The derivation of the name "Chaldaean" is extremely uncertain. Peter
Jensen has conjectured with slight probability that the Chaldaeans were
Semitized Sumerians, i.e. a non-Semitic tribe which by contact with
Semitic influences had lost its original character. There seems to be
little or no evidence to support such a view. Friedrich Delitzsch
derived the name "Chaldaean" =_Kasdim_ from the non-Semitic Kassites who
held the supremacy over practically all Babylonia during an extended
period (c. 1783-1200 B.C.). This theory seems also to be extremely
improbable. It is much more likely that the name "Chaldaean" is
connected with the Semitic stem _kasadu_ (conquer), in which case
_Kaldi-Kasdi_, with the well-known interchange of l and _s_, would mean
"conquerors." It is also possible that _Kasdu-Kaldu_ is connected with
the proper name Chesed, who is represented as having been the nephew of
Abraham (Gen. xxii. 22). There is no connexion whatever between the
Black Sea peoples called "Chaldaeans" by Xenophon (_Anab_. vii. 25) and
the Chaldaeans of Babylonia.
In Daniel, the term "Chaldaeans" is very commonly employed with the
meaning "astrologers, astronomers," which sense also appears in the
classical authors, notably in Herodotus, Strabo and Diodorus. In Daniel
i. 4, by the expression "tongue of the Chaldaeans," the writer evidently
meant the language in which the celebrated Babylonian works on astrology
and divination were composed. It is now known that the literary idiom of
the Babylonian wise men was the non-Semitic Sumerian; but it is not
probable that the late author of Daniel (c. 168 B.C.) was aware of this
fact.
The word "Chaldaean" is used in Daniel in two senses. It is applied as
elsewhere in the Old Testament as a race-name to the Babylonians (Dan.
iii. 8, v. 30, ix. 1); but the expression is used oftener, either as a
name for some special class of magicians, or as a term for magicians in
general (ix. 1). The transfer of the name of the people to a special
class is perhaps to be explained in the following manner. As just shown,
"Chaldaean" and "Babylonian" had become in later times practically
synonymous, but the term "Chaldaean" had lived on in the secondary
restricted sense of "wise men." The early _Kaldi_ had seized and held
from very ancient times the region of old Sumer, which was the centre of
the primitive non-Semitic culture. It seems extremely probable that
these Chaldaean Semites were so strongly influenced by the foreign
civilization as to adopt it eventually as their own. Then, as the
Chaldaeans soon became the dominant people, the priestly caste of that
region developed into a Chaldaean institution. It is reasonable to
conjecture that southern Babylonia, the home of the old culture,
supplied Babylon and other important cities with priests, who from their
descent were correctly called "Chaldaeans." This name in later times,
owing to the racial amalgamation of the Chaldaeans and Babylonians, lost
its former national force, and became, as it occurs in Daniel, a
distinctive appellation of the Babylonian priestly class. It is
possible, though not certain, that the occurrence of the word _kalu_
(priest) in Babylonian, which has no etymological connexion with
_Kaldu_, may have contributed paronomastically towards the popular use
of the term "Chaldaeans" for the Babylonian Magi. (See also ASTROLOGY.)
LITERATURE.--Delattre, _Les Chaldeens jusqu'a la fond. de l'emp. de
Nebuch._ (1889); Winckler, _Untersuchungen zur altor. Gesch._ (1889),
pp. 49 ff.; _Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr._ (1892), pp. 111 ff.; Prince,
_Commentary on Daniel_ (1899), pp. 59-61; see also BABYLONIA AND
ASSYRIA and SUMER AND SUMERIAN. (J. D. Pr.)
CHALDEE, a term sometimes applied to the Aramaic portions of the
biblical books of Ezra and Daniel or to the vernacular paraphrases of
the Old Testament (see TARGUM). The explanation formerly adopted and
embodied in the name Chaldee is that the change took place in Babylon.
That the so-called Biblical Chaldee, in which considerable portions of
the books of Ezra and Daniel are written, was really the language of
Babylon was supposed to be clear from Dan. ii. 4, where the Chaldaeans
are said to have spoken to the king in Aramaic. But the cuneiform
inscriptions show that the language of the Chaldaeans was Assyrian; and
an examination of the very large part of the Hebrew Old Testament
written later than the exile proves conclusively that the substitution
of Aramaic for Hebrew as the vernacular of Palestine took place very
gradually. Hence scholars are now agreed that the term "Chaldee" is a
misnomer, and that the dialect so called is really the language of the
South-Western Arameans, who were the immediate neighbours of the Jews
(W. Wright, _Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages_, p. 16). (See
SEMITIC LANGUAGES.)
CHALICE (through a central O. Fr. form of the Lat. _calix_, _calicis_,
cup), a drinking-vessel of the cup or goblet form, now only used of the
cup used in the celebration of the Eucharist (q.v.). For the various
forms which the "chalice" so used has taken, see DRINKING-VESSELS and
PLATE. When, in the eucharistic service, water is mixed with the wine,
the "chalice" is known as the "mixed chalice." This has been customary
both in the Eastern and Western Churches from early times. The Armenian
Church does not use the "mixed chalice." It was used in the English
Church before the Reformation. According to the present law of the
English Church, the mixing of the water with wine is lawful, if this is
not done as part of or during the services, i.e. if it is not done
ceremonially (_Martin_ v. _Mackonochie_, 1868, L.R. 2 P.C. 365; _Read_
v. _Bp. of Lincoln_, 1892, A.C. 664).
CHALIER, JOSEPH (1747-1793), French Revolutionist. He was destined by
his family for the church, but entered business, and became a partner in
a firm at Lyons for which he travelled in the Levant, in Italy, Spain
and Portugal. He was in Paris in 1789, and entered into relations with
Marat, Camille Desmoulins and Robespierre. On his return to Lyons,
Chalier was the first to be named member of the municipal bureau. He
organized the national guard, applied the civil constitution of the
clergy, and regulated the finances of the city so as to tax the rich
heavily and spare the poor. Denounced to the Legislative Assembly by the
directory of the department of Rhone-et-Loire for having made a
nocturnal domiciliary perquisition, he was sent to the bar of the
Assembly, which approved of his conduct. In the election for mayor of
Lyons, in November 1792, he was defeated by a Royalist. Then Chalier
became the orator and leader of the Jacobins of Lyons, and induced the
other revolutionary clubs and the commune of his city to arrest a great
number of Royalists in the night of the 5th and 6th of February 1793.
The mayor, supported by the national guard, opposed this project.
Chalier demanded of the Convention the establishment of a revolutionary
tribunal and the levy of a revolutionary army at Lyons. The Convention
refused, and the anti-revolutionary party, encouraged by this refusal,
took action. On the 29th and 30th of May 1793 the sections rose; the
Jacobins were dispossessed of the municipality and Chalier arrested. On
the 15th of July, in spite of the order of the Convention, he was
brought before the criminal tribunal of the Rhone-et-Loire, condemned to
death, and guillotined the next day. The Terrorists paid a veritable
worship to his memory, as to a martyr of Liberty.
See N. Wahl, "Etude sur Chalier," in _Revue historique_, t. xxxiv.;
and _Les Premieres Annees de la Revolution a Lyon_ (Paris, 1894).
CHALK, the name given to any soft, pulverulent, pure white limestone.
The word is an old one, having its origin in the Saxon _cealc_, and the
hard form "kalk" is still in use amongst the country folk of
Lincolnshire. The German _Kalk_ comprehends all forms of limestone;
therefore a special term, _Kreide_, is employed for chalk--French
_craie_. From being used as a common name, denoting a particular
material, the word was subsequently utilized by geologists as an
appellation for the _Chalk formation_; and so prominent was this
formation in the eyes of the earlier workers that it imposed its name
upon a whole system of rocks, the Cretaceous (Lat. _creta_, chalk),
although this rock itself is by no means generally characteristic of the
system as a whole.
The Chalk formation, in addition to the typical chalk material--_creta
scriptoria_--comprises several variations; argillaceous kinds--_creta
marga_ of Linnaeus--known locally as malm, marl, clunch, &c.; and
harder, more stony kinds, called rag, freestone, rock, hurlock or
harrock in different districts. In certain parts of the formation layers
of nodular flints (q.v.) abound; in parts, it is inclined to be sandy,
or to contain grains of glauconite which was originally confounded with
another green mineral, chlorite, hence the name "chloritic marl" applied
to one of the subdivisions of the chalk. In its purest form chalk
consists of from 95 to 99% of calcium carbonate (carbonate of lime); in
this condition it is composed of a mass of fine granular particles held
together by a somewhat feeble calcareous cement. The particles are
mostly the broken tests of foraminifera, along with the debris of
echinoderm and molluscan shells, and many minute bodies, like
coccoliths, of somewhat obscure nature.
The earliest attempts at subdivision of the Chalk formation initiated
by Wm. Phillips were based upon lithological characters, and such a
classification as "Upper Chalk with Flints," "Lower Chalk without
Flints," "Chalk marl or Grey chalk," was generally in use in England
until W. Whitaker established the following order in 1865:--