[1] For its text see _The Key of Truth_, translated by F.C.
Conybeare, Oxford, and the article ARMENIAN CHURCH.
[2] These are Matt. iii. 1-11, xi. 2-15, xxi. 1-9; Mark i. 1-8; Luke
iii. 1-18. The Pauline lections regard the Epiphany of the Second
Advent, of the prophetic or Messianic kingdom.
[3] Translated in _Rituale Armenorum_ (Oxford, 1905).
[4] Epist. ad Himerium, c. 2.
[5] Hom. I. in Pentec. _op._ tom. ii. 458; "With us the Epiphanies is
the first festival. What is this festival's significance? This, that
God was seen upon earth and consorted with men." For this idea there
had soon to be substituted that of the manifestation of Christ to the
Gentiles.
[6] See the Paris edition of Augustine (1838), tom. v., Appendix,
_Sermons_ cxvi., cxxv., cxxxv., cxxxvi., cxxxvii.; cf. tom. vi.
_dial. quaestionum_, xlvi.; Maximus of Turin, Homily xxx.
[7] Perhaps Epiphanius is here, after his wont, transcribing an
earlier source.
[8] The same idea is frequent in Epiphany homilies of Chrysostom and
other 4th-century fathers.
EPIRUS, or EPEIRUS, an ancient district of Northern Greece extending
along the Ionian Sea from the Acroceraunian promontory on the N. to the
Ambracian gulf on the S. It was conterminous on the landward side with
Illyria, Macedonia and Thessaly, and thus corresponds to the southern
portion of Albania (q.v.). The name Epirus ([Greek: Epeiros]) signified
"mainland," and was originally applied to the whole coast southward to
the Corinthian Gulf, in contradistinction to the neighbouring islands,
Corcyra, Leucas, &c. The country is all mountainous, especially towards
the east, where the great rivers of north-western Greece--Achelous,
Arachthus and Aous--rise in Mt Lacmon, the back-bone of the Pindus
chain. In ancient times Epirus did not produce corn sufficient for the
wants of its inhabitants; but it was celebrated, as it has been almost
to the present day, for its cattle and its horses. According to
Theopompus (4th cent. B.C.), the Epirots were divided into fourteen
independent tribes, of which the principal were the Chaones, the
Thesproti and the Molossi. The Chaones (perhaps akin to the Chones who
dwelt in the heel of Italy) inhabited the Acroceraunian shore, the
Molossians the inland districts round the lake of Pambotis (mod.
Jannina), and the Thesprotians the region to the north of the Ambracian
gulf. In spite of its distance from the chief centres of Greek thought
and action, and the barbarian repute of its inhabitants, Epirus was
believed to have exerted at an early period no small influence on
Greece, by means more especially of the oracle of Dodona. Aristotle even
placed in Epirus the original home of the Hellenes. But in historic
times its part in Greek history is mainly passive. The states of Greece
proper founded a number of colonies on its coast, which formed
stepping-stones towards the Adriatic and the West. Of these one of the
earliest and most flourishing was the Corinthian colony of Ambracia,
which gives its name to the neighbouring gulf. Elatria, Bucheta and
Pandosia, in Thesprotia, originated from Elis. Among the other towns in
the country the following were of some importance. In Chaonia: Palaeste
and Chimaera, fortified posts to which the dwellers in the open country
could retire in time of war; Onchesmus or Anchiasmus, opposite Corcyra
(Corfu), now represented by Santi Quarante; Phoenice, still so called,
the wealthiest of all the native cities of Epirus, and after the fall of
the Molossian kingdom the centre of an Epirotic League; Buthrotum, the
modern Butrinto; Phanote, important in the Roman campaigns in Epirus;
and Adrianopolis, founded by the emperor whose name it bore. In
Thesprotia: Cassope, the chief town of the most powerful of the
Thesprotian clans; and Ephyra, afterwards Cichyrus, identified by W.M.
Leake with the monastery of St John 3 or 4 m. from Phanari, and by C.
Bursian with Kastri at the northern end of the Acherusian Lake. In
Molossia: Passaron, where the kings were wont to take the oath of the
constitution and receive their people's allegiance; and Tecmon, Phylace
and Horreum, all of doubtful identification. The Byzantine town of Rogus
is probably the same as the modern Luro, the Greek Oropus.
_History._--The kings, or rather chieftains, of the Molossians, who
ultimately extended their power over all Epirus, claimed to be descended
from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who, according to legend, settled in the
country after the sack of Troy, and transmitted his kingdom to Molossus,
his son by Andromache. The early history of the dynasty is very obscure;
but Admetus, who lived in the 5th century B.C., is remembered for his
hospitable reception of the banished Themistocles, in spite of the fact
that the great Athenian had persuaded his countrymen to refuse the
alliance tardily offered by the Molossians when victory against the
Persians was already secured. Admetus was succeeded, about 429 B.C., by
his son or grandson, Tharymbas or Arymbas I., who being placed by a
decree of the people under the guardianship of Sabylinthus, chief of the
Atintanes, was educated at Athens, and at a later date introduced a
higher civilization among his subjects. Alcetas, the next king mentioned
in history, was restored to his throne by Dionysius of Syracuse about
385 B.C. His son Arymbas II. (who succeeded by the death of his brother
Neoptolemus) ruled with prudence and equity, and gave encouragement to
literature and the arts. To him Xenocrates of Chalcedon dedicated his
four books on the art of governing; and it is specially mentioned that
he bestowed great care on the education of his brother's children. One
of them, Troas, he married; Olympias, the other niece, was married to
Philip II. of Macedon and became the mother of Alexander the Great. On
the death of Arymbas, Alexander the brother of Olympias, was put on the
throne by Philip and married his daughter Cleopatra. Alexander assumed
the new title of king of Epirus, and raised the reputation of his
country abroad. Asked by the Tarentines for aid against the Samnites and
Lucanians, he made a descent at Paestum in 332 B.C., and reduced several
cities of the Lucani and Bruttii; but in a second attack he was
surrounded, defeated and slain near Pandosia in Bruttium.
Aeacides, the son of Arymbas II., succeeded Alexander. He espoused the
cause of Olympias against Cassander, but was dethroned by his own
soldiers, and had hardly regained his position when he fell in battle
(313 B.C.) against Philip, brother of Cassander. He had, by his wife
Phthia, a son, the celebrated Pyrrhus, and two daughters, Deidamia and
Troas, of whom the former married Demetrius Poliorcetes. His brother
Alcetas, who succeeded him, continued unsuccessfully the war with
Cassander; he was put to death by his rebellious subjects in 295 B.C.,
and was succeeded by Pyrrhus (q.v.), who for six years fought against
the Romans in south Italy and Sicily, and gave to Epirus a momentary
importance which it never again possessed.
Alexander, his son, who succeeded in 272 B.C., attempted to seize
Macedonia, and defeated Antigonus Gonatas, but was himself shortly
afterwards driven from his kingdom by Demetrius. He recovered it,
however, and spent the rest of his days in peace. Two other
insignificant reigns brought the family of Pyrrhus to its close, and
Epirus was thenceforward governed by a magistrate, elected annually in a
general assembly of the nation held at Passaron. Having imprudently
espoused the cause of Perseus (q.v.) in his ill-fated war against the
Romans, 168 B.C., it was exposed to the fury of the conquerors, who
destroyed, it is said, seventy towns, and carried into slavery 150,000
of the inhabitants. From this blow it never recovered. At the
dissolution of the Achaean League (q.v.), 146 B.C., it became part of
the province of Macedonia, receiving the name Epirus Vetus, to
distinguish it from Epirus Nova, which lay to the east.
On the division of the empire it fell to the East, and so remained
until the taking of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204, when Michel
Angelus Comnenus seized Aetolia and Epirus. On the death of Michel in
1216, these countries fell into the hands of his brother Theodore.
Thomas, the last of the direct line, was murdered in 1318 by his nephew
Thomas, lord of Zante and Cephalonia, and his dominions were
dismembered. Not long after, Epirus was overrun by the Samians and
Albanians, and the confusion which had been growing since the division
of the empire was worse confounded still. Charles II. Tocco, lord of
Cephalonia and Zante, obtained the recognition of his title of Despot of
Epirus from the emperor Manuel Comnenus in the beginning of the 15th
century; but his family was deprived of their possession in 1431 by
Murad (Amurath) II. In 1443, Scanderbeg, king of Albania, made himself
master of a considerable part of Epirus; but on his death it fell into
the power of the Venetians. From these it passed again to the Turks,
under whose dominion it still remains. For modern history see ALBANIA.
AUTHORITIES.--Nauze, "Rech. hist. sur les peuples qui s'etablirent en
Epire," in _Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscr._ (1729); Pouqueville, _Voyage
en Moree, &c, en Albanie_ (Paris, 1805); Hobhouse, _A Journey through
Albania, &c._ (2 vols., London, 1813); Wolfe, "Observations on the
Gulf of Arta" in _Journ. Royal Geog. Soc._, 1834; W.M. Leake, Travels
in Northern Greece (London, 1835): Merleker, Darstellung des _Landes
und der Bewohner von Epeiros_ (Konigsberg, 1841); J.H. Skene,
"Remarkable Localities on the Coast of Epirus," in _Journ. 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); Schafli, "Versuch einer
Klimatologie des Thales von Jannina," _Neue Denkschr. d. allgem.
schweizer. Ges. f. Naturw._ xix. (Zurich, 1862); Major R. Stuart, "On
Phys. Geogr. and Natural Resources of Epirus," in _Journ. R.G.S._,
1869; Guido Cora, in _Cosmos_; Dumont, "Souvenirs de l'Adriatique, de
l'Epire, &c." in _Rev. 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 (see CHURCH HISTORY and BISHOP). 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
(see APOSTLE, 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.[1] A valid episcopate, then, is one derived in an unbroken
series of "layings on of hands" by bishops from the time of the apostles
(see ORDER, 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 (see GALLICANISM and
FEBRONIANISM) as against the claims of 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 (see ULTRAMONTANISM). At the Vatican Council of
1870 episcopacy made its last stand against papalism, and was vanquished
(see VATICAN 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, whose
_potestas ordinis_ not 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 (see ENGLAND, CHURCH OF, and
ANGLICAN 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.[2] The "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.[3] It 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
their _potestas ordinis_ in 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 royal _Conge d'elire_ (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;[4] and 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 (see ANGLICAN COMMUNION). The
consciousness of being in the line of apostolic succession helped the
English clergy to revert to the principle _Ecclesia 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
(see LAMBETH 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.[5] The 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
(see SUPERINTENDENT). 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 (see METHODISM). 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 Anglican Church 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 special _potestas ordinis_ in 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 (see ORTHODOX 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 (see JANSENISM and UTRECHT), 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.)