CENCHREA, or CENCHRE)E (Keyxpeal), one of the ports of Corinth, whence Paul sailed for Ephesus (Acts xviii. 18). It was situated on the probability of some difference of shape between the censers used on these occasions. The daily cen sers must have had a base or stand to admit of their being placed on the golden altar, while those employed on the day of atonement were probably furnished with a handle. In fact, there are dif ferent names for these vessels. Those in daily use were called rriDpro iniktereth, from nupn, ' in cense ;' whereas that used on the day of atone ment is distinguished by the title of rInnt michtah or ' coal-pan.' We learn also that the daily cen sers were of brass (Num. xvi. 39), whereas the yearly one was of gold (Joseph. Antig. xvi. 4. 4). The latter is also said to have had a handle (Mislin. tit. Yonza, iv. 4), which, indeed, as being held by the priest while the incense was burning, it seems to have required. These intimations help us to conclude that the Jewish censers were unlike those of the classical ancients, with which the sculptures of Greece and Rome have made us familiar ; as well as those (with perforated lids, and swung by chains) which are used in the church of Rome. The form of the daily censer we have no means of determining beyond the fact that it was a pan or vase, with a stand whereon it might rest on the golden altar. Among the Egyptians the incense
was so generally burned in the hand of the officiat ing priest, that the only censers which we find in the least degree suited to this purpose are those represented in Figs. 2 and 3 of No. 171. But the numerous figures of Egyptian censers, consisting of a small cup at the end of a long shaft or handle (often in the shape of a hand), probably offer ade quate illustration of those employed by the Jews on the day of atonement. There was, however, another kind of censer (fig. t) less frequently seen on the Egyptian monuments, and likewise fur nished with a handle, which will probably be re garded by many as offering a more probable resem blance. It is observable that in all cases the Egyptian priests had their costly incense made up into small round pellets, which they projected suc cessively from between their finger and thumb into the censer, at such a distance, that the operation must have required a peculiar knack to be acquired only by much practice. As the incense used by the Jews was made up into a kind of paste, it was probably employed in the same manner.—J. K.