Cassia
Cassia
is the rendering in the Auth. Vers. of two Hebrews words.
1. KIDDAH´, קִדָּה, mentioned in Ex 30:24 (Sept. ϊvρις) among the ingredients of the holy oil of anointing, and in Eze 27:19 (Sept. σπαρτίον) as one of the artidles of merchandise in the markets of Tyre. The Sept. (in one passage) and Josephus (Ant. 3:8, 3) have iris, i.e. some species of flag, perhaps the Iris florentina, which has an aromatic root- stock. Symmachus and the Vulg. (in one place) read stacte, "liquid myrrh." The Arabic versions of Saadias and Erpenius conjecture costus (see below). The Chaldee and Syriac, with most of the European versions, followed by Gesenius, Simon, Fürst, Lee, and all the lexicographers, understand the Arabian cassia, or cassiabark, a species of aromatic cortical, resembling cinnamon, but less fragrant and valuable; so called from its rolls being split (from קָדִד, to cleave). See Dioscor. 1:12; Theophr. Hist. Plant. 9:5; Celsius, Hierob. 2:186, 350 sq.d
⇒Bible concordance for CASSIA.
2. KETSIAH´, קצִיעָה, named only in the plural in Ps 45:8 (Sept. κασία, Vulg. casia), in connection with myrrh and aloes, as being used to scent garments with. The word comes from the root קָצִוֹ, to abrade, and appears to refer to the peeled bark of some species of cinnamon, perhaps differing in this from the preceding only as designating some oil or prepared aromatic, of which that denotes the raw material (see Celsii Hierob. 2:360). SEE AROMATICS.
Under the name cassia (which appears to be identical with this last Hebrews term) the ancients designated an aromatic bark derived from the East, and employed as an ingredient in costly unguents (Theophr. Plant. 9:7; Pliny, 12:43; Dioscor. 1:12; Diod. Sic. 3:46; Athen. 10:449; Plant. Curcul. 1:2, 7; Virg. Geo. 2:466; Martial, 6:55, 1; 10:97, 2; Pers. Sat. 2:64; 1:36). It was obtained from a tree or shrub growing in India and Austria (Herod. 3:110; Diod. Sic. l. c.; Agatharch. in Hudson, 1:61; Arrian, Alex. 7:20; but see Pliny, 12:41), which Pliny (13:43) more closely, but still not adequately describes, and which Columella (3:8) saw in Roman fancy gardens. It is clear that the Latin writers by the term casia understood both the Oriental product now under consideration, as well as some low, sweet herbaceous plant, perhaps the Daphne gnidium, Linn. (see Fee, Flore de Virgile, p. 32, and Du Molin, Flor. Poet. Ancienne, p. 277); but the Greek word, which is first used by Herodotus (2:86), who says (3:110) the Arabians procured it from a shallow lake in their country, is limited to the Eastern product. Dioscorides (l. c.) and Galen enumerate three better sorts of cassia, and there are still in Europe held to be different kinds, but they all are distinguished from the true cinnamon-tree by their darker color, weaker odor, and less lively taste. The tree from which the bark is produced is regarded by naturalists as the Laurus cassia (Linn.), that flourishes in the East Indies and Malatia (Ainslie, Mater. Med. 1:58 sq.); yet the brothers Nees von Esenbeck (De cinnamomo disputat. Bonn, 1823, in the Botan. Zeitung, 1831, No. 34) have shown that this plant (the Laurus cassia) is not a distinct species, but only a wild or original form of the cinnamomum Ceylonicum or Zeylanicum. See the Penny Cyclopaedia, s.v. Cassia; Laurus.
The name Cassia has been applied by botanists to a genus containing the plants yielding senna, and to others, as the Cassia fistula, which have nothing to do with the original cassia. "Cassia-buds," again, though no doubt produced by a plant belonging to the same, or to some genus allied to that producing cinnamon and cassia, were probably not known in commerce at so early a period as the two latter substances. Dr. Royle, in his Antiquity of Hindoo Mledicine, p. 84, has remarked, "The cassia of the ancients it is not easy to determine; that of commerce, Mr. Marshall says, consists of only the inferior kinds of cinnamon. Some consider cassia to be distinguished from cinnamon by the outer cellular covering of the bark being scraped off the latter, but allowed to remain on the former. This is, however, the characteristic of the (Cochin-Chinese) Cinnamomum aromaticum, as we are informed by Mr. Crawford (Embassy to Siam, p. 470) that it is not cured, like that of Ceylon, by freeing it from the epidermis." There is no doubt that some cassia is produced on the coast of Malabar. The name also would appear to be of Eastern origin, as kasse koronde is one kind of cinnamon, mentioned by Burmann in his Flora Zeylonica.
The Hebrews word ketsiah, however, has a strong resemblance to the kooth and koost of the Arabs, of which Kooshta is said by their authors to be the Syriac name, and from which there is little doubt that the κόστος of the Greeks and costus of the Latins are derived. Κόστος is enumerated by Theophrastus (Hist. Pl. 9:7) among the fragrant substances employed in making ointment. Three kinds of it are described by Dioscorides among his Aromata (1:15), of which the Arabian is said to be the best, the Indian to hold the second place, and the Syrian the third. An inferior kind is termed by him κιττώ (1:12), a word which has a strong resemblance to the Hebrews kiddah above. Pliny mentions only two kinds (15:12), the white and the black, brought from India. The Persian writers on Materia Medica in use in India, in giving the above synonymes, evidently refer to two of the three kinds of Costus described by Dioscorides, one being called Koost Hindee, and the other Koost Arabee. Both these kinds are found in the bazaars of India, and the koot or koost of the natives is often, by European merchants, called Indian orris, i.e. Iris root, the odor of which it somewhat resembles. The same article is known in Calcutta as Puchuk, the name under which it is exported to China. The identity of the substance indicated by these various names was long ago ascertained by Garcias. The koost obtained in the northwestern provinces of India is one of the substances brought across the Indus from Lahore (Royle, Illust. Hima. Bot. p. 360). Dr. Falconer, on his journey to Cashmere, discovered that it was exported from that valley in large quantities into the Punjab, whence it finds its way to Bombay (as in the time of Pliny to Patala) and Calcutta for export to China, where it is highly valued as one of the ingrelients in the incense which the Chinese burn in their temples and private houses. He named the species Aucklandia Costus (Linn. Trans. 19:23) (see Smith's Dict. of Class. Ant. Am. ed., s.v. Cassia; Costum). SEE CINNAMON.
