to intercede for the culprit; when the Abuna proceeds to absolve him. (Ludolf, Hist. Eth. 1. 2, c. 6.)

Some of the Abyssinian churchmen, as is generally the practice all over the East, live in the married state. But neither priests nor deacons are allowed to marry after their ordination ; and the marriage of any monk or nun is deemed sacrilegious. With them a plurality of wives is not uncommon. This abuse the patriarchs of Alexandria have in vain attempted to suppress. Of all nations in the world Abyssinia abounds most in churches and monasteries. The sacred psalmody may be distinctly heard from one church to another, and often in many at the same instant. Each monastery has two; one for men, the other for women. The men sing in chorus, and always standing. Their musical instruments consist chiefly of small drums which they have suspended from their neck, and which they beat with both hands. These instruments even the most dignified of their clergy use. They commence their music by striking the ground with their feet: then, as their devotion gradually increases, they throw aside their instruments; begin to clap with their hands, to jump and dance and raise their voice to its utmost pitch. At last, they observe neither time nor pause in their psalmody; and say with Mr Evans's jumping Methodists (see Jumpers) that David taught them thus to celebrate the praises of God, in his psalms where he says: ALL YE NATIONS CLAP WITH THE HANDS, REJOICE BEFORE GOD, &c. (Lobo, Relation Historique de l'Abyssinie.)

The church of Abyssinia is governed by a metropolitan, whom they style Abuna, that is, our Father. He is elected and consecrated by the patriarch of Alexandria, who never makes any native of Abyssinia metropolitan, that thus he may more infallibly secure its dependence upon the church of Alexandria; nor does he suffer any other bishop to be ordained in that country but the Abuna alone.

In the seventeenth century the re-union of the church of Abyssinia with that of Rome, was prosecuted for some time with considerable success; but failed eventually through the extreme indiscretion and too forward zeal of those commissioned to effect it. This drew upon the catholics of Abyssinia a cruel persecution; and from that period the sole religion professed throughout the kingdom is the Copht, that is Eutychianism. (See Lobo, Relat. de l'Abyss. Ludolf, Hist. Æthiop. Telles, t. 2. Thevenot. La Croze, Christianisme d'Ethiopie. The last mentioned writer has fallen into similar mistakes with those of Ludolf.)

ADALBERT, or Adelbert, was born in France at the commencement of the eighth century. From his youth he was a notorious hypocrite and impostor. He pretended that an angel in a human form had brought him, from the extremities of the

globe, certain relics of extraordinary holiness, by means of which he could obtain of God whatever he requested. Thus he deluded the ignorant people, and drew after him a train of female devotees, and a multitude of peasants, who in this age of ignorance and superstition revered him as a man of apostolical sanctity, and a worker of many miracles. By dint of bribery he prevailed upon some simoniacal bishops to confer upon him the episcopal dignity.

From this period, his pride and vanity knew no bounds. He did not hesitate to compare himself with the apostles and the martyrs, and refused to consecrate any church in their name; but chose rather to erect and dedicate oratories under his own invocation. He distributed the parings of his nails, and his hair, to the silly populace, who rendered to them the same respect as to the relics of St Peter. When persons presented themselves at his feet to confess their sins, he would exclaim,— "I know your sins already; your most secret thoughts are revealed to me: your sins are forgiven you; depart in peace,with a steady conviction that you have heen effectually absolved." The deluded penitent then arose, in perfect security that his sins were pardoned. (St Boniface, Ep. 135.)

Adalbert had composed a history of his own life-full of visions, false miracles and fables. He says he was born of poor and illiterate parents, but that God had crowned him even from his mother's womb. In her pregnancy she had dreamed that a calf had issued from her side. This, Adalbert would have it, signified the grace which he had received by the ministry of St Michael. Adalbert also forged a letter which he ascribed to Jesus Christ, and which, he pretended, came from heaven through the ministry of the same St Michael. It runs thus:"In the name of God, here begins the letter of our Lord Jesus Christ, which fell at Jerusalem, and which was found by St Michael the archangel at the gate of Ephrem, read and copied by the hand of a priest called John, who sent it to the city of Jeremy to another priest named Talasius; and Talasius sent it into Arabia to another priest called Leoban. Leoban sent it to the city of Bethsamy, where it was received by the priest Macarius, who sent it to the mountain of St Michael the archangel; and the letter arrived, through the medium of an angel, at the sepulchre of St Peter at Rome, where are the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and the twelve priests who are at Rome observed vigils of three days with prayer and fasting day and night." This ridiculous and apparently unmeaning forgery was, however, well qualified to catch the attention of the admiring and unsuspecting multitude. The impostor seemed aware of this. He composed the following prayer for the use of his sectaries: "Lord God all powerful, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Alpha and Omega, who sitteth upon the throne

above, upon the Cherubim and Seraphim; I beseech and conjure thee Angel Uriel, Angel Raguel, Angel Tabuel, Angel Michael, Angel Inias, Angel Tabuas, Angel Sabaoth, Angel Simiel," &c. &c. (See Conc. t. 6, p. 1553.)

St Boniface, who labored with a zeal truly apostolical for the destruction of error, procured the condemnation of Adalbert in a council assembled at Soissons. But Adalbert, far from submitting to the censure, grew daily more extravagant. St Boniface had recourse to the pope, who called a council in which Adalbert was again condemned. We hear no more of this fanatic and his absurdities from that time, excepting only, that St Boniface, by order of the Princes Carloman and Pepin, caused him to be confined.

The irruptions of barbarians into the Roman empire had put an end to studies. Religion alone had endeavoured to revive them; though even churchmen partook in the general disorder. The contempt in which the barbarians held the arts and sciences, and the necessity under which ecclesiastics often lay of subsisting by the labour of their hands, had made them very ignorant; and the new converted infidels still retained a part of their ancient superstitions. The rules of criticism were totally unknown; and miraculous accounts were in high estimation, and seemed almost exclusively to engross the public attention. Adalbert remarked it, and improved this general disposition to his own vile purposes of hypocrisy and seduction. (See Fleury's disc. 3, sur L'Histoire Eccles. and tome 4, de l'Hist. Literaire de France.)

ADAMITES were sectaries who, the more perfectly to imitate Adam and Eve in the state of innocence, stripped themselves, and appeared stark naked in their public assemblies. This sect used no form of prayer, and looked upon all human actions as in themselves perfectly indifferent. They professed the most violent enmity against the Creator of this visible world, because, said they, he had degraded the native dignity of the human soul, and had confined it to a material body. Hence they esteemed it a sacred duty to transgress the laws imposed upon man by his Creator; and this strange and impious principle, joined with the idea that all human actions are in themselves indifferent, must naturally tend to produce the most horrid licentiousness. Accordingly, we find that some Adamites indulged in every species of infamy and debauch; alleging religion as the motive of their conduct.

Various sorts of Adamites have made their appearance in different ages in the fourteenth century they were denominated Turlupins and the poor Brethren. A fanatic named Picard renewed the sect among the Anabaptists. See the article Anabaptist.

ADOPTIONISTS the followers of Felix, bishop of Urgel in Catalonia. Felix in a letter to Elipandas, archbishop of Toledo, who had consulted him on the subject, about the year 778 pretended to prove, that Christ as man is not the natural, but only the adoptive son of God; a doctrine which he had already advanced in his public discourses. The rising error was condemned by a council at Narbonne in 788, and by another at Ratisbon in 792, while the emperor Charlemagne kept his court in that city; and previously to both, by pope Adrian in a doctrinal letter addressed to all the bishops in Spain. Felix revoked his error, first in the synod at Ratisbon, and afterwards before pope Leo III. at Rome. Yet after his return into Spain he ceased not both by letters and discourse to spread his innovating principles. He was accordingly condemned again in the great council of Francfort in 794. Alcuin on his return from England whence he had been absent three years, in 793 had written to Felix a tender letter, exhorting him sincerely to renounce his error. But the unhappy man in a long answer, endeavoured to establish his heresy with so little reserve, as to fall into downright Nestorianism. This, in effect, is the natural consequence of his erroneous opinion. For Christ as man cannot be called the adoptive Son of God, unless his human nature subsist by a distinct person from the divine. (See Nat. Alex. Sæc. 8, diss. 5.)

By an order of Carlemagne, Alcuin our countrymen, and St Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia, solidly refuted the writings of Felix and Elipandus, the former in seven, the latter in four books. Alcuin added other four books against the pestilential writings of Elipandus, in which he testifies that Felix was then at Rome, and converted to the catholic faith. Elipandus not being a subject of the French empire, could not be compelled to appear before the councils held in the dominions of Charlemagne; Toledo making then a part of the Moorish conquests. Felix after his relapse returned to the faith together with his principal followers, during the sessions of the council at Aix in 797. From that time, however, he maintained his former opinions in secret, and at his death in 815 left a written profession of his heresy.

AERIUS a proud and ambitious monk, who had formerly professed the opinions of Arianism. His friend Eustathius was made Bishop of Constantinople ;-a crime which the envious Aerius could never pardon him. Eustathius endeavoured by the most conciliating demeanour to sooth his furious jealousy; promoted him to the priesthood, and gave him the superintendency over his hospital. All this condescension on the part of Eustathius served only to inflame his passion; and he never ceased arraigning the conduct of his superior. The good prelate mildly remonstrated; but without effect. Aerius proceeded to deny the authority of his superior, and ranked the priest

hood on a level with the episcopal dignity. He then wantonly declaimed against whatever tended to enhance the credit of Eustathius, or to conciliate to him the veneration of the people. He reprobated all the ceremonies of the church, and the celebration of festivals, in which the bishop bore a distinguished part: the catholic practice of praying for the dead he equally disapproved; and he denied that the church had power to institute fasts.

Having thus digested his new system of reform, Aërius quitted his hospital, began to dogmatise in public, and seduced a multitude of ignorant people of both sexes who abandoned the church to follow him, and constituted the sect from him denominated Aërians. This sect was still in being in St Augustine's time; and their religious errors have been renewed by our modern reformers. It may not be improper to examine-upon what grounds.

The church is a visible society which has its form of worship, its ceremonies, and its laws: consequently, it must have its superiors, and an order of men whose office it is to preach, to instruct, to legislate, and see their ordinances duly executed. This order of men Jesus Christ himself established in his church'; he commissioned the apostles to teach his doctrine; he conferred on them the power to forgive sins. (John 20, v. 22, 23.) Throughout the New Testament, they are represented as the ministers of God, separated apart from the rest of the faithful, and established by the Holy Spirit for the government of the church. (1 Cor. c. 4. 2 Cor. c. 3. Act. c. 20.) There exist then in the church ministers who possess by divine right-a real superiority over the rest of the faithful. Nor are they all of equal dignity. The hierarchy is composed of bishops, priests and deacons. The bishops are the lawful successors of the apostles; and the apostles were of an order superior to that of the priesthood. We see in the Acts of the Apostles, that St Paul and Barnabas established priests in the cities, who did not belong to the college of the apostles: every where the latter are mentioned as a distinct order of bishops. (Acts xiv. xv.) At their tribunal exclusively, priests are summoned to appear. Consequently, bishops either by their institution, or by their ordination, and of course by divine right, possess a superiority of order and jurisdiction not enjoyed by the priesthood. This distinction may be traced through every age, and it necessarily supposes in the bishop a superiority of divine right: it is expressly noticed in the letters of St Ignatius;-by Origen, and Tertullian. (Ignat. Ep. ad Magnes. ad Ephes. Orig. hom. in Luc. 20. Tert. Coron. Milit.) Bishops alone had the exclusive right of ordaining bishops, priests and deacons; and the ordinations conferred by simple priests have always been esteemed invalid. In this the Greeks and Cophts, and Nestorians unanimously agree with the