Chapter 19

Authorities.—Nauze, “Rech. hist. sur les peuples qui s’établirent en Épire,” inMém. de l’Acad. des Inscr.(1729); Pouqueville,Voyage en Morée, &c, en Albanie(Paris, 1805); Hobhouse,A Journey through Albania, &c.(2 vols., London, 1813); Wolfe, “Observations on the Gulf of Arta” inJourn. Royal Geog. Soc., 1834; W.M. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece (London, 1835): Merleker, Darstellung desLandes und der Bewohner von Epeiros(Königsberg, 1841); J.H. Skene, “Remarkable Localities on the Coast of Epirus,” inJourn. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1848; Bowen,Mount Athos, Thessaly and Epirus(London, 1852); von Hahn,Albanesische Studien(Jena, 1854); Bursian,Geog. von Griechenland(vol. i., Leipzig, 1862); Schäfli, “Versuch einer Klimatologie des Thales von Jannina,”Neue Denkschr. d. allgem. schweizer. Ges. f. Naturw.xix. (Zürich, 1862); Major R. Stuart, “On Phys. Geogr. and Natural Resources of Epirus,” inJourn. R.G.S., 1869; Guido Cora, inCosmos; Dumont, “Souvenirs de l’Adriatique, de l’Épire, &c.” inRev. des deux mondes(Paris, 1872); de Gubernatis, “L’Epiro,”Bull. Soc. Geogr. Ital.viii. (Rome, 1872); Dozon, “Excursion en Albanie,”Bull. Soc. Geogr., 6th series; Karapanos,Dodone et ses ruines(Paris, 1878); von Heldreich, “Ein Beitrag zur Flora von Epirus,”Verh. Bot. Vereins Brandenburg(Berlin, 1880); Kiepert, “Zur Ethnographie von Epirus,”Ges. Erdk.xvii. (Berlin, 1879); Zompolides, “Das Land und die Bewohner von Epirus,”Ausland(Berlin, 1880); A. Philippson,Thessalien und Epirus(Berlin, 1897).

(J. L. M.)

EPISCOPACY(from Late Lat.episcopatus, the office of a bishop,episcopus), the general term technically applied to that system of church organization in which the chief ecclesiastical authority within a defined district, or diocese, is vested in a bishop. As such it is distinguished on the one hand from Presbyterianism, government by elders, and Congregationalism, in which the individual church or community of worshippers is autonomous, and on the other from Papalism. The origin and development of episcopacy in the Christian Church, and the functions and attributes of bishops in the various churches, are dealt with elsewhere (seeChurch HistoryandBishop). Under the present heading it is proposed only to discuss briefly the various types of episcopacy actually existing, and the different principles that they represent.

The deepest line of cleavage is naturally between the view that episcopacy is a divinely ordained institution essential to the effective existence of a church as a channel of grace, and the view that it is merely a convenient form of church order, evolved as the result of a variety of historical causes, and not necessary to the proper constitution of a church. The first of these views is closely connected with the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession. According to this, Christ committed to his apostles certain powers of order and jurisdiction in the Church, among others that of transmitting these powers to others through “the laying on of hands”; and this power, whatever obscurity may surround the practice of the primitive Church (seeApostle,ad fin.) was very early confined to the order of bishops, who by virtue of a special consecration became the successors of the apostles in the function of handing on the powers and graces of the ministry.1A valid episcopate, then, is one derived in an unbroken series of “layings on of hands” by bishops from the time of the apostles (seeOrder, Holy). This is the Catholic view, common to all the ancient Churches whether of the West or East, and it is one that necessarily excludes from the union of Christendom all those Christian communities which possess no such apostolically derived ministry.

Apart altogether, however, from the question of orders, episcopacy represents a very special conception of the Christian Church. In the fully developed episcopal system the bishop sums up in his own person the collective powers of the Church in his diocese, not by delegation of these powers from below, but by divinely bestowed authority from above. “Ecclesia est in episcopo,” wrote St Cyprian (Cyp. iv.Ep.9); the bishop, as the successor of the apostles, is the centre of unity in his diocese, the unity of the Church as a whole is maintained by the intercommunion of the bishops, who for this purpose represent their dioceses. The bishops, individually and collectively, are thus the essential ties of Catholic unity; they alone, as the depositories of the apostolic traditions, establish the norm of Catholic orthodoxy in the general councils of the Church. This high theory of episcopacy which, if certain of the Ignatian letters be genuine, has a very early origin, has, of course, fallen upon evil days. The power of the collective episcopate to maintain Catholic unity was disproved long before it was overshadowed by the centralized authority of Rome; before the Reformation, its last efforts to assert its supremacy in the Western Church, at the councils of Basel and Constance, had broken down; and the religious revolution of the 16th century left it largely discredited and exposed to a double attack, by the papal monarchy on the one hand and the democratic Presbyterian model on the other. Within the Roman Catholic Church the high doctrine of episcopacy continued to be maintained by the Gallicans and Febronians (seeGallicanismandFebronianism) as against the claimsof the Papacy, and for a while with success; but a system which had failed to preserve the unity of the Church even when the world was united under the Roman empire could not be expected to do so in a world split up into a series of rival states, of which many had already reorganized their churches on a national basis. “Febronius,” indeed, was in favour of a frank recognition of this national basis of ecclesiastical organization, and saw in Episcopacy the best means of reuniting the dissidents to the Catholic Church, which was to consist, as it were, of a free federation of episcopal churches under the presidency of the bishop of Rome. The idea had considerable success; for it happened to march with the views of the secular princes. But religious people could hardly be expected to see in the worldly prince-bishops of the Empire, or the wealthy courtier-prelates of France, the trustees of the apostolical tradition. The Revolution intervened; and when, during the religious reaction that followed, men sought for an ultimate authority, they found it in the papal monarch, exalted now by ultramontane zeal into the sole depositary of the apostolical tradition (seeUltramontanism). At the Vatican Council of 1870 episcopacy made its last stand against papalism, and was vanquished (seeVatican Council). The pope still addresses his fellow-bishops as “venerable brothers”; but from the Roman Catholic Church the fraternal union of coequal authorities, which is of the essence of episcopacy, has vanished; and in its place is set the autocracy of one. The modern Roman Catholic Church is episcopal, for it preserves the bishops, whosepotestas ordinisnot even the pope can exercise until he has been duly consecrated; but the bishops as such are now but subordinate elements in a system for which “Episcopacy” is certainly no longer an appropriate term.

The word Episcopacy has, in fact, since the Reformation, been more especially associated with those churches which, while ceasing to be in communion with Rome, have preserved the episcopal model. Of these by far the most important is the Church of England, which has preserved its ecclesiastical organization essentially unchanged since its foundation by St Augustine, and its daughter churches (seeEngland, Church of, andAnglican Communion). The Church of England since the Reformation has been the chief champion of the principle of Episcopacy against the papal pretensions on the one hand and Presbyterianism and Congregationalism on the other. As to the divine origin of Episcopacy and, consequently, of its universal obligation in the Christian Church, Anglican opinion has been, and still is, considerably divided.2The “High Church” view, now predominant, is practically identical with that of the Gallicans and Febronians, and is based on Catholic practice in those ages of the Church to which, as well as to the Bible, the formularies of the Church of England make appeal. So far as this view, however, is the outcome of the general Catholic movement of the 19th century, it can hardly be taken as typical of Anglican tradition in this matter. Certainly, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Church of England, while rigorously enforcing the episcopal model at home, and even endeavouring to extend it to Presbyterian Scotland, did not regard foreign non-episcopal Churches otherwise than as sister communions. The whole issue had, in fact, become confused with the confusion of functions of the Church and State. In the view of the Church of England the ultimate governance of the Christian community, in things spiritual and temporal, was vested not in the clergy but in the “Christian prince” as the vicegerent of God.3It was the transference to the territorial sovereigns of modern Europe of the theocratic character of the Christian heads of the Roman world-empire; with the result that for the reformed Churches the unit of church organization was no longer the diocese, or the group of dioceses, but the Christian state. Thus in England the bishops, while retaining theirpotestas ordinisin virtue of their consecration as successors of the apostles, came to be regarded not as representing their dioceses in the state, but the state in their dioceses. Forced on their dioceses by the royalCongé d’élire(q.v.), and enthusiastic apostles of the High Church doctrine of non-resistance, the bishops were looked upon as no more than lieutenants of the crown;4and Episcopacy was ultimately resisted by Presbyterians and Independents as an expression and instrument of arbitrary government, “Prelacy” being confounded with “Popery” in a common condemnation. With the constitutional changes of the 18th and 19th centuries, however, a corresponding modification took place in the character of the English episcopate; and a still further change resulted from the multiplication of colonial and missionary sees having no connexion with the state (seeAnglican Communion). The consciousness of being in the line of apostolic succession helped the English clergy to revert to the principleEcclesia est in episcopo, and the great periodical conferences of Anglican bishops from all parts of the world have something of the character, though they do not claim the ecumenical authority, of the general councils of the early Church (seeLambeth Conferences).

Of the reformed Churches of the continent of Europe only the Lutheran Churches of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland preserve the episcopal system in anything of its historical sense; and of these only the two last can lay claim to the possession of bishops in the unbroken line of episcopal succession.5The superintendents (variously entitled also arch-priests, deans, provosts, ephors) of the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church, as established in the several states of Germany and in Austria, are not bishops in any canonical sense, though their jurisdictions are known as dioceses and they exercise many episcopal functions. They have no special powers of order, being presbyters, and their legal status is admittedly merely that of officials of the territorial sovereign in his capacity as head of the territorial church (seeSuperintendent). The “bishops” of the Lutheran Church in Transylvania are equivalent to the superintendents.

Episcopacy in a stricter sense is the system of the Moravian Brethren (q.v.) and the Methodist Episcopal Church of America (seeMethodism). In the case of the former, claim is laid to the unbroken episcopal succession through the Waldenses, and the question of their eventual intercommunion with the AnglicanChurch was accordingly mooted at the Lambeth Conference of 1908. The bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, on the other hand, derive their orders from Thomas Coke, a presbyter of the Church of England, who in 1784 was ordained by John Wesley, assisted by two other presbyters, “superintendent” of the Methodist Society in America. Methodist episcopacy is therefore based on the denial of any specialpotestas ordinisin the degree of bishop, and is fundamentally distinct from that of the Catholic Church—using this term in its narrow sense as applied to the ancient churches of the East and West.

In all of these ancient churches episcopacy is regarded as of divine origin; and in those of them which reject the papal supremacy the bishops are still regarded as the guardians of the tradition of apostolic orthodoxy and the stewards of the gifts of the Holy Ghost to men (seeOrthodox Eastern Church;Armenian Church;Copts:Coptic Church, &c). In the West, Gallican and Febronian Episcopacy are represented by two ecclesiastical bodies: the Jansenist Church under the archbishop of Utrecht (seeJansenismandUtrecht), and the Old Catholics (q.v.). Of these the latter, who separated from the Roman communion after the promulgation of the dogma of papal infallibility, represent a pure revolt of the system of Episcopacy against that of Papalism.

(W. A. P.)

1See Bishop C. Gore,The Church and the Ministry(1887).2Neither the Articles nor the authoritative Homilies of the Church of England speak of episcopacy as essential to the constitution of a church. The latter make “the three notes or marks” by which a true church is known “pure and sound doctrine, the sacraments administered according to Christ’s holy institution, and the right use of ecclesiastical discipline.” These marks are perhaps ambiguous, but they certainly do not depend on the possession of the Apostolic Succession; for it is further stated that “the bishops of Rome and their adherents are not the true Church of Christ” (Homily “concerning the Holy Ghost,” ed. Oxford, 1683, p. 292).3“He and his holy apostles likewise, namely Peter and Paul, did forbid unto all Ecclesiastical Ministers, dominion over the Church of Christ” (Homilies appointed to be read in Churches, “The V. part of the Sermon against Wilful Rebellion,” ed. Oxford, 1683, p. 378). Princes are “God’s lieutenants, God’s presidents, God’s officers, God’s commissioners, God’s judges ... God’s vicegerents” (“The II. part of the Sermon of Obedience,”ib.p. 64).4Juridically they were, of course, never this in the strict sense in which the term could be used of the Lutheran superintendents (see below). They were never mere royal officials, but peers of parliament, holding their temporalities as baronies under the crown.5During the crisis of the Reformation all the Swedish sees became vacant but two, and the bishops of these two soon left the kingdom. The episcopate, however, was preserved by Peter Magnusson, who, when residing as warden of the Swedish hospital of St Bridget in Rome, had been duly elected bishop of the see of Westeraes, and consecrated,c.1524. No official record of his consecration can be discovered, but there is no sufficient reason to doubt the fact; and it is certain that during his lifetime he was acknowledged as a canonical bishop both by Roman Catholics and by Protestants. In 1528 Magnusson consecrated bishops to fill the vacant sees, and, assisted by one of these, Magnus Sommar, bishop of Strengness, he afterwards consecrated the Reformer, Lawrence Peterson, as archbishop of Upsala, Sept. 22, 1531. Some doubt has been raised as to the validity of the consecration of Peterson’s successor, also named Lawrence Peterson, in 1575, from the insufficiency of the documentary evidence of the consecration of his consecrator, Paul Justin, bishop of Åbo. The integrity of the succession has, however, been accepted after searching investigation by men of such learning as Grabe and Routh, and has been formally recognized by the convention of the American Episcopal Church. The succession to the daughter church of Finland, now independent, stands or falls with that of Sweden.

1See Bishop C. Gore,The Church and the Ministry(1887).

2Neither the Articles nor the authoritative Homilies of the Church of England speak of episcopacy as essential to the constitution of a church. The latter make “the three notes or marks” by which a true church is known “pure and sound doctrine, the sacraments administered according to Christ’s holy institution, and the right use of ecclesiastical discipline.” These marks are perhaps ambiguous, but they certainly do not depend on the possession of the Apostolic Succession; for it is further stated that “the bishops of Rome and their adherents are not the true Church of Christ” (Homily “concerning the Holy Ghost,” ed. Oxford, 1683, p. 292).

3“He and his holy apostles likewise, namely Peter and Paul, did forbid unto all Ecclesiastical Ministers, dominion over the Church of Christ” (Homilies appointed to be read in Churches, “The V. part of the Sermon against Wilful Rebellion,” ed. Oxford, 1683, p. 378). Princes are “God’s lieutenants, God’s presidents, God’s officers, God’s commissioners, God’s judges ... God’s vicegerents” (“The II. part of the Sermon of Obedience,”ib.p. 64).

4Juridically they were, of course, never this in the strict sense in which the term could be used of the Lutheran superintendents (see below). They were never mere royal officials, but peers of parliament, holding their temporalities as baronies under the crown.

5During the crisis of the Reformation all the Swedish sees became vacant but two, and the bishops of these two soon left the kingdom. The episcopate, however, was preserved by Peter Magnusson, who, when residing as warden of the Swedish hospital of St Bridget in Rome, had been duly elected bishop of the see of Westeraes, and consecrated,c.1524. No official record of his consecration can be discovered, but there is no sufficient reason to doubt the fact; and it is certain that during his lifetime he was acknowledged as a canonical bishop both by Roman Catholics and by Protestants. In 1528 Magnusson consecrated bishops to fill the vacant sees, and, assisted by one of these, Magnus Sommar, bishop of Strengness, he afterwards consecrated the Reformer, Lawrence Peterson, as archbishop of Upsala, Sept. 22, 1531. Some doubt has been raised as to the validity of the consecration of Peterson’s successor, also named Lawrence Peterson, in 1575, from the insufficiency of the documentary evidence of the consecration of his consecrator, Paul Justin, bishop of Åbo. The integrity of the succession has, however, been accepted after searching investigation by men of such learning as Grabe and Routh, and has been formally recognized by the convention of the American Episcopal Church. The succession to the daughter church of Finland, now independent, stands or falls with that of Sweden.

EPISCOPIUS, SIMON(1583-1643), the Latin form of the name of Simon Bischop, Dutch theologian, was born at Amsterdam on the 1st of January 1583. In 1600 he entered the university of Leiden, where he studied theology under Jacobus Arminius, whose teaching he followed. In 1610, the year in which the Arminians presented the famous Remonstrance to the states of Holland, he became pastor at Bleyswick, a small village near Rotterdam; in the following year he advocated the cause of the Remonstrants (q.v.) at the Hague conference. In 1612 he succeeded Francis Gomarus as professor of theology at Leiden, an appointment which awakened the bitter enmity of the Calvinists, and, on account of the influence lent by it to the spread of Arminian opinions, was doubtless an ultimate cause of the meeting of the synod of Dort in 1618. Episcopius was chosen as the spokesman of the thirteen representatives of the Remonstrants before the synod; but he was refused a hearing, and the Remonstrant doctrines were condemned without any explanation or defence of them being permitted. At the end of the synod’s sittings in 1619, Episcopius and the other twelve Arminian representatives were deprived of their offices and expelled from the country (seeDort, Synod of). Episcopius retired to Antwerp and ultimately to France, where he lived partly at Paris, partly at Rouen. He devoted most of his time to writings in support of the Arminian cause; but the attempt of Luke Wadding (1588-1657) to win him over to the Romish faith involved him also in a controversy with that famous Jesuit. After the death (1625) of Maurice, prince of Orange, the violence of the Arminian controversy began to abate, and Episcopius was permitted in 1626 to return to his own country. He was appointed preacher at the Remonstrant church in Rotterdam and afterwards rector of the Remonstrant college in Amsterdam. Here he died in 1643. Episcopius may be regarded as in great part the theological founder of Arminianism, since he developed and systematized the principles tentatively enunciated by Arminius. Besides opposing at all points the peculiar doctrines of Calvinism, Episcopius protested against the tendency of Calvinists to lay so much stress on abstract dogma, and argued that Christianity was practical rather than theoretical—not so much a system of intellectual belief as a moral power—and that an orthodox faith did not necessarily imply the knowledge of and assent to a system of doctrine which included the whole range of Christian truth, but only the knowledge and acceptance of so much of Christianity as was necessary to effect a real change on the heart and life.

The principal works of Episcopius are hisConfessio s. declaratio sententiae pastorum qui in foederato Belgio Remonstrantes vocantur super praecipuis articulis religionis Christianae(1621), hisApologia pro confessione(1629), hisVerus theologus remonstrans, and his uncompleted workInstitutiones theologicae. A life of Episcopius was written by Philip Limborch, and one was also prefixed by his successor, Étienne de Courcelles (Curcellaeus) (1586-1659), to an edition of his collected works published in 2 vols. (1650-1665). See also article in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie.

EPISODE, an incident occurring in the history of a nation, an institution or an individual, especially with the significance of being an interruption of an ordered course of events, an irrelevance. The word is derived from a word (ἐπείσοδος) with a technical meaning in the ancient Greek tragedy. It is defined by Aristotle (Poetics, 12) asμέρος ὅλον τραγῳδίας τὸ μεταξὺ ὅλων χορικῶν μελῶν, all the scenes, that is, which fall between the choric songs.εἴσοδος, or entrance, is generally applied to the entrance of the chorus, but the reference may be to that of the actors at the close of the choric songs. In the early Greek tragedy the parts which were spoken by the actors were considered of subsidiary importance to those sung by the chorus, and it is from this aspect that the meaning of the word, as something which breaks off the course of events, is derived (see A.E. Haigh,The Tragic Drama of the Greeks, 1896, at p. 353).

EPISTAXIS(Gr.ἐπί, upon, andστάζειν, to drop), the medical term for bleeding from the nose, whether resulting from local injury or some constitutional condition. In persistent cases of nose-bleeding, various measures are adopted, such as holding the arms over the head, the application of ice, or of such astringents as zinc or alum, or plugging the nostrils.

EPISTEMOLOGY(Gr.ἐπιστήμη, knowledge, andλόγος, theory, account; Germ.Erkenntnistheorie), in philosophy, a term applied, probably first by J.F. Ferrier, to that department of thought whose subject matter is the nature and origin of knowledge. It is thus contrasted with metaphysics, which considers the nature of reality, and with psychology, which deals with the objective part of cognition, and, as Prof. James Ward said, “is essentially genetic in its method” (Mind, April 1883, pp. 166-167). Epistemology is concerned rather with the possibility of knowledge in the abstract (sub specie aeternitatis, Ward,ibid.). In the evolution of thought epistemological inquiry succeeded the speculations of the early thinkers, who concerned themselves primarily with attempts to explain existence. The differences of opinion which arose on this problem naturally led to the inquiry as to whether any universally valid statement was possible. The Sophists and the Sceptics, Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics and the Epicureans took up the question, and from the time of Locke and Kant it has been prominent in modern philosophy. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to draw a hard and fast line between epistemology and other branches of philosophy. If, for example, philosophy is divided into the theory of knowing and the theory of being, it is impossible entirely to separate the latter (Ontology) from the analysis of knowledge (Epistemology), so close is the connexion between the two. Again, the relation between logic in its widest sense and the theory of knowledge is extremely close. Some thinkers have identified the two, while others regard Epistemology as a subdivision of logic; others demarcate their relative spheres by confining logic to the science of the laws of thought,i.e.to formal logic. An attempt has been made by some philosophers to substitute “Gnosiology” (Gr.γνῶσις) for “Epistemology” as a special term for that part of Epistemology which is confined to “systematic analysis of the conceptions employed by ordinary and scientific thought in interpreting the world, and including an investigation of the art of knowledge, or the nature of knowledge as such.” “Epistemology” would thus be reserved for the broad questions of “the origin, nature and limits of knowledge” (Baldwin’sDict. of Philos.i. pp. 333 and 414). The term Gnosiology has not, however, come into general use. (SeePhilosophy.)

EPISTLE, in its primary sense any letter addressed to an absent person; from the Greek wordἐπιστολή, a thing sent on a particular occasion. Strictly speaking, any such communication is an epistle, but at the present day the term has become archaic, and is used only for letters of an ancient time, or for elaborate literary productions which take an epistolary form, that is to say, are, or affect to be, written to a person at a distance.

1.Epistles and Letters.—The student of literary history soon discovers that a broad distinction exists between the letter and the epistle. The letter is essentially a spontaneous, non-literary production, ephemeral, intimate, personal and private, a substitute for a spoken conversation. The epistle, on the other hand, rather takes the place of a public speech, it is written with an audience in view, it is a literary form, a distinctly artistic effort aiming at permanence; and it bears much the same relation to a letter as a Platonic dialogue does to a private talk between two friends. The posthumous value placed on a great man’s letters would naturally lead to the production of epistles, which might be written to set forth the views of a person or a school, either genuinely or as forgeries under some eminent name. Pseudonymous epistles were especially numerous under the early Roman empire, and mainly attached themselves to the names of Plato, Demosthenes, Aristotle and Cicero.

Both letters and epistles have come down to us in considerable variety and extent from the ancient world. Babylonia and Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Rome alike contribute to our inheritance of letters. Those of Aristotle are of questionable genuineness, but we can rely, at any rate in part, on those of Isocrates and Epicurus. Some of the letters of Cicero are rather epistles, since they were meant ultimately for the general eye. The papyrus discoveries in Egypt have a peculiar interest, for they are mainly the letters of people unknown to fame, and having no thought of publicity. It is less to be wondered at that we have a large collection of ancient epistles, especially in the realm of magic and religion, for epistles were meant to live, were published in several copies, and were not a difficult form of literary effort. The Tell el-Amarna tablets found in Upper Egypt in 1887 are a series of despatches in cuneiform script from Babylonian kings and Phoenician and Palestinian governors to the Pharaohs (c.1400B.C.). The epistles of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Seneca and the Younger Pliny claim mention at this point. In the later Roman period and into the middle ages, formal epistles were almost a distinct branch of literature. The ten books of Symmachus’Epistolae, so highly esteemed in the cultured circles of the 4th century, may be contrasted with the less elegant but more forceful epistles of Jerome.

The distinction between letters and epistles has particular interest for the student of early Christian literature. G.A. Deissmann (Bible Studies) assigns to the category of letters all the Pauline writings as well as 2 and 3 John. The books bearing the names of James, Peter and Jude, together with the Pastorals (though these may contain fragments of genuine Pauline letters) and the Apocalypse, he regards as epistles. The first epistle of John he calls less a letter or an epistle than a religious tract. It is doubtful, however, whether we can thus reduce all the letters of the New Testament to one or other of these categories; and W.M. Ramsay (Hastings’Dict. Bib.Extra vol. p. 401) has pointed out with some force that “in the new conditions a new category had been developed—the general letter addressed to a whole class of persons or to the entire Church of Christ.” Such writings have affinities with both the letter and the epistle, and they may further be compared with the “edicts and rescripts by which Roman law grew, documents arising out of special circumstances but treating them on general principles.” Most of the literature of the sub-apostolic age is epistolary, and we have a particularly interesting form of epistle in the communications between churches (as distinct from individuals) known as theFirst Epistle of Clement(Rome to Corinth), theMartyrdom of Polycarp(Smyrna to Philomelium), and theLetters of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons(to the congregations of Asia Minor and Phrygia) describing the Gallican martyrdoms ofA.D.177. In the following centuries we have the valuable epistles of Cyprian, of Gregory Nazianzen (to Cledonius on the Apollinarian controversy), of Basil (to be classed rather as letters), of Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine and Jerome. The encyclical letters of the Roman Catholic Church are epistles, even more so than bulls, which are usually more special in their destination. In the Renaissance one of the most common forms of literary production was that modelled upon Cicero’s letters. From Petrarch to theEpistolae obscurorum virorumthere is a whole epistolary literature. TheEpistolae obscurorum virorumhave to some extent a counterpart in the Epistles of Martin Marprelate. Later satires in an epistolary form are Pascal’sProvincial Letters, Swift’sDrapier Letters, and theLetters of Junius. The “open letter” of modern journalism is really an epistle.

(A. J. G.)

2.Epistles in Poetry.—A branch of poetry bears the name of the Epistle, and is modelled on those pieces of Horace which are almost essays (sermones) on moral or philosophical subjects, and are chiefly distinguished from other poems by being addressed to particular patrons or friends. The epistle of Horace to his agent (orvillicus) is of a more familiar order, and is at once a masterpiece and a model of what an epistle should be. Examples of the work in this direction of Ovid, Claudian, Ausonius and other late Latin poets have been preserved, but it is particularly those of Horace which have given this character to the epistles in verse which form so very characteristic a section of French poetry. The graceful precision and dignified familiarity of the epistle are particularly attractive to the temperament of France. Clement Marot, in the 16th century, first made the epistle popular in France, with his brief and spirited specimens. We pass the witty epistles of Scarron and Voiture, to reach those of Boileau, whose epistles, twelve in number, are the classic examples of this form of verse in French literature; they were composed at different dates between 1668 and 1695. In the 18th century Voltaire enjoyed a supremacy in this graceful and sparkling species of writing; theÉpître à Uranieis perhaps the most famous of his verse-letters. Gresset, Bernis, Sedaine, Dorat, Gentil-Bernard, all excelled in the epistle. The curious “Épîtres” of J.P.G. Viennet (1777-1868) were not easy and mundane like their predecessors, but violently polemical. Viennet, a hot defender of lost causes, may be considered the latest of the epistolary poets of France.

In England the verse-epistle was first prominently employed by Samuel Daniel in his “Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius” (1599), and later on, more legitimately, in his “Certain Epistles” (1601-1603). His letter, interza rima, to Lucy, Countess of Bristol, is one of the finest examples of this form in English literature. It was Daniel’s deliberate intention to introduce the Epistle into English poetry, “after the manner of Horace.” He was supported by Ben Jonson, who has some fine Horatian epistles in hisForests(1616) and hisUnderwoods.Letters to Several Persons of Honourform an important section in the poetry of John Donne. Habington’sEpistle to a Friendis one of his most finished pieces. Henry Vaughan (1622-1695) addressed a fine epistle in verse to the French romance-writer Gombauld (1570-1666). Such “letters” were not unfrequent down to the Restoration, but they did not create a department of literature such as Daniel had proposed. At the close of the 17th century Dryden greatly excelled in this class of poetry, and his epistles to Congreve (1694) and to the duchess of Ormond (1700) are among the most graceful and eloquent that we possess. During the age of Anne various Augustan poets in whom the lyrical faculty was slight, from Congreve and Richard Duke down to Ambrose Philips and William Somerville, essayed the epistle with more or less success, and it was employed by Gay for several exercises in his elegant persiflage. Among the epistles of Gay, one rises to an eminence of merit, that called “Mr Pope’s welcome from Greece,” written in 1720. But the great writer of epistles in English is Pope himself, to whom the glory of this kind of verse belongs. His “Eloisa to Abelard” (1717) is carefully modelled on the form of Ovid’s “Heroides,” while in hisMoral Essayshe adopts the Horatian formula for the epistle. In either case his success was brilliant and complete. The “Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot” has not been surpassed, if it has been equalled, in Latin or French poetry of the same class. But Pope excelled, not only in the voluptuous and in the didactic epistle, but in that of compliment as well, and there is no more graceful example of this in literature than is afforded by the letter about the poems of Parnell addressed, in 1721, to Robert, earl of Oxford. After the day of Pope the epistle again fell into desuetude, or occasional use, in England. It revived inthe charming naïveté of Cowper’s lyrical letters in octosyllabics to his friends, such as William Bull and Lady Austin (1782). At the close of the century Samuel Rogers endeavoured to resuscitate the neglected form in his “Epistle to a Friend” (1798). The formality and conventional grace of the epistle were elements with which the leaders of romantic revival were out of sympathy, and it was not cultivated to any important degree in the 19th century. It is, however, to be noted that Shelley’s “Letter to Maria Gisborne” (1820), Keats’s “Epistle to Charles Clarke” (1816), and Landor’s “To Julius Hare” (1836), in spite of their romantic colouring, are genuine Horatian epistles and of the pure Augustan type. This type, in English literature, is commonly, though not at all universally, cast in heroic verse. But Daniel employsrime royalandterza rima, while some modern epistles have been cast in short iambic rhymed measures or in blank verse. It is sometimes not easy to distinguish the epistle from the elegy and from the dedication.

(E. G.)

For St Paul’s Epistles seePaul, for St Peter’s seePeter, for Apocryphal Epistles seeApocryphal Literature, for Plato’s seePlato, &c.

EPISTYLE(Gr.ἐπί, upon, andστῦλος, column), the Greek architectural term for architrave, the lower member of the entablature of the classic orders (q.v.).

EPISTYLIS(C.G. Ehrenberg), in zoology, a genus of peritrichous Infusoria with a short oral disc and collar, and a rigid stalk, often branching to form a colony.

EPITAPH(Gr.ἐπιτάφιος, sc.λόγος, fromἐπί, upon, andτάφος, a tomb), strictly, an inscription upon a tomb, though by a natural extension of usage the name is applied to anything written ostensibly for that purpose whether actually inscribed upon a tomb or not. When the word was introduced into English in the 14th century it took the formepitaphy, as well asepitaphe, which latter word is used both by Gower and Lydgate. Many of the best-known epitaphs, both ancient and modern, are merely literary memorials, and find no place on sepulchral monuments. Sometimes the intention of the writer to have his production placed upon the grave of the person he has commemorated may have been frustrated, sometimes it may never have existed; what he has written is still entitled to be called an epitaph if it be suitable for the purpose, whether the purpose has been carried out or not. The most obvious external condition that suitability for mural inscription imposes is one of rigid limitation as to length. An epitaph cannot in the nature of things extend to the proportions that may be required in an elegy.

The desire to perpetuate the memory of the dead being natural to man, the practice of placing epitaphs upon their graves has been common among all nations and in all ages. And the similarity, amounting sometimes almost to identity, of thought and expression that often exists between epitaphs written more than two thousand years ago and epitaphs written only yesterday is as striking an evidence as literature affords of the close kinship of human nature under the most varying conditions where the same primary elemental feelings are stirred. The grief and hope of the Roman mother as expressed in the touching lines—

“Lagge fili bene quiescas;Mater tua rogat te,Ut me ad te recipias:Vale!”

“Lagge fili bene quiescas;

Mater tua rogat te,

Ut me ad te recipias:

Vale!”

find their echo in similar inscriptions in many a modern cemetery.

Probably the earliest epitaphial inscriptions that have come down to us are those of the ancient Egyptians, written, as their mode of sepulture necessitated, upon the sarcophagi and coffins. Those that have been deciphered are all very much in the same form, commencing with a prayer to a deity, generally Osiris or Anubis, on behalf of the deceased, whose name, descent and office are usually specified. There is, however, no attempt to delineate individual character, and the feelings of the survivors are not expressed otherwise than in the fact of a prayer being offered. Ancient Greek epitaphs, unlike the Egyptian, are of great literary interest, deep and often tender in feeling, rich and varied in expression, and generally epigrammatic in form. They are written usually in elegiac verse, though many of the later epitaphs are in prose. Among the gems of the Greek anthology familiar to English readers through translations are the epitaphs upon those who had fallen in battle. There are several ascribed to Simonides on the heroes of Thermopylae, of which the most celebrated is the epigram—

“Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by,That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.”

“Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by,

That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.”

A hymn of Simonides on the same subject contains some lines of great beauty in praise of those who were buried at Thermopylae, and these may be regarded as forming a literary epitaph. In Sparta epitaphs were inscribed only upon the graves of those who had been especially distinguished in war; in Athens they were applied more indiscriminately. They generally contained the name, the descent, the demise, and some account of the life of the person commemorated. It must be remembered, however, that many of the so-called Greek epitaphs are merely literary memorials not intended for monumental inscription, and that in these freer scope is naturally given to general reflections, while less attention is paid to biographical details. Many of them, even some of the monumental, do not contain any personal name, as in the one ascribed to Plato—

“I am a shipwrecked sailor’s tomb; a peasant’s there doth stand:Thus the same world of Hades lies beneath both sea and land.”

“I am a shipwrecked sailor’s tomb; a peasant’s there doth stand:

Thus the same world of Hades lies beneath both sea and land.”

Others again are so entirely of the nature of general reflections upon death that they contain no indication of the particular case that called them forth. It may be questioned, indeed, whether several of this character quoted in ordinary collections are epitaphs at all, in the sense of being intended for a particular occasion.

Roman epitaphs, in contrast to those of the Greeks, contained, as a rule, nothing beyond a record of facts. The inscriptions on the urns, of which numerous specimens are to be found in the British Museum, present but little variation. The letters D.M. or D.M.S. (Diis ManibusorDiis Manibus Sacrum) are followed by the name of the person whose ashes are enclosed, his age at death, and sometimes one or two other particulars. The inscription closes with the name of the person who caused the urn to be made, and his relationship to the deceased. It is a curious illustration of the survival of traces of an old faith after it has been formally discarded to find that the letters D.M. are not uncommon on the Christian inscriptions in the catacombs. It has been suggested that in this case they meanDeo Maximoand notDiis Manibus, but the explanation would be quite untenable, even if there were not many other undeniable instances of the survival of pagan superstitions in the thought and life of the early Christians. In these very catacomb inscriptions there are many illustrations to be found, apart from the use of the letters D.M., of the union of heathen with Christian sentiment, (see Maitland’sChurch in the Catacombs). The private burial-places for the ashes of the dead were usually by the side of the various roads leading into Rome, the Via Appia, the Via Flaminia, &c. The traveller to or from the city thus passed for miles an almost uninterrupted succession of tombstones, whose inscriptions usually began with the appropriate wordsSiste ViatororAspice Viator, the origin doubtless of the “Stop Passenger,” which still meets the eye in many parish churchyards of Britain. Another phrase of very common occurrence on ancient Roman tombstones,Sit tibi terra levis(“Light lie the earth upon thee”), has continued in frequent use, as conveying an appropriate sentiment, down to modern times. A remarkable feature of many of the Roman epitaphs was the terrible denunciation they often pronounced upon those who violated the sepulchre. Such denunciations were not uncommon in later times. A well-known instance is furnished in the lines on Shakespeare’s tomb at Stratford-on-Avon, said to have been written by the poet himself—

“Good frend, for Jesus’ sake forbeareTo digg the dust enclosed heare;Bleste be yeman ytspares thes stones.And curst be he ytmoves my bones.”

“Good frend, for Jesus’ sake forbeare

To digg the dust enclosed heare;

Bleste be yeman ytspares thes stones.

And curst be he ytmoves my bones.”

The earliest existing British epitaphs belonged to the Roman period, and are written in Latin after the Roman form. Specimens are to be seen in various antiquarian museums throughoutthe country; some of the inscriptions are given in Bruce’sRoman Wall, and the seventh volume of theCorpus Inscriptionum Latinarumedited by Hübner, containing the British inscriptions, is a valuable repertory for the earlier Roman epitaphs in Britain. The earliest, of course, are commemorative of soldiers, belonging to the legions of occupation, but the Roman form was afterwards adopted for native Britons. Long after the Roman form was discarded, the Latin language continued to be used, especially for inscriptions of a more public character, as being from its supposed permanence the most suitable medium of communication to distant ages. It is only, in fact, within recent years that Latin has become unusual, and the more natural practice has been adopted of writing the epitaphs of distinguished men in the language of the country in which they lived. While Latin was the chief if not the sole literary language, it was, as a matter of course, almost exclusively used for epitaphial inscriptions. The comparatively few English epitaphs that remain of the 11th and 12th centuries are all in Latin. They are generally confined to a mere statement of the name and rank of the deceased following the words “Hic jacet.” Two noteworthy exceptions to this general brevity are, however, to be found in most of the collections. One is the epitaph to Gundrada, daughter of the Conqueror (d. 1085), which still exists at Lewes, though in an imperfect state, two of the lines having been lost; another is that to William de Warren, earl of Surrey (d. 1089), believed to have been inscribed in the abbey of St Pancras, near Lewes, founded by him. Both are encomiastic, and describe the character and work of the deceased with considerable fulness and beauty of expression. They are written in leonine verse. In the 13th century French began to be used in writing epitaphs, and most of the inscriptions to celebrated historical personages between 1200 and 1400 are in that language. Mention may be made of those to Robert, the 3rd earl of Oxford (d. 1221), as given in Weever, to Henry III. (d. 1272) at Westminster Abbey, and to Edward the Black Prince (d. 1376) at Canterbury. In most of the inscriptions of this period the deceased addresses the reader in the first person, describes his rank and position while alive, and, as in the case of the Black Prince, contrasts it with his wasted and loathsome state in the grave, and warns the reader to prepare for the same inevitable change. The epitaph almost invariably closes with a request, sometimes very urgently worded, for the prayers of the reader that the soul of the deceased may pass to glory, and an invocation of blessing, general or specific, upon all who comply. Epitaphs preserved much of the same character after English began to be used towards the close of the 14th century. The following, to a member of the Savile family at Thornhill, is probably even earlier, though its precise date cannot be fixed:—

“Bonys emongg stonys lys fulsteyl gwylste the sawle wan-deris were that God wylethe”—

“Bonys emongg stonys lys ful

steyl gwylste the sawle wan-

deris were that God wylethe”—

that is, Bones among stones lie full still, whilst the soul wanders whither God willeth. It may be noted here that the majority of the inscriptions, Latin and English, from 1300 to the period of the Reformation, that have been preserved, are upon brasses (seeBrasses, Monumental). The very curious epitaph on St Bernard, probably written by a monk of Clairvaux, has the peculiarity of being a dialogue in Latin verse.

It was in the reign of Elizabeth that epitaphs in English began to assume a distinct literary character and value, entitling them to rank with those that had hitherto been composed in Latin. We learn from Nash that at the close of the 16th century it had become a trade to supply epitaphs in English verse. There is one on the dowager countess of Pembroke (d. 1621), remarkable for its successful use of a somewhat daring hyperbole. It was written by William Browne, author ofBritannia’s Pastorals:—

“Underneath this sable hearseLies the subject of all verse;Sydney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother;Death, ere thou hast slain anotherFair and learn’d and good as she,Time will throw his dart at thee.Marble piles let no man raiseTo her name for after days;Some kind woman, born as she,Reading this, like Niobe,Shall turn marble, and becomeBoth her mourner and her tomb.”

“Underneath this sable hearse

Lies the subject of all verse;

Sydney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother;

Death, ere thou hast slain another

Fair and learn’d and good as she,

Time will throw his dart at thee.

Marble piles let no man raise

To her name for after days;

Some kind woman, born as she,

Reading this, like Niobe,

Shall turn marble, and become

Both her mourner and her tomb.”

If there be something of the exaggeration of a conceit in the second stanza, it needs scarcely to be pointed out that epitaphs, like every other form of composition, necessarily reflect the literary characteristics of the age in which they were written. The deprecation of marble as unnecessary suggests one of the finest literary epitaphs in the English language, that by Milton upon Shakespeare.

The epitaphs of Pope are still considered to possess very great literary merit, though they were rated higher by Johnson and critics of his period than they are now.

Dr Johnson, who thought so highly of Pope’s epitaphs, was himself a great authority on both the theory and practice of this species of composition. His essay on epitaphs is one of the few existing monographs on the subject, and his opinion as to the use of Latin had great influence. The manner in which he met the delicately insinuated request of a number of eminent men that English should be employed in the case of Oliver Goldsmith was characteristic, and showed the strength of his conviction on the subject. His arguments in favour of Latin were chiefly drawn from its inherent fitness for epitaphial inscriptions and its classical stability. The first of these has a very considerable force, it being admitted on all hands that few languages are in themselves so suitable for the purpose; the second is outweighed by considerations that had considerable force in Dr Johnson’s time, and have acquired more since. Even to the learned Latin is no longer the language of daily thought and life as it was at the period of the Reformation, and the great body of those who may fairly claim to be called the well-educated classes can only read it with difficulty, if at all. It seems, therefore, little less than absurd, for the sake of a stability which is itself in great part delusive, to write epitaphs in a language unintelligible to the vast majority of those for whose information presumably they are intended. Though a stickler for Latin, Dr Johnson wrote some very beautiful English epitaphs, as, for example, the following on Philips, a musician:—

“Philips, whose touch harmonious could removeThe pangs of guilty power or hapless love;Rest here, distressed by poverty no more,Here find that calm thou gav’st so oft before;Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrineTill angels wake thee with a note like thine!”

“Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove

The pangs of guilty power or hapless love;

Rest here, distressed by poverty no more,

Here find that calm thou gav’st so oft before;

Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine

Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!”

In classifying epitaphs various principles of division may be adopted. Arranged according to nationality they indicate distinctions of race less clearly perhaps than any other form of literature does,—and this obviously because when under the influence of the deepest feeling men think and speak very much in the same way whatever be their country. At the same time the influence of nationality may to some extent be traced in epitaphs. The characteristics of the French style, its grace, clearness, wit and epigrammatic point, are all recognizable in French epitaphs. In the 16th century those of Étienne Pasquier were universally admired. Instances such as “La première au rendez-vous,” inscribed on the grave of a mother, Piron’s epitaph, written for himself after his rejection by the French Academy—

“Ci-gît Piron, qui ne fut rien,Pas même académicien”—

“Ci-gît Piron, qui ne fut rien,

Pas même académicien”—

and one by a relieved husband, to be seen at Père la Chaise—

“Ci-gît ma femme. Ah! qu’elle est bienPour son repos et pour le mien”—

“Ci-gît ma femme. Ah! qu’elle est bien

Pour son repos et pour le mien”—

might be multiplied indefinitely. One can hardly look through a collection of English epitaphs without being struck with the fact that these represent a greater variety of intellectual and emotional states than those of any other nation, ranging through every style of thought from the sublime to the commonplace, every mood of feeling from the most delicate and touching to the coarse and even brutal. Few subordinate illustrations of the complex nature of the English nationality are more striking.

Epitaphs are sometimes classified according to their authorship and sometimes according to their subject, but neither divisionis so interesting as that which arranges them according to their characteristic features. What has just been said of English epitaphs is, of course, more true of epitaphs generally. They exemplify every variety of sentiment and taste, from lofty pathos and dignified eulogy to coarse buffoonery and the vilest scurrility. The extent to which the humorous and even the low comic element prevails among them is a noteworthy circumstance. It is curious that the most solemn of all subjects should have been frequently treated, intentionally or unintentionally, in a style so ludicrous that a collection of epitaphs is generally one of the most amusing books that can be picked up. In this as in other cases, too, it is to be observed that the unintended humour is generally of a much more entertaining kind than that which has been deliberately perpetrated.

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