(3) Certain people[184] therefore before now discredited and altogether
repudiated the book, both examining it chapter by chapter and declaring
it unintelligible and inconclusive and that it makes a false statement in
its title.[185] For they say it is not John's, no nor yet a "Revelation,"
because of the heavy, thick veil of obscurity which covers it:[186] and
not only is the author of this book not one of the Apostles but he is not
even one of the saints nor a churchman at all;[187] it is Cerinthus,[188]
the founder of the heresy that was called Cerinthian from him, and he
desired to attribute his own composition to a name that would carry
weight. For the substance of his teaching was this, that Christ's Kingdom
will be on earth, and he dreams that it will be concerned with things
after which he himself, being fond of bodily pleasures and very sensual,
hankered, such as the satisfying of his belly and lower lusts, that is
eating and drinking and marrying and such means as he thought would
provide him more decorously with these pleasures, feasts and sacrifices
and the slaying of victims. I should not myself venture to reject the
book, seeing that many brethren hold it in high esteem, but, reckoning
the decision about it to be beyond my powers of mind, I consider the
interpreting of its various contents to be recondite and matter for much
wonder. For without fully understanding, I yet surmise that some deeper
meaning underlies the words, not measuring and judging them by
calculations of my own; but giving the preference to faith,[189] I have
come to the conclusion that they are too high for me to comprehend, and
so I do not reject what I have not taken in, but can only wonder at these
visions which I have not even seen (much less understood).
Besides this, after examining the book as a whole and showing that it is
impossible to understand it in its literal sense, he proceeds--
(4) So having completed practically the whole prophecy, the prophet[190]
pronounces a blessing on those who keep it and indeed on himself also:
for "blessed," saith he, "is he that observeth the words of the prophecy
of this book and I John who saw and heard these things."[191] That he was
called John, therefore, and that the writing is John's I will not
dispute. For I agree that it is the work of some holy and inspired person
but I should not readily assent to his being the Apostle, the son of
Zebedee, the brother of James, whose is the Gospel entitled "According to
John" and the General Epistle.[192] For I conclude that he is not the
same (1) from the character of each, (2) from the style of the language
and (3) from what may be called the arrangement of the book. For the
Evangelist nowhere inserts his name nor yet proclaims himself either in
the Gospel or in the Epistle....
(5) But John nowhere speaks either in the first or in the third person
about himself, whereas he that wrote the Revelation straightway at the
beginning puts himself forward: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which he
gave him to show to his servants speedily, and he sent and signified (it)
by his angel to his servant John who bare witness of the word of God and
of his testimony, even of all things that he saw."[193]
Then he also writes an Epistle: "John to the seven churches that are in
Asia, grace to you and peace."[194] Whereas the Evangelist did not put
his name even at the head of the Catholic Epistle but began with the
mystery of the Divine revelation[195] without any superfluous words:
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have
seen with our eyes."[196]
For it is over this revelation that the Lord also pronounced Peter
blessed, saying: "Blessed art thou Simon bar Jona, because flesh and
blood did not reveal it to thee, but my heavenly Father."[197] Nay, even
in the second and third extant Epistles of John, short though they are,
John does not appear by name but he writes himself "the elder"
anonymously. Whereas our author did not even consider it sufficient to
mention himself by name once and then proceed with his subject, but he
repeats the name again, "I John, your brother and partaker with you in
the tribulation and kingdom and in the patience of Jesus, was in the isle
that is called Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of
Jesus."[198] In fact, at the end also he says this: "Blessed is he that
observeth the words of the prophecy of this book and I John who saw and
heard these things."[199] That he which wrote these things, therefore, is
John, we must believe as he says so: but which John is not clear. For he
does not say, as in many places in the Gospel, that he is the disciple
beloved of the Lord, nor the one that reclined on His breast, nor yet the
brother of James, nor yet the one that was the eyewitness and hearer of
the Lord. Surely he would have used one of the aforesaid descriptions,
when desirous of clearly identifying himself. And yet he does nothing of
the kind, but calls himself our brother and partaker with us, and witness
of Jesus and blessed for the seeing and hearing of the revelations. I
suppose that many bore the same name as John the Apostle, who by reason
of their love towards him and from their admiration and emulation of him
and desire to be loved by the Lord like him, were glad to bear the same
name with him, even as many a one among the children of the faithful is
called Paul or Peter.[200] There is then another John also in the Acts of
the Apostles, the one called Mark whom Barnabas and Paul took with them
and of whom it says again: "And they had John as their attendant."[201]
But as to whether he is the writer, I should say no. For it is not
written that he arrived in Asia with them, but "Paul and his company," it
says, "set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia; and John
departed from them and returned to Jerusalem."[202] And I think there was
yet another among those who were in Asia, since they say there were two
tombs in Ephesus and each of them are said to be the tomb of John.[203]
Again, from the thoughts and from the actual words and their arrangement
this John may be reasonably reckoned different from the other.[204] For
the Gospel and the Epistle agree with each other and begin in a similar
way. The one says "In the beginning was the Word:" and the other "That
which was from the beginning." The one says "And the Word became flesh
and tabernacled in us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the
Only-begotten from the Father:" the other uses the same or almost
equivalent expressions, "That which we have heard, that which we have
seen with our eyes, that which we beheld and our hands handled concerning
the Word of Life, and the Life was manifested."[205] For he starts in
this way because he is dealing, as he shows in what follows, with those
who say that the Lord has not come in the flesh.[206] For which reason he
is careful to add also: "And we have seen and bear witness and announce
unto you the eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested
unto us. That which we have seen and heard we announce also unto
you."[207] He is consistent with himself and does not diverge from his
own propositions, but treats them throughout under the same heads and in
the same terms, of which we will briefly recall; for instance, the
attentive reader will find in each book frequent mention of the Life, the
Light, the turning from darkness,[208] constant reference to the Truth,
Grace, Joy, the Flesh and the Blood of the Lord, the Judgment, the
Forgiveness of sins, the Love of God towards us, the command to us to
love one another and that we must keep all the commandments: again there
is the conviction of the world, of the devil, of the antichrist, God's
adoption of us as Sons, the Faith, which is everywhere required of us,
the Father and the Son everywhere: and generally throughout in describing
the character of the Gospel and the Epistle one and the same complexion
is to be observed in both. But the Revelation is quite different from
them, foreign, out of touch and affinity with them, not having, one might
almost say, one syllable in common. The Epistle contains no reminiscence
nor subject dealt with in the Revelation nor the Revelation in the
Epistle (to say nothing of the Gospel), whereas Paul in his Epistles did
give some indication even about those revelations which he has not
actually described.[209]
And yet once more one can estimate the difference between the Gospel and
Epistle and the Revelation[210] from the literary style. For the first
two books are not only written in irreproachable Greek, but are also most
elegant in their phrases, reasonings and arrangements of expression. No
trace can be found in them of barbarous words, faulty construction or
peculiarities in general. For St. John seems to have possessed both
words, the Lord having graciously vouchsafed them to him; viz. both the
word and knowledge of the word of speech.[211] That this John had seen a
Revelation and received knowledge and the gift of prophecy,[212] I do not
deny, but I observe his dialect and inaccurate Greek style, which employs
barbaric idioms and sometimes even faulty constructions, which it is not
now necessary to expose. For I have not mentioned this in order to scoff,
let no one think so, but simply to point out the dissimilarity of the
writings.
"On Nature"
(Eus., _Præp. Evang._ xiv. 23-7)
(1) How shall we bear with them when they say that the wise and, for that
reason, the good productions of Creation are the results of chance
coincidences?[213] Each of which as it came into being by itself appeared
to Him that ordered it to be good and all of them together equally so.
For God "saw," it says, "all things that he had made, and behold they
were very good."[214] And yet they take no warning from the small,
ordinary instances at their feet, from which they may learn[215] that no
necessary and profitable work is produced without design or haphazard,
but is adapted to its proper purpose by handiwork, whereas when it falls
into a useless and unprofitable state, it then breaks up and comes to
pieces indefinite, and, as it chances, because the wisdom which was
concerned in its construction no longer superintends and directs it. For
a garment is not woven by the woof standing up without a weaver, nor yet
by the warp weaving itself of its own accord: but when it is becoming
worn out, the torn rags fall asunder. And a house or a city is built not
by receiving certain stones which volunteer for the foundations and
others which jump into the courses of the walls, but because the builder
brings the stones that fit in the proper order: but when the building is
thrown down, each stone falls to the ground just as it may. So, too, when
a ship is being built, the keel does not set itself below, while the mast
raises itself in the middle and each of the other timbers takes the place
which it chances to of itself. Nor, again, do the planks of a wagon--said
to be 100[216] in number--become fixed in the position which each found
empty; but the builder in each case puts the timber together suitably.
But if the ship, when it went upon the sea, or the wagon, when it was
driven along on land, comes to pieces, the timbers are scattered wherever
it may happen--in the one case by the waves, in the other by the violent
rush.
In the same way it would befit them to say that the atoms also which are
inoperative when they are at rest and not worked by hands, are also
useless when they move at random.[217] For let these opponents of ours
look to these viewless atoms of theirs and apply their minds to these
mindless ones, not like the Psalmist who confesses that this was revealed
to him by God alone: "Mine eyes beheld thy unfinished work."[218] So,
too, when they say that those fine webs which they speak of as being
produced from atoms, are self-wrought by them without skill or sensation,
who can bear to hear of these weaver atoms whom even the spider excels in
skill when he spins his web out of himself.[219]
(2) Who, then, is it that discriminates between the atoms, gathering or
scattering them, and arranging some in this way to make the sun and
others in that way for the moon, and putting each of them together
according to the light-giving power of each star? For the particular
number and kind that made the sun by being united in a particular way
would never have condescended to produce the moon, nor would the
intertwinings of the moon atoms have ever become the sun. Moreover, even
Arcturus, bright as he is, would never plume himself on having the atoms
of Lucifer, nor the Pleiads those of Orion. For Paul has well
distinguished when he says: "There is one glory of the sun, and another
glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for star differeth
from star in glory."[220] And if the combination of the atoms, as being
soulless, was unintelligent, they needed an intelligent artist to put
them together: and if their junction was without purpose and the result
of necessity, they being void of reason, some wise herdsman drove them
together and presided over them: and if they have been linked together
voluntarily to do willing service, some wonderful master-craftsman
assigned them their parts and took the lead; or, like an expert general,
he did not leave his army disordered and all in a muddle, but disposed
the cavalry in one part and the heavy armed troops apart, and the javelin
men by themselves and the slingers where they ought to be, in order that
those who carried the same weapon might help one another. And if they
think this illustration ridiculous because in it I make a comparison of
great bodies with small, we will come down to the very smallest.
[Eusebius's extract breaks off here.]
(3) If the atoms have no ruler over them, to speak to them or to choose
or to arrange them, but they move, settling themselves of their own
accord out of the big rushing tumult and producing a big uproar as they
clash together, like coming to like without the Divine intervention of
which the poet speaks,[221] and if they run and herd together,
recognizing their kinsfolk, truly the republic of the atoms is a
marvellous one, friends greeting and embracing one another and hasting to
take up their abode in one habitation: some have rounded themselves off
spontaneously into the sun, that mighty orb, that they may produce the
day, and some perchance have flared up into the many pyramids[222] of
stars that they may encircle the whole expanse of sky, while others are
ranged around it, in order that they may--albeit undesignedly--form the
firmament[223] and arch the atmosphere over for the graduated ascent of
the stars, and that the confederation of these helter-skelter atoms may
choose their abodes and apportion the sky as homes and stations for
themselves.
(4) So far are these deniers of Divine Providence from comprehending the
invisible parts of the universe that they do not even see what is
visible. For they appear not even to consider the ordered risings and
settings of the sun, conspicuous though they be, let alone those of the
other heavenly bodies; nor yet to appreciate the assistance thus given to
mankind through them, the day being lighted up for work and the night
being darkened for rest. For man shall go forth, it says, to his work and
his labour until the evening.[224] But they do not even take note of its
other[225] revolution, by which it brings about the fixed times and fair
seasons and the regular winter and summer solstices, under guidance of
its component atoms. Yet however much these poor creatures dislike it, it
is as the righteous[226] believe: Great is the Lord that made him: and at
His word he hasteneth his course.[227] Do atoms, ye blind, bring you
winter and rains, in order that the earth may produce food for you and
all the animals upon it? do they introduce summer that ye may receive for
your enjoyment the fruits of the trees also? then why do you not bow down
and sacrifice to the atoms that are the guardians of earth's fruits?
ungrateful truly ye are, never offering them the smallest firstfruits of
the many gifts ye have from them.
(5) The many-tribed and much-mixed populace of the stars which the
much-roving and ever-scattered atoms composed have (they say) apportioned
among themselves their places according to agreement, setting up, as it
were, a colony or a community,[228] without any founder or controller
taking the lead over them: and they observe the duties of
_neighbourliness_ to one another by compact and peacably, not
transgressing the original bounds which they accepted, as if they were
under the jurisdiction of such atoms as had regal power. But the atoms do
not rule; how could they, being of no account? Nay, listen to the Divine
announcement ({logia}): "In the judgment of the Lord are his works from
the beginning; and from the making of them he disposed the parts thereof.
He garnished his works for ever and the beginnings of them unto their
generation."[229]
(6) What well-ordered phalanx ever traversed an earthly plain, no one
stepping in front of others, nor falling out of the ranks, nor
obstructing his comrades, nor falling behind them, in the way that the
stars advance ever in regular order, shield locked in shield--that
continuous, unwavering, unencumbered and unembarrassed host? Yet certain
obscure deviations (we are told) arise among them through clashings and
sideward motions:[230] and that they who devote themselves to their study
can always tell the seasons and foresee the positions at which they will
rise. Let, then, these cutters[231] of the uncuttable and dividers of the
indivisible and combiners of the uncombined and discerners of the
infinite tell us by what means occurs the encompassing journey round the
heavens in company? it cannot be because a single combination of atoms
has been without purpose hurled as from a sling in this way, seeing that
the whole encircling band goes on its regular rhythmic way and whirls
around together; by what means those multitudinous fellow-voyagers
proceed in company albeit they are without arrangement or purpose and
unknown to one another? Well did the prophet include amongst things
impossible and undemonstrable that two strangers should run in company:
Shall two walk at all together, he says, unless they are acquainted?[232]
(7) (That to work is not toilsome to God.)
To work and to administer and to benefit and to provide and the like are
perchance vexatious to the idle and thoughtless and feeble and
iniquitous, amongst whom Epicurus enrolled himself, when he conceived
such ideas about the gods. But to the earnest and capable and intelligent
and sober-minded, such as those who love wisdom (or philosophers) ought
to be (and how much more the gods?), they are not only not unpleasing and
irksome but rather most delightful and of all things most agreeable; for
negligence and delay in doing something useful is a reproach to them, as
the poet[233] warns them,[234] when he counsels: "Put not off till the
morrow," and further threatens them: "He that procrastinates hath ever to
struggle against disasters," while the prophet[235] instructs us still
more solemnly when he says that virtuous deeds are truly godlike, but he
that despises them is detestable: "for," saith he, "cursed be he that
doeth the works of the Lord negligently." Consequently, while those who
are untaught in any craft and are imperfect from want of practice and
familiarity with the processes do find toil involved in their endeavours,
those who make progress in it, and still more those who have reached
perfection, are cheered by their easy success in what they aim at, and
would rather accomplish and bring to completion the tasks they are
accustomed to than have all the good things of mankind. At all events,
Democritus himself, so they say, used to maintain that he would rather
discover a single reason for a fact than gain the Persian kingdom;[236]
and that though he seeks his reasons so vainly and unreasonably, starting
as it were from a void beginning and a roving hypothesis and not
observing that fundamental Necessity[237] which is common to the nature
of things existent, but considering his conception of senseless and
mindless contingencies to be the highest wisdom of setting up Chance as
the mistress and queen of things universal and even of things divine, and
maintaining that all things occur through her, and yet warning her off
from matters of human life and conduct and accusing those who give her
precedence there to be devoid of judgment. At all events, at the
beginning of the "Precepts,"[238] he says: "Men have fashioned the figure
of Chance, as a cloke for their own folly: for by nature chance fights
against judgement." Thus they (the Epicureans) have said that this very
Chance, the great enemy of intelligence, yet has the mastery over it; or,
rather, by utterly uprooting and abolishing the one, they set up the
other in its place: for they sing not of intelligence as happy, but of
chance as the equivalent of intelligence.[239] So, then, those who
superintend works of beneficence pride themselves in measures which
advance the interests of their kind, some as rearers of families, some as
directors of institutions, some as healers of men's bodies, some as
ministers of state, yes, and those who love wisdom (philosophers) and try
hard to instruct their fellows, likewise give themselves great
airs--unless Epicurus or Democritus will venture to maintain that
philosophizing is mere vexation of spirit: but surely there is no
pleasure they would prefer to it. For even though they reckon pleasure to
be the absolute good, yet they will be ashamed to say that to
philosophize (seek wisdom) is not one of the higher forms of
pleasure.[240] And as to the gods, about whom the poets among them sing
as "givers of good gifts"[241] and these philosophers combine respect
with banter,--the gods neither give nor partake of any good things. And
in what manner do they find evidence that gods exist? for they do not see
them before their eyes doing anything (even as those who admired the sun
and the moon and the stars said they were called gods ({theoi}) because
they run ({theein}) their course); nor do they attribute to them any
creative or constructive powers, in order that they make them gods from
the word {theinai} (set, _i. e._ make):[242] and on that ground the Maker
and Creator of all things is truly the only God; nor do they put forward
their management or jurisdiction or favours towards men, in order that we
may be induced to worship them from motives of fear or reverence.
"Refutation and Defence"
(Eus., _Præp. Evang._ vii. 19)
(1) They are not pious, who hand over matter to God as a thing without
beginning for His orderly disposition,[243] maintaining that, being
subject to treatment and change, it yields to the modifications imposed
by God. For they should explain how both the like and the unlike belong
both to God and to matter. For some one must be imagined superior to
either,[244] and that may not be entertained about God. For whence came
it that there is in them both the being without beginning, which is what
is said to be "like" in both and which is also conceived of as different
from both?[245] For if God is of Himself without beginning and the being
without beginning is, as some would say, His very essence, matter will
not be without beginning, too: for matter and God are not identical. But,
if each is what it is independently, and to both belongs in addition the
property of being without beginning, it is clear that the being without
beginning is different from either and older and higher than both. And
thus the difference between their opposing states is entirely subversive
of their co-existence, or rather of the one, viz. matter existing of
itself. Otherwise let them state the reason why, both being without
beginning, God is not subject to treatment, unchangeable, immovable,
productive, and matter is the opposite, subject to treatment, changeable,
mobile, varying.
Again, how is it that God and matter came in contact and combined? Was it
that God adapted Himself to match the nature of matter and exercised His
craft upon it? Nay, that is absurd that God, like men, should work in
gold and stone and busy Himself in the other handicrafts which the
various materials can give shape and form to.[246]
But if God endowed matter with the qualities which He in His own wisdom
determined, impressing on it as with a seal the multiform and diverse
shape and fashion of His own workmanship, this account of it is both
proper and true, and yet further proves that God, who is the fundamental
principle on which the universe exists, is without beginning. For to its
being (according to them) without beginning God add its bearing certain
qualities. So, then, there is still much to be said in answer to these
views, but we do not propose to say it now. Nevertheless they are
expressed with more propriety than those who are absolutely atheistical
polytheists.[247]
(2) (Athan., _de sent. Dion._, 18). However, when I spoke of certain
things that had an origin ({genêta}) and certain things that were made
({poiêta}), I did indeed casually mention examples of such things,
recognizing that they were not altogether useful for my purpose: for
instance, I said that neither was the plant the same as the husbandman,
nor the boat as the shipwright. But afterwards I dwelt at length on those
which were more to the point and cognate to the subject, and went more
into detail about these truer examples, seeking out various additional
evidences which I set out for you[248] also in another letter: and in
them I refuted as false the accusation also which they bring against me,
as not stating that Christ is of one substance ({homoousios})[249] with
the Father. For even if I say[250] that this word is not found nor read
anywhere in Holy Writ, yet these later attempts of mine to explain which
they have ignored are not inconsistent with this conception. For I
compared human generation, which is clearly a transmission of the
parents' own nature ({homogenês}), saying that the parents were different
from their children in this single point, that they were not themselves
the children: or else it must needs be that neither parents nor children
should exist. The letter itself I cannot, as I have said before, owing to
circumstances,[251] lay my hand on: otherwise I would have sent you my
exact words, or rather a copy of the whole letter: and I will do so, if I
have the opportunity. But I know from memory that I added several
illustrations from things kindred to one another: for instance, I said
that a plant coming up from a seed or a root was different from that
whence it sprang and yet was absolutely of one nature ({homophyes}) with
it: and a river flowing from a source partakes of a different shape and
name; for neither is the source called river nor the river source, and
both these things exist,[252] and the source is, in a sense, the father
and the river is the water from the source. But these and similar remarks
they pretend never to have seen written, but act as if they were blind.
They only try to pelt me from afar[253] with those poor ill-fitting
phrases of mine[254] as with stones, failing to recognize that where a
subject is obscure and requires to be brought within our understanding,
not only do diverse but even quite contradictory illustrations convey the
meaning sought for.
(3) (_Ibid._, 17.) It has been already said that God is the Fountain of
all good things: and the Son is described[255] as the stream flowing
forth from Him. For the Word is "the effluence" of mind, and, to use
human phraseology, is conveyed from the heart through the mouth, _i. e._
the mind that finds expression by means of the tongue, being
differentiated from the word in the heart. For the one having sent it
forth remains and is still what it was; but the other being sent forth
issues and is carried in all directions: and thus each is in each, being
different one from the other: and they are one, being two. And it was in
this way that the Father and the Son also were said to be one and in one
another.[256]
Each of the titles employed by me is indivisible and inseparable from its
neighbour. I spoke of the Father, and before introducing the Son I
implied Him, too, in the Father. I introduced the Son: even if I had not
already mentioned the Father He would, of course, have been presupposed
in the Son. I added the Holy Spirit: but at the same time I intimated
both from Whom and through Whom[257] He came. But they are not aware that
the Father is not separated from the Son _qua_ Father--for the title
(Father) is suggestive of such connexion (as Son with Father)--nor is the
Son cut off from the Father; for the appellation "Father" denotes their
common bond. And the Spirit is the object of their dealings,[258] being
incapable of desertion by either Him that sends, or Him that conveys. How
then can I, who use these titles, hold that They are wholly divided and
separated?[259]
(4) (_Ibid._, 23). For, as our mind overflows with speech[260] of itself,
as says the prophet: "My heart overfloweth with good speech,"[261] and
each is diverse from the other, each occupying its proper place distinct
from the other, the one dwelling and moving in the heart and the other on
the tongue and in the mouth, and yet they are not entirely unconnected
nor deprived of one another; the mind is not speechless, nor the speech
mindless, but the mind produces the speech, revealing itself thereby; and
the speech shows the mind, having been gendered therein; the mind is, as
it were, the inlying speech and the speech is the issuing mind; the mind
is transferred into the speech and the speech displays[262] the mind to
the hearers; and thus the mind through the speech gains a lodgment in the
souls of those that hear, entering together with the speech, and the mind
is, as it were, the father of the speech, having an independent existence
withal; and the speech is, as it were, the son of the mind, being an
impossibility prior to the mind, yet brought into association with it
from any outside source, but springing from the mind; even so the Father,
who is the Almighty and Universal Mind, has the Son, the Word as the
Interpreter and Messenger of Himself.
Additional Note to p. 12.
Jerome (in his letter _ad Evangelum_) is responsible for the assertion
that Dionysius was the last who, in accordance with the original custom
of the Church of Alexandria, was nominated as Bishop by his
fellow-presbyters there. Subsequently the Bishop was chosen (at least in
theory) by the whole body of the faithful in the diocese, as in other
parts of Christendom. Jerome's words do not seem to include consecration
also by a fresh laying of hands by the presbytery, though Bishop
Lightfoot (_Philippians_, p. 231) inferred from certain other evidence of
a not very decisive kind that this was the case and that it was rendered
necessary at first by the Bishop of Alexandria having had no other
Bishops with him in Egypt until 190. Others hold that no fresh laying on
of hands at all had been considered necessary, which is hardly probable.
Mr. C. H. Turner (_Cambridge Medieval History_, vol. i.) has suggested
that Jerome was misled by Arians who had their own interests to serve in
making the assertion, while he himself was too ready to credit it in his
zeal to uphold the presbyterate against the arrogant claims of the Roman
deacons at that time. The present writer ventures to think that Jerome's
statement, if correct, refers only to nomination and that an episcopal
consecrator had been found elsewhere (_e. g._ in Africa or Palestine or
Syria) for the laying on of hands as usual.