Cyre´ne, a city in Upper Libya, founded about the year B.C. 632, by a colony of Greeks from Thera (Santorini), a small island in the Aegean sea. Its name is generally supposed to be derived from a fountain called Cyre, near its site. It was built on a tableland, 1800 feet above the level of the sea, in a region of extraordinary fertility and beauty. It was the capital of a district, called from it Cyrenaica (Barca), which extended from the Gulf of Platea (Bomba) to the Great Syrtis (Gulf of Sidra). With its port Apollonia (Musa Soosa), about 10 miles distant, and the cities Barca, Teuchira, and Hesperis, which at a later period were named Ptolemais, Arsinoe, and Berenice, it formed the Cyrenaic Pentapolis. For above 180 years the form of government was monarchical; it then became republican; and at last, the country became tributary to Egypt, under Ptolemy Soter. It was bequeathed to the Romans by Apion, the natural son of Ptolemy Physcon, about 97 B.C., and was then formed into a province with Crete. Strabo says, that in Cyrene there were four classes of persons, namely—citizens, husbandmen, foreigners, and Jews, and that the latter enjoyed their own customs and laws. At the commencement of the Christian era, the Jews of Cyrene were so numerous in Jerusalem that they had a synagogue of their own (; ). Some of the first Christian teachers were natives of Cyrene (; ). Simeon, who was compelled to assist in bearing the cross of the Savior, was a Cyrenian (;; ).
This Encyclopedia of Biblical Literature is a 6 volume set in 1 book. It has over 2Read More
John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
Wikipedia