The dictionary of religion : an encyclopedia of Christian and other religious doctrines, denominations, sects, heresies, ecclesiastical terms, history, biography, etc., etc

Preface

The following work was undertaken and begun by the late Rev. J. H. Blunt. On his death the publishers were good enough to invite me to complete the book. I have done so with much diffidence, considering the importance of the subject and the difficulty of expressing fairly the differing, and ofttimes conflicting, views with which men regard religious questions. But I can honestly claim for myself that, whatever success I may be judged to have attained, I have taken pains to be full and accurate.

With regard to* the scope of the work, the biographical articles are exclusively of persons whose course on earth is ended, though of necessity it is impossible to avoid inferences to living men who have taken part in current controversies. Articles of purely Scriptural History, Topography, and Exegesis, are excluded, as they are already treated of in what are known as "Bible" Dictionaries. The present volume has to do with Ecclesiastical History and Doctrine, and with the known Religions of the ■ ancient and modern world, and the topics and the persons connected with these subjects. Even with these limitations, the difficulty has been to compress what was required within a manageable compass ; and it is believed that the dedication of the space at command to information, much of which is not otherwise readily accessible, was preferable to occupying a large portion of it with details which can be easily referred to elsewhere.

The intended method of treatment may be simply described. The standpoint is, as will be naturally expected, that of orthodox Christianity, as generally understood by intelligent members of the Church of England. But endeavour has been made to accurately and fairly describe doctrines and practices far removed from that, in a simply informative rather than dogmatic spirit. As regards other Christian denominations, it has been deemed right that they should be described as they themselves would desire, and that their own views and reasons should be fairly given, rather than any view taken of them by others. Considerable trouble has been taken to secure this, and to fairly set forth the Nonconformist view of those great questions which divide their communions from that of the Church of England. Such a task is of peculiar delicacy and

IV PREFACE.

difficulty, but I trust that the bodk may not be found lacking in that charity which is " the very bond of peace and of all virtues," the presence of which will unite together those whom smaller things divide.

Finally, it may be said that special care has been taken with the articles dealing with those questions which are most keenly discussed at the present day, bearing on what has come to be known as the Great Controversy. The result of much fruitful discussion hag been gathered up, with a desire always to rind if possible the point of unity in things differing, and good wherever it is to be found ; and I put it from me in the hope that my fellow-labourers and myself may be found to have afforded in these pages some real help towards an intelligent reconciliation of the most recent knowledge with the Faith delivered to the saints. vy t>

March, 1887

THE

DICTIONARY OF EELIGION.

Aaron, St. (1) [d. about a.d. 304].— This name has come down to us from the sixth century as that of a British martyr who suffered during the Diocletian persecution. Gildas, the earliest of our national historians, wrote, in a.d. 560, that among the martyrs in that time of persecution, when St. Alban suffered at Verulam, Aaron and Julius, citizens of the City of the Legions, with others of either sex in divers places, were put to death with the sword, for their great constancy in the faith of Christ. In the Venerable Bede's "Ecclesiastical History," written a.d. 731, the statement is repeated. Authentic British records of the ninth century, which are preservedin "the Book of Llandaff," give the place of St. Aaron's martyrdom asCaerleonupon-TJsk, the great Roman " City of the Legions " of South "Wales, of which extensive remains yet exist. Mediaeval tradition respecting these early martyrs may be given in the words of Giraldus Cambrensis [a.d. 1147- 1222], who wrote that "Julius and Aaron, after suffering martyrdom, were buried in the city of Caerleon, and had each a church dedicated to him. After St. Alban and Amphibalus they were esteemed the chief proto-martyrs of Britannia Major. In ancient times there were three fine churches in this city, one dedicated to Julius the martyr, graced with a choir of nuns ; another to Aaron, his companion, ennobled with an order of canons; and a third distinguished as the metropolitan see of Wales." There is good reason for regarding Aaron and Julius as historical personages, but as Caerleon-upon- Dee was called " the City of the Legions" by the Romans, as well as Caerleon-upon-TJsk, there is some doubt whether their martyrdom occurred at the former, now called Chester, or at the place in South Wales, which still retains its British name. In ancient calendars their names were commemorated on July 1st.

Aaron, St. (2) [d. 580]. — A missionary hermit who was associated with the Welsh bishop, Maelog, or Machutus, best known by his French name of St. Malo, in the foundation of the first monastery established in Brittany. This was erected on a small island, afterwards known as the Isle of Faron, and formed part of the seaport of Aleth, the city of which Machutus was bishop, and which is now known as St. Malo. Aaron became the Bel.— 1 first abbot of this monastery, and as such is commemorated in French calendars on June 21st; the name of his companion, St. Machutus, Bishop of Aleth, occurring in the calendar of the Prayer Book on November 15th. [Machutus.]

A.B. — The initial letters of Artium Baccalaureus, the Latin form of the University degree of Bachelor of Arts. The degree is more commonly signified by the letters B.A.

Abaccuc, St. [d. 270]. — This name appears in ancient martyrologies as that of a martyr who was put to death with his father Marius, his mother Martha, and his brother Audifax, in a persecution which occurred during the short reign of the Gothic Emperor Claudius II. He is commemorated on January 20th, and must not be confused with the Old Testament prophet, whose name occurs in Western calendars on January 15th, and in Eastern on December 2nd.

Abailard. [Abelard.]

Abba. — The Aramaic, or late Hebrew, word for " Father." [Mark xiv. 36 ; Rom. viii. 15 ; Gal. iv. 6. ] It is a modified form of the more ancientHehrew word "Ab," and expresses reverent affection. But it was probably used more generally by the Jews than its sacred use in the New Testament indicates, and thus passed into ecclesiastical language among the Christians of Palestine, Egypt, and Ethiopia, as the designation of a bishop or of the head of a monastery [Gr., Abbas], just as " Father in God " is one of the designations of an English bishop. Through the intermediary forms, "baba" and "papa," the word was the original of the title " Papa," or " Pope," assumed by the Bishops of Rome. [Pope.]

Abbadie, James [a.d. 1658-1727]. — A French Protestant minister who eventually became Chaplain of the Savoy, and Dean of Killaloe in Ireland, and attained much fame as a modern apologist for Christianity by his work, " On the Truth of the Christian Religion," originally published in French, in three quarto volumes, in 1684-9, but afterwards translated into English and German. Abbadie was born at Nay, in the then French province of Beam, and after passing through the Universities of Saumur, Paris, and Sedan, received the honorary degree of D.D. from

Abb

Abb the latter, on account of his great learning, at the age of seventeen. He became pastor of the French Protestants in Berlin in 1680, and was much in favour with the Elector Frederick, upon whose death, in 1688, he accompanied Marshal Schomberg to England. There he became a warm and efficient supporter of the Revolution, and after being appointed to the Chaplaincy of the Savoy, was further rewarded with the Irish deanery, which he held, though non-resident, till his death, in St. Marylebone parish, on September 25th, 1727. Although a prolific writer, he was chiefly known by his " Treatise on the Christian Religion," which passed through many editions in several languages, and was popular among Roman Catholics as well as among Protestants.

Abbat. [Abbot.]

Abb6. — This was formerly a title belonging to the head of a French monastery, corresponding to that of Abbot in England. [Abbot.] In the age preceding the French Revolution it became the designation of a multitude of sinecurists, who drew large incomes from the monasteries, and who were not always even priests, dispensations from Holy Orders being frequently granted to lay Abbies by the Popes. In more modern times the title of Abbe has been given to secular priests (that is, priests not belonging to any monastic order), who have no cure of souls, those who are parish priests being called Cures.

Abben, St. — This name has come down by long tradition in the English martyrology as that of a Briton whose father, a nobleman, was slain by Hengist at Stanhengest, and who became a hermit in the forest between Oxford and Abingdon, the remains of which are known as Bagley Wood. He is said to have died in Ireland, and was once commemorated on October 27th.

_ Abbess. — A title formed by an abbreviation of the Latin word " Abbatissa," and designating the Mother Superior of a community of nuns. Her office, authority, and duties corresponded with those of an Abbot, except as regarded ministerial functions, which her sex rendered her incapable of performing. Abbesses were usually elected by the sisters over whom they were to rule, but were admitted to office by the bishop of the diocese with a special service of benediction and ceremony of installation. Thus Clifford, Bishop of London, wrote to Henry V. in 1421: "On Sunday, the fifth day of May, I wag at your house of Syon, and there confirmed the elections of Dame Joan North, Abbess, and of Sir Thomas Fyscheborne, my well-beloved cousin, confessor of your said house; and the same day I blessed and stalled the foresaid Abbess. The which persons I trust, by God's grace, shall much profit in that place, in that holy company both of men and of women, the which God of His mercy grant."

The Abbesses of Shaftesbury, Barking,

. St. Mary's at Winchester, and Wilton ranked

as baronesses, but were not summoned to

Parliament as the mitred abbots were.

[Abbot.]

Abbey. — This name, like that of " college," signifies both an institution consisting of persons, and the buildings in which the institution has its home. Thus, before the dissolution of monasteries, an abbey was — [1] a corporate body of monks or nuns, so called because they were presided over by an abbot or an abbess; [2] the church in which those monks or nuns held their services, and the domestic buildings in which they lived and carried on the various pursuits in which they were engaged.

Since the dissolution of the monasteries and the destruction of most of their buildings in the sixteenth century, the designation has been most generally used, in an ecclesiastical sense, for the church of such a monastic institution when it has not been constituted a cathedral, as in the case of Tewkesbury Abbey or Westminster. In some cases the ancient name still clings even to a cathedral, and thus the Cathedral of Durham is often called " the Abbey." [Abbot, Monastery.]

Abbo. — Two distinguished men of this name are known in history. [I.] Abbo Parisiensis [about a.d. 880], a monk of St. Germain-de-Pres, who was present at the . siege of Paris by the Normans in 887, and wrote a history of it, which has come down, with some of his sermons, to modern times. [II.] St. Abbo of Fleury [a.d. 945-1004], a Benedictine monk of great learning, born at Orleans, and much distinguished in the Universities of Paris and Rheims. He was associated with England by the assistance which he gave to his friend Oswald, Archbishop of York, in the foundation of Ramsey Abbey, where he was engaged for two years [a.d. 985], by the invitation of the archbishop, in settling and instructing the first members of that abbey. After his recall to France he was looked up to with great respect, was consulted on matters of religion by people from all parts of that country, and was present in synods at Basle, Mouson, and St. Denys. After being Abbot of Fleuiy for sixteen years, he was murdered by a Gascon at Eeole, whither he had gone to carry out some reformation, and is commemorated as a martyr in the French calendars on November 13th, the day of his death. He left many literary works to posterity, including a Life of St. Edmund, King of East Anglia, whose name is perpetuated in the town of Bury St. Edmunds, or Edmondsbury.

Abbondio, St. [about a.d. 450], was a native of Thessalonica, who eventually be-

Abb

Abb came fourth. Bishop of Como, in Italy, and is commemorated as the patron saint of that part of Lombardy. He was present at the Council of Constantinople, and represented St. Leo at that of Chalcedon.

Abbot. — The President or Father [see Abba] of a monastery, the name implying that the office was intended to be one of a paternal character, like that of the father of a family. Both the office and the name are traced back to St. Antony, under whom solitary ascetics first gathered themselves into communities, about the end of the third century. [Monastery.] In small monasteries which were " cells'' of large abbeys, the local superior was called the Prior, and the same was the case also in some large abbeys, where, as at Durham and Ely, the bishop was Abbot ex officio. The name was not adopted by the Friars or the Jesuits.

Abbots were elected by the monks over whom they were to preside, but in the case of those mitred abbots who sat in the House of Lords the assent of the Sovereign was also necessary, and was probably given by a conge d 'Hire as in the election of bishops by cathedral chapters. [Conge d'Elire.] The election was then confirmed by the bishop of the diocese, who also instituted the new abbot to his spiritual charge by a formal service of benediction, and by the delivery of a pastoral staff, the ceremony taking place wherever the bishop might happen to be. Lastly, the newly-elected and instituted abbot was installed in the abbey over which he was appointed to preside by the archdeacon or his deputy, and was thus placed in actual and legal possession of the rights and privileges belonging to his office.

The duties of an abbot consisted of the general superintendence and control of the spiritual and temporal affairs of hismonastery, but his jurisdiction was not without limit, for he was required to take the advice of the monks assembled in chapter on all important affairs, and an appeal might be made from his decision to the bishop of the diocese as visitor, who also made, or was entitled to make, periodical visitations of the abbey, unless it was exempted from the bishop's jurisdiction and placed under that of the Pope. But the abbot's jurisdiction did not extend over any other persons than the monks of his own monastery; and hence, while he bore a pastoral staff like that of a bishop as a symbol of jurisdiction, he carried it with the crook turned inward, to signify that his authority was thus limited within the bounds of the monastery.

Permission to wear mitres was often given to abbots, but it was a rule, apparently disregarded in England, that the mitre should be worn with the open part over the forehead instead of the broad side ; and also that it should be of silver ornamented with gold, and unjewelled, instead of being made of pure gold ornamented with jewels, as was the mitre of a bishop. Such mitres were worn in England only by those abbots who sat in the House of Lords, and who were all of the Benedictine Order.

It is said that as many as a hundred mitred abbots were summoned to Parliament by Henry III. in a.d. 1264, but about a.d. 1330 the number was restricted to twenty-six by Edward III., though just before the dissolution the Abbot of Tavistock was added by Henry VIII. These twenty-seven abbots, with the Prior of Coventry, sat in the House of Lords by the right of baronies which they held of the Crown ; the Abbesses of Shaftesbury, Barking, Wilton, and St. Mary's at Winchester also holding such baronies and ranking as peeresses, but not being summoned to Parliament. The following were the abbeys whose abbots were thus Lords of Parliament at the dissolution of the monasteries : — St. Albans; Glastonbury; Westminster ; Bury St. Edmunds ; St. Bennet Holm, Norwich; Bardsey ; Shrewsbury; Croyland; Abingdon ; Evesham ; Gloucester ; Ramsey ; St. Mary's, York; Tewkesbury; Reading; Battle ; Winchelcomb ; Hyde, Winchester ; Cirencester ; Waltham ; Malmesbury ; Thorney ; St. Augustine's, Canterbury ; Selby ; Coventry; Peterborough ; Colchester ; Tavistock. [The Prior of St. John of Jerusalem sat in the House of Lords, but as the Premier Baron of England, not as a cleric].

The twenty-seven mitred abbots and the mitred Prior of Coventry sat on " the Spiritual side " of the House of Lords, that on the right of the Throne, and behind the bishops ; not being attired, however, in episcopal robes, but in black cassocks with gowns and hoods. On the dissolution of the monasteries the mitred abbots disappeared from their places, leaving twent}r-eight vacancies, which have since been occupied by temporal peers ; but the tradition of their presence is still kept up in the printed Votes of the House, where the spiritual peers, however few, have a column to themselves on that which is still called "the Spiritual side" of the House, tha-t on the Sovereign's right hand ; and the temporal peers who occupy the benches on the same side are named, with the other temporal peers, as on " the Temporal side," that on the left of the Throne. There is an old folio engraving of the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament in the beginning of Henry VIII. 's reign, in which the mitred abbots are in their seats behind the bishops, and which is reproduced in Fiddes' Life of Cardinal Wolsey. In the Irish House of Lords twenty-five abbots and priors sat as spiritual peers.

Abbott, George, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., was born at Guildford, on October 29th, 1562, and died in his palace at Croydon on August

Abb

Abb

4th, 1633. He was the second of three distinguished brothers, Robert, the eldest, becoming Bishop of Salisbury, and Maurice, the youngest, Lord Mayor of London, knighted by Charles I. ; their father, Maurice Abbott, being a cloth manufacturer at Guildford. The archbishop was educated in the free school of his native town, and in Balliol College, Oxford, of which he became a Fellow, and his brother Robert, Master. He became well known as a Puritan preacher and leader in Oxford, and in 1597 was elected Master of University College. In 1599 he was appointed Dean of Winchester, and the next year was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. In the latter office he used his authority for the destruction of all sculptures and stained glass in which the Crucifixion and kindred subjects were represented, and used his influence with the Corporation of London, though unsuccessfully, to prevent the re-erection of the cross in Cheapside, which had been destroyed by a mob. Soon afterwards he came into collision with Laud, then a young man, and procured his censure by the University of Oxford for an anti-Calvinistic sermon, preached at St. Mary's, and these two were afterwards opposed to each other for many years as leaders of the two opposite parties in the Church.

Abbott became chaplain to the Earl of Dunbar, Treasurer of Scotland and a great personal friend of James I., and was recommended to the favour of the king on account of the assistance which he rendered to the pari in his attempt to restore Episcopacy in Scotland. This led to his promotion from the Deanery of Winchester to the -Bishopric of Lichfield, to which see he was consecrated on December 3rd, 1609. A few weeks afterwards, on January 20th, he was translated to London, and on the death of Archbishop Bancroft, in 1611, he became Archbishop of Canterbury, to the great disappointment of the majority of the clergy, who expected that the venerable and learned Andrewes, then Bishop of Ely, would have succeeded Bancroft. " The Bishop of London," wrote Calvert, Secretary of State, in a letter to Sir Thomas Edmonds, " by a strong north wind coming out of Scotland, is blown across the Thames to Lambeth, the king having professed to the bishop himself, as also to the Lords of his Council, that it is neither the respect of his learning, his wisdom, nor his sincerity (although he is well persuaded there is not any one of them wanting in him) that hath moved him to prefer him before the rest of his fellows, but merely the recommendation of his faithful servant Dunbar that is dead, whose suit on behalf of the bishop he cannot and will not suffer to lose his intention."

Under the rule of Archbishop Abbott, and by his favour, the Puritan party made great strides towards that power and pre-eminence which they attained in the next reign, and it is on this account that his name is best known in connection with the great position to which he attained. But he soon lost favour with the king, was much disliked by the bishops, and became unpopular with the multitude through the haughty moroseness which grew upon him with the infirmities of age. On July 24th, 1621, he also met with an extraordinary and unhappy misfortune, such as no English bishop probably had ever met with before, and one which was most incongruous with his position. The archbishop was singularly fond of hunting, being the only sporting bishop of his own or of subsequent ages, and while following his favourite pursuit in Lord Zouche's park at Bramshill, in Hampshire, killed one of the keepers by transfixing him with an arrow which he had intended for the stag. By the law of the Church this unfortunate homicide rendered the archbishop incapable of performing any ecclesiastical function, and by the law of the State all his personal estate was forfeited to the Crown. The king issued his pardon, which relieved him from the latter penalty, and appointed a commission of bishops and. judges, who recommended that the archbishop should be restored to his ecclesiastical position, by an absolution and dispensation given to him by some of his suffragans. But although this was done, the unhappy position into which Abbott had been brought by his ghastly misadventure continued to be a matter of discussion both at home and abroad ; few persons approved of his conduct in resuming his duties as the chief bishop of the Church of England; and some bishops elect declined to be consecrated by him. Many pious and learned men considered that he should have retired from his office and spent the rest of his days in privacy. It was partly on account of this widespread feeling, but nominally because he was much incapacitated from the performance of his duties by the gout, that in 1627 a commission of five bishops was appointed to perform them. But two years afterwards the archbishop appeared again at Court and in Parliament, and had, indeed, consecrated three bishops during the latter half of the year 1628. For the remaining four years of his life he lived in much retirement at his palace at Croydon, and there he died at the age of seventy-one. He was buried, by his own direction, in the Lady Chapel of Trinity Church, Guildford. He left a few unimportant lectures, sermons, and pamphlets behind him, but his chief claim to a place among learned and literary bishops is founded on his position as one of the revisers of the English Bible.

Abbott, Robert, the elder brother of Archbishop Abbott, was born at Guildford in 1560, and died at his episcopal palace in Salisbury on March 2nd, 1617. He preceded his brother to Balliol Colleen. Oxfnrrl Wamn

Abb

Abe a Fellow of that college in 1581, and in his later life, in the year 1609, was elected to its Mastership. At this time he had won the special approval of James I., by his works against Bellarmine, and in defence of the Reformation, and having been appointed a Fellow of Chelsea College, he was further, when a vacancy occurred, appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. In 1615 he was promoted to the See of Salisbury, where he gained for himself the reputation of an active chief pastor and a hospitable prelate, and where he urged forward the restoration of the cathedral, which had become much dilapidated through neglect and spoliation. Occupying the see for only two years, he died at a comparatively early age from a very painful disorder to which studious men were then especially liable ; but his death is said to have been hastened by the indignation which his brother, the archbishop, expressed at his second marriage. His works were chiefly in Latin, and were not of any lasting interest, some still remaining in manuscript in the Bodleian Library.

Abbreviators.— Officers of the Pope's chancery, who are so called because they are charged with the formal drawing up of breves, or briefs, bulls, and other official documents which proceed from the Court of Rome.

Abdias, St. — He is commemorated in the Eastern Church on October 28th, and is said to have been the first Bishop of Babylon, consecrated by SS. Simon and Jude.

Abdou and Sennen, SS. [a.d. 250]. — Two Persian princes, who suffered martyrdom at Rome under the Emperor Decius. In the ancient calendars of the Churches of England and Rome they are commemorated on July 30th, the name being found in the former as far back as a.d. 730. In one of the catacombs, that of Pontianus [Catacombs], there exists a fresco painting, of not later date than the seventh century, in which our Lord in glory is represented as placing crowns upon the heads of the two martyrs ; and it is supposed that the tomb on the front of which this is painted contains their remains, which are recorded to have been removed to this cemetery in the time of Constantine, about seventy-five years after their death. In Spain, superstitious people are accustomed to invoke the protection of SS. Abdon and Sennen during hailstorms.

Abecedarians. — A sect of Lutherans, otherwise known as the Zwickau prophets. They separated from Luther about 1521, under the leadership of Nicholas Stork, a weaver of Zwickau ; Thomas Mi'inzer, the Lutheran pastor of the town ; Mark Thomas, another weaver ; and Mark Stiibbner, a student of "Wittenberg. Their distinctive principle was that Christians should abstain from human learning, even from the A B C, or alphabet, and thus leave their minds open to receive direct Divine guidance by inspiration. The sect became seditious and troublesome — Munzer being the leader of a rebellion in which he proclaimed himself the head of a spiritual kingdom — and on the death of its leaders was absorbed into the general body of German Anabaptists.

Abecedarian Psalms and Hymns.

— Those which were so composed that the successive letters of the A B C, or alphabet, formed the initial letters of the successive verses. [Alphabet Psalms, &c]

A'Becket. [Becket.]

Abel, Thomas [d. 1540].— One of Queen Catherine of Aragon's chaplains, who became a victim of her husband Henry the VIII. 's cruelty. He was a Doctor of Divinity of Oxford, a man of much learning, well acquainted with Continental languages, and a great master of instrumental music. His faithfulness to the queen involved him in the controversies respecting her divorce, and in 1534 he printed a tract against it, which brought him to the Tower. On the wall of the Beauchamp Tower in that fortress he has left an interesting memorial of his imprisonment in the shape of a sculptured rebus of his name — a bell, with the letter A upon it, and THOMAS above. Dr. Abel was burned in Smithfield on July 30th, 1540, " for denying the king's supremacy, and affirming his marriage with Queen Catherine to be good." Three Protestants — Dr. Barnes, Gerard, parson of Honey Lane, and Jerome, Vicar of Stepney — were burned at the same stake.

Abelard, Peter [a.d. 1079-1142]. — The name of Abelard has been made familiar to modern times by the romantic story of his intrigue and marriage with a young, beautiful, and learned lady named Helo'ise, or Louisa, by the translation of their correspondence into French and English, and by Pope's poetical version of it. But his place in these pages is as one who greatly influenced the theology of the Middle Ages, and who may be said to have originated that school of thought which in modern times has been called Rationalism.

Abelard was the eldest son of noble parents, and was born at Palais, near Nantes, in Brittany, twelve years after the Norman Conquest. His ardent love of learning induced him to give up his right of inheritance to his younger brother, and to establish himself in Paris. At that time, the learning ■which was at a later age to be found in an university had its home in the "schools," or lecture-rooms, of cathedrals and monasteries ; and it was under William of Champeaux, the head of the cathedral school and Archdeacon of Paris, that Abelard's great genius was developed. Eventually, the pupil set up a lecture-room for himself, first at