Öf the conflicts, the vicissitudes and variations of Episcopalianism, we will here say nothing; and shall only beg leave to refer our readers to the articles-LUTHER, the REFORMATION, Ward's Cantos, &c. &c.

The peculiar merits of the church of England above the other reformed churches, a well-known poet accurately discriminates. It is in his ideas

The least de-formed, because re-formed the least,

ESCHINISTS-See the article MONTANUS.

EUCHITES, or EUTYCHITES-disciples of Simon Magus, who pretended that the human soul had assumed a material body, for no other end than the gratification of the most infamous voluptuousness. This was the impious conceit of the Antitactæ also, and the Cainites. See their respective articles. (Theodoret, Hær. Fab. 1. 5, c. 9.) The MESSALIANS also were termed Euchites. See that article.

EUNOMIANS, called also ANOMIANS-the disciples of Eunomius, a noted Arian bishop, who denied the divinity both of the Son and the Holy Ghost. Baptism he ordered to be conferred-in the name of the Father unbegotten,-of the Son who was begotten,—and of the Holy Ghost, the creature of the second person. He rejected the triple immersion then customary in the church, and caused the head and breast only of the party baptised to be dipped in the font, esteeming the remainder of the body as infamous, and absolutely unworthy of the sacrament. To his other principles he added the very commodious one importing-that those who should faithfully observe his doctrine, were not liable to forfeit grace, whatever guilt they might incur, even that of final impenitence. (Theodoret, Hæret. Fab. 1. 4, c. 3. Aug. de Hær. Epiph. Her. 76. Baron. ad ann. 356.) Did then this right reverend of old prognosticate in the spirit -the justification inamissible of Mr Calvin? The sect did not survive the reign of Theodosius II. (Codex Theod. l. 8.)

EUPHRATESIANS-(See PEREANS.)

EUSEBIANS-Arians, so called from Eusebius of Nicomedia, one of the most zealous partisans of Arius. See ARIANS.

EUSTATHIANS-Sectarists of the fourth age who, like their master Eustathius, denied salvation to be attainable in any other but the monastic state. In the council of Gangres, held towards the beginning of the fourth century, these sectaries are cen

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sured-1. For condemning matrimony, and encouraging wives to forsake their husbands. 2. For abandoning the churches-to resort to their private conventicles. 3. For engaging servants to quit their masters, and children their parents, under the specious pretence of embracing a more austere method of life. *4. For obliging their followers to renounce all property as incompatable with salvation. 5. For condemning the honor paid to martyrs in the oratories erected to their memory ;-with other erroneous doctrines, prescribed and anathematized by the council in twenty canons inserted in Dupin's Collection of the Canons of the universal Church. (See also Fleury, t. 4, 1. 17.) What a pity these enthusiasts did not agree with our modern reformers in other articles, as well as that relating to the honor exhibited to martyrs! Had they been so fortunate, they would have figured among the foremost in the protestant calendar of reformers, or among Mr Brewster's presbyterian Culdees.

EUTYCHIANS-followers of Eutyches, who, in the fifth age, pretended that in Jesus Christ there was only one nature. The intemperate zeal of this monk against Nestorianism, hurried him into the opposite extreme; and, for fear of admitting two distinct persons in Christ, he held only one nature or a species of compound-of the Divinity and the humanity combined. He would not allow the body of Jesus Christ to be of the same substance with ours; and, of course, he attributed to the Son of God, with the Valentinians and the Marcionites, only a fantastic body. Sometimes, indeed, he seemed to recognise two natures before the incarnation, and to suppose, that the soul of our Redeemer was united to the Divinity previously to his assuming a human body but he constantly refused to acknowledge a distinction of the two natures-after the incarnation had taken place, pretending that the human nature was absorbed by the divinity, as a drop of honey falling into the sea might be said— not indeed to be annihilated, but to be swallowed up, and no longer distinguishable from the watery element.

In a council held by St Flavian patriarch of Constantinople in 448, this error was condemned. Eutyches appeared before the council attended by two of the principal officers of the court, and a troop of the imperial guards. To all reasoning and authority produced against his novel doctrine, he replied, that he was come thither not to dispute, but to profess his faith. The council proceeded to separate him from the communion of the faithful; and the sentence was subscribed by thirty-two bishops, and eighteen priests. Eutyches said privately to his guards, that he appealed from their judgment to that of the bishops of Rome, Alexandria and Jerusalem; and by letter endeavoured to impose upon the pope. But his holiness St Leo the Great, being informed of the true state of the affair by St Flavian, wrote to him an ample declaration of the orthodox faith upon the article in

question, which was afterwards read and inserted in the acts of the council of Chalcedon; and in which the errors of Eutyches were solemnly condemned.

The

Hilarius the

The false council of Ephesus commonly called Latrocinale, or the cabal, by court intrigue was opened on the eighth of August, in 449. Eutyches was there;-as were also two officers from the emperor, with a band of soldiers. Every thing was carried by violence and open faction in favour of Eutyches; and the pope's legates were not allowed to read his letters to the assembly. By Eutyches's partisans a sentence of deposition was pronounced against St Flavian and Eusebius of Doryloeum. legates protested against the lawless sentence. deacon cried out aloud, contradicitur-importing-opposition is made; which Latin word was inserted in the Greek acts of the synod. Several of the bishops, prostrate at the feet of Dioscorus the wicked patriarch of Alexandria, while he was reading up the sentence, besought him in the most submissive terms to proceed no farther in so unwarrantable an affair. He called aloud for the imperial commissioners Elpidius and Eulogius, who instantly set open the church doors; when Proclus, the pro-consul of Asia, rushed in surrounded with a troop of soldiers, and followed by a confused multitude-with chains, clubs and swords. Few or none of the faint-hearted prelates had now the courage to withhold their subscription to the measures of Dioscorus, except the pope's legates, who protested aloud against his violent proceedings. One of them was hurried off to prison; the other (Hilarius) with much difficulty effected his escape, and arrived safe at Rome. Flavian appealed from the unjust sentence pronounced against him, to the holy see; and delivered his appeal in writing to the legates, with his own hand. The impious Dioscorus, and others of his faction, after throwing the holy bishop on the ground, so kicked and bruised him, that he died of his wounds in the course of a few days, in his exile at Ephippus, two days journey from Ephesus. After this, Dioscorus, with two of his Egyptian bishops, had the insolence to excommunicate St Leo. But violence and injustice did not triumph long; and the emperor's eyes being opened to discern the fatal consequences of his own credulity, he disgraced those who had so grossly abused his confidence, and patronised the cause of truth. The wicked Dioscorus was anathematized by the general council of Chalcedon in 451, and died impenitent in the Eutychian heresy and his other crimes, in his banishment at Gangres, in 454. With regard to Eutyches himself, he passed some time in exile, obstinately attached to his erroneous system. History speaks of him no more from the period just mentioned; but his sectaries long survived the exit of their author. The emperor Zeno suffering himself to be seduced by the Eutychians, the three first patriarchates of the

East, in 482 fell a prey to intruders of that sect. Alexandria was occupied by Peter Mongus, Antioch by Peter the Fuller, and Constantinople by Acacius. These men indeed did not exactly coincide with Eutyches, but professed a kind of qualified Eutychianism; teaching that the divine and human nature were so intimately united, as to form in reality but one compound nature, perfectly simple and inconfused! This doctrine, unintelligible and inconsistent as it was, the major part of the Eutychians adopted; and, from this epoch they are generally denominated Monophusites; reprobating alike the doctrine of Eutyches, and that of the council of Chalcedon.

Ženo, by the advice of Acacius, with the specious pretence of reconciling all parties, published in the course of the same year, 482, his famous decree of union termed the Henoticon, addressed to the bishops, clergy and people of Egypt and Lybia. As this decree insinuated a charge injurious to the council of Chalcedon, it was universally rejected by the catholics, and condemned by Pope Felix III. in the ensuing year. A party

of Monophusites relinquished the communion of their fellowsectaries, and were termed Acephali, or without a leader. But it was not long before they found a patron and defender, in the person of Anastasius the emperor. The monk Severus was placed in the patriarchal see of Antioch; and from him the faction took the name of Severians. In 518 Anastasius was succeeded in the empire by Justin, a catholic prince; who exerted himself to the utmost in extinguishing the entire sect of the Monophusites. The latter, notwithstanding, found means not long afterwards to repair with advantage the losses of their party.

A small number of bishops still adhered to it, and placed a monk called Jacob Baradæus, an ignorant but enterprising bigot to the cause, in the episcopal see of Edessa. This new apostle traversed in his fanaticism the provinces of the East; united the jarring partisans of Eutychianism, animated their drooping spirits, and established among them bishops and a clergy. Thus by his extraordinary exertions in favour of this heresy, it regained its former influence in Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia; in Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia. Ever since this epoch, the Monophusites have honored Jacob Baradæus (alias Zanzala) as their second founder; and from him they derive their name of Jacobites. Patronised by the Persians, out of enmity to the Constantinopolitan emperors their persecutors, and afterwards by the Mahometans on the same account, their spread was both rapid and extensive. Before their regeneration, they were divided into ten or twelve discordant branches, and were variously denominated-Caianists, Incorrupticolæ, Aphthartodocetæ, Damianites, Severians, Agnoetæ, Philoponists, &c. from their several enthusiastic leaders, or the circumstances of their disagreement. After the death of Severus, Baradæus ordained one

Paul bishop of Antioch, from whom a regular series of Jacobite bishops have borne that title to the present period. The patriarchate of Antioch included all Cilicia, the two Phoenicias, Mesopatamia, Isauria, Euphratissia and Osroenia; and in all these provinces the Jacobin party was the most numerous, although the imperial decrees enforced among them-under the severest penalties-the doctrine of the council of Chalcedon. Vast numbers, in consequence, emigrated into Persia and Arabia, where every sect indiscriminately, which had been persecuted by the Roman emperors, found a secure asylum and unlimited toleration. Many who still remained and had subscribed to the articles of the synod, embraced externally the communion of the church, while they inwardly abhorred it, and formed in the very heart of the empire a formidable party of concealed enemies. The Persians took advantage of their disaffection, and broke impetuously into the Roman territories; from which they severed many extensive provinces. The Jacobites on this occasion were patronised by the conquerors; nor were the Saracens less favourable, when they subverted the empire of the Persians. Thus the Jacobites became the triumphant party under these new masters, while the catholics were every where discountenanced and oppressed. The Monophusite patriarch established missions throughout the oriental provinces, and thus perpetuated in those nations the doctrines of his sect. The same causes operated similar effects in Egypt and in Abyssinia. See the articles-ABYSSINIANS and COPHTS. The Jacobites however, sometimes had their share of persecution, in common with the professors of christianity in general, even under the Persian and Saracen autocracy; just as the avarice or fanaticism of their despotic masters inclined: and great numbers of both Jacobites and catholics apostatized to Mahometism. In fact, there exists not at this day one single christian family in all Nubia.

The pope had established a patriarch at Antioch, while the princes of the West were in possession of Syria, during which period the Jacobites seemed disposed to a reconciliation with the church of Rome; although it did not actually take place. The Latin patriarchs resided at Antioch till its subjugation by the Mussulmans in the year 1267. At this day there are two patriarchs of Antioch; the one catholic, the other monophysist; each of whom have their respective suffragans. The Jacobites have likewise churches wherever the Nestorians are established; and these two sects, for so many ages at drawn daggers with each other, now fraternize, and seem to have forgot the origin of their former animosity.

The Jacobites acknowledge only one nature in Jesus Christ, reject the council of Chalcedon, and condemn the letter of St Leo; though they do not hold with Eutyches, that the divine and