TION, &c., being by the former; and by the latter, such articles as BIBLE, BULL, CATECHISM, CONCORDANCE, CREED, LITURGY, PENANCE, PSALMODY, SACRAMENT, &c., which have also been revised by their venerable author expressly for this publication. Distinctive terms relating to the Church of England, such as ARCHDEACON, Canon, Dean, Prebend, Rector, TITHES, VICAR, &c., are also from the same great repository. Not a few of the smaller articles from the Metropolitana have been carefully revised or re-written by the Rev. Edward Cockey, M.A., late Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, Vicar of Hockley, Essex. But all the articles and a few others thus acknowledged form less than a third of the more than 1,500 articles, short and long, of which this volume is composed. No Cyclopædia comes into direct competition with this one. Broughton's Historical Dictionary of All Religions, in two folios (London, 1745), extends to Mohammedanism and classic mythology, but in many places gives an excellent digest of the more elaborate investigations of Bingham; Buck's Theological Dictionary is very miscellaneous, having many articles on ethics and spiritual experience, with numerous biographies; Hook's Church Dictionary refers of course particularly to the Church of England; Marsden's Dictionary of Christian Churches and Sects fully and faithfully verifies its title; the College Lectures of Bates (London, 1845) are an excellent compend on Christian Antiquities and the Ritual of the English Church; Eden's Churchman's Theological Dictionary (London, 1859) is, as the name implies, "intended, though not exclusively, yet more specially, for the use of members of the Church of England;" Landon's New General Ecclesiastical Dictionary is far from being completed (London, 1849-53); Gardner's Faiths of the World occupies ground far beyond the ecclesiastical territory, but is full of information on the Eastern or Greek Church; while Herzog's voluminous Real-Encyclopædie takes in all branches of theological science. Our CYCLOPÆDIA, confining itself to its proper province, is meant for no party or sect; but gives information on each of them, so full as to present an intelligible and trustworthy record of the more important of them, and at the same time so brief and compact as to keep the volume within reasonable limits and price. A list is affixed of the more important works which may be consulted or used as authorities. In speaking of authorities, it would be unpardonable not to mention the immense storehouse of Bingham, whose industry was equalled by his learning and his usual impartiality. We might refer also to Augusti's Denkwürdigkeiten, or to the abridgment of it in his Handbuch der Christlichen Archäologie, arranged in sections; and to Siegel's Handbuch der Christlich-kirklichen Alterthümer, arranged alphabetically, -two excellent Manuals. Riddle's Christian Antiquities is based upon Augusti, with occasional translations from Siegel; and so is the American work of Coleman. These works, with the Archäologie of Rheinwald and the Lehrbuch of Guericke, with the Histories of Mosheim, Neander, Kurtz, Schaff, and Gieseler, have furnished, in their respective departments, continuous assistance or verification. Where corroborative extracts are given, they are given from the best authorities; and documents of importance are usually quoted at length. In a word, the aim has been to combine popularity with exactness, so that readers of every grade may profitably consult the volume. While it will be seen how corruption crept innocently into the Church, how error was stealthily introduced, and ambition and infirmity created schisms and shibboleths, it will also be thankfully noted, that many essential and saving truths were still preserved; and that while the cross was often overshadowed, it was not entirely concealed. Not to speak of anti-scriptural dogmas and ceremonies, which the spread of sound and free opinion tends ever to counteract, and will ultimately destroy, may it not be hoped that the various parties of Protestant Christendom, looking at the truth no longer each from its own isolated point of view, but in the light of the Divine Word, and looking on one another in the spirit of the "new commandment," may learn to revere one another's integrity of motive, and love one another, in recognition of the Lord's own prayer-" that they also may be one in us"-so that there may "unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end ?" 13 LANSDOWNE CRESCENT, GLASGOW, November, 1861. JOHN EADIE. A BRIEF LIST OF WORKS BEARING ON THE SUBJECTS GENERAL CHURCH HISTORY. THE Magdeburg Centuriators and the Annales of Baronius in reply; the Histories of Schroeckh, Mosheim, Milner, Neander, Gieseler, Guericke, Spanheim, Jortin, Burton, Waddington, Kurtz, Schaff, Milman, Hardwicke, and Killen-with the Mémoires of Tillemont, the Histoire de L'Eglise of Basnage, and the Histoire Ecclésiastique of Fleury. SPECIAL OR EPOCHAL CHURCH HISTORY. The Fathers,-Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Evagrius; Bede's Ecclesiastical History; Stillingfleet's Origines Britannica; Cranmer's Works; Strype's Memorials and Annals; Foxe's Martyrs; Book of Homilies and Canons; Hooker's Polity; Jewel's Apology; Carwithen's, Baxter's, and Bishop Short's respective Histories of the Church of England; Bishop Mant's History of the Church of Ireland; Jeremy Collier's Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain; L'Estrange, Comber, Nichols, Bishop Sparrow, Wheatly, Procter, Brogden, and Keeling, on the Common Prayer; the Works of Bishop Burnet, of Hall, and Usher; Soame's Anglo-Saxon Church and History of the Reformation; Bishop Gibson's Codex; the volumes of Heylin on the one side, and Brooke and Neal on the other; Thomas Fuller's Church History of Great Britain; Price's Nonconformity, Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors; Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, &c. Booke of the Universal Kirke; the Westminster Directory; Histories of the Church of Scotland, by Knox, Crookshanks, Calderwood, Row, Kirkton, Stevenson, Woodrow, Cook, Hetherington, Lee, and Cunningham; Steuart's Collections; Buchanan's Ten Years' Conflict; Bryce's Ten Years; M'Kerrow's History of the Secession Church; Struthers's History of the Relief Church; Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; Hodge's Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in America. Lawson's Episcopal Church in Scotland; and the Works of Sage, Keith, Skinner, and Spotswood. Stanley's History of the Eastern Church; Neale's History of the Eastern Church; Pinkerton's Translation of Platon's Present State of the Greek Church; Mouravieff's History of the Church of Russia. Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent; Ranke's History of the Popes; D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation; Massingberd's English Reformation; Labbeus et Cossartius, Concilia Sacrosancta; Wilkins's Concilia Magna Britannia; Spelman's Concilia; Bishop Beveridge's Synodicon; Grier's Epitome of the General Councils; Seckendorf's Commentarius Historicus; Quick's Synodicon; Baird's Religion in America. viii LIST OF WORKS ON SUBJECTS TREATED OF. ANTIQUITIES AND WORSHIP. Suicer's Thesaurus; Vitringa De Synagoga vetere; Lord King's Enquiry; Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum-translated by Neale and Webb; Durant, De Ritibus Ecclesiæ Catholica; Hospinian, Historia Sacramentaria, Tiguri, 1598, 1602; Sanches De Sacramento Matrimoniæ; Dodwell De Origine Episcoporum; Rabanus Maurus De Institutione Clericorum; Du Cange, Glossarium; Renaudot, Liturgiarum Orientalium Collectio; Goar, Exodóyıov, sive Rituale Græcorum; Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus; Maskell's Monumenta Ritualia; Clichtoveus, Elucidatorium Ecclesiasticum; Palmer's Origines Liturgica; Rock's Hierurgia; Spelman on Tithes; Selden on Tithes; Bingham's Origines Ecclesiasticæ; or, the Antiquities of the Christian Church, London, 1843, in nine volumes; Augusti, Denkwürdigkeiten aus der Christlichen Archäologie, 1817-31, twelve vols.; and Handbuch der Christlichen Archäologie; Siegel, Handbuch der Christlich-kirklichen Alterthümer, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1836; Coleman's Antiquities of the Christian Church; Rheinwald, Die Kirkliche Archäologie; Münter, Sinnbilder und Kunstvorstellungen der alten Christen, 1825; Didon's Iconographie Chretienne, Paris, 1843; Riddle's Manual of Christian Antiquities; Bates's College Lectures on Christian Antiquities.) On the Catholic side, Ritter and Braun's edition of Peluccia's Politia; Mammachius, Originum et Antiquitatum Christianarum libri xx., Romæ, 1749-55; Grancolas, L'Ancien Sacramentaire, and his Les Anciennes Liturgies; Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice; Thorndike's Works; Guericke, Lehrbuch des Christlich-kirklichen Archäologie; Moreri's Grand Dictionnaire Historique; and the Dictionaries of Broughton, Hook, Buck, Eden, and Gardner, referred to in the Preface. POLEMICAL. In Systematic Theology-the Loci Communes of Melanchthon and Musculus; the Systems of Turretine, Mastricht, Pictet, Quenstedt, Stapfer and Muntinghe; of Dick, Hill, Wardlaw, and Woods; the Dogmatik respectively of Twesten, Ebrard, Martensen, Hofmann; Hahn, Lehrbuch der Christlichen Glauben; Hey's Lectures on Divinity; Calvin's Institutes; Arminii Opera, translated by Nichols; Limborch, Theologia Christiana; Richard Watson's Theological Institutes; Whitby on the Five Points. Canons and Catechism of the Council of Trent, translated by Buckley; Petavius, Opus de Theologicis Dogmatibus; Lingard's Anglo-Saxon Church; James's Bellum Papale; Pearson on the Creed; Burnet and Harold Browne on the Thirty-nine Articles; Bower's History of the Popes; Mendham's Literary Policy of the Church of Rome and other works; Möhler's Symbolik, and Nitzsch's Beantwortung, or reply; Bullarium Romanum; Bishop Gibson's Preservative against Popery; A. Butler's Lives of the Saints; C. Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic Church and his Vindication; Edgar's Variations of Popery; Stavely's Horse Leech; M'Crie's Works; Greenwood's Cathedra Petri. Barclay's Apology; Clarkson's Portraiture of Quakerism. Wall's History of Infant Baptism; Carson on Baptism. Oxford Tracts for the Times; Goode's Rule of Faith. Catechismus Racoviensis; Priestley's Institutes; Newman's Arians. Hagenbach, History of Doctrines; Hall's Harmony of Confessions; Dunlop's Collection; Müller, Die Symbolichen Bücher der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche; Niemeyer, Collectio Confessionum; Winer, Comparative Darstellung des Lehrbegriffs der verschiedenen Kirchen-parteien; Vater, Synchronistische Tafeln der Kirchengeschichte; Swedenborg's True Christian Religion. MISCELLANEOUS. Galland's Bibliotheca veterum Patrum, &c., fourteen vols., folio; Cave's Historia Literaria; Lives of the Fathers; Primitive Christianity, &c.; Du Pin's Nouvelle Bibliothèque, forty-three vols., octavo, translated in sixteen volumes, folio; Acta Sanctorum, fifty-five volumes, folio, begun in 1643, and still in progress; D'Achery's Spicilegium; Corpus Juris Canonici; Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum; Fosbrooke's British Monachism; Archdall's Monasticon Hibernicum; Le Quien's Oriens Christianus; Godolphin's Repertorium Canonicum; Ceillier's Histoire Générale des auteurs sacrés et Ecclésiastique; Adam's Religious World; Marsden's Churches. ECCLESIASTICAL CYCLOPEDIA. Α A and (Alpha and Omega), the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet. In Revelation i. 8, xxi. 6, xxii. 13, this title is three times applied by Christ to himself, and is explained as meaning "the beginning and the ending," "the first and the last." The idea, under a different form of expression, is found in the Old Testament. There is no doubt that, in the Apocalypse, the title asserts the Lord's supreme divinity, His eternity and immutability, His creative and all-embracing presence and energy. Various ingenious comments-some of them very trifling-have been made upon the letters; and, inwoven with the figure of the cross -alpha being placed on the one side, and omega on the other they formed a frequent symbol in the early Church. Abain (äßara), that portion of the interior of ancient churches within which the people were not permitted to worship, hence its name äßara, or äßarov, or áðurov scilicet, ßμz "inadmissible." It was separated from the body of the edifice by wooden rails, called cancelli, whence our word chancel; and as it was exclusively devoted to the priesthood, the altar, oblation table, bishop's throne, and seats for the presbyters were placed inside its precincts. The jealousy of the clergy in the time of St. Ambrose to preserve their prerogative to the exclusive occupation of the abata, was so intense, that when the Emperor Theodosius came to present his offering, he was barely suffered to enter that he might lay it upon the oblation table; the privilege of communicating within the rails being resolutely denied even to his imperial majesty. This stern discipline, however, relaxed a little in subsequent times; for we find that permission to communicate at the altar was granted to the faithful in the sixth century; and the second council of Tours ordained that the "holy of holies" should be open both for men and women to pray and communicate in at the time of the oblation. With this exception, however, the original discipline was maintained during the performance of other religious services. Coleman, p. 83; Bingham, vol. ii., p. 433.-See CHANCEL. ABB arg Abba, Abbat, Abbot, N (Father), titles of honour and authority, first derived from the literal signification of the word. Abba occurs three times in the New Testament, having in each place the explanation attached to it. The Jews are said to have forbidden their slaves to use this title to their masters, while it was commonly adopted among themselves as expressive both of honour and affection. In the Eastern Churches it was given at a very early date to their bishops, and is still retained in the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopic Churches. The title is pre-eminently borne by the Bishop of Alexandria. Baba, Papa, Pope, had their origin from the same root. Abbat, or Abbot, in the fourth and fifth centuries, was gradually, and at last distinctively, applied to the heads of those religious orders who then began to exclude themselves from the world. The power they exercised within their own circle was all but absolute, and rarely, if ever, was it disputed by those who had given themselves up to their spiritual guidance. They inflicted corporeal as well as spiritual punishments upon offenders-whipping constituting the former, while the latter comprised suspension from the privileges of office, exclusion from the Eucharist, severer devotional exercises, expulsion from the abbey, and excommunication. They were endowed with such opulence, and were so famed for their sanctity, that bishops were frequently chosen from their number; for, in the first instance, they assumed to themselves no active share in the government of the Church, and were considered as the humblest of laymen. At length the abbot, or archimandrite (chief of the sheepfold), became the priest of the house; and, from the decrees of the councils held in the fifth century, abbots were evidently at that time adopted among the clergy, and subject to the bishops and councils alone. They cultivated learning with considerable success, and gradually engrossed within their different establishments its most important documents. In the seventh century they were made independent of episcopal jurisdiction, assumed the mitre, and bore the pastoral staff. Through the whole of the dark ages riches and immunities were heaped upon them. Kings, and dukes, and counts, abandoned their thrones and honours to submit to their sway; or themselves assumed the title of abbot, as among the highest civil distinctions. Hugh Capet, the founder of the third French dynasty, was styled Hugh l'Abbé, or Hugh the Abbot. Many offices in the state were now aspired after by the abbots: we find them performing the functions of ambassadors and ministers, and occasionally adorning with their talents the highest stations. To their watchfulness over the manuscripts and other monuments of antiquity, now almost wholly in their hands, it is but just to record that the whole Christian world became indebted. Their ambition, however, and their vices knew no bounds. Gregory VII., who was eagerly bent upon humbling the bishops, and transferring their privileges to the Roman see, granted them exemptions both from the temporal authority of their sovereigns and all other spiritual jurisdiction, besides that of Rome, before unknown. They assumed the titles of universal abbots, abbots-sovereign, abbots-general, &c., and twenty-six lords-abbots sat in the English Parliament. Abbe', a kind of secular clergymen, once popular in France, and amongst whom arose several men of great literary merit. They enjoyed certain privileges in the Church, but no fixed station, being considered as professed scholars and academics, and principally occupied in public and private tuition. Some of them have risen to eminence in the state. Abbess, the superior of an abbey or convent of nuns, over whom she exercises nearly the same rights and authority as the abbots-regular over their monks. Their powers were formerly very extensive; they are said to have assisted at ecclesiastical councils, and even to have been sometimes called to the English Wittenagemote, before the conquest. Some abbesses have had the right of commissioning a priest to act for them in those spiritual functions which their sex would not permit them to exercise; they have occasionally confessed their own nuns; and are allowed, by St. Basil, always to be present when the priest shall confess them. In the Russian Church, the abbess is called Hegumina. A secular priest performs divine service in the chapel of the house, but the nuns read the lessons and sing the hymns. "The nunneries in Russia, at present," says Mr. Pinkerton, "are properly nothing but asylums for aged and unfortunate females, who thus spend the remainder of their days in retirement, most of them usefully employed; and it were altogether inconsistent with truth and justice to consider them as belonging to those retreats of licentiousness and vice, of which we have so many shocking accounts in ecclesiastical history."-Present State of the Greek Church-See MONACHISM. Abbey, sometimes written Abbathey or Abbacy, a religious house, governed by a superior, under the title of abbot or abbess. The jurisdiction of abbeys was first confined to the immediate lands and buildings in possession of the house. As these establishments increased in importance, and were brought into the neighbourhood of cities and populous towns, they exercised extensive powers over their respective neighbourhoods, and in some cases issued coins, and became courts of criminal justice. In other instances they gave birth to towns and cities. Abbeys, priories, and monasteries, differ principally in the extent of their particular powers and jurisdiction. All these establishments, in the Greek Church, follow the rule of St. Basil. The Russian abbeys and nunneries have been an object of peculiar attention in the policy of that government since the time of Peter the Great, who brought the whole discipline of them under such peculiar restrictions as have effectually remedied their grosser inconveniences. The rage for entering into these retreats no longer exists; and as all the higher ranks of the Russian clergy are taken from amongst them, it is a matter of just anxiety with the government that such men only should be suffered to enter the order as may afterwards prove worthy of their important desig. nation. Both the male and female establishments are divided into three classes: Stauropegia, Canobia, and Laura. The first two are directly under the government of the holy synod, and the last under that of the archbishops and bishops of their respective dioceses. The abbeys in England, before the time of the Reformation, were numerous and wealthy, and enjoyed many important privileges. Their lands were valued, at the time of their confiscation by Henry VIII., at the immense sum of £2,850,000, an enormous sum, by our present currency.-See MONASTERY. Abbot is also a title given to bishops whose sees were formerly abbeys; and sometimes to the superiors or generals of some congregations of regular canons, as that of St. Genevieve at Paris, and of Montreal in Sicily. It was likewise usual, about the time of Charlemagne, for several lords to assume the title of count-abbots, abbacommites, as superintendents of certain abbeys. In the Evangelical Church of Germany the title is still sometimes given to such clergy as possess the revenues of former abbeys. Abbots in Commendam, seculars who have received tonsure, but are obliged by their bulls to take orders when of proper age. Abbots-Regular, those who take the vow, and wear the habit of their order. Abbreviators, secretaries connected with the court of Rome, first appointed about the early part of the fourteenth century, to record bulls and other papal ordinances. The office has been held by some eminent men. Abcedary, Abcedarian, or Abbecedarian, A, B, C, D, E, &c., a term applied to those compositions whose parts are disposed in alpha |