text:
Page:Stevenson - Treasure Island.djvu/314

 Selections from Cassell § Company's Volumes (Continued).

The Book of Health. A Systematic Treatise for the Professional and General Reader upon the Science and the Pre- servation of Health. Edited by MALCOLM MORRIS. With Contribu- tions by eminent Medical Authorities. Price 21s. Our Homes and How to make them Healthy. With numerous practical Illustrations. Edited by SHIRLEY FORSTER MURPHY, assisted by eminent Contributors. Royal 8vo, cloth, 15s. The Family Physician. A Modern Manual of Domestic Medicine. By PHYSICIANS and SURGEONS of the Principal London Hospitals. Royal 8vo, cloth, 21s. Medicine, Manuals for Students of. Elements of Histology. By E. Surgical Applied Anatomy. By KLEIN, M.D., F.R.S., 6s. FREDERICK TREVES, F.R.C.S. Surgical Pathology. By A. J. 7s - 6d. PEPPER, M.B., M.S., F.R.C.S. Human Physiology. By HENRY The Dissector's Manual. By W. POWER, M.B., F.R.C.S. BRUCE CLARKE, F. R.C.S., and 7S. 6d. C. B. LOCKWOOD, F.R.C.S. Clinical Chemistry. By CHAS. 6s. H. RALFE, M.D.,F.R.C.P. 5s. Prospectus will be sent post free on application. The Domestic Dictionary. An Encyclopaedia for the Household. Illustrated throughout. 1,280 pages, royal 8vo. Cheap Edition, price 7s. 6d. ; half-roan, 9s. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery. The Largest, Cheapest, and Best Book of Cookery. With 9,000 Recipes, and numerous Illustrations. Cheap Edition, price 7s. 6d. ; half-roan, 9s. Choice Dishes at Small Cost. Containing Practical Directions to Success in Cookery, and Original Recipes for Appetising and Economical Dishes. By A. G. PAYNE. 3s. 6d. A Year's Cookery. Giving Dishes for Breakfast, Luncheon, and Dinner for Every Day in the Year, with Practical In- structions for their Preparation. By PHYLLIS BROWNE. Cheap Edition, cloth, 3s. 6d. What Girls Can Do. A Book for Mothers and Daughters. By PHYLLIS BROWNE, Author of "A Year's Cookery," &c. Crown 8vo, cloth. Cheap Edition. 3s. 6d. •33° Cassell & Company's Complete Catalogue, containing a List oj Several Hundred Volumes, including Bibles and Religious Works, Fine- Art Volumes, Children s Books, Dictionaries, Educational IVorks, Handbooks and Guides, History, Natural History, Household and Domestic Treatises Science, Serials, Travels, sent post free on application. Cassell & Company, Limited: Ludgate Hill, Loudon', Paris', and New York.


text:
Page:Thompson Motif-Index 2nd 1.djvu/100

94

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Esau

Esau (`SU, hairy), the eldest son of Isaac and Rebecca, the twin-brother of Jacob. The struggle of the two brothers, when still within Rebecca's womb, was prophetic of the lifelong opposition, deepening at times into hatred, which marked the relations between Esau and Jacob (Gen., xxv, 22 sq.). Esau, who came forth first, when grown up, became a skillful hunter, and was much loved by Isaac, who ate of his hunting (Gen., xxv, 24-28). "Coming faint out of the field", and much moved by the sight and savor of the pottage boiled by his brother, Esau said to Jacob, "Give me of this red pottage". No doubt already informed as to the import of the oracle revealed to Rebecca, Jacob was quick to draw advantage from the greed of his famished brother. Consenting to the condition imposed, Esau not only exchanged his first birthright for the red pottage, but even confirmed the sale by an oath, saying, "Lo, I die; what will the first birthright avail me?... And so taking bread and the pottage of lentils, he ate, and drank, and went his way; making little account of having sold his first birthright" (Gen., xxv, 29-34). That this transaction was widely known is justly inferred from the very name (Edom, red), which, though rarely given to Esau himself, is almost universally applied to his descendants. "Esau, being forty years old, married wives, Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hethite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon of the same place" (Gen., xxvi, 34). This selection of Chanaanite wives, who "both offended the mind of Isaac and Rebecca" (Gen., xxvi, 35), seemed to have caused peculiar suffering to Rebecca, who, speaking with her husband, declared, "I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the stock of this land, I choose not to live" (Gen., xxvii, 46). Old and with eyes so dim he could not see, Isaac ordered Esau to take quiver and bow, so that after having prepared a savory dish with the fruit of his hunting, he might receive the parting blessing, belonging to the eldest son. Esau, yielding ready obedience, went "into the field to fulfil his father's commandment". (Gen., xxvii, 1-5.) Meanwhile, clothed with the very good garments of his older brother, with hands and neck so carefully covered under the tender hides of the kids as to resemble the hairy skin of Esau, Jacob, following in every detail the advice of Rebecca, knelt before Isaac, offered the savory dish, and begged and obtained the coveted blessing. Great then was the astonishment, and genuine the indignation, of the disappointed Esau, who "roared out with a great cry", on hearing the deceived Isaac declare, "thy brother came deceitfully and got thy blessing". Though sympathizing with his grief-stricken son, Isaac, realizing more fully the import of the oracle communicated to Rebecca, felt impelled to add: "I have blessed him, and he shall be blessed"; "I have appointed him thy lord, and have made all his brethren his servants". (Gen., xxvii, 6-37.) The restraining influence of the father's presence is admirably portrayed in the few words uttered by Esau: "the days will come of the mourning of my father, and I will kill my brother Jacob" (Gen., xxvii, 41). That this exclamation revealed a deep-seated purpose, the evident anxiety of Rebecca, the hasty flight of Jacob to Haran, and his long stay with his uncle Laban, clearly demonstrated. (Gen., xxvii, 42-xxxi, 38.) Indeed, even after a self-imposed exile of twenty years, the carefully instructed messengers sent to Esau in the land of Seir (Gen., xxxii, 3) and the strategic division of his household and flocks into two companies clearly indicate Jacob's abiding sense of distrust (Gen., xxxii, 4-8).

After extending a cordial welcome to his returning brother, Esau parted from Jacob and "returned, that day, the way that he came, to Seir" (Gen., xxxiii, 1-16), where he and his descendants became exceedingly rich (Gen., xxxvi, 1-8). The very name Edomite, given to the descendants of Esau (Edom), has served to perpetuate the remembrance of the circumstances attending Esau's birth and the sale of his first birthright. From the noteworthy preference of Jacob to Esau (Gen., xxv, 22 sq.), St. Paul (Rom., ix, 4-16) shows that in the mystery of election and grace God is bound to no particular nation and is influenced by no prerogative of birth or antecedent merit. When Isaac, old and full of days, had died, we find Esau with Jacob at Hebron, there to bury their father in the cave of Machpelah (Gen., xxxv, 28-29).

DANIEL P. DUFFY

title: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Esau


text:
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Nicolaus Van Esch

Esch, , a famous mystical theologian, b. in Oisterwijk near Hertogenbosch (Boisle-Duc), Holland, in 1507; d. July 19, 1578. After finishing his classical studies in the school of the Hieronymites, he studied philosophy, theology, and canon law at Louvain, but refused to take his doctor's degree. In 1530 he was ordained priest, and then settled in Cologne in Order to devote himself to higher studies and the practice of Christian perfection. At the same time he became the private tutor of a number of young men, mainly university students. Blessed Peter Oanisius and Lawrence Surius are the most celebrated of his pupils. In Cologne, too, he contracted a close friendship with several members of the Carthusian Order, among whom Johann Landsberger, Gerhard Hamontanus, and Theodorich and Bruno Loher are worthy of special mention. Though his feeble health did not allow him to become a member of the order, he lived in the monastery, for a time at least, and followed its rule of life as closely as possible. In 1538 Nicolaus was appointed pastor of the Beguinage at Diest; after a year he surrendered his charge for a time, but took it up again with such success that after his death he was commonly spoken of as the saintly Father Eschius. He was also instrumental in founding several diocesan seminaries according to the rules laid down by the Council of Trent. Among his literary works the following are worthy of note: "Introductio in vitam introversam", which is really an introduction to a new edition of the "Templum animae" (Antwerp, 1563 etc.); "Exercitia theologiae mysticae, seuexercitia quaedam pia, quae compendio hominem ad vitam perfectam instituendam juvare possunt" (Antwerp, 1563).

A. J. MAAS


text:
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Eschatology

Eschatology, that branch of systematic theology which deals with the doctrines of the last things (eschata). The Greek title is of comparatively recent introduction, but in modern usage it has largely supplanted its Latin equivalent De Novissimis. As the numerous doctrinal subjects belonging to this section of theology will be treated ex professo under their several proper titles, it is proposed in this article merely to take such a view of the whole field as will serve to indicate the place of eschatology in the general frame-work of religion, explain its subject-matter and the outlines of its content in the various religions of man-kind, and illustrate by comparison the superiority of Christian eschatological teaching.

As a preliminary indication of the subject-matter, a distinction may be made between the eschatology of the individual and that of the race and the universe at large. The former, setting out from the doctrine of personal immortality, or at least of survival in some form after death, seeks to ascertain the fate or condition, temporary or eternal, of individual souls, and how far the issues of the future depend on the present life. The latter deals with events like the resurrection and the general judgment, in which, according to Christian Revelation, all men will participate, and with the signs and portents in the moral and physical order that are to precede and accompany those events. Both aspects—the individual and the universal—belong to the adequate concept of eschatology; but it is only in Christian teaching that both receive due and proportionate recognition. Jewish eschatology only attained its completion in the teaching of Christ and the Apostles; while in ethnic religions eschatology seldom rose above the individual view, and even then was often so vague, and so little bound up with any adequate notion of Divine justice and of moral retribution, that it barely deserves to be ranked as religious teaching.

I. ETHNIC ESCHATOLOGIES. —(1) Even among the lower—savage and barbarian,—races the universality of religious beliefs, including belief in some kind of existence after death, is very generally admitted by modern anthropologists. Some exceptions, it is true, have been claimed to exist; but on closer scrutiny the evidence for this claim has broken down in so many cases that we are justified in presuming against any exception. Among the lower races the truth and purity of eschatological beliefs vary, as a rule, with the purity of the idea of God and of the moral standards that prevail. Some savages seem to limit existence after death to the good (with extinction for the wicked), as the Nicaraguas, or to men of rank, as the Tongas; while the Greenlanders, New Guinea negroes, and others seem to hold the possibility of a second death, in the other world or on the way to it. The next world itself is variously located—on the earth, in the skies, in the sun or moon—but most commonly under the earth; while the life led there is conceived either as a dull and shadowy and more or less impotent existence, or as an active continuation in a higher or idealized form of the pursuits and pleasures of earthly life. In most savage religions there is no very high or definite doctrine of moral retribution after death; but it is only in the case of a few of the most degraded races, whose condition is admittedly the result of degeneration, that the notion of retribution is claimed to be altogether wanting. Sometimes mere physical prowess, as bravery or skill in the hunt or in war, takes the place of a strictly ethical standard; but, on the other hand, some savage religions contain unexpectedly clear and elevated ideas of many primary moral duties.

(2) Coming to the higher or civilized races, we shall glance briefly at the eschatology of the Babylonian and Assyrian, Egyptian, Indian, Persian, and Greek religions. Confucianism can hardly be said to have an eschatology, except the very indefinite belief involved in the worship of ancestors, whose happiness was held to depend on the conduct of their living descendants. Mohammedan eschatology contains nothing distinctive except the glorification of barbaric sensuality.

(a) Babylonian and Assyrian.—In the ancient Babylonian religion (with which the Assyrian is substantially identical) eschatology never attained, in the historical period, any high degree of development. Retribution is confined almost, if not quite, entirely to the present life, virtue being rewarded by the Divine bestowal of strength, prosperity, long life, numerous offspring, and the like, and wickedness punished by contrary temporal calamities. Yet the existence of an hereafter is believed in. A kind of semi-material ghost, or shade, or double (ekimmu), survives the death of the body, and when the body is buried (or, less commonly, cremated) the ghost descends to the underworld to join the company of the departed. In the "Lay of Ishtar" this underworld, to which she descended in search of her deceased lover and of the "waters of life", is described in gloomy colors; and the same is true of the other descriptions we possess. It is the "pit", the "land of no return", the "house of darkness", the "place where dust is their bread, and their food is mud"; and it is infested with demons, who, at least in Ishtar's case, are empowered to inflict various chastisements for sins committed in the upper world.

Though Ishtar's case is held by some to be typical in this respect, there is otherwise no clear indication of a doctrine of moral penalties for the wicked, and no promise of rewards for the good. Good and bad are involved in a common dismal fate. The location of the region of the dead is a subject of controversy among Assyriologists, while the suggestion of a brighter hope in the form of a resurrection (or rather of a return to earth) from the dead, which some would infer from the belief in the "waters of life" and from references to Marduk, or Merodach, as "one who brings the dead to life", is an extremely doubtful conjecture. On the whole there is nothing hopeful or satisfying in the eschatology of this ancient religion.

(b) Egyptian.—On the other hand, in the Egyptian religion, which for antiquity competes with the Babylonian, we meet with a highly developed and comparatively elevated eschatology. Leaving aside such difficult questions as the relative priority and influence of different, and even conflicting, elements in the Egyptian religion, it will suffice for the present purpose to refer to what is most prominent in Egyptian eschatology taken at its highest and best. In the first place, then, life in its fullness, unending life with Osiris, the sun-god, who journeys daily through the underworld, even identification with the god, with the right to be called by his name, is what the pious Egyptian looked forward to as the ultimate goal after death. The departed are habitually called the "living"; the coffin is the "chest of the living", and the tomb the "lord of life". It is not merely the disembodied spirit, the soul as we understand it, that continues to live, but the soul with certain bodily organs and functions suited to the conditions of the new life. In the elaborate anthropology which underlies Egyptian eschatology, and which we find it hard to understand, several constituents of the human person are distinguished, the most important of which is the Ka, a kind of semi-material double; and to the justified who pass the judgment after death the use of these several constituents, separated by death, is restored.

This judgment which each undergoes is described in detail in chapter cxxv of the Book of the Dead. The examination covers a great variety of personal, social, and religious duties and observances; the deceased must be able to deny his guilt in regard to forty-two great categories of sins, and his heart (the symbol of conscience and morality) must stand the test of being weighed in the balance against the image of MaƒÅt, goddess of truth or justice. But the new life that begins after a favorable judgment is not at first any better or more spiritual than life on earth. The justified is still a wayfarer with a long and difficult journey to accomplish before he reaches bliss and security in the fertile fields of Aalu. On this journey he is exposed to a variety of disasters, for the avoidance of which he depends on the use of his revivified powers and on the knowledge he has gained in life of the directions and magical charms recorded in the Book of the Dead, and also, and perhaps most of all, on the aids provided by surviving friends on earth. It is they who secure the preservation of his corpse that he may return and use it, who provide an indestructible tomb as a home or shelter for his Ka, who supply food and drink for his sustenance, offer up prayers and sacrifices for his benefit, and aid his memory by inscribing on the walls of the tomb, or writing on rolls of papyrus enclosed in the wrappings of the mummy, chapters from the Book of the Dead. It does not, indeed, appear that the dead were ever supposed to reach a state in which they were independent of these earthly aids. At any rate they were always considered free to revisit the earthly tomb, and in making the journey to and fro the blessed had the power of transforming themselves at will into various animal-shapes. It was this belief which, at the degenerate stage at which he encountered it, Herodotus mistook for the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. It should be added that the identification of the blessed with Osiris ("Osiris N. N." is a usual form of inscription) did not, at least in the earlier and higher stage of Egyptian religion, imply pantheistic absorption in the deity or the loss of individual personality. Regarding the fate of those who fail in the judgment after death, or succumb in the second probation, Egyptian eschatology is less definite in its teaching. "Second death" and other expressions applied to them might seem to suggest annihilation; but it is sufficiently clear from the evidence as a whole that continued existence in a condition of darkness and misery was believed to be their portion. And as there were degrees in the happiness of the blessed, so also in the punishment of the lost (see Book of the Dead, tr. Budge, London, 1901).

(c) Indian.—In the Vedic, the earliest historical form of the Indian religion, eschatological belief is simpler and purer than in the Brahministic and Buddhistic forms that succeeded it. Individual immortality is clearly taught. There is a kingdom of the dead under the rule of Yams, with distinct realms for the good and the wicked. The good dwell in a realm of light and share in the feasts of the gods; the wicked are banished to a place of "nethermost darkness". Already, however, in the later Vedas, where these beliefs find developed expression, retribution begins to be ruled more by ceremonial observances than by strictly moral tests. On the other hand, there is no trace as yet of the dreary doctrine of transmigration, but critics profess to discover the germs of later pantheism.

In Brahminism (q.v.) retribution gains in prominence and severity, but becomes hopelessly involved in transmigration, and is made more and more dependent either on sacrificial observances or on theosophical knowledge. Though after death there are numerous heavens and hells for the reward and punishment of every degree of merit and demerit, these are not final states, but only so many preludes to further rebirths in higher or lower forms. Pantheistic absorption in Brahma, the world-soul and only reality, with the consequent extinction of individual personality—this is the only final solution of the problem of existence, the only salvation to which man may ultimately look forward. But it is a salvation which only a few may hope to reach after the present life, the few who have acquired a perfect knowledge of Brahma. The bulk of men who cannot rise to this high philosophic wisdom may succeed, by means of sacrificial observances, in gaining a temporary heaven, but they are destined to further births and deaths.

Buddhist eschatology still further develops and modifies the philosophical side of the Brahministic doctrine of salvation, and culminates in what is, strictly speaking, the negation of eschatology and of all theology—a religion without a God, and a lofty moral code without hope of reward or fear of punishment hereafter. Existence itself, or at least individual existence, is the primary evil; and the craving for existence, with the many forms of desire it begets, is the source of all the misery in which life is inextricably involved. Salvation, or the state of Nirvana, is to be attained by the utter extinction of every kind of desire; and this is possible by knowledge not the knowledge of God or the soul, as in Brahminism, but the purely philosophical knowledge of the real truth of things. For all who do not reach this state of philosophic enlightenment or who fail to live up to its requirements—that is to say for the vast bulk of mankind—there is nothing in prospect save a dreary cycle of deaths and rebirths with intercalated heavens and hells; and in Buddhism this doctrine takes on a still more dread and inexorable character than in pre-Buddhistic Brahminism. (See Buddhism.)

(d) Persian.—the ancient Persian religion (Zoroastrianism, Mazdaism, Parseeism) we meet with what is perhaps, in its better elements, the highest type of ethnic eschatology. But as we know it in the Parsee literature, it contains elements that were probably borrowed from other religions; and as some of this literature is certainly post-Christian, the possibility of Jewish and even Christian ideas having influenced the later eschatological developments is not to be lost sight of. The radical defect of the Persian religion was its dualistic conception of deity. The physical and moral world is the theatre of a perpetual conflict between Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd), the good, and Angra-Mainyu (Ahriman), the evil, principle, co-creators of the universe and of man. Yet the evil principle is not eternal ex parte post; he will finally be vanquished and exterminated. A pure monotheistic Providence promises at times to replace dualism, but never quite succeeds—the latest effort in this direction being the belief in Zvran Akarana, or Boundless Time, as the supreme deity above both Ahriman and Ormuzd. Morality has its sanction not merely in future retribution, but in the present assurance that every good and pious deed is a victory for the cause of Ahura Mazda; but the call to the individual to be active in this cause, though vigorous and definite enough, is never quite free from ritual and ceremonial conditions, and as time goes on becomes more and more complicated by these observances, especially by the laws of purity. Certain elements are holy (fire, earth, water), certain others unholy or impure (dead bodies, the breath, and all that leaves the body, etc.); and to defile oneself or the holy elements by contact with the impure is one of the deadliest sins. Consequently corpses could not be buried or cremated, and were accordingly exposed on platforms erected for the purpose, so that birds of prey might devour them. When the soul leaves the body it has to cross the bridge of Chinvat (or Kinvad), the bridge of the Gatherer, or Accountant. For three days good and evil spirits contend for the possession of the soul, after which the reckoning is taken, and the just man is rejoiced by the apparition, in the form of a fair maiden, of his good deeds, words, and thoughts, and passes over safely to a paradise of bliss; while the wicked man is confronted by a hideous apparition of his evil deeds, and is dragged down to hell. If the judgment is neutral the soul is reserved in an intermediate state (so at least in the Pahlavi books) till the decision at the last day. The developed conception of the last days, as it appears in the later literature, has certain remarkable affinities with Jewish Messianic and millennial expectations. A time during which Ahriman will gain the ascendancy is to be followed by two millennial periods, in each of which a great prophet will appear to herald the coming of Soshyant (or Sosioch), the Conqueror and Judge, who will raise the dead to life. The resurrection will occupy fifty-seven years and will be followed by the general judgment, the separation of the good from the wicked, and the passing of both through a purgatorial fire, gentle for the just, terrible for sinners, but leading to the restoration of all. Next will follow the final combat between the good and the evil spirits, in which the latter will perish, all except Ahriman and the serpent Azhi, whose destruction is reserved to Ahura Mazda and Scraosha, the priest-god. And last of all hell itself will be purged, and the earth renewed by purifying fire.

(e) Greek.—Greek eschatology as reflected in the Homeric poems remains at a low level. It is only very vaguely retributive and is altogether cheerless in its outlook. Life on earth, for all its shortcomings, is the highest good for men, and death the worst of evils. Yet death is not extinction. The psuche survives—not the purely spiritual soul of later Greek and Christian thought, but an attenuated, semi-material ghost, or shade, or image, of the earthly man; and the life of this shade in the underworld is a dull, impoverished, almost functionless existence. Nor is there any distinction of fates either by way of happiness or of misery in Hades. The judicial office of Minos is illusory, and has nothing to do with earthly conduct; and there is only one allusion to the Furies suggestive of their activity among the dead (Iliad, XIX, 258-60). Tartarus, the lower hell, is reserved for a few special rebels against the gods, and the Elysian Fields for a few special favorites chosen by divine caprice.

In later Greek thought touching the future life there are notable advances beyond the Homeric stage, but it is doubtful whether the average popular faith ever reached a much higher level. Among early philosophers Anaxagoras contributes to the notion of a purely spiritual soul; but a more directly religious contribution is made by the Eleusinian and Orphic Mysteries, to the influence of which in brightening and moralizing the hope of a future life we have the concurrent witness of philosophers, poets, and historians. In the Eleusinian Mysteries there seems to have been no definite doctrinal teaching—merely the promise or assurance for the initiated of the fullness of life hereafter. With the Orphic, on the other hand, the divine origin and pre-existence of the soul, for which the body is but a temporary prison, and the doctrine of a retributive transmigration are more or less closely associated. It is hard to say how far the common belief of the people was influenced by these mysteries, but in poetical and philosophical literature their influence is unmistakable. This is seen especially in Pindar among the poets, and in Plato among the philosophers. Pindar has a definite promise of a future life of bliss for the good or the initiated, and not merely for a few, but for all. Even for the wicked who descend to Hades there is hope; having purged their wickedness they obtain rebirth on earth, and if, during three successive existences, they prove themselves worthy of the boon, they will finally attain to happiness in the Isles of the Blest. Though Plato's teaching is vitiated by the doctrine of pre-existence, metempsychosis, and other serious errors, it represents the highest achievement of pagan philosophic speculation on the subject of the future life. The divine dignity, spirituality, and essential immortality of the soul being established, the issues of the future for every soul are made clearly dependent on its moral conduct in the present life in the body. There is a divine judgment after death, a heaven, a hell, and an intermediate state for penance and purification; and rewards and punishments are graduated according to the merits and demerits of each. The incurably wicked are condemned to everlasting punishment in Tartarus; the less wicked or indifferent go also to Tartarus or to the Acherusian Lake, but only for a time; those eminent for goodness go to a happy home, the highest reward of all being for those who have purified themselves by philosophy.

From the foregoing sketch we are able to judge both of the merits and defects of ethnic systems of eschatology. Their merits are perhaps enhanced when they are presented, as above, in isolation from the other features of the religions to which they belonged. Yet their defects are obvious enough; and even those of them that were best and most promising turned out, historically, to be failures. The precious elements of eschatological truth contained in the Egyptian religion were associated with error and superstition, and were unable to save the religion from sinking to the state of utter degeneration in which it is found at the approach of the Christian Era. Similarly, the still richer and more profound eschatology of the Persian religion, vitiated by dualism and other corrupting influences, failed to realize the promise it contained, and has survived only as a ruin in modern Parseeism. Plato's speculative teaching failed to influence in any notable degree the popular religion of the Graeco-Roman world; it failed to convert even the philosophical few; and in the hands of those who did profess to adopt it, Platonism, uncorrected by Christianity, ran to seed in Pantheism and other forms of error.

II. OLD-TESTAMENT ESCHATOLOGY. —Without going into details either by way of exposition or of criticism, it will be sufficient to point out how Old-Testament eschatology compares with ethnic systems, and how, notwithstanding its deficiencies in point of clearness and completeness, it was not an unworthy preparation for the fullness of Christian Revelation.

(1) Old-Testament eschatology, even in its earliest and most imperfect form, shares in the distinctive character which belongs to O.T. religion generally. In the first place, as a negative distinction, we note the entire absence of certain erroneous ideas and tendencies that have a large place in ethnic religions. There is no pantheism or dualism, no doctrine of pre-existence (Wisdom, viii, 17-20, does not necessarily imply this doctrine, as has sometimes been contended) or of metempsychosis; nor is there any trace, as might have been expected, of Egyptian ideas or practices. In the next place, on the positive side, the O. T. stands apart from ethnic religions in its doctrine of God, and of man in relation to God. Its doctrine of God is pure and uncompromising monotheism; the universe is ruled by the wisdom, justice, and omnipotence of the one, true God. And man is created by God in His own image and likeness, and destined to relations of friendship and fellowship with Him. Here we have revealed in clear and definite terms the basal doctrines which are at the root of eschatological truth, and which, once they had taken hold of the life of a people, were bound, even without new additions to the revelation, to safe-guard the purity of an inadequate eschatology and to lead in time to richer and higher developments. Such additions and developments occur in O. T. teaching; but before noticing them it is well to call attention to the two chief defects, or limitations, which attach to the earlier eschatology and continue, by their persistence in popular belief, to hinder more or less the correct understanding and acceptance by the Jewish people as a whole of the highest eschatological utterances of their own inspired teachers.

(2) The first of these defects is the silence of the earlier and of some of the later books on the subject of moral retribution after death, or at least the extreme vagueness of such passages in these books as might be understood to refer to this subject. Death is not extinction; but Sheol, the underworld of the dead, in early Hebrew thought is not very different from the Babylonian Aralà or the Homeric Hades, except that Jahve is God even there. It is a dreary abode in which all that is prized in life, including friendly intercourse with God, comes to an end without any definite promise of renewal. Dishonor, incurred in life or in death, clings to a man in Sheol, like the honor he may have won by a virtuous life on earth; but otherwise conditions in Sheol are not represented as retributive, except in the vaguest way. Not that a more definite retribution or the hope of renewal to a life of blessedness is formally denied and excluded; it simply fails to find utterance in earlier O. T. records. Religion is preeminently an affair of this life, and retribution works out here on earth. This idea, which to us seems so strange, must, to be fairly appreciated, be taken in conjunction with the national as opposed to the individual viewpoint [see under (3) of this section]; and allowance must also be made for its pedagogic value for a people like the early Hebrews. Christ Himself explains why Moses permitted divorce ("by reason of the hardness of your heart"—Matt., xix, 8); revelation and legislation had to be tempered to the capacity of a singularly practical and unimaginative people, who were more effectively confirmed in the worship and service of God by a vivid sense of His retributive providence here on earth than they would have been by a higher and fuller doctrine of future immortality with its postponement of moral awards. Nor must we exaggerate the insufficiency of this early point of view. It gave a deep religious value and significance to every event of the present life, and raised morality above the narrow, utilitarian standpoint. Not worldly prosperity as such was the ideal of the pious Israelite, but prosperity bestowed by God as the gracious reward of fidelity in keeping His Commandments. Yet, when all has been said, the inadequacy of this belief for the satisfaction of individual aspirations must be admitted; and this inadequacy was bound to prove itself sooner or later in experience. Even the substitution of the national for the individual stand-point could not indefinitely hinder this result.

(3) The tendency to sink the individual in the nation and to treat the latter as the religious unit was one of the most marked characteristics of Hebrew faith. And this helped very much to support and prolong the other limitation just noticed, according to which retribution was looked for in this life. Deferred and disappointed personal hopes could be solaced by the thought of their present or future realization in the nation. It was only when the national calamities, culminating in the exile, had shattered for a time the people's hope of a glorious theocratic kingdom that the eschatology of the individual became prominent; and with the restoration there was a tendency to revert to the national point of view. It is true of the O. T. as a whole that the eschatology of the people overshadows that of the individual, though it is true at the same time that, in and through the former, the latter advances to a clear and definite assurance of a personal resurrection from the dead, at least for the children of Israel who are to share, if found worthy, in the glories of the Messianic Age.

It is beyond the scope of this article to attempt to trace the growth or describe the several phases of this national eschatology, which centers in the hope of the establishment of a theocratic and Messianic kingdom on earth (see Messias). However spiritually this idea may be found expressed in O.T. prophecies, as we read them now in the light of their progressive fulfilment in the N.T. Dispensation, the Jewish people as a whole clung to a material and political interpretation of the kingdom, coupling their own domination as a people with the triumph of God and the worldwide establishment of His rule. There is much, indeed, to account for this in the obscurity of the prophecies themselves. The Messias as a distinct person is not always mentioned in connection with the inauguration of the kingdom, which leaves room for the expectation of a theophany of Jahve in the character of judge and ruler. But even when the person and place of the Messias are distinctly foreshadowed, the fusion together in prophecy of what we have learned to distinguish as His first and His second coming tends to give to the whole picture of the Messianic kingdom an eschatological character that belongs in reality only to its final stage. It is thus the resurrection of the dead in Isaias, xxvi, 19, and Daniel, xii, 2, is introduced; and many of the descriptions foretelling "the day of the Lord", the judgment on Jews and Gentiles, the renovation of the earth and other phenomena that usher in that day, while applicable in a limited sense to contemporary events and to the inauguration of the Christian Era, are much more appropriately understood of the end of the world. It is not, therefore, surprising that the religious hopes of the Jewish nation should have become so predominantly eschatological, and that the popular imagination, foreshortening the perspective of Divine Revelation, should have learned to look for the establishment on earth of the glorious Kingdom of God, which Christians are assured will be realized only in heaven at the close of the present dispensation.

(4) Passing from these general observations which seem necessary for the true understanding of O.T. eschatology, a brief reference will be made to the passages which exhibit the growth of a higher and fuller doctrine of immortality. The recognition of individual as opposed to mere corporate responsibility and retribution may be reckoned, at least remotely, as a gain to eschatology, even when retribution is confined chiefly to this life; and this principle is repeatedly recognized in the earliest books. (See Gen., xviii, 25; Ex., xxxii, 33; Num., xvi, 22; Deut., vii, 10; xxiv, 16; II K., xxiv, 17; IV K., xiv, 6; Is., iii, 10 sq.; xxxiii, 15 sqq.; Jer., xii, 1 sq.; xvii, 5-10; xxxii, 18 sq.; Ezech., xiv, 12-20; xviii, 4, 18 sqq.; Psalms, passim; Prov., ii, 21 sq.; x, 2; xi, 19, 31; etc.) It is recognized also in the very terms of the problem dealt with in the Book of Job.

But, coming to higher things, we find in the Psalms and in Job the clear expression of a hope or assurance for the just of a life of blessedness after death. Here is voiced, under Divine inspiration, the innate craving of the righteous soul for everlasting fellowship with God, the protest of a strong and vivid faith against the popular conception of Sheol. Omitting doubtful passages, it is enough to refer to Psalms xv (A.V. xvi), xvi (A.V. xvii), xlviii (A.V. xlix), and lxxii (A.V. lxxiii). Of these it is not impossible to explain the first two as prayers for deliverance from some imminent danger of death, but the assurance they express is too absolute and universal to admit this interpretation as the most natural. And this assurance becomes still more definite in the other two psalms, by reason of the contrast which death is asserted to introduce between the fates of the just and the impious. The same faith emerges in the Book of Job, first as a hope somewhat questionably expressed, and then as an assured conviction. Despairing of vindication in this life and rebelling against the thought that righteousness should remain finally unrewarded, the sufferer seeks consolation in the hope of a renewal of God's friendship beyond the grave: "O that thou wouldest hide me in Sheol, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me. If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, till my release should come" (xiv, 13 sq.). In xvi, 18-xvii, 9, the expression of this hope is more absolute; and in xix, 23-27, it takes the form of a definite certainty that he will see God, his Redeemer: "But I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand up at the last upon the earth [dust]; and after this my skin has been destroyed, yet from [al. without] my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold, and not another" (25-27). In his risen body he will see God, according to the Vulgate (LXX) reading: "and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth. And I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God" (25-26).

The doctrine of the resurrection finds definite expression in the Prophets; and in Isaias, xxvi, 19: "thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall rise again. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust" etc.; and Daniel, xii, 2: "and many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some unto everlasting life, and others unto everlasting shame and contempt" etc., it is clearly a personal resurrection that is taught—in Isaias a resurrection of righteous Israelites; in Daniel, of both the righteous and the wicked. The judgment, which in Daniel is connected with the resurrection, is also personal; and the same is true of the judgment of the living (Jews and Gentiles) which in various forms the prophecies connect with the "day of the Lord". Some of the Psalms (e.g. xlviii) seem to imply a judgment of individuals, good and bad, after death; and the certainty of a future judgment of "every work, whether it be good or evil", is the final solution of the moral enigmas of earthly life offered by Ecclesiastes (xii, 13-14; cf. iii, 17). Coming to the later (deuterocanonical) books of the O. T. we have clear evidence in II Mach. of Jewish faith not only in the resurrection of the body (vii, 9-14), but in the efficacy of prayers and sacrifices for the dead who have died in godliness (xii, 43 sqq.). And in the second and first centuries B.C., in the Jewish apocryphal literature, new eschatological developments appear, chiefly in the direction of a more definite doctrine of retribution after death. The word Sheol is still most commonly understood of the general abode of the departed awaiting the resurrection, this abode having different divisions for the reward of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked; in reference to the latter, Sheol is sometimes simply equivalent to hell. Gehenna is the name usually applied to the final place of punishment of the wicked after the last judgment, or even immediately after death; while paradise is often used to designate the intermediate abode of the souls of the just, and heaven their home of final blessedness (for detailed references to apocryphal literature see Charles, article "Eschatology" in "Encycl. Biblica", §§ 63, 70). Christ's use of these terms shows that the Jews of His day were sufficiently familiar with their N.T. meanings.

III. CATHOLIC ESCHATOLOGY. —In this article there is no critical discussion of N.T. eschatology nor any attempt to trace the historical developments of Catholic teaching from Scriptural and traditional data; only a brief conspectus is given of the developed Catholic system. For critical and historical details and for the refutation of opposing views the reader is referred to the special articles dealing with the various doctrines. The eschatological summary which speaks of the "four last things" (death, judgment, heaven, and hell) is popular rather than scientific. For systematic treatment it is best to distinguish between (A) individual and (B) universal and cosmic eschatology, including under (A): (1) death; (2) the particular judgment; (3) heaven, or eternal happiness; (4) purgatory, or the intermediate state; (5) hell, or eternal punishment; and under (B): (6) the approach of the end of the world; (7) the resurrection of the body; (8) the general judgment; and (9) the final consummation of all things. The superiority of Catholic eschatology consists in the fact that, without professing to answer every question that idle curiosity may suggest, it gives a clear, consistent, satisfying statement of all that need at present be known, or can profitably be understood, regarding the eternal issues of life and death for each of us personally, and the final consummation of the cosmos of which we are a part.

(A) Individual Eschatology. (1) Death, which consists in the separation of soul and body, is presented under many aspects in Catholic teaching, but chiefly (a) as being actually and historically, in the present order of supernatural Providence, the consequence and penalty of Adam's sin (Geri., ii, 17; Rom., v, 12, etc.); (b) as being the end of man's period of probation, the event which decides his eternal destiny (II Cor., v, 10; John, ix, 4; Luke, xii, 40; xvi, 19 sqq.; etc.), though it does not exclude an intermediate state of purification for the imperfect who die in God's grace; and (c) as being universal, though as to its absolute universality (for those living at the end of the world) there is some room for doubt because of I Thess., iv, 14 sqq.; I Cor., xv, 51; II Tim., iv, 1.

(2) That a particular judgment of each soul takes place at death is implied in many passages of the N. T. (Luke, xvi, 22 sqq.; xxiii, 43; Acts, i, 25; etc.), and in the teaching of the Council of Florence (Denzinger, Enchiridion, no. 588) regarding the speedy entry of each soul into heaven, purgatory, or hell. (See Particular Judgment.)

(3) Heaven is the abode of the blessed, where (after the resurrection with glorified bodies) they enjoy, in the company of Christ and the angels, the immediate vision of God face to face, being supernaturally elevated by the light of glory so as to be capable of such a vision. There are infinite degrees of glory corresponding to degrees of merit, but all are unspeakably happy in the eternal possession of God. Only the perfectly pure and holy can enter heaven; but for those who have attained that state, either at death or after a course of purification in purgatory, entry into heaven is not deferred, as has sometimes been erroneously held, till after the General Judgment.

(4) Purgatory is the intermediate state of unknown duration in which those who die imperfect, but not in unrepented mortal sin, undergo a course of penal purification, to qualify for admission into heaven. They share in the Communion of Saints (q.v.) and are benefited by our prayers and good works (see Prayers for the Dead). The denial of purgatory by the Reformers introduced a dismal blank in their eschatology and, after the manner of extremes, has led to extreme reactions. (See Purgatory.)

(5) Hell, in Catholic teaching, designates the place or state of men (and angels) who, because of sin, are excluded for ever from the Beatific Vision. In this wide sense it applies to the state of those who die with only original sin on their souls (Council of Florence, Denzinger, no. 588), although this is not a state of misery or of subjective punishment of any kind, but merely implies the objective privation of supernatural bliss, which is compatible with a condition of perfect natural happiness. But in the narrower sense in which the name is ordinarily used, hell is the state of those who are punished eternally for unrepented personal mortal sin. Beyond affirming the existence of such a state, with varying degrees of punishment corresponding to degrees of guilt and its eternal or unending duration, Catholic doctrine does not go. It is a terrible and mysterious truth, but it is clearly and emphatically taught by Christ and the Apostles. Rationalists may deny the eternity of hell in spite of the authority of Christ, and professing Christians, who are unwilling to admit it, may try to explain away Christ's words; but it remains as the Divinely revealed solution of the problem of moral evil. (See Hell.) Rival solutions have been sought for in some form of the theory of restitution or, less commonly, in the theory of annihilation or conditional immortality. The restitutionist view, which in its Origenist form was condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 543, and later at the Fifth General Council (see Apocatastasis), is the cardinal dogma of modern Universalism (q.v.), and is favored more or less by liberal Protestants and Anglicans. Based on an exaggerated optimism for which present experience offers no guarantee, this view assumes the all-conquering efficacy of the ministry of grace in a life of probation after death, and looks forward to the ultimate conversion of all sinners and the voluntary disappearance of moral evil from the universe. Annihilationists, on the other hand, failing to find either in reason or Revelation any grounds for such optimism, and considering immortality itself to be a grace and not the natural attribute of the soul, believe that the finally impenitent will be annihilated or cease to exist—that God will thus ultimately be compelled to confess the failure of His purpose and power.

(B) Universal and Cosmic Eschatology. —(6) Notwithstanding Christ's express refusal to specify the time of the end (Mark, xiii, 32; Acts, i, 6 sq.), it was a common belief among early Christians that the end of the world was near. This seemed to have some support in certain sayings of Christ in reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, which are set down in the Gospels side by side with prophecies relating to the end (Matt., xxiv; Luke, xxi), and in certain passages of the Apostolic writings, which might, not unnaturally, have been so understood (but see II Thess., ii, 2 sqq., where St. Paul corrects this impression). On the other hand, Christ had clearly stated that the Gospel was to be preached to all nations before the end (Matt., xxiv, 14), and St. Paul looked forward to the ultimate conversion of the Jewish people as a remote event to be preceded by the conversion of the Gentiles (Rom., xi, 25 sqq.). Various other signs are spoken of as preceding or ushering in the end, as a great apostasy (II Thess., ii, 3 sqq.), or falling away from faith or charity (Luke, xviii, 8; xvii, 26; Matt., xxiv, 12), the reign of Antichrist (q.v.), and great social calamities and terrifying physical convulsions. Yet the end will come unexpectedly and take the living by surprise.

(7) The visible coming (parousia) of Christ in power and glory will be the signal for the rising of the dead (see Resurrection). It is Catholic teaching that all the dead who are to be judged will rise, the wicked as well as the just, and that they will rise with the bodies they had in this life. But nothing is defined as to what is required to constitute this identity of the risen and transformed with the present body. Though not formally defined, it is sufficiently certain that there is to be only one general resurrection, simultaneous for the good and the bad. (See Millennium and Millenarianism.) Regarding the qualities of the risen bodies in the case of the just we have St. Paul's description in I Cor., xv (cf. Matt., xiii, 43; Phil., iii, 21) as a basis for theological speculation; but in the case of the damned we can only affirm that their bodies will be incorruptible.

(8) Regarding the general judgment there is nothing of importance to be added here to the graphic description of the event given by Christ Himself, who is to be Judge (Matt., xxv; etc.). (See Judgment, General.)

(9) There is mention also of the physical universe sharing in the general consummation (II Pet., iii, 13; Rom., viii, 19 sqq.; Apoc., xxi, 1 sqq.). The present heaven and earth will be destroyed, and a new heaven and earth take their place. But what, precisely, this process will involve, or what purpose the renovated world will serve is not revealed. It may possibly be part of the glorious Kingdom of Christ of which "there shall be no end". Christ's militant reign is to cease with the accomplishment of His office as Judge (I Cor., v, 24 sqq.), but as King of the elect whom He has saved He will reign with them in glory for ever.

.


text:
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Ven. Marina de Escobar

Escobar,, , mystic and foundress of a modified branch of the Brigittine Order b. at Valladolid, Spain, February 8, 1554; d. there June 9,

1633. Her father, Iago de Escobar, was professor of civil and canon law and for a time governor of Osuna, a man noted for his learning and his saintly life; her mother was Margaret Montana, daughter of Charles V's physician. She was an apt scholar and even in youth showed powers of reflection beyond her age. Until her forty-fifth year her attention was given mainly to her own perfection, then she devoted herself more to promoting the piety of others. At fifty her continual bodily afflictions became so severe that she was confined to her bed for the remainder of her life. Providence provided her with an admirable spiritual guide, in the Venerable Luis de Ponte (1554-1624). The special external work entrusted to her was to establish a branch of the Order of the Holy Savior or Brigittines but with the rules greatly modified to suit the times and the country. With the revelation of the work came the knowledge that she would not live to see its accomplishment. By divine command, as she believed, she wrote her revelations, and when too feeble she dictated them. Luis de Ponte arranged them and left them for publication after her death. In his preface he declares his belief in their genuineness because she advanced in virtue and was preserved free from temptations against purity, showed no pride, and had peace in prayer, feared deception, desired no extraordinary favors, loved suffering, was zealous for souls and, lastly, was obedient to her confessor. The writings were published in one large volume and are divided into six books containing his remarks and her own, interspersed between the visions themselves. Book I treats of the extraordinary means by which God had led her; II contains revelations about the mysteries of redemption; III about God and the Blessed Trinity; IV about Guardian Angels and the B. V. Mary's prerogatives; V gives means to help souls in purgatory and to save souls on earth; and VI reveals her perfection as shown under terrible sufferings. The style of the work is free and flowing and she speaks with simplicity and naive frankness. The visions, always picturesque, and pleasing or alarming according to their subject, are all instructive and at times distinctly curious; but the descriptions are mere outlines, leaving much to the imagination, and never going into details. Their variety is great. For some the following would have special interest: Daily communion and Satan's objection to it; mystic espousals; how the bodies of saints can appear in visions; internal stigmata; some saints with whom modern hagiographers have dealt harshly, as St. Christopher. Their brevity of detail may account in part for the oblivion into which they have fallen. Her life, so far as de Ponte had prepared it, was published at Madrid in 1664; the second part appeared there iii'. 1673. It was translated into Latin by M. Hanel, S.J., and published again at Prague in 1672-1688, and in an enlarged edition at Naples 1690. All these editions are now very rare. A German translation, in fcur volumes, appeared in 1861. (See Brigittines.)

EDWARD P. GRAHAM


text:
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Antonio Escobar y Mendoza

Escobar y Mendoza,, b. at Valladolid in 1589; d. there July 4, 1669. In his sixteenth year he entered the Society of Jesus. Talent and untiring labor won him distinction for scholarship among the leaders of ecclesiastical science in his age. His writings are recognized as classical and challenge criticism as far as their orthodoxy is concerned. For this reason Pascal's efforts (fifth and sixth Provincial Letters) to fasten the charge of laxism on Escobar's "Manual of Cases of Conscience", together with his unscrupulous insinuations of adroit hypocrisy on Escobar's part, are too base and cowardly to merit serious consideration. At the same time, it is only fair to add that Escobar's writings are not entirely beyond the pale of criticism. Unprejudiced critics find him inexact in quotations, subtle in discussion, obscure and loose in reasoning. Besides the "Manual", Escobar's chief works are: "Summula casuum conscienti" (Pamplona, 1626); "Examen et praxis confessariorum" (Lyons, 1647); "Theologia Moralis" (Lyons, 1650; Venice, 1652); "Universae Theologicae Moralis receptae sententiae" (Lyons, 1663); "De Triplici Statu Ecclesiastico" (Lyons, 1663); "De Justitia et de legibus" (Lyons, 1663).

Escobar was also a preacher of note. For fifty consecutive years he delivered a series of Lenten sermons with signal success.

J. D. O'NEILL


text:
Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part II.djvu/6

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive II. A.

It has been argued that even as the U.S. began supporting the French in Indochina, the U.S. missed opportunities to bring peace, stability and independence to Vietnam. The issues arise from the belief on the part of some critics that (a) the U.S. made no attempt to seek out and support a democratic–nationalist alternative in Vietnam; and (b) the U.S. commanded, but did not use, leverage to move the French toward granting genuine Vietnamese independence.

The record shows that through 1953, the French pursued a policy which was based on military victory and excluded meaningful negotiations with Ho Chi Minh. The French did, however, recognize the requirement for an alternative focus for Vietnamese nationalist aspirations, and from 1947 forward, advanced the "Bao Dai solution." The record shows that the U.S. was hesitant through 1949 to endorse the "Bao Dai solution" until Vietnam was in fact unified and granted autonomy and did consistently support the creation of a genuinely independent, non-communist Vietnamese government to supplant French rule. Nonetheless, the fall of China and the deteriorating French military position in Indochina caused both France and the U.S. to press the "Bao Dai solution." In early 1950, after French ratification of the Elysee Agreement granting "Vietnam's independence," the U.S. recognized Bao Dai and initiated military and economic aid, even before transfer of governmental power actually occurred. Thereafter, the French yielded control only, while the Emperor Bao Dai adopted a retiring, passive role, and turned his government over to discreditable politicians. The Bao Dai regime was neither popular nor efficient, and its army, dependent on French leadership, was powerless. The impotence of the Bao Dai regime, the lack of any perceptible alternatives (except for the communists), the fact of continued French authority and control over the GVN, the fact that the French alone seemed able to contain communism in Indochina — all these constrained U.S. promptings for a democratic–nationalist government in Vietnam. (Tab 1)

The U.S.–French ties in Europe (NATO, Marshall Plan, Mutual Defense Assistance Program) only marginally strengthened U.S. urgings that France make concessions to Vietnamese nationalism. Any leverage from these sources was severely limited by the broader considerations of U.S. policy for the containment of communism in Europe end Asia. NATO and the Marshall Plan were of themselves to be essential to our European interests. To threaten France with economic and military sanctions in Europe in order to have it alter its policy in Indochina was, therefore, not plausible. Similarly, to reduce the level of Rh

title: Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part II.djvu/6


text:
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Escorial

Escorial,, a remarkable building in Spain situated on the southeastern slope of the Sierra Guadarrama about twenty-seven miles northwest of Madrid. Its proper title is El real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial, Escorial being the name of a small town in the vicinity. The structure comprises a monastery, church, pantheon or royal mausoleum, a palace intended as summer and autumn residence of the court, college, library, art-galleries, etc., and is called by Spaniards the eighth wonder of the world. It was begun in 1563, at the order of Philip II, by the architect Juan Bautista de Toledo, assisted by Lucas de Escalante and Pedro de Tolosa, and was intended to commemorate the Spanish victory over the French at the battle of St-Quentin in 1557. Probably another reason was that Philip II was obliged by the will of Charles V to erect a royal mausoleum.

Bautista's plan was ambitious and eccentric; he was influenced by Renaissance ideals and used the Doric style in its severest forms. He died in 1567 and was succeeded by Juan de Herrera and Juan de Minjores. The plan of the building is somewhat in the shape of a gridiron, and is thought thus to commemorate the fate of its patron saint, St. Laurence, upon whose feast day, August 10, the battle of St-Quentin was fought. The church was consecrated in 1586, and the pantheon was completed in 1654. Charles III built some additions and the building generally was restored under Ferdinand VII. The Escorial has twice been devastated by fire, and in 1807 it was looted by the French troops. It is built of a light-colored stone resembling granite, for the most part highly polished. The general plan is a parallelogram with a perimeter of 3000 feet; its area is about 500,000 square feet. There are four facades, the finest external aspect being on the southern side. The western or principal front is 744 feet long and 72 feet high, while the towers at each end rise about 200 feet. The main entrance is in the center of this facade. Monegro's figure of Saint Laurence stands above the door. The vestibule is about eighty feet wide and leads into the Court of the Kings. To the right are the library, refectory, and convent; the college is on the left. The church is the finest of the several buildings contained within the walls of the Escorial. Its tall towers on either side, the immense dome, with its superimposed massive lantern and cross, and the portals of the vestibule, at once attract attention. The church is of stone throughout, huge in plan, and severe in its Doric simplicity. Pompeo Leoni designed and cast the metal statues that ornament the splendid screen. A hall behind the ante-choir is known as the library. On the south side of the church is the Court of the Evangelists, a square of 166 feet with two-storied cloisters in the Grecian style. Adjoining it is the monastery of Saint Laurence. Both the monastery and the church were served by Hieronymite monks until 1835; in 18August 85inians took charge. The Augustinian monks also conduct the college, the building of which formed an important part of the great structure. On February 10, 1909, it was slightly damaged by fire. The small room which Philip II occupied during the latter part of his life and in which he died adjoins the choir of the church. Through an opening in the wall he could see the celebration of the Mass when ill. The corridor of the Hall of the Caryatides is supposed to represent the handle of the gridiron.

The Escorial is a treasure-house of art and learning. The civilized world was searched to stock the library with great books and fine manuscripts. Greece, Arabia, and Palestine contributed, and the collection was at one time the finest in Europe, the Arabic documents being among the most remarkable of the manuscripts. From the Inquisition the library received about one hundred and forty works. It contains 7000 engravings and 35,006 volumes, including 4627 manuscripts; among the last named are 1886 Arabic, 582 Greek, and 73 Hebrew manuscripts, besides 2086 in Latin and other languages (cf. Casiri, Bibliotheca arab.—hisp. Escur., Madrid, 1760-1770, 2 vols.). Among its manuscript treasures are a copy of the Gospels illuminated in gold on vellum, and the Apocalypse of Saint John richly illustrated. It also contains a large collection of church music, included in which are compositions of the monks, del Valle, Torrijos, and Corduba, besides many of the musical works of Antonio Soler. The most important tapestries of the Escorial are in the palace; many of them were designed by Goya and Maella. The weaving was done chiefly in Madrid, but those designed by Teniers were made in Holland. Since 1837 the finest pictures of the large collection of paintings have been placed in the museum at Madrid. Among the famous artists whose works were or still are in the Escorial are: Carducci, Giordano, Goya, Holbein, Pantoja, Reni, Ribera, Teniers, Tibaldo, Tintoretto, Titian, Velazquez, Zuccaro, Zurbaran.

THOMAS H. POOLE

title: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Escorial


text:
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Esdras

Esdras.—

I. Esdras (Ezra), Prophet, Scribe

A famous priest and scribe connected with Israel's restoration after the Exile. The chief sources of information touching his life are the canonical books of Esdras and Nehemias. A group of apocryphal writings is also much concerned with him, but they can hardly be relied upon, as they relate rather the legendary tales of a later age. Esdras was of priestly descent and belonged to the line of Sadoc (I Esd., vii, 1-5). He styles himself "son of Saraias" (vii, 1), an expression which is by many understood in a broad sense, as purporting that Saraias, the chief-priest, spoken of in IV K., xxv, 18-21, was one of Esdras's ancestors. Nevertheless he is known rather as "the scribe" than as "priest": he was "a ready scribe [a scribe skilled] in the law of Moses", and therefore especially qualified for the task to which he was destined among his people.

The chronological relation of Esdras's work with that of Nehemias is, among the questions connected with the history of the Jewish Restoration, one of the most mooted. Many Biblical scholars still cling to the view suggested by the traditional order of the sacred text (due allowance being made for the break in the narrative—I Esd., iv, 6-23), and place the mission of Esdras before that of Nehemias. Others, among whom we may mention Professor Van Hoonacker of Louvain, Dr. T. K. Cheyne in England, and Professor C. F. Kent in America, to do away with the numberless difficulties arising from the interpretation of the main sources of this history, maintain that Nehemias's mission preceded that of Esdras. The former view holds that Esdras came to Jerusalem about 458 B.C., and Nehemias first in 444 and the second time about 430 B.C.; whereas, according to the opposite opinion, Esdras's mission might have taken place as late as 397 B.C. However this may be, since we are here concerned only with Esdras, we will limit ourselves to summarizing the principal features of his life and work, without regard to the problems involved, which it suffices to have mentioned.

Many years had elapsed after permission had been given to the Jews to return to Palestine; amidst difficulties and obstacles the restored community had settled down again in their ancient home and built a new temple; but their condition, both from the political and the religious point of view, was most precarious: they chafed under the oppression of the Persian satraps and had grown indifferent and unobservant of the Law. From Babylon, where this state of affairs was well known, Esdras longed to go to Jerusalem and use his authority as a priest and interpreter of the Law to restore things to a better condition. He was in favor at the court of the Persian king; he not only obtained permission to visit Judea, but a royal edict clothing him with ample authority to carry out his purpose, and ample support from the royal treasury. The rescript, moreover, ordered the satraps "beyond the river" to assist Esdras liberally and enacted that all Jewish temple officials should be exempt from toll, tribute, or custom. "And thou, Esdras, appoint judges and magistrates, that they may judge all the people, that is beyond the river" (I Esd., vii, 25). Finally, the Law of God and the law of the king were alike to be enforced by severe penalties. The edict left all Jews who felt so inclined free to go back to their own country. Some 1800 men, including a certain number of priests, Levites, and Nathinites, started with Esdras from Babylon, and after five months the company safely reached Jerusalem. Long-neglected abuses had taken root in the sacred city. These Esdras set himself vigorously to correct, after the silver and gold he had carried from Babylon were brought into the Temple and sacrifices offered. The first task which confronted him was that of dealing with mixed marriages. Regardless of the Law of Moses, many, even the leading Jews and priests, had intermarried with the idolatrous inhabitants of the country. Horror-stricken by the discovery of this abuse—the extent of which was very likely unknown heretofore to Esdras—he gave utterance to his feelings in a prayer which made such an impression upon the people that Sechenias, in their names, proposed that the Israelites should put away their foreign wives and the children born of them. Esdras seized his opportunity, and exacted from the congregation an oath that they would comply with this proposition. A general assembly of the people was called by the princes and the ancients; but the business could not be transacted easily at such a meeting and a special commission, with Esdras at its head, was appointed to take the matter in hand. For three full months this commission held its sessions; at the end of that time the "strange wives" were dismissed.

What was the outcome of this drastic measure we are not told; Esdras's memoirs are interrupted here. Nor do we know whether, his task accomplished, he returned to Babylon or remained in Jerusalem. At any rate we find him again in the latter city at the reading of the Law which took place after the rebuilding of the walls. No doubt this event had kindled the enthusiasm of the people; and to comply with the popular demand, Esdras brought the Book of the Law. On the first day of the seventh month (Tishri), a great meeting was held "in the street that was before the watergate", for the purpose of reading the Law. Standing on a platform, Esdras read the book aloud "from the morning until midday". At hearing the words of the Law, which they had so much transgressed, the congregation broke forth into lamentations unsuited to the holiness of the day; Nehemias therefore adjourned the assembly. The reading was resumed on the next day by Esdras, and they found in the Law the directions concerning the feast of the Tabernacles. Thereupon steps were at once taken for the due celebration of this feast, which was to last seven days, from the fifteenth to the twenty-second day of Tishri. Esdras continued the public reading of the Law every day of the feast; and two days after its close a strict fast was held, and "they stood, and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers" (II Esd., ix, 2). There was a good opportunity to renew solemnly the covenant between the people and God. This covenant pledged the community to the observance of the Law, the abstention from intermarriage with heathens, the careful keeping of the Sabbath and of the feasts, and to various regulations agreed to for the care of the Temple, its service, and the payment of the tithes. It was formally recited by the princes, the Levites, and the priests, and signed by Nehemias and chosen representatives of the priests, the Levites, and the people (strange as it may appear, Esdras's name is not to be found in the list of the subscribers—II Esd., x, 1-27). Henceforth no mention whatever is made of Esdras in the canonical literature. He is not spoken of in connection with the second mission of Nehemias to Jerusalem, and this has led many to suppose that he was dead at the time. In fact both the time and place of his death are unknown, although there is on the banks of the Tigris, near the place where this river joins the Euphrates, a monument purporting to be Esdras's tomb, and which, for centuries, has been a place of pilgrimage for the Jews.

Esdras's role in the restoration of the Jews after the exile left a lasting impression upon the minds of the people. This is due mostly to the fact that henceforth Jewish life was shaped on the lines laid down by him, and in a way from which, in the main, it never departed. There is probably a great deal of truth in the tradition which attributes to him the organization of the synagogues and the determination of the books hallowed as canonical among the Jews. Esdras's activity seems to have extended still further. He is credited by the Talmud with having compiled "his own book" (that is to say Esd.—Nehem.), "and the genealogies of the book of Chronicles as far as himself" (Treat. "Baba bathra", 15). Modern scholars, however, differ widely as to the extent of his literary work: some regard him as the last editor of the Hexa-teuch, whereas, on the other hand, his part in the composition of Esdras-Nehemias and Paralipomenon is doubted. At any rate, it is certain that he had nothing to do with the composition of the so-called Third and Fourth Books of Esdras. As is the case with many men who played an important part at momentous epochs in history, in the course of time Esdras's personality and activity assumed, in the minds of the people, gigantic proportions; legend blended with history and supplied the scantiness of information concerning his life; he was looked upon as a second Moses to whom were attributed all institutions which could not possibly be ascribed to the former. According to Jewish traditions, he restored from memory—an achievement little short of miraculous—all the books of the O. T., which were believed to have perished during the Exile; he likewise replaced, in the copying of Holy Writ, the old Phoenician writing by the alphabet still in use. Until the Middle Ages, and even the Renaissance, the crop of legendary achievements attributed to him grew up; it was then that Esdras was hailed as the organizer of the famous Great Synagogue—the very existence of which seems to be a myth—and the inventor of the Hebrew vocal signs.

II. Books of ESDRAS Not a little confusion arises from the titles of these books. Esdras A of the Septuagint is III Esdras of St. Jerome, whereas the Greek Esdras B corresponds to I and II Esdras of the Vulgate, which were originally united into one book. Protestant writers, after the Geneva Bible, call I and II Esdras of the Vulgate respectively Ezra and Nehemiah, and III and IV Esdras of the Vulgate respectively I and II Esdras. It would be desirable to have uniformity of titles. We shall follow here the terminology of St. Jerome.

A. I Esdras (Gr. Esdras B, first part; A.V. Ezra) As remarked above, this book formed in the Jewish canon, together with II Esd., a single volume. But Christian writers of the fourth century adopted the custom—the origin of which is not easy to assign—of considering them as two distinct works. This custom prevailed to such an extent that it found its way even into the Hebrew Bible, where it has remained in use. On the other hand, the many and close resemblances undeniably existing between Esd.—Neh. and Par., and usually accounted for by unity of authorship, have suggested that possibly all these books formed, in the beginning, one single volume, for which the title of "Ecclesiastical Chronicle of Jerusalem" has been proposed as fairly expressing its contents. Should these books be regarded as independent, or as parts of a larger work? There is little discussion as to the union of I and II Esd., which may well be considered as a single book. As to the opinion holding Esd.—Neh. and Par. to be only one work, although it seems gaining ground among Biblical students, yet it is still strongly opposed by many who deem its arguments unable to outweigh the evidence in the opposite direction. We should not expect to find in I Esd., any more than in II Esd., a complete account of the events connected with the Restoration, even a complete record of the lives of Esdras and Nehemias. The reason for this lies in the author's purpose of simply narrating the principal steps taken in the reestablishment of the theocracy in Jerusalem. Thus, in two parallel parts, our book deals (I) with the return of the Jews under the leadership of Zorobabel; (2) with the return of another band commanded by Esdras. In the former, with the decree of Cyrus (i, 1-4) and the enumeration of the most prominent members of the caravan (ii), we read a detailed account of the rebuilding of the Temple and its successful completion, in spite of bitter opposition (iii-vi). The events therein contained cover twenty-one years (536-515). The latter part deals with facts belonging to a much later date (458 or 397). Opening with the decree of Artaxerxes (vii) and the census of the members of the party, it briefly relates the journey across the desert (viii), and gives all the facts connected with the enforcement of the law concerning marriages with foreign women (ix-x).

I Esd. is a compilation the various parts of which differ in nature, in origin, and even in language. At least three of the parts may be recognized: (I) the personal memoirs of Esdras (vii, 27-ix, 15); (2) lists very likely taken from public documents (ii, 1-70; vii, 1-5); (3) Aramaic writings (iv, 7-vi, 18; vii, 12-26), supposed with some probability to be a portion of "a more comprehensive history of the restored community" (Stade). These the compiler put together into the present shape, adding, of course, now and then some remarks of his own, or some facts borrowed from sources otherwise unknown to us. This compilatory character does not, as some might believe, lessen in any way the high historical value of the work. True, the compiler was very likely not endowed with a keen sense of criticism, and he has indiscriminatingly transcribed side by side all his sources "as if all were alike trustworthy" (L. W. Batten); but we should not forget that he has preserved to us pages of the highest value; even those that might be deemed of inferior trustworthiness are the only documents available with which to reconstruct the history of those times; and the compiler, even from the standpoint of modern scientific research, could hardly do anything more praiseworthy than place within our reach, as he did, the sources of information at his disposal. The composition of the work has long been attributed without discussion to Esdras himself. This view, taught by the Talmud, and still admitted by scholars of good standing, is, however, abandoned by several modern Biblical students, who, although their opinions are widely at variance on the question of the date, fairly agree, nevertheless, that the book is later than 330 B.C.

B. II Esdras See Book of Nehemias.

C. III Esdras (Gr. Esdras A; Prot. writers, I Esdras) Although not belonging to the Canon of the Sacred Scriptures, this book is usually found, ne prorsus intereat, in an appendix to the editions of the Vulgate. It is made up almost entirely from materials existing in canonical books. The following scheme will show sufficiently the contents and point out the canonical parallels:

III Esd., i=II Par., xxxv, xxxvi.—History of the Kingdom of Juda from the great Passover of Josias to the Captivity.

III Esd., ii, 1-15 (Greek text, 14)=I Esd., i.—Cyrus's decree. Return of Sassabasar.

III Esd., ii, 16 (Gr. 15)-31 (Gr. 25) =I Esd., iv, 6-24.—Opposition to the rebuilding of the Temple.

III Esd., iii, 1-v, 6.—Original portion. Story of the three pages. Return of Zorobabel.

III Esd., v, 7-46 (Gr. 45) =I Esd., ii.—List of those returning with Zorobabel.

III Esd., v, 47 (Gr. 46)-73 (Gr. 70)=I Esd., iii, 1-iv, 5.—Altar of holocausts. Foundation of the Temple laid. Opposition.

III Esd., vi, vii=I Esd., v, vi.—Completion of the Temple.

III Esd., viii, 1-ix, 36=I Esd., vii-x.—Return of Esdras.

III Esd., ix, 37-56 (Gr. 55)=II Esd., vii, 73-viii, 12.—Reading of the Law by Esdras.

The book is incomplete, and breaks off in the middle of a sentence. True, the Latin version completes the broken phrase of the Greek; but the book in its entirety probably contained also the narrative of the feast of Tabernacles (II Esd., viii). A very strange feature in the work is its absolute disregard of chronological order; the history, indeed, runs directly backwards, mentioning first Artaxerxes (ii, 16-31), then Darius (iii-v, 6), finally Cyrus (v, 7-73). All this makes it difficult to detect the real object of the book and the purpose of the compiler. It has been suggested that we possess here a history of the Temple from the time of Josias down to Nehemias, and this view is well supported by the subscription of the Old Latin version. Others suppose that, in the main, the book is rather an early translation of the chronicler's work, made at a time when Par., Esd., and Neh. still formed one continuous volume. Be this as it may, there seems to have been, up to St. Jerome, some hesitation with regard to the reception of the book into the Canon; it was freely quoted by the early Fathers, and included in Origen's "Hexapla" This might be accounted for by the fact that III Esd. may be considered as another recension of canonical Scriptures. Unquestionably our book cannot claim to be Esdras's work. From certain particulars, such as the close resemblance of the Greek with that of the translation of Daniel, some details of vocabulary, etc., scholars are led to believe that III Esd. was compiled, probably in Lower Egypt, during the second century B.C. Of the author nothing can be said except, perhaps, that the above-noted resemblance of style to Dan. might incline one to conclude that both works are possibly from the same hand.

D. IV Esdras Such is the title of the book in most Latin MSS.; the (Prot.) English Apocrypha, however, give it as II Esd., from the opening words: "The second book of the prophet Esdras". Modern authors often call it also the Apocalypse of Esdras. This remarkable work has not been preserved in the original Greek text; but we possess translations of it in Latin, Syriac, Arabic (two independent versions), Ethiopian, and Armenian. The Latin text is usually printed in the appendix to the editions of the Vulgate; but these editions miss seventy verses between vii, 35, and vii, 36. The missing fragment, which was read in the other versions, was discovered in a Latin MS. by R. L. Bensly, in 1874, and has been since repeatedly printed. In the Latin the book is divided into sixteen chapters. The two opening (i, ii) and the two concluding (xv, xvi) chapters, however, which are not to be found in the Eastern translations, are unhesitatingly regarded by all as later additions, foreign to the primitive work.

The body of the Fourth Book, the unity of which appears to be unquestionable, is made up of seven visions which Esdras is supposed to have seen at Babylon, the thirtieth year after the destruction of Jerusalem (the date given is wrong by about a century). In the first vision (iii, 1-v, 20), Esdras is lamenting over the affliction of his people. Why does not God fulfil his promises? Is not Israel the elect nation, and better, despite her "evil heart", than her heathen neighbors? The Angel Uriel chides Esdras for inquiring into things beyond his understanding; the "prophet" is told that the time that is past exceeds the time to come, and the signs of the end are given him.—In another vision (v, 21-vi, 34), he learns, with new signs of the end, why God "doeth not all at once".—Then follows (vi, 35-ix, 25) a glowing picture of the Messianic age. "My son" shall come in his glory, attended by those who did not taste death, Moses, Henoch, Elias, and Esdras himself; they shall reign 400 years, then "my son" and all the living shall die; after seven days of "the old silence", the Resurrection and the Judgment.—Next (ix, 26-x, 60) Esdras beholds, in the appearance of a woman mourning for her son who died on his wedding day, an apocalyptic description of the past and future of Jerusalem.—This vision is followed by another (xi, 1-xii, 39) representing the Roman Empire, under the figure of an eagle, and by a third (xiii) describing the rise of the Messianic kingdom.—The last chapter (xiv) narrates how Esdras restored the twenty-four books of the O. T. that were lost, and wrote seventy books of mysteries for the wise among the people.

The Fourth Book of Esdras is reckoned among the most beautiful productions of Jewish literature. Widely known in the early Christian ages and frequently quoted by the Fathers (especially St. Ambrose), it may be said to have framed the popular belief of the Middle Ages concerning the last things. The liturgical use shows its popularity. The second chapter has furnished the verse Requiem oeternam to the Office of the Dead (24-25), the response Lux perpetua lucebit sanctis tuffs of the Office of the Martyrs during Easter time (35), the introit Accipite jucunditatem for Whit-Tuesday (36-37), the words Modo coronantur of the Office of the Apostles (45); in like manner the verse Crastina die for Christmas eve, is borrowed from xvi, 53. However beautiful and popular the book, its origin is shrouded in mystery. The introductory and concluding chapters, containing evident traces of Christianity, are assigned to the third century (about A.D. 201-268). The main portion (iii-xiv) is undoubtedly the work of a Jew—whether Roman, or Alexandrian, or Palestinian, no one can tell; as to its date, authors are mostly widely at variance, and all dates have been suggested, from 30 B.C. to A.D. 218; scholars, however, seem to rally more and more around the year A.D. 97.

CHARLES L. SOUVAY

title: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Esdras


text:
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Eskil

Eskil, Archbishop of Lund, Skåne, Sweden; b. about 1100; d. at Clairvaux, 6 (7?) September, 1181; one of the most capable and prominent princes of the Church in Scandinavia. A man of profound piety, he was always zealous for the welfare of the church, and was a courageous and unselfish defender of the rights of the hierarchy in its struggle against the civil power and clerical usurpers. His father Christian was descended from an illustrious dynastic family of Jutland and was related to several royal families. When twelve years of age the young Eskil was received into the renowned cathedral school at Hildesheim. Here, during a dangerous illness, he was honored by a vision of the Mother of God, who, chiding him with his frivolous conduct, saved him from imminent perdition and restored his health, demanding five measures of different varieties of corn as a thank-offering. This vision was interpreted to mean that Eskil would attain high ecclesiastical dignity and establish five confraternities. In 1131, his uncle, Asser (Asger), the first Archbishop of Lund, nominated him provost of the cathedral. In 1134 he was consecrated Bishop of Roskilde, and after Asser's death (1137) succeeded him as archbishop. He successfully defended the metropolitan rights of his see in spite of the protestations of the archbishops of Bremen. He received the pallium from Innocent II through the papal legate, Cardinal Theodignus, who, with many Scandinavian bishops, was present at the provincial Synod of Lund (1139). Eskil completed the new cathedral (Romanesque), which he consecrated in 1145. On this occasion he increased the membership and the endowments of the cathedral chapter, and improved the condition of the cathedral school.

On various occasions Eskil was involved in the internal political disputes of rival kings, even to the extent of being temporarily held captive in his own cathedral, for which he was, however, later indemnified by various landgrants. During the Crusades, Eskil, animated by the example of St. Bernard, also preached a crusade against the pagan Wends, which, unfortunately, proved unsuccessful. He, nevertheless, continued his campaign with youthful ardor, even in his old age, till, after the conquest of Rügen, the Wends accepted Christianity. In 1152 Cardinal Nicholas Breakspear, as papal legate, was sent to Scandinavia to settle ecclesiastical affairs. Norway was constituted a separate ecclesiastical province with its metropolitan see at Trondhjem (Nidaros). Eskil remained Archbishop of Lund. He was also nominated Primate of Sweden and papal legate for the North. By a proper selection of persons for the higher ecclesiastical offices he effected an immense improvement in the standard of religious life. In 1161 he drew up a code of canon law for Skåne, which, ten years later, was introduced into Seeland. The monastic orders are especially indebted to Eskil. As Bishop of Roskilde he called the Benedictines to Naestved; and the monastery of the Regular Augustinians at Eskilsö near Roskilde most probably traces its origin to him. Later he established the Premonstratensian monastery in Tommerup, Skåne; the Knights of St. John also settled in Lund during his time. There was also, in Seeland, an establishment of Carthusian monks, but only for a short time. The Cistercian monks were especial favorites of Eskil, who founded their first monastery in 1144 at Herivadum near Helsingborg, which was soon followed by one at Esrom in Nordseeland (1154). From both of these various branches were established. Eskil corresponded with St. Bernard, whom he admired and revered. With a view to being admitted to the Cistercian Order he visited St. Bernard at Clairvaux in 1152. Bernard refused him admission, pointing out that his services as bishop would be more beneficial to the Church at large.

Hearing of Bernard's death (1153), Eskil made a pilgrimage to the saint's grave and thence to Rome, where all his archiepiscopal privileges were ratified by Pope Adrian IV (Breakspear). Returning he was imprisoned at Thionville (at the instigation of the Archbishop of Bremen?). In a dignified letter to the kings and the bishops of Denmark Eskil expressed his willingness rather to suffer innocently in defense of the Church's prerogatives than to be ransomed. Having obtained his liberty in 1158, Eskil returned home, where he found King Waldemar sole sovereign. When the latter took the part of Victor, the antipope, Eskil, faithful to Alexander III, took refuge in foreign parts. Excepting a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he lived in France (Clairvaux), in close proximity to the pope. In 1164 he consecrated Stephen of Alvastra, a Cistercian monk, first Archbishop of Upsala. After Waldemar's reconciliation with Alexander III, Eskil returned home (1168). Subsequent to the solemn translation of the relics of the canonized (1169) martyr-duke, Knud Lavard (d. 1131), Waldemar's father, Eskil crowned the king's seven-year-old son at Ringsted, 1170. After another sojourn at Clairvaux (1174-76), the venerable archbishop received permission from the pope to resign and to nominate a successor. In the spring of 1177, in the presence of the king, numerous prelates, and a great concourse of people assembled in the cathedral of Lund, Eskil, having read the papal decree, declared that he resigned on his own initiative, laid the official insignia on the altar, and, all consenting, designated Bishop Absalon of Roskilde as his successor. He then retired to Clairvaux, spending his last days as a simple monk. The Cistercians honor him as venerable. The question whether Eskil was married and had a daughter is a subject of controversy. Although the celibacy of the clergy did not generally obtain during his time, we may, nevertheless, infer from his strictly religious principles that Eskil did not ignore the provisions of canon law by marrying after his admission to Sacred orders.

.

title: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Eskil