LITERATURE.--In addition to the authorities mentioned above, see

Dillmann, Herzog's _Real-Encyk._[2] xii. 353 sqq.; Schurer, _Gesch.

des jud. Volkes_[3], iii. 246 sqq.; and the articles on 4 Esdras in

Hastings' _Bible Dictionary_ and the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ by

Thackeray and James respectively. (R. H. C.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] In the Apocalypse of Baruch, x. 6, we find a similar expression:

"Blessed is he who was not born, or being born has died." But here

death is said to be preferable to witnessing the present woes of

Jerusalem.

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH, BOOKS OF, in the Old Testament. The two canonical

books entitled Ezra and Nehemiah in the English Bibie[1] correspond to

the 1 and 2 Esdras of the Vulgate, to the 2 Esdras of the Septuagint,

and to the Ezra and Nehemiah of the Massoretic (Hebrew) text. Though for

many centuries they have thus been treated as separate compositions, we

have abundant evidence that they were anciently regarded as forming but

one book, and a careful examination proves that together with the book

of Chronicles they constitute one single work. The two books may

therefore be conveniently treated together.

1. _Position and Date._--Origen (Euseb, _H.E._ vi. 25), expressly

enumerating the twenty-two books of the old covenant as acknowledged by

the Jews and accepted by the Christian church, names "the First and

Second Ezra in one book"; Melito of Sardis (Euseb. _H.E._ iv. 26) in

like manner mentions the book of Ezra only. So also the Talmud (in _Baba

bathra_, 14. 2), nor can it be supposed that Josephus in his enumeration

(c. _Ap._ i. 8) reckoned Nehemiah as apart from Ezra. That the Jews

themselves recognized no real separation is shown by the fact that no

Massoretic notes are found after Ezra x., but at the end of Nehemiah the

contents of both are reckoned together, and it is stated that Neh. iii.

22 is the middle verse of the book. Their position in the Hebrew Bible

_before_ the book of Chronicles is, however, illogical. The introductory

verses of Ezra i. are identical with the conclusion of 2 Chron. xxxvi.,

whilst in the version of 1 Esdras no less than two chapters (2 Chron.

xxxv. sq.) overlap. The cause of the separation is probably to be found

in the late reception of Chronicles into the Jewish canon. Further proof

of the unity of the three is to be found in the general similarity of

style and treatment. The same linguistic criteria recur, and the

interest in lists and genealogies, in priests and Levites, and in the

temple service point unmistakably to the presence of the same hand (the

so-called "chronicler") in Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah. See BIBLE (sect.

Canon); CHRONICLES.

The period of history covered by the books of Ezra and Nehemiah extends

from the return of the exiles under Zerubbabel in 537-536 B.C. to

Nehemiah's second visit to Jerusalem in 432 B.C. In their present form,

however, the books are considerably later, and allusions to Nehemiah in

the past (Neh. xii. 26, 47), to the days of Jaddua (the grandson of

Nehemiah's contemporary Joiada; ib. xii. 11), to Darius (Nothus 423 B.C.

or rather Codomannus 336 B.C., ib. v. 22), and the use of the term "king

of Persia," as a distinctive title after the fall of that empire (332

B.C.), are enough to show that, as a whole, they belong to the same age

as the book of Chronicles.

2. _Contents._--Their contents may be divided into four parts:--

(a) The events preceding the mission of Ezra (i.-vi.).--In the first

year of his reign Cyrus was inspired to grant a decree permitting the

Jews to return to build the temple in Jerusalem (i.); a list of families

is given (ii.). The altar of burnt-offering was set up, and in the

second year of the return the foundations of the new temple were laid

with great solemnity (iii.). The "adversaries of Judah and Benjamin"

offered to assist but were repulsed, and they raised such opposition to

the progress of the work that it ceased until the second year of Darius

(521-520 B.C.). Aroused by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah the

building was then resumed, and despite fresh attempts to hinder the work

it was completed, consecrated and dedicated in the sixth year of that

king (vi.). The event was solemnized by the celebration of the Passover

(cf. 2 Chron. xxx., Hezekiah; xxxv. Josiah).

(b) An interval of fifty-eight years is passed over in silence, and the

rest of the book of Ezra comprises his account of his mission to

Jerusalem (vii.-x.). Ezra, a scribe of repute, well versed in the laws

of Moses, returns with a band of exiles in order to reorganize the

religious community. A few months after his arrival (seventh year of

Artaxerxes, 458 B.C.) he instituted a great religious reform, viz. the

prohibition of intermarriage with the heathen of the land (cf. already

vi. 21). In spite of some opposition (x. 15 obscurely worded) the reform

was accepted, and the foundations of a new community were laid.

(c) Twelve years elapse before the return of Nehemiah, whose description

of his work is one of the most interesting pieces of Old Testament

narrative (Neh. i.-vi.). In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (445 B.C.),

Nehemiah the royal cup-bearer at Shushan (Susa, the royal winter palace)

was visited by friends from Judah and was overcome with grief at the

tidings of the miserable condition of Jerusalem and the pitiful state of

the Judaean remnant which had escaped the captivity. He obtained

permission to return, and on reaching the city made a secret survey of

the ruins and called upon the nobles and rulers to assist in repairing

them. Much opposition was caused by Sanballat the Horonite (i.e. of the

Moabite Horonaim or Beth-horon, about 15 m. N.W. of Jerusalem), Tobiah

the Ammonite, Geshem (or Gashmu) the Arabian, and the Ashdodites, whose

virulence increased as the rebuilding of the walls continued. But

notwithstanding attempts upon the city and upon the life of Nehemiah,

and in spite of intrigues among certain members of the Judaean section,

in fifty-two days the city walls were complete (Neh. vi. 15). The

hostility, however, did not cease, and measures were taken to ensure the

safety of the city (vi. 16-vii. 4). A valuable account is given of

Nehemiah's economical reforms, illustrating the internal social

conditions of the period and the general character of the former

governors who had been placed in charge (v., cf. the laws codified in

Lev. xxv. 35 sqq.).

(d) The remaining chapters carry on the story of the labours of _both_

Ezra, and Nehemiah. The list of those who returned under the decree of

Cyrus is repeated (Neh. vii.), and leads up to the reading of the Law by

Ezra, a great national confession of guilt, and a solemn undertaking to

observe the new covenant, the provisions of which are detailed (x.

28-39). After sundry lists of the families dwelling in Jerusalem and its

neighbourhood (xi. 1 sqq., apparently a sequel to vii. 1-4),[2] and of

various priests and Levites, an account is given of the dedication of

the walls (xii. 27-43), the arrangements for the Levitical organization

(vv. 44-47), and a fresh separation from the heathen (Moabites and

Ammonites, xiii. 1-3; cf. Deut. xxiii. 3 seq.). The book concludes with

another extract from Nehemiah's memoirs dealing with the events of a

second visit, twelve years later (xiii. 4-31). On this occasion he

vindicated the sanctity of the temple by expelling Tobiah, reorganized

the supplies for the Levites, took measures to uphold the observance of

the Sabbath, and protested energetically against the foreign marriages.

In the course of his reforms he thrust out a son of Joiada (son of

Eliashib, the high-priest), who had married the daughter of Sanballat,

an incident which had an important result (see SAMARITANS).

That these books are the result of compilation (like the book of

Chronicles itself) is evident from the many abrupt changes; the

inclusion of certain documents written in an Aramaic dialect (Ezr. iv.

8-vi. 18, vii. 12-26)[3]; the character of the name-lists; the lengthy

gaps in the history; the use made of two distinct sources, attributed to

Ezra and Nehemiah respectively, and from the varying form in which the

narratives are cast. The chronicler's hand can usually be readily

recognized. There are relatively few traces of it in Nehemiah's memoirs

and in the Aramaic documents, but elsewhere the sources are largely

coloured, if not written from the standpoint of his age. Examples of

artificial arrangement appear notably in Ezr. ii.-iii. 1 compared with

Neh. vii. 6-viii. 1 (first clause); in the present position of Ezr. iv.

6-23; and in the dislocation of certain portions of the two memoirs in

Neh. viii.-xiii. (see below). It should be noticed that the present

order of the narratives involves the theory that some catastrophe ensued

after Ezr. x. and before Neh. i.; that the walls had been destroyed and

the gates burnt down; that some external opposition (with which,

however, Ezra did not have to contend) had been successful; that the

main object of Ezra's mission was delayed for twelve years, and,

finally, that only through Nehemiah's energy was the work of social and

religious reorganization successful. These topics raise serious

historical problems (see JEWS: _History_, S 21).

3. _Criticism of Ezra i.-vi._--The chronicler's account of the

destruction of Jerusalem, the seventy years' interval (2 Chron. xxxvi.

20 sq.; cf. Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10, also Is. xxiii. 17), and the return

of 42,360 of the exiles (Ezr. ii. 64 sqq.) represent a special view of

the history of the period. The totals, as also the detailed figures, in

Ezr., Neh. and 1 Esdr. v. vary considerably; the number is extremely

large (contrast Jer. lii. 30); it includes the common people (contrast 2

Kings xxiv. 14, xxv. 12), and ignores the fact that Judah was not

depopulated, that the Jews were carried off to other places besides

Babylon and that many remained behind in Babylon. According to this

view, Judah and Jerusalem were practically deserted until the return.

The list in Ezr. ii. is that of families which returned "every man unto

his city" under twelve leaders (including Nehemiah, Azariah [cf. Ezra],

Zcrubbabel and Jeshua); it recurs with many variations in a different

and apparently more original context in Neh. vii., and in 1 Esdr. v. is

ascribed to the time of Darius. The families (to judge from the

northwards extension of Judaean territory) are probably those of the

population in the later Persian period, hardly those who returned to the

precise homes of their ancestors (see C.F. Kent, Israel's _Hist. and

Biogr. Narratives_, p. 379). The offerings which are for the

temple-service in Neh. vii. 70-72 (cf. 1 Chron. xxix. 6-8) are for the

building of the temple in Ezr. ii. 68-70; and since the walls are not

yet built, the topographical details in Neh. viii. 1 (see 1 Esdr. v. 47)

are adjusted, and the event of the seventh month is not the reading of

the Law amid the laments of the people (Neh. viii.; see _vv._ 9-11) but

the erection of the altar by Jeshua and Zerubbabel under inauspicious

circumstances (cf. Ezr. iii. 3 with 1 Esdr. v. 50).

The chronologically misplaced account of the successful opposition in

the time of Ahasuerus (i.e. Xerxes) and Artaxerxes (the son and grandson

of Darius respectively) breaks the account of the _temple_ under Cyrus

and Darius, and is concerned with the city walls (iv. 6-23)[4]; there is

some obscurity in _vv._ 7-9: Rehum and Shimshai evidently take the lead,

Tabeel may be an Aramaized equivalent of Tobiah. A recent return is

implied (iv. 12) and the record hints that a new decree may be made (v.

21). The account of the unsuccessful opposition to the _temple_ in the

time of Darius (v. sq.; for another account see Jos. _Ant._ xi. 4, 9) is

independent of iv. 7-23, and throws another light upon the decree of

Cyrus (vi. 3-5, contrast i. 2-4). It implies that Sheshbazzar, who had

been sent with the temple vessels in the time of Cyrus, had laid the

foundations and that the work had continued without cessation (v. 16,

contrast iv. 5, 24). The beginning of the reply of Darius is wanting

(vi. 6 sqq.), and the decree which had been sought in Babylon is found

at Ecbatana. Chap. vi. 15 sqq. follow more naturally upon v. 1-2, but

v. 14 with its difficult reference to Artaxerxes now seems to presuppose

the decree in iv. 21 and looks forward to the time of Ezra or Nehemiah.

As regards this section (Ezr. i.-vi.) as a whole, there is little doubt

that i. iii. 1-iv. 5, vi. 15-22 are from the chronicler, whose free

treatment of his material is seen in the use he has made of ch. ii.

Notwithstanding the unimpeachable evidence for the tolerant attitude of

Persian kings and governors towards the religion of subject races, it is

probable that the various decrees incorporated in the book (cf. also 1

Esdr. iv. 42 sqq.) have been reshaped from a Jewish standpoint. A

noteworthy example appears in the account of the unique powers entrusted

to Ezra (vii. 11-26), the introduction to whose memoirs, at all events,

is quite in the style of the chronicler.

4. _Memoirs of Nehemiah and Ezra._--The memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah do

not appear to have been incorporated without some adjustment. The lapse

of time between Neh. i. 1 and ii. 1 is noteworthy, and with the prayer

in i. 5-11 cf. Ezr. ix. 6-15, Dan. ix. 4 sqq. (also parallels in

Deuteronomy); chap. i. in its present form may be a compiler's

introduction. The important topographical list in ch. iii. is probably

from another source; the styie is different, Nehemiah is absent, and the

high-priest is unusually prominent.[5] Chap, v., where Nehemiah reviews

his _past_ conduct as governor, turns aside to economic reforms and

scarcely falls within the fifty-two days of the building of the walls.

The chapter is closely associated with the contents of xiii. and breaks

the account of the opposition. Anticipated already in ii. 10, the

hostility partly arises from the repudiation of Samaritan religious

claims (ii. 20; cf. Ezr. iv. 3) and is partly political. It is difficult

to follow its progress clearly, and the account ceases abruptly in. vi.

17-19 with the notice of the conspiracy of Tobiah and the nobles of

Judah. The chronicler's style can be recognized in vii. 1-5 (in its

present form), where steps are taken to protect and to people Jerusalem;

the older sequel is now found in ch. xi. Whilst the account of the

dedication of the walls is marked by the use of the pronoun "I" (xii.

31, 38, 40), it is probably now due as a whole to the chronicler, and

when the more trustworthy memoirs of Nehemiah are resumed (xiii. 4 sqq.)

the episodes, although placed twelve years later (ver. 6), are

intimately connected with the preceding reforms (cf. xii. 44-xiii. 3

with xiii. 10 sqq., 23 sqq.).[6] Nehemiah's attitude towards

intermarriage is markedly moderate in contrast to the drastic measures

of Ezra, whose mission and work the simpler and perhaps earlier

narratives of Nehemiah originally ignored, and the relation between the

two is complicated further by the literary character of the memoir of

Ezra.

To the last mentioned are prefixed (a) the scribe's genealogy, which

traces him back to Aaron and names as his immediate ancestor, Seraiah,

who had been slain 130 years previously (Ezr. vii. 1-5), and (b) an

independent account of the return (_vv._ 6-10) with a reference to

Ezra's renown, obviously not from the hand of Ezra himself. Whatever the

original prelude to Ezra's thanksgiving may have been (vii. 27 seq.), we

now have the essentially Jewish account of the letter of Artaxerxes with

its unusual concessions.[7] The list of those who returned amounts to

the moderate total of 1496 males (viii., but 1690 in 1 Esdr. viii. 30

sqq.). Ezra's mission was obviously concerned with the Law and Temple

service (vii. 6, 10, 14 sqq., 25; viii. 17, 24-30, 33 sq.), but four

months elapse between his return in the fifth month (vii. 9) and the

preparations for the marriage reforms in the ninth (x. 9), and there is

a delay of twelve years before the Law is read (Neh. viii.). The

Septuagint version (1 Esdr. ix.; cf. Josephus, _Antiq._ xi. 5. 5 and

some modern scholars) would place the latter after Ezr. x., but more

probably this event (dated in the seventh month) should precede the

great undertaking in Ezr. ix.[8] That the adjustment was attended with

considerable revision of the passages appears from a careful comparison

of Neh. viii. sq. with Ezr. ix. sq. With Ezra's confession (ix. 6 sqq.)

compare the prayer in Neh. ix. 5 sqq., which the Septuagint ascribes to

him. In Ezr. x. (written in the third person) the number of those that

had intermarried with the heathen is relatively small considering the

general trend of the preliminaries, and the list bears a marked

resemblance to that in ch. ii. It ends abruptly and obscurely (x. 44;

cf. 1 Esdr. ix. 36), and whilst as a whole the memoirs of Ezra point to

ideas later than those of Nehemiah, the present close literary connexion

between them is seen in the isolated reference to Johanan the son of

Eliashib in Ezra x. 6, which seems to be connected with Neh. xiii. 7,

and (after W.R. Smith) in the suitability of _ib._ xiii. 1, 2 between

Ezr. x. 9 and 10. The list of signatories in Neh. x. 1-27 should be

compared with the names in xii. and 1 Chron. xxiv.; the true connexion

of ix. 38 is very obscure, and the relation to Ezr. ix. seq. is

complicated by the reference to the separation from the heathen in Neh.

ix. 2. The description of the covenant (Neh. x. 28 sqq., marked by the

use of "we") is closely connected with xii. 43-xiii. 3 (from the same or

an allied source), and anticipates the parallel though somewhat

preliminary measures detailed in the more genuine memoirs (Neh. xiii. 4

sqq.). Finally, the specific allusion in xiii. 1-3 to Ammon and Moab is

possibly intended as an introduction to the references to Tobiah and

Sanballat respectively (_vv._ 4 seq., 28).

5. _Summary._--The literary and historical criticism of Ezra-Nehemiah is

closely bound up with that of Chronicles, whose characteristic features

it shares. Although the three formed a unit at one stage it may seem

doubtful whether two so closely related chapters as 1 Chron. ix. and

Neh. xi. would have appeared in one single work, while the repetition of

Neh. vii. 6-viii. 1 in Ezr. ii.-iii. 1 is less unnatural if they had

originally appeared in distinct sources. Thus other hands apart from the

compiler of Chronicles may have helped to shape the narratives, either

before their union with that book or after their separation.[9] The

present intricacy is also due partly to specific historical theories

regarding the post-exilic period. Here the recension in 1 Esdras

especially merits attention for its text, literary structure and for its

variant traditions.[10] Its account of a return in the time of Darius

scarcely arose _after_ Ezr. i.-iii. (Cyrus); the reverse seems more

probable, and the possibility of some confusion or of an intentional

adjustment to the earlier date is emphasized by the relation between the

popular feeling in Ezr. iii. 12 (Cyrus) and Hag. ii. 3 (Darius), and

between the grant by Cyrus in iii. 7 (it is not certain that he held

Phoenicia) and the permit of Darius in 1 Esdr. iv. 47-57 (see v. 48). To

the latter context belongs the list of names which reappears in Ezr. ii.

(Cyrus). But from the independent testimony of Haggai and Zechariah it

is doubtful whether the chronicler's account of the return under Cyrus

is at all trustworthy. The list in 1 Esdr. v., Ezr. ii., as already

observed, appears to be in its more original context in Neh. vii., i.e.

in the time of Artaxerxes, and it is questionable whether the earliest

of the surviving detailed traditions in Ezra-Nehemiah went back before

this reign. It is precisely at this age that there is evidence for a

return, apparently other than that of Ezra or Nehemiah (see Ezr. iv.

12), yet no account seems to be preserved unless the records were used

for the history of earlier periods (cf. generally Ezr. iii. 12 sq. with

Neh. viii. 9-11; Ezr. iii. 7 with the special favour enlisted on behalf

of the Jews in vi. 7 sq., 13, vii. 21; Neh. ii. 7 sq.). But the account

of the events in the reign of Artaxerxes is extremely perplexing. Since

the building of the walls of Jerusalem must have begun early in the

fifth month (Neh. vi. 15), an allowance of three days (ii. 11) makes the

date of Nehemiah's arrival practically the anniversary of Ezra's return

(Ezr. vii. 9, viii. 32). Considering the close connexion between the

work of the two men this can hardly be accidental. The compiler,

however, clearly intends Neh. vi. 15 (25th of sixth month) to be the

prelude to the events in Neh. vii. 73, viii. (seventh month), but the

true sequence of Neh. vi. sqq. is uncertain, and the possibility of

artificiality is suggested by the unembellished statement of Josephus

that the building of the walls occupied, not fifty-two days, but two

years four months (_Ant_. xi. 5. 8). The present chronological order of

Nehemiah's work is confused (cf. S4, n. 3), and the obscure interval of

twelve years in his work corresponds very closely to that which now

separates the records of Ezra's labours. However, both the recovery of

the compilers' aims and attempted reconstructions are precluded from

finality by the scantiness of independent historical evidence. (See

further JEWS: _History_, S21 seq.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--S.R. Driver, _Lit. of the O.T._ (1909), pp. 540 sqq.

and the commentaries of H.E. Ryle (_Camb. Bible_, 1893), C. Siegfried

(1901), A. Bertholet (1902), and T.W. Davies (_Cent. Bible_, 1909).

Impetus to recent criticism of these books starts with Van Hoonacker

(_Neh. et Esd_. [1890]; see also _Expos. Times_ [1897], pp. 351-354,

and M.-J. Lagrange, _Rev. biblique_, iii. 561-585 [1894], iv. 186-202

[1895]) and W.H. Kosters (Germ. ed., _Wiederherstellung Israels_,

1895). The latter's important conclusions (for which see his article

with Cheyne's additions in _Ency. Bib_. col. 1473 sqq., 3380 sqq.)

have been adversely criticized, especially by J. Wellhausen

(_Nachrichten_ of the Univ. of Gottingen, 1895, pp. 166-186), E. Meyer

(_Entstehung d. Judentums_, 1896), J. Nikel (_Wiederherstellung d.

jud. Gemein._, 1900), and S. Jampel in _Monatsschrift f. Gesch. u.

Wissens. d. Judentums_, vols. xlvi.-xlvii. (1902-1903). The negative

criticisms of Kosters have, however, been strengthened by his replies

(in the Dutch _Theolog. Tijdschrift_), and by the discussions of C.C.

Torrey and C.F. Kent (op. cit) and of G. Jahn (_Esra u. Neh._ pp.

i-lxxviii; 1909), and his general position appears to do more justice

to the biblical evidence as a whole. (S. A. C.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] References to 1 Esdras in this article are to the book discussed

above as EZRA, THIRD BOOK OF.

[2] With Neh. xi. 4-19 cf. 1 Chron. ix. 3-17; with the list xii. 1-7

cf. _vv._ 12-21 and x. 3-9; and with xii. 10 sq. cf. 1 Chron. vi.

3-13 (to which it forms the sequel). See further Smend, _Listen d.

Esra u. Neh._ (1881).

[3] Sometimes wrongly styled Chaldee (q.v.); see SEMITIC LANGUAGES.

[4] Its real position in the history of this period is not certain.

Against the supposition that the names refer to Cambyses and

Pseudo-Smerdis who reigned after Cyrus and before Darius, see H.E.

Ryle, _Camb. Bible_, "Ezra and Neh.," p. 65 sq. Against the view that

Darius is D. ii. Nothus of 423-404 B.C., see G.A. Smith, _Minor

Prophets_, ii. 191 sqq. The ignorance of the compiler regarding the

sequence of the kings finds a parallel in that of the author of the

book of Daniel (q.v.); see C.C. Torrey, _Amer. Journ. of Sem. Lang._

(1907), p. 178, n. 1.

[5] See further H.G. Mitchell, _Journ. of Bibl. Lit._ (1903), pp. 88

sqq.

[6] The chronological difficulties will be seen from xiii. 6 ("before

this"), which would imply that the dedication of the walls was on the

occasion of Nehemiah's later visit (see G.A. Smith, _Expositor_, July

1906, p. 12). His previous departure is perhaps foreshadowed in vii.

2.

[7] See _Ency. Bib._ col. 1480. Papyri from a Jewish colony in

Elephantine (407 B.C.) clearly show the form which royal permits

could take, and what the Jews were prepared to give in return; the

points of resemblance are extremely interesting, but compared with

the biblical documents the papyri reveal some striking differences.

[8] C.C. Torrey, _Comp. and Hist. Value of Ezra-Neh._ (Beihefte of

_Zeit. f. alttest. Wissens._, 1896), pp. 30-34; C.F. Kent, _Israel's

Hist. and Biog. Narratives_, pp. 32, 369. Since Neh. vii. 70-73 is

closely joined to viii., the suggested transposition would place its

account of the contributions to the temple in a more appropriate

context (cf. Ezr. viii. 24-30, 33 sq.).

[9] For linguistic evidence reference should be made to J. Geissler,

_Die litterarischen Beziehungen d. Esramemoiren_ (Chemnitz, 1899).

[10] See especially Sir Henry Howorth, _Proc. of Society of Bibl.

Arch._ (1901-1904), _passim_; C.C. Torrey, _Ezra Studies_ (Chicago,

1910). For the text, see A. Klostermann, _Real-Ency. f. prot. Theol._

v. 501 sqq.; H. Guthe in Haupt's _Sacred Books of Old Testament_

(1899); and S.A. Cook in R.H. Charles, _Apocrypha and

Pseudepigrapha_.

EZZO, or EHRENFRIED (c. 954-1024), count palatine in Lorraine, was the

son of a certain Hermann (d. c. 1000), also a count palatine in Lorraine

who had possessions in the neighbourhood of Bonn. Having married Matilda

(d. 1025), a daughter of the emperor Otto II., Ezzo came to the front

during the reign of his brother-in-law, the emperor Otto III.

(983-1002); his power was increased owing to the liberal grant of lands

in Thuringia and Franconia which he received with his wife, and some

time later his position as count palatine was recognized as an

hereditary dignity. Otto's successor, the emperor Henry II., was less

friendly towards the powerful count palatine, though there was no

serious trouble between them until 1011; but some disturbances in

Lorraine quickly compelled the emperor to come to terms, and the

assistance of Ezzo was purchased by a gift of lands. Henceforward the

relations between Henry and his vassal appear to have been satisfactory.

Very little is known about Ezzo's later life, but we are told that he

died at a great age at Saalfeld on the 21st of March 1024. He left three

sons, among them being Hermann, who was archbishop of Cologne from 1036

to 1056, and Otto, who was for a short time duke of Swabia; and seven

daughters, six of whom became abbesses. Ezzo founded a monastery at

Brauweiler near Cologne, the place where his marriage had been

celebrated. This was dedicated in 1028 by Piligrim, archbishop of

Cologne, and here both Ezzo and his wife were buried.

EZZOLIED, or ANEGENGE, an old German poem, written by Ezzo, a scholar of

Bamberg. It was written about 1060, but not, as one authority asserts,

composed while the author was making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The

subject of the poem is the life of Christ. Very popular during the later

middle ages, the _Ezzolied_ had a great influence on the poetry of south

Germany, and is valuable as a monument of the poetical literature of the

time.

The text is printed in the _Denkmaler deutscher Poesie und Prosa aus

dem 8-12. Jahrhundert_ (Berlin, 1892) of C.V. Mullenhoff and W.

Scherer.

F This is the sixth letter of the English alphabet as it was of the

Latin. In the ordinary Greek alphabet the symbol has disappeared,

although it survived far into historical times in many Greek dialects as

F, the digamma, the use of which in early times was inductively proved

by Bentley, when comparatively little was known of the local alphabets

and dialects of Greece. The so-called _stigma_ [symbol], which serves

for the numeral 6, is all that remains to represent it. This symbol

derives its name from its resemblance in medieval MSS. to the

abbreviation for [Greek: st]. The symbol occupying the same position in

the Phoenician alphabet was Vau ([symbol] [symbol]), which seems to be

represented by the Greek [Upsilon], the Latin V, at the end of the early

alphabet. Many authorities therefore contend that F is only a

modification of the preceding symbol E and has nothing to do with the

symbol Vau. In some early Latin inscriptions F is represented by

[symbol], as E is by [symbol]. It must be admitted that the resemblance

between the sixth symbol of the Phoenician alphabet and the

corresponding symbol of the European alphabet is not striking. But the

position of the limbs of symbols in early alphabets often varies

surprisingly. In Greek, besides F we find for _f_ in Pamphylia (the only

Greek district in Asia which possesses the symbol) [symbol], and in

Boeotia, Thessaly, Tarentum, Cumae and on Chalcidian vases of Italy the

form [symbol], though except at Cumae and on the vases the form F exists

contemporaneously with [symbol] or even earlier. At the little town of

Falerii (Civita Castellana), whose alphabet is undoubtedly of the same

origin as the Latin, F takes the form [symbol]. Though uncertain,

therefore, it seems not impossible that the original symbol of the

Phoenician alphabet, which was a consonant like the English _w_, may

have been differentiated in Greek into two symbols, one indicating the

consonant value _w_ and retaining the position of the Phoenician

consonant Vau, the other having the vowel value _u_, which ultimately

most dialects changed to a modified sound like French _u_ or German _u_.

Be this as it may, the value of the symbol F in Greek was _w_, a

bilabial voiced sound, not the labio-dental unvoiced sound which we call

_f_. When the Romans adopted the Greek alphabet they took over the

symbols with their Greek values. But Greek had no sound corresponding to

the Latin _f_, for [phi] was pronounced _p-h_, like the final sound of

_lip_ in ordinary English or the initial sound of _pig_ in Irish

English. Consequently in the very old inscription on a gold fibula found

at Praeneste and published in 1887 (see ALPHABET) the Latin _f_ is

represented by FB. Later, as Latin did not use F for the consonant

written as _v_ in _vis_, &c., H was dropped and F received a new special

value in Latin as representative of the unvoiced labio-dental spirant.

In the Oscan and Umbrian dialects, whose alphabet was borrowed from

Etruscan, a special form appears for _f_, viz. 8, the old form [symbol]

being kept for the other consonant _v_ (i.e. English _w_). The 8 has

generally been asserted to be developed out of the second element in the

combination FB, its upper and lower halves being first converted into

lozenges, [symbol], which naturally changed to 8 when inscribed without

lifting the writing or incising implement. Recent discoveries, however,

make this doubtful (see ALPHABET). (P. Gi.)

FABBRONI, ANGELO (1732-1803), Italian biographer, was born at Marradi in

Tuscany on the 25th of September 1732. After studying at Faenza he

entered the Roman college founded for the education of young Tuscans. On

the conclusion of his studies he continued his stay in Rome, and having

been introduced to the celebrated Jansenist Bottari, received from him

the canonry of Santa Teresa in Trastevere. Some time after this he was

chosen to preach a discourse in the pontifical chapel before Benedict

XIV. and made such a favourable impression that the pontiff settled on

him an annuity, with the possession of which Fabbroni was able to devote

his whole time to study. He was intimate with Leopold I., grand-duke of

Tuscany, but the Jesuits disliked him on account of his Jansenist views.

Besides his other literary labours he began at Pisa in 1771 a literary

journal, which he continued till 1796. About 1772 he made a journey to

Paris, where he formed the acquaintance of Condorcet, Diderot,

d'Alembert, Rousseau and most of the other eminent Frenchmen of the day.

He also spent four months in London. He died at Pisa on the 22nd of

September 1803.

The following are his principal works:--_Vitae Italorum doctrina

excellentium qui saeculis XVII. et XVIII. floruerunt_ (20 vols., Pisa,

1778-1799, 1804-1805), the last two vols., published posthumously,

contain a life of the author; _Laurentii Medicei Magnifici Vita_ (2

vols., Pisa, 1784), a work which served as a basis for H. Roscoe's

_Life of Lorenzo dei Medici_; _Leonis X. pontificis maximi Vita_

(Pisa, 1797); and _Elogi di Dante Alighieri, di Angelo Poliziano, di

Lodovico Ariosto, e di Torq. Tasso_ (Parma, 1800).

FABER, the name of a family of German lead-pencil manufacturers. Their

business was founded in 1760 at Stein, near Nuremberg, by Kaspar Faber

(d. 1784). It was then inherited by his son Anton Wilhelm (d. 1819).

Georg Leonhard Faber succeeded in 1810 (d. 1839), and the business

passed to Johann Lothar von Faber (1817-1896), the great-grandson of the

founder. At the time of his assuming control about twenty hands were

employed, under old-fashioned conditions, and owing to the invention of

the French _crayons Contes_ of Nicolas Jacques Conte (q.v.) competition

had reduced the entire Nuremberg industry to a low ebb (see PENCIL).

Johann introduced improvements in machinery and methods, brought his

factory to the highest state of efficiency, and it became a model for

all the other German and Austrian manufacturers. He established branches

in New York, Paris, London and Berlin, and agencies in Vienna, St

Petersburg and Hamburg, and made his greatest _coup_ in 1856, when he

contracted for the exclusive control of the graphite obtained from the

East Siberian mines. Faber had also branched out into the manufacture of

water-colour and oil paints, inks, slates and slate-pencils, and

engineers' and architects' drawing instruments, and built additional

factories to house his various industries at New York and at

Noisy-le-Sec, near Paris, and had his own cedar mills in Florida. For

his services to German industry he received a patent of nobility and an

appointment as councillor of state. After the death of his widow (1903)

the business was inherited by his grand-daughter Countess Otilie von

Faber-Castell and her husband, Count Alexander.

FABER, BASIL (1520--c. 1576), Lutheran schoolmaster and theologian, was

born at Sorau, in lower Lusatia, in 1520. In 1538 he entered the

university of Wittenberg, studying as _pauper gratis_ under Melanchthon.

Choosing the schoolmaster's profession, he became successively rector of

the schools at Nordhausen, Tennstadt (1555), Magdeburg (1557) and

Quedlinburg (1560). From this last post he was removed in December 1570

as a Crypto-Calvinist. In 1571 he was appointed to the Raths-gymnasium

at Erfurt, not as rector, but as director (_Vorsteher_). In this

situation he remained till his death in 1575 or 1576. His translation of

the first twenty-five chapters of Luther's commentary on Genesis was

published in 1557; in other ways he promoted the spread of Lutheran

views. He was a contributor to the first four of the _Magdeburg

Centuries_. He is best known by his _Thesaurus eruditionis scholasticae_

(1571; last edition, improved by J.H. Leich, 1749, folio, 2 vols.); this

was followed by his _Libellus de disciplina scholastica_ (1572).

See Wagenmann and G. Muller in Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopadie_

(1898). (A. Go.*)

FABER, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1814-1863), British hymn writer and

theologian, was born on the 28th of June 1814 at Calverley, Yorkshire,

of which place his grandfather, Thomas Faber, was vicar. He attended the

grammar school of Bishop Auckland for a short time, but a large portion

of his boyhood was spent in Westmorland. He afterwards went to Harrow

and to Balliol College, Oxford. In 1835 he obtained a scholarship at

University College; and in 1836 he gained the Newdigate prize for a poem

on "The Knights of St John," which elicited special praise from Keble.

Among his college friends were Dean Stanley and Roundell Palmer, 1st

earl of Selborne. In January 1837 he was elected fellow of University

College. Meanwhile he had given up the Calvinistic views of his youth,

and had become an enthusiastic follower of John Henry Newman. In 1841 a

travelling tutorship took him to the continent; and on his return a book

appeared called _Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches and among

Foreign Peoples_ (London, 1842), with a dedication to his friend the

poet Wordsworth. He accepted the rectory of Elton in Huntingdonshire,

but soon after went again to the continent, in order to study the

methods of the Roman Catholic Church; and after a prolonged mental

struggle he joined the Roman Catholic communion in November 1845. He

founded a religious community at Birmingham, called Wilfridians, which

was ultimately merged in the oratory of St Philip Neri, with John Henry

Newman as Superior. In 1849 a branch of the oratory--subsequently

independent--was established in London, first in King William Street,

and afterwards at Brompton, over which Faber presided till his death on

the 26th of September 1863. In spite of his weak health, an almost

incredible amount of work was crowded into those years. He published a

number of theological works, and edited the _Oratorian Lives of the

Saints_. He was an eloquent preacher, and a man of great charm of

character. It is mainly as a hymn-writer, however, that Faber is

remembered. Among his best-known hymns are:--"The Greatness of God,"

"The Will of God," "The Eternal Father," "The God of my Childhood,"

"Jesus is God," "The Pilgrims of the Night," "The Land beyond the Sea,"

"Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go," "I was wandering and weary," and

"The Shadow of the Rock." The hymns are largely used in Protestant

collections. In addition to many pamphlets and translations, Faber

published the following works: _All for Jesus_; _The Precious Blood_;

_Bethlehem_; _The Blessed Sacrament_; _The Creator and the Creature_;

_Growth of Holiness; Spiritual Conferences_; _The Foot of the Cross_ (8

vols., London, 1853-1860).

See his _Life and Letters_, by Father J.E. Bowden (London, 1869), and

_A Brief Sketch of the Early Life of the late F.W. Faber_, D.D., by

his brother the Rev. F.A. Faber (London, 1869).

FABER, Fabri or Fabry (surnamed STAPULENSIS), JACOBUS [Jacques Lefevre

d'Etaples] (c. 1455--c. 1536), a pioneer of the Protestant movement in

France, was born of humble parents at Etaples, in Pas de Calais,

Picardy, about 1455. He appears to have been possessed of considerable

means. He had already been ordained priest when he entered the

university of Paris for higher education. Hermonymus of Sparta was his

master in Greek. He visited Italy before 1486, for he heard the lectures

of Argyropulus, who died in that year; he formed a friendship with

Paulus Aemilius of Verona. In 1492 he again travelled in Italy, studying

in Florence, Rome and Venice, making himself familiar with the writings

of Aristotle, though greatly influenced by the Platonic philosophy.

Returning to Paris, he became professor in the college of Cardinal

Lemoine. Among his famous pupils were F.W. Vatable and Farel; his

connexion with the latter drew him to the Calvinistic side of the

movement of reform. At this time he began the publication, with critical

apparatus, of Boetius (_De Arithmetica_), and Aristotle's _Physics_

(1492), _Ethics_ (1497), _Metaphysics_ (1501) and _Politics_ (1506). In

1507 he took up his residence in the Benedictine Abbey of St Germain des

Pres, near Paris; this was due to his connexion with the family of

Briconnet (one of whom was the superior), especially with William

Briconnet, cardinal bishop of St Malo (Meaux). He now began to give

himself to Biblical studies, the first-fruit of which was his

_Quintuplex Psalterium: Gallicum, Romanum, Hebraicum, Vetus,

Conciliatum_ (1509); the _Conciliatum_ was his own version. This was

followed by _S. Pauli Epistolae xiv. ex vulgata editione, adjecta

intelligentia ex Graeco cum commentariis_ (1512), a work of great

independence and judgment. His _De Maria Magdalena et triduo Christi

disceptatio_ (1517) provoked violent controversy and was condemned by

the Sorbonne (1521). He had left Paris during the whole of 1520, and,

removing to Meaux, was appointed (May 1, 1523) vicar-general to Bishop

Briconnet, and published his French version of the New Testament (1523).

This (contemporary with Luther's German version) has been the basis of

all subsequent translations into French. From this, in the same year, he

extracted the versions of the Gospels and Epistles "a l'usage du diocese

de Meaux." The prefaces and notes to both these expressed the view that

Holy Scripture is the only rule of doctrine, and that justification is

by faith alone. He incurred much hostility, but was protected by Francis

I. and the princess Margaret. Francis being in captivity after the

battle of Pavia (February 25, 1525), Faber was condemned and his works

suppressed by commission of the parlement; these measures were quashed

on the return of Francis some months later. He issued _Le Psautier de

David_ (1525), and was appointed royal librarian at Blois (1526); his

version of the Pentateuch appeared two years later. His complete version

of the Bible (1530), on the basis of Jerome, took the same place as his

version of the New Testament. Margaret (now queen of Navarre) led him to

take refuge (1531) at Nerac from persecution. He is said to have been

visited (1533) by Calvin on his flight from France. He died in 1536 or

1537.

See C.H. Graf, _Essai sur la vie et les ecrits_ (1842); G.

Bonet-Maury, in A. Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopadie_ (1898).

(A. Go.*)

FABER (or LEFEVRE), JOHANN (1478-1541), German theologian, styled from

the title of one of his works "Malleus Haereticorum," son of one

Heigerlin, a smith (_faber_), was born at Leutkirch, in Swabia, in 1478.

His early life is obscure; the tradition that he joined the Dominicans

is untenable. He studied theology and canon law at Tubingen and at

Freiburg im Breisgau, where he matriculated on the 26th of July 1509,

and graduated M.A. and doctor of canon law. He was soon appointed vicar

of Lindau and Leutkirch, and shortly afterwards canon of Basel. In 1518

Hugo von Landenberg, bishop of Constance, made him one of his

vicars-general, and Pope Leo X. appointed him papal protonotary. He was

an advocate of reforms, in sympathy with Erasmus, and corresponded

(1519-1520) with Zwingli. While he defended Luther against Eck, he was

as little inclined to adopt the position of Luther as of Carlstadt. His

journey to Rome in the autumn of 1521 had the result of estranging him

from the views of the Protestant leaders. He published _Opus adversus

nova quaedam dogmata Lutheri_ (1522), and appeared as a disputant

against Zwingli at Zurich (1523). Then followed his _Malleus in haeresin

Lutheranam_ (1524). Among his efforts to stem the tide of Protestant

innovation was the establishment of a training-house for the maintenance

and instruction of popular preachers, drawn from the lower ranks, to

compete with the orators of reform. In 1526 he became court preacher to

the emperor Ferdinand, and in 1527 and 1528 was sent by him as envoy to

Spain and England. He approved the death by burning of Balthasar

Hubmeier, the Baptist, at Vienna on the 10th of March 1528. In 1531 he

was consecrated bishop of Vienna, and combined with this (till 1538) the

administration of the diocese of Neustadt. He died at Vienna on the 21st

of May 1541. His works were collected in three volumes, 1537, 1539 and

1541.

See C.E. Kettner, _Diss. de J. Fabri Vita Scriptisque_ (1737);

Wagenmann and Egli in Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopadie_ (1898).

(A. Go.*)

FABERT, ABRAHAM DE (1599-1660), marshal of France, was the son of Abraham

Fabert, seigneur de Moulins (d. 1638), a famous printer who rendered

great services, civil and military, to Henry IV. At the age of fourteen

he entered the _Gardes francaises_, and in 1618 received a commission in

the Piedmont regiment, becoming major in 1627. He distinguished himself

repeatedly in the constant wars of the period, notably in La Rochelle and

at the siege of Exilles in 1630. His bravery and engineering skill were

again displayed in the sieges of Avesnes and Maubeuge in 1637, and in

1642 Louis XIII. made him governor of the recently-acquired fortress of

Sedan. In 1651 he became lieutenant-general, and in 1654 at the siege of

Stenay he introduced new methods of siegecraft which anticipated in a

measure the great improvements of Vauban. In 1658 Fabert was made a

marshal of France, being the first commoner to attain that rank. He died

at Sedan on the 17th of May 1660.

See _Histoire du marechal de Fabert_ (Amsterdam, 1697); P. Barre, _Vie

de Fabert_ (Paris, 1752); A. Feillet, _Le Premier Marechal de France

plebeien_ (Paris, 1869); Bourelly, _Le Marechal Fabert_ (Paris, 1880).

FABIAN [FABIANUS], SAINT (d. 250), pope and martyr, was chosen pope, or

bishop of Rome, in January 236 in succession to Anteros. Eusebius

(_Hist. Eccl._ vi. 29) relates how the Christians, having assembled in

Rome to elect a new bishop, saw a dove alight upon the head of Fabian, a

stranger to the city, who was thus marked out for this dignity, and was

at once proclaimed bishop, although there were several famous men among

the candidates for the vacant position. Fabian was martyred during the

persecution under the emperor Decius, his death taking place on the 20th

of January 250, and was buried in the catacomb of Calixtus, where a

memorial has been found. He is said to have baptized the emperor Philip

and his son, to have done some building in the catacombs, to have

improved the organization of the church in Rome, to have appointed

officials to register the deeds of the martyrs, and to have founded

several churches in France. His deeds are thus described in the _Liber

Pontificalis_: "Hic regiones dividit diaconibus et fecit vii

subdiacones, qui vii notariis imminerent, ut gestas martyrum integro

fideliter colligerent, et multas fabricas per cymiteria fieri

praecepit." Although there is very little authentic information about

Fabian, there is evidence that his episcopate was one of great

importance in the history of the early church. He was highly esteemed by

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage; Novatian refers to his _nobilissimae

memoriae_, and he corresponded with Origen. One authority refers to him

as Flavian.

See the article on "Fabian" by A. Harnack in Herzog-Hauck's

_Realencyklopadie_, Band v. (Leipzig, 1898).

FABIUS, the name of a number of Roman soldiers and statesmen. The Fabian

gens was one of the oldest and most distinguished patrician families of

Rome. Its members claimed descent from Hercules and a daughter of the

Arcadian Evander. From the earliest times it played a prominent part in

Roman history, and was one of the two gentes exclusively charged with

the management of the most ancient festival in Rome--the Lupercalia

(Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 375). The chief family names of the Fabian gens or

clan, in republican times, were Vibulanus, Ambustus, Maximus, Buteo,

Pictor, Dorso, Labeo; with surnames Verrucosus, Rullianus, Gurges,

Aemilianus, Allobrogicus (all of the Maximus branch). The most important

members of the family are the following:--

1. MARCUS FABIUS AMBUSTUS, pontifex maximus in the year of the capture

of Rome by the Gauls (390). His three sons, Quintus, Numerius and Caeso,

although they had been sent as ambassadors to the Gauls when they were

besieging Clusium, subsequently took part in hostilities (Livy v. 35).

The Gauls thereupon demanded their surrender, on the ground that they

had violated the law of nations; the Romans, by way of reply, elected

them consular tribunes in the following year. The result was the march

of the Gauls upon Rome, the battle of the Allia, and the capture of the

city (Livy vi. 1).

2. Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS, surnamed _Rullianus_ or _Rullus_, master of the

horse in the second Samnite War to L. Papirius Cursor, by whom he was

degraded for having fought the Samnites contrary to orders (Livy viii.

30), in spite of the fact that he gained a victory. In 315, when

dictator, he was defeated by the Samnites at Lautulae (Livy ix. 23). In

310 he defeated the Etruscans at the Vadimonian Lake. In 295, consul for

the fifth time, he defeated, at the great battle of Sentinum, the

combined forces of the Etrurians, Umbrians, Samnites and Gauls (see

ROME: _History_, II. "The Republic"). As censor (304) he altered the

arrangement of Appius Claudius Caecus, whereby the freedmen were taken

into all the tribes, and limited them to the four city tribes. For this

he is said to have received the title of _Maximus_, as the deliverer of

the comitia from the rule of the mob (Livy ix. 46), but there is reason

to think that this title was first conferred on his grandson. It is

probable that his achievements are greatly exaggerated by historians

favourable to the Fabian house.

3. QUINTUS FABIUS MAXIMUS, surnamed _Verrucosus_ (from a wart on his

lip), _Ovicula_ ("the lamb," from his mild disposition), and _Cunctator_

("the delayer," from his cautious tactics in the war against Hannibal),

grandson of the preceding. He served his first consulship in Liguria

(233 B.C.), was censor (230) and consul for the second time (228). In

218 he was sent to Carthage to demand satisfaction for the attack on

Saguntum (Livy xxi. 18). According to the well-known story, he held up a

fold of his toga and offered the Carthaginians the choice between peace

and war. When they declared themselves indifferent, he let fall his toga

with the words, "Then take war." After the disastrous campaign on the

Trebia, and the defeat on the banks of the Trasimene Lake, Fabius was

named dictator (Livy calls him pro-dictator, since he was nominated, not

by the consul, but by the people) in 217, and began his tactics of

"masterly inactivity." Manoeuvring among the hills, where Hannibal's

cavalry were useless, he cut off his supplies, harassed him incessantly,

and did everything except fight. His steady adherence to his plan caused

dissatisfaction at Rome and in his own camp, and aroused the suspicion

that he was merely endeavouring to prolong his command. Minucius Rufus,

his master of the horse, seized the opportunity, during the absence of

Fabius at Rome, to make an attack upon the enemy which proved

successful. The people, more than ever convinced that a forward movement

was necessary, divided the command between Minucius and Fabius (Livy

xxii. 15. 24; Polybius iii. 88). Minucius was led into an ambuscade by

Hannibal, and his army was only saved by the opportune arrival of

Fabius. Minucius confessed his mistake and henceforth submitted to the

orders of Fabius (Livy xxiii. 32). At the end of the legal time of six

months Fabius resigned the dictatorship and the war was carried on by

the consuls. The result of the abandonment of Fabian tactics was the

disaster of Cannae (216). In 215 and 214 (as consul for the third and

fourth times) he was in charge of the operations against Hannibal

together with Claudius Marcellus (Livy xxiii. 39). He laid siege to

Capua, which had gone over to Hannibal after Cannae, and captured the

important position of Casilinum; in his fifth consulship (209) he retook

Tarentum, which had been occupied by Hannibal for three years (Livy

xxvii. 15; Polybius xiii. 4; Plutarch, _Fabius_). He died in 203. Fabius

was a strenuous opponent of the new aggressive policy, and did all he

could to prevent the invasion of Africa by Scipio. He was distinguished

for calmness and prudence, while by no means lacking in courage when it

was required. In his later years, however, he became morose, and showed

jealousy of rising young men, especially Scipio (_Life_ by Plutarch;

Livy xx.-xxx.; Polybius iii. 87-106).

4. Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS AEMILIANUS, eldest son of L. Aemilius Paullus,

adopted by Fabius Cunctator. He served in the last Macedonian War (168),

and, as consul, defeated Viriathus in Spain (Livy, _Epit_. 52). He was

the pupil and patron of Polybius (Polybius xviii., xxix. 6, xxxii. 8-10;

Livy xliv. 35).

5. Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS ALLOBROGICUS, son of the above, consul 121 in Gaul.

He obtained his surname from his victory over the Allobroges and Arverni

in that year (Vell. Pat. ii. 10; Eutropius iv. 22). As censor (108) he

erected the first triumphal arch.

6. Q. FABIUS VIBULANUS, with his brothers Caeso and Marcus, filled the

consulship for seven years in succession (485-479 B.C.). In the last year

there was a reaction against the family, in consequence of Caeso

espousing the cause of the plebeians. Thereupon the Fabii--to the number,

it is said, of 306 patricians, with some 5000 dependents--emigrated from

Rome under the leadership of Caeso, and settled on the banks of the

Cremera, a few miles above Rome. For two years the exiles continued to be

the city's chief defence against the Veientes, until at last they were

surprised and cut off. The only survivor of the gens was Quintus, the sen

of Marcus, who apparently took no part in the battle. The story that he

had been left behind at Rome on account of his youth cannot be true, as

he was consul ten years afterwards. This Quintus was consul in 467, 465

and 459, and a member of the second decemvirate in 450, on the fall of

which he went into voluntary exile (Livy ii. 42, 48-50, iii. 1, 9, 41,

58, vi. 1; Dion. Halic. viii. 82-86, ix. 14-22: Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 195).

The Fabian name is met with as late as the 2nd century A.D. A complete

list of the Fabii will be found in de Vit's _Onomasticon_; see also

W.N. du Rieu, _Disputatio de Gente Fabia_ (1856), containing an

account of 57 members of the family.

FABIUS PICTOR, QUINTUS, the father of Roman history, was born about 254

B.C. He was the grandson of Gaius Fabius, who received the surname

_Pictor_ for his painting of the temple of Salus (302). He took an

active part in the subjugation of the Gauls in the north of Italy (225),

and after the battle of Cannae (216) was employed by the Romans to

proceed to Delphi in order to consult the oracle of Apollo. He was the

earliest prose writer of Roman history. His materials consisted of the

_Annales Maximi_, _Commentarii Consulares_, and similar records; the

chronicles of the great Roman families; and his own experiences in the

Second Punic War. He is also said to have made much use of the Greek

historian Diodes of Peparethus. His work, which was written in Greek,

began with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy, and ended with the Hannibalic

war. Although Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus frequently find

fault with him, the first uses him as his chief authority for the Second

Punic War. A Latin version of the work was in existence in the time of

Cicero, but it is doubtful whether it was by Fabius Pictor or by a later

writer with whom he was confused--Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus (consul

142); or there may have been two annalists of the name of Fabius Pictor.

Fragments in H. Peter, _Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta_ (1883); see

also ANNALISTS and LIVY, and Teuffel-Schwabe, _History of Roman

Literature_, S 116.

FABLE (Fr. _fable_, Lat. _fabula_). With certain restrictions, the

necessity of which will be shown in the course of the article, we may

accept the definition of "fable" which Dr Johnson proposes in his _Life

of Gay_: "A _fable_ or _apologue_ seems to be, in its genuine state, a

narrative in which beings irrational, and sometimes inanimate (_arbores

loquuntur, non tantum ferae_), are, for the purpose of moral

instruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and

passions." The description of La Fontaine, the greatest of fabulists, is

a poetic rendering of Johnson's definition:

"Fables in sooth are not what they appear;

Our moralists are mice, and such small deer.

We yawn at sermons, but we gladly turn

To moral tales, and so amused we learn."

The fable is distinguished from the myth, which grows and is not made,

the spontaneous and unconscious product of primitive fancy as it plays

round some phenomenon of natural or historical fact. The literary myth,

such as, for instance, the legend of Pandora in Hesiod or the tale of Er

in the _Republic_ of Plato, is really an allegory, and differs from the

fable in so far as it is self-interpreting; the story and the moral are

intermingled throughout. Between the parable and the fable there is no

clear line of demarcation, and theologians like Trench have

unwarrantably narrowed their definition of a parable to fit those of the

New Testament. The soundest distinction is drawn by Neander. In the

fable human passions and actions are attributed to beasts; in the

parable the lower creation is employed only to illustrate the higher

life and never transgresses the laws of its kind. But whether Jotham's

apologue of the trees choosing a king, perhaps the first recorded in

literature, should be classed as a fable or a parable is hardly worth

disputing. Lastly, we may point out the close affinity between the fable

and the proverb. A proverb is often a condensed or fossilized fable, and

not a few fables are amplified or elaborated proverbs.

The history of the fable goes back to the remotest antiquity, and Aesop

has even less claim to be reckoned the father of the fable than has

Homer to be entitled the father of poetry. The fable has its origin in

the universal impulse of men to express their thoughts in concrete

images, and is strictly parallel to the use of metaphor in language. It

is the most widely diffused if not the most primitive form of

literature. Though it has fallen from its high place it still survives,

as in J. Chandler Harris's _Uncle Remus_ and Rudyard Kipling's _Jungle

Book_. The Arab of to-day will invent a fable at every turn of the

conversation as the readiest form of argument, and in the _Life_ of

Coventry Patmore it is told how an impromptu fable of his about the

pious dormouse found its way into Catholic books of devotion.

With the fable, as we know it, the moral is indispensable. As La

Fontaine puts it, an apologue is composed of two parts, body and soul.

The body is the story, the soul the morality. But if we revert to the

earliest type we shall find that this is no longer the case. In the

primitive beast-fable, which is the direct progenitor of the Aesopian

fable, the story is told simply for its own sake, and is as innocent of

any moral as the fairy tales of Little Red Riding-Hood and Jack and the

Beanstalk. Thus, in a legend of the Flathead Indians, the Little Wolf

found in cloud-land his grandsires the Spiders with their grizzled hair

and long crooked nails, and they spun balls of thread to let him down to

earth; when he came down and found his wife the Speckled Duck, whom the

Old Wolf had taken from him, she fled in confusion, and this is why she

lives and dives alone to this very day. Such animal myths are as common

in the New World as in the Old, and abound from Finland and Kamtchatka

to the Hottentots and Australasians. From the story invented, as the one

above quoted, to account for some peculiarity of the animal world, or

told as a pure exercise of the imagination, just as a sailor spins a

yarn about the sea-serpent, to the moral apologue the transition is

easy; and that it has been effected by savages unaided by the example of

higher races seems sufficiently proved by the tales quoted by E.B. Tylor

(_Primitive Culture_, vol. i. p. 411). From the beast-fables of savages

we come next to the Oriental apologues, which we still possess in their

original form. The East, the land of myth and legend, is the natural

home of the fable, and Hindustan was the birthplace, if not of the

original of these tales, at least of the oldest shape in which they

still exist. The _Pancha Tantra_ (2nd century B.C.), or fables of the

Brahma Vishnu Sarman, have been translated from Sanskrit into almost

every language and adapted by most modern fabulists. The _Kalilah_ and

_Dimna_ (names of two jackals), or fables of Bidpai (or Pilpai), passed

from India to western Europe through the successive stages of Pahlavi

(ancient Persian), Arabic, Greek, Latin. By the end of the 16th century

there were Italian, French and English versions. There is an excellent

Arabic edition (Paris, 1816) with an introduction by Sylvestre de Sacy.

The _Hitopadesa_, or "friendly instruction," is a modernized form of the

same work, and of it there are three translations into English by Dr

Charles Wilkins, Sir William Jones and Professor F. Johnson. The

_Hitopadesa_ is a complete chaplet of fables loosely strung together,

but connected so as to form something of a continuous story, with moral

reflections freely interspersed, purporting to be written for the

instruction of some dissolute young princes. Thus, in the first fable a

flock of pigeons see the grains of rice which a fowler has scattered,

and are about to descend on them, when the king of the pigeons warns

them by telling the fable of a traveller who being greedy of a bracelet

was devoured by a tiger. They neglect his warning and are caught in the

net, but are afterwards delivered by the king of the mice, who tells the

story of the Deer, the Jackal and the Crow, to show that no real

friendship can exist between the strong and the weak, the beast of prey

and his quarry, and so on to the end of the volume. Another book of

Eastern fables is well worthy of notice, _Buddhaghosha's Parables_, a

commentary on the _Dhammapada_ or _Buddha's Paths of Virtue_. The

original is in Pali, but an English translation of the Burmese version

was made by Captain T. Rogers, R.E.

From Hindustan the Sanskrit fables passed to China, Tibet and Persia;

and they must have reached Greece at an early age, for many of the

fables which passed under the name of Aesop are identical with those of

the East. Aesop to us is little more than a name, though, if we may

trust a passing notice in Herodotus (ii. 134), he must have lived in the

6th century B.C. Probably his fables were never written down, though

several are ascribed to him by Xenophon, Aristotle, Plutarch and other

Greek writers, and Plato represents Socrates as beguiling his last days

by versifying such as he remembered. Aristophanes alludes to them as

merry tales, and Plato, while excluding the poets from his ideal

republic, admits Aesop as a moral teacher. Of the various versions of

_Aesop's Fables_, by far the most trustworthy is that of Babrius or

Babrias, a Greek probably of the 3rd century A.D., who rendered them in

choliambic verse. These, which were long known in fragments only, were

recovered in a MS. found by M. Minas in a monastery on Mount Athos in

1842, now in the British Museum.[1] An inferior version of the same in

Latin iambics was made by Phaedrus, a slave of Thracian origin, brought

to Rome in the time of Augustus and manumitted by him. Phaedrus

professes to polish in senarian verse the rough-hewn blocks from Aesop's

quarry; but the numerous allusions to contemporary events, as, for

example, his hit at Sejanus in the Frogs and the Sun, which brought upon

the author disgrace and imprisonment, show that many of them are

original or free adaptations. For some time scholars doubted as to the

genuineness of Phaedrus's fables, but their doubts have been lately

dispelled by a closer examination of the MSS. and by the discovery of

two verses of a fable on a tomb at Apulum in Dacia. Phaedrus's style is

simple, clear and brief, but dry and unpoetical; and, as Lessing has

pointed out, he often falls into absurdities when he deserts his

original. For instance, in Aesop the dog with the meat in his mouth sees

his reflection in the water as he passes over a bridge; Phaedrus makes

him see it as he swims across the river.

To sum up the characteristics of the Aesopian fable, it is artless,

simple and transparent. It affects no graces of style, and we hardly

need the text with which each concludes, [Greek: ho mythos deloi hoti,

k.t.l.] The moral inculcated is that of _Proverbial Philosophy_ and

_Poor Richard's Almanacks_. Aesop is no maker of phrases, but an orator

who wishes to gain some point or induce some course of action. It is the

Aesopian type that Aristotle has in view when he treats of the fable as

a branch of rhetoric, not of poetry.

The Latin race was given to moralizing, and the language lent itself to

crisp and pointed narrative, but they lacked the free play of fancy, the

childlike "make-believe," to produce a national body of fables. With the

doubtful exception of Phaedrus, we possess nothing but solitary

examples, such as the famous apologue of Menenius Agrippa to the Plebs

and the exquisite Town Mouse and Country Mouse of Horace's _Satires_.

The fables of the rhetorician Aphthonius about A.D. 400 in Greek prose,

and those in Latin elegiac verse by Avianus, used for centuries as a

text-book in schools, form in the history of the apologue a link between

classical and medieval times. In a Latin dress, sometimes in prose,

sometimes in regular verse, and sometimes in rhymed stanzas, the fable

contributed, with other kinds of narratives, to make up the huge mass of

stories which has been bequeathed to us by the monastic libraries. These

served more uses than one. They were at once easier and safer reading

than the classics. To the lazy monk they stood in place of novels; to

the more industrious and gifted they furnished an exercise on a par with

Latin verse composition in our public schools; the more original

transformed them into _fabliaux_, or embodied them in edifying stories,

as in the _Gesta Romanorum_. It is not in the _Speculum Doctrinale_ of

Vincent de Beauvais, a Dominican of the 12th century, nor in the

collection of his contemporary Odo de Cerinton, an English Cistercian,

nor in Planudes of the 14th century, whose one distinction is to have

added to the fables a life of Aesop, that the direct lineage of La

Fontaine must be traced. It is the _fabliaux_ that inspired some of his

best fables--the Lion's Court, the Young Widow, the Coach and the Fly.

As the supremacy of Latin declined and modern languages began to be

turned to literary uses, the fable took a new life. Not only were there

numerous adaptations of Aesop, known as Ysopets, but Marie de France in

the 13th century composed many original fables, some rivalling La

Fontaine's in simplicity and gracefulness. Later, also, fables were not

wanting, though not numerous, in the English tongue. Chaucer has given

us one, in his Nonne Preste's Tale, which is an expansion of the fable

_Don Coc et don Werpil_ of Marie de France; another is Lydgate's tale of

The Churl and the Bird.

Several of Odo's tales, like Chaucer's story, can be ultimately traced

to the History of Reynard the Fox. This great beast-epic has been

referred by Grimm as far back as the 10th century, and is known to us in

three forms, each with independent episodes, but all woven upon a common

basis. The Latin form is probably the earliest, and the poems

_Reinardus_ and _Ysengrinus_ date from the 10th or 11th century. Next

come the German versions. The most ancient, that of a minnesinger

Heinrich der Glichesaere (probably a Swabian), was analysed and edited

by Grimm in 1840. The French poem of more than 30,000 lines, the _Roman

du Renard_, belongs probably to the 13th century. In 1498 appeared

_Reynke de Voss_, almost a literal version in Low Saxon of the Flemish

poem of the 12th century, _Reinaert de Vos_. Hence the well-known

version of Goethe into modern German hexameters was taken. The poem has

been well named "an unholy world Bible." In it the Aesopian fable

received a development which was in several respects quite original. We

have here no short and unconnected stories. Materials, partly borrowed

from older apologues, but in a much greater proportion new, are worked

up into one long and systematic tale. The moral, so prominent in the

fable proper, shrinks so far into the background, that the epic might be

considered a work of pure fiction, an animal romance. The attempts to

discover in it personal satire have signally failed; some critics deny

even the design to represent human conduct at all; and we can scarcely

get nearer to its signification than by regarding it as being, in a

general way, what Carlyle has called "a parody of human life." It

represents a contest maintained successfully, by selfish craft and

audacity, against enemies of all sorts, in a half-barbarous and

ill-organized society. With his weakest foes, like Chaunteclere the

Cock, Reynard uses brute-force; over the weak who are protected, like

Kiward the Hare and Belin the Ram, he is victorious by uniting violence

with cunning; Bruin, the dull, strong, formidable Bear, is humbled by

having greater power than his own enlisted against him; and the most

dangerous of all the fox's enemies, Isengrim, the obstinate, greedy and

implacable Wolf, after being baffled by repeated strokes of malicious

ingenuity, forces Reynard to a single combat, but even thus is not a

match for his dexterous adversary. The knavish fox has allies worthy of

him in Grimbart the watchful badger, and in his own aunt Dame Rukenawe,

the learned She-ape; and he plays at his pleasure on the simple

credulity of the Lion-King, the image of an impotent feudal sovereign.

The characters of these and other brutes are kept up with a rude kind of

consistency, which gives them great liveliness; many of the incidents

are devised with much force of humour; and the sly hits at the weak

points of medieval polity and manners and religion are incessant and

palpable.

It is needless to trace the fable, or illustrations borrowed from

fables, that so frequently occur as incidental ornaments in the older

literature of England and other countries. It has appeared in every

modern nation of Europe, but has nowhere become very important, and has

hardly ever exhibited much originality either of spirit or of manner. In

English, Prior transplanted from France some of La Fontaine's ease of

narration and artful artlessness, while Gay took as his model the

_Contes_ rather than the _Fables_. Gay's fables are often political

satires, but some, like the Fox on his Deathbed, have the true ring, and

in the Hare with many Friends there is genuine pathos. To Dryden's

spirited remodellings of old poems, romances and _fabliaux_, the name of

fables, which he was pleased to give them, is quite inapplicable. In

German, Hagedorn and Gellert, both famous in their day and the latter

extolled by Goethe, are quite forgotten; and even Lessing's fables are

read by few but schoolboys. In Spanish, Yriarte's fables on literary

subjects are sprightly and graceful, but the critic is more than the

fabulist. A spirited version of the best appeared in _Blackwood's

Magazine_, 1839. Among Italians Pignotti is famous for versatility and

command of rhythm, as amongst Russians is Kriloff for his keen satire on

Russian society. He has been translated into English by Ralston.

France alone in modern times has attained any pre-eminence in the fable,

and this distinction is almost entirely owing to one author. Marie de

France in the 13th century, Gilles Corrozet, Guillaume Haudent and

Guillaume Gueroult in the 16th, are now studied mainly as the

precursors of La Fontaine, from whom he may have borrowed a stray hint

or the outline of a story. The unique character of his work has given a

new word to the French language: other writers of fables are called

_fabulistes_, La Fontaine is named _le fablier_. He is a true poet; his

verse is exquisitely modulated; his love of nature often reminds us of

Virgil, as do his tenderness and pathos (see, for instance, The Two

Pigeons and Death and the Woodcutter). He is full of sly fun and

delicate humour; like Horace he satirizes without wounding, and "plays

around the heart." Lastly, he is a keen observer of men. The whole

society of the 17th century, its greatness and its foibles, its luxury

and its squalor, from _Le grand monarque_ to the poor _manant_, from his

majesty the lion to the courtier of an ape, is painted to the life. To

borrow his own phrase, La Fontaine's fables are "une ample comedie a

cent actes divers." Rousseau did his best to discredit the _Fables_ as

immoral and corruptors of youth, but in spite of _Emile_ they are

studied in every French school and are more familiar to most Frenchmen

than their breviary. Among the successors of La Fontaine the most

distinguished is Florian. He justly estimates his own merits in the

pretty apologue that he prefixed to his _Fables_. He asks a sage whether

a fabulist writing after La Fontaine would not be wise to consign his

work to the flames. The sage replies by a question: "What would you say

did some sweet, ingenuous Maid of Athens refuse to let herself be seen

because there was once a Helen of Troy?"

The fables of Lessing represent the reaction against the French school

of fabulists. "With La Fontaine himself," says Lessing, "I have no

quarrel, but against the imitators of La Fontaine I enter my protest."

His attention was first called to the fable by Gellert's popular work

published in 1746. Gellert's fables were closely modelled after La

Fontaine's, and were a vehicle for lively railings against the fair sex,

and hits at contemporary follies. Lessing's early essays were in the

same style, but his subsequent study of the history and theory of the

fable led him to discard his former model as a perversion of later

times, and the "Fabeln," published in 1759, are the outcome of his riper

views. Lessing's fables, like all that he wrote, display his vigorous

common sense. He has, it is true, little of La Fontaine's _curiosa

felicitas_, his sly humour and lightness of touch; and Frenchmen would

say that his criticism of La Fontaine is an illustration of the fable of

the sour grapes. On the other hand, he has the rare power of looking at

both sides of a moral problem; he holds a brief for the stupid and the

feeble, the ass and the lamb; and in spite of his formal protest against

poetical ornament, there is in not a few of his fables a vein of true

poetry, as in the Sheep (ii. 13) and Jupiter and the Sheep (ii. 18). But

the monograph which introduced the _Fabeln_ is of more inportance than

the fables themselves. According to Lessing the ideal fable is that of

Aesop. All the elaborations and refinements of later authors, from

Phaedrus to La Fontaine, are perversions of this original. The fable is

essentially a moral precept illustrated by a single example, and it is

the lesson thus enforced which gives to the fable its unity and makes it

a work of art. The illustration must be either an actual occurrence or

represented as such, because a fictitious case invented _ad hoc_ can

appeal but feebly to the reader's judgment. Lastly, the fable requires a

story or connected chain of events. A single fact will not make a fable,

but is only an emblem. We thus arrive at the following definition:--"A

fable is a relation of a series of changes which together form a whole.

The unity of the fable consists herein, that all the parts lead up to an

end, the end for which the fable was invented being the moral precept."

We may notice in passing a problem in connexion with the fable which had

long been debated, but never satisfactorily resolved till Lessing took

it in hand--Why should animals have been almost universally chosen as

the chief _dramatis personae_? The reason, according to Lessing, is that

animals have distinct characters which are known and recognized by all.

The fabulist who writes of Britannicus and Nero appeals to the few who

know Roman history. The Wolf and the Lamb comes home to every one

whether learned or simple. But, besides this, human sympathies obscure

the moral judgment; hence it follows that the fable, unlike the drama

and the epos, should abstain from all that is likely to arouse our

prejudices or our passions. In this respect the Wolf and the Lamb of

Aesop is a more perfect fable than the Rich Man and the Poor Man's Ewe

Lamb of Nathan.

Lessing's analysis and definition of the fable, though he seems himself

unconscious of the scope of his argument, is in truth its death-warrant.

The beast-fable arose in a primitive age when men firmly believed that

beasts could talk and reason, that any wolf they met might be a

were-wolf, that a peacock might be a Pythagoras in disguise, and an ox

or even a cat a being worthy of their worship. To this succeeded the

second age of the fable, which belongs to the same stage of culture as

the Hebrew proverbs and the gnomic poets of Greece. That honesty is the

best policy, that death is common to all, seemed to the men of that day

profound truths worthy to be embalmed in verse or set off by the aid of

story or anecdote. Last comes an age of high literary culture which

tolerates the trite morals and hackneyed tales for the sake of the

exquisite setting, and is amused at the wit which introduces topics and

characters of the day under the transparent veil of animal life. Such an

artificial product can be nothing more than the fashion of a day, and

must, like pastoral poetry, die a natural death. A serious moralist

would hardly choose that form to inculcate, like Mandeville in his

_Fable of the Bees_, a new doctrine in morals, for the moral of the

fable must be such that he who runs may read. A true poet will not care

to masquerade as a moral teacher, or show his wit by refurbishing some

old-world maxim. Yet Taine in France, Lowell in America, and J.A. Froude

in England have proved that the fable as one form of literature is not

yet extinct, and is capable of new and unexpected developments.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Pantschatantrum_, ed. Kosegarten (Bonn, 1848);

_Hitopadesa_, ed. Max Muller (1864); Silvestre de Sacy, _Calilah et

Dimna, ou Fables de Bidpai, en Arabe, precedees d'un memoire sur

l'origine de ce livre_ (Paris, 1816), translated by the Rev. Wyndham

Knatchbull (Oxford, 1819); Comparetti, _Ricerche intorno al Libro di

Sindebad_ (Milan, 1869); Max Muller, "Migration of Fables," _Chips

from a German Workshop_, vol. iv. (1875); Keller, _Untersuchungen uber

die Geschichte der griechischen Fabel_ (Leipzig, 1862); _Babrius_, ed.

W.G. Rutherford, with excursus on Greek fables (1883); L. Hervieux,

_Les Fabuiistes latins_ (1884); Jakob Grimm, _Reinhart Fuchs_ (Berlin,

1834); A.C.M. Robert, _Fables inedites des XII^e, XIII^e, et XIV^e

siecles_, &c. (Paris, 1825); Taine, _Essai sur les fables de La

Fontaine_ (1853); Saint-Marc Girardin, _La Fontaine et les fabulistes_

(Paris, 1867). (F. S.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] M. Minas professed to have discovered under the same

circumstances another collection of ninety-four fables by Babrius.

This second part was accepted by Sir G.C. Lewis, but J. Conington

conclusively proved it spurious, and probably a forgery. See BABRIUS.

FABLIAU. The entertaining tales in eight-syllable rhymed verse which

form a marked section of French medieval literature are called

_fabliaux_, the word being derived by Littre from _fablel_, a diminutive

of _fable_. It is a mistake to suppose, as is frequently done, that

every legend of the middle ages is a fabliau. In a poem of the 12th

century a clear distinction is drawn between songs of chivalry, war or

love, and _fabliaux_, which are recitals of laughter. A fabliau always

related an event; it was usually brief, containing not more than 400

lines; it was neither sentimental, religious nor supernatural, but comic

and gay. MM. de Montaiglon and Raynaud, who have closely investigated

this class of literature, consider that about 150 fabliaux have come

down to us more or less intact; a vast number have doubtless

disappeared. It appears from a phrase in the writings of the trouvere,

Henri d'Andeli, that the fabliau was not thought worthy of being copied

out on parchment. The wonder, then, is that so many of these ephemeral

compositions have been preserved. Arguments brought forward by M. Joseph

Bedier, however, tend to show that we need not regret the disappearance

of the majority of the fabliaux, as those which were copied into MSS.

were those which were felt to be of the greatest intrinsic value. As

early as the 8th century fabliaux must have existed, since the faithful

are forbidden to take pleasure in these _fabulas inanes_ by the

_Paenitentiale_ of Egbert. But it appears that all the early examples

are lost.

In the opinion of the best scholars, the earliest surviving fabliau is

that of _Richeut_, which dates from 1159. This is a rough and powerful

study of the coarse life of the day, with little plot, but engaged with

a realistic picture of manners. Such poems, but of a more strictly

narrative nature, continued to be produced, mainly in the north and

north-east of France, until the middle of the 14th century. Much

speculation has been expended on the probable sources of the tales which

the trouveres told. The Aryan theory, which saw in them the direct

influence of India upon Europe, has now been generally abandoned. It

does not seem probable that any ancient or exotic influences were

brought to bear upon the French jongleurs, who simply invented or

adapted stories of that universal kind which springs unsown from every

untilled field of human society. More remarkable than the narratives

themselves is the spirit in which they are told. This is full of the

national humour and the national irony, the true _esprit gaulois_. A

very large section of these popular poems deals satirically with the

pretensions of the clergy. Such are the famous _Pretre aux mures_, the

_Pretre qui dit la Passion_ and _Les Perdrix_. Some of these are

innocently merry; others are singularly depraved and obscene. Another

class of fabliaux is that which comprises jests against the professions;

in this, the most prominent example is _Le Vilain Mire_, a satire on

doctors, which curiously predicts the _Medecin malgre lui_ of Moliere.

There are also tales whose purpose is rather voluptuous than witty, and

whose aim is to excuse libertinage and render marriage ridiculous. Among

these are prominent _Court Mantel_ and _Le Dit de Berenger_. Yet another

class repeated, with a strain of irony or oddity, such familiar

classical stories as those of Narcissus, and Pyramus and Thisbe. It is

rarely that any elevation of tone raises these poems above a familiar

and even playful level, but there are some that are almost idealistic.

Among these the story of a sort of Sisyphus errant, _Le Chevalier de

Barizel_, offers an ethical interest which lifts it in certain respects

above all other surviving fabliaux. An instance of the pathetic fabliau

is _Housse Partie_, a kind of primitive version of the story of King

Lear.

In composing these pieces, of very varied character, the jongleurs have

practised an art which was in many respects rudimentary, but sincere and

simple. The student of language finds the rich vocabulary of the

fabliaux much more attractive to him than the conventionality of the

serious religious and amatory poems of the same age. The object of the

writers was the immediate amusement of their audience; by reference to

familiar things, they hoped to arouse a quick and genuine merriment.

Hence their incorrectness and their negligence are balanced by a

delightful ease and absence of pedantry, and in the fabliaux we get

closer than elsewhere to the living diction of medieval France. It is

true that if we extend too severe a judgment to these pieces, we may

find ourselves obliged to condemn them altogether. An instructed French

critic, vexed with their faults, has gone so far as to say that "the

subjects of these tales are degrading, their inspiration nothing better

than flat and cruel derision, their distinguishing features rascality,

vulgarity and platitude of style." From one point of view, this

condemnation of the fabliau is hardly too severe. But such scholars as

Gaston Paris and Paul Meyer have not failed to emphasize other sides to

the question. They have praised, in the general laxity of style and

garrulity of the middle ages, the terseness of the jongleurs; in the

period of false ornament, their fidelity to nature; in a time of general

vagueness, the sharp and picturesque outlines of their art. One feature

of the fabliaux, however, cannot be praised and yet must not be

overlooked. In no other section of the world's literature is the scorn

and hatred of women so prominent. It is difficult to account for the

anti-feminine rage which pervades the fabliaux, and takes hideous shapes

in such examples as _Le Valet aux deux femmes_, _Le Pecheur de

Pont-sur-Seine_ and _Chicheface et Bigorne_. Probably this was a violent

reaction against the extravagant cult of woman as expressed in the

contemporary _lais_ as well as in the legends of saints. The

exaggeration was not greater in the one case than in the other, and it

is probable that the exaltation was made endurable to those who listened

to the trouveres by the corresponding degradation. We must remember,

too, that those who listened were not nobles or clerks, they were the

common people. The fabliaux were _fabellae ignobilium_, little stories

told to amuse persons of low degree, who were irritated by the moral

pretensions of their superiors.

The names of about twenty of the authors of fabliaux have been

preserved, although in most cases nothing is known of their personal

history. The most famous poet of this class of writing is the man whose

name, or more probably pseudonym, was Rutebeuf. He wrote _Frere Denyse_

and _Le Sacristain_, while to him is attributed the _Dit d'Aristote_, in

the course of which Aristotle gives good advice to Alexander. Fabliaux,

however, form but a small part of the work of Rutebeuf, who was a

satirical poet of wide accomplishment and varied energy. Most of the

jongleurs who wrote these merry and indecent tales in octosyllabic verse

were persons of less distinction. Henri d'Andeli was an ecclesiastic,

attached, it is supposed, to the cathedral of Rouen. Jean de Conde, who

flourished in the court of Hainaut from 1310 to 1340, and who is the

latest of the genuine writers of fabliaux, lived in comfort and

security, but most of the professional jongleurs seem to have spent

their years in a Bohemian existence, wandering among the clergy and the

merchant class, alternately begging for money and food and reciting

their mocking verses.

The principal authorities for the fabliaux are MM. Anatole de

Montaiglon and Gaston Raynaud, who published the text, in 6 vols.,

between 1872 and 1890. This edition corrected and supplemented the

very valuable labours of Meon (1808-1823) and Jubinal (1839-1842). The

works of Henri d'Andeli were edited by M.A. Heron in 1880, and those

of Rutebeuf were made the subject of an exhaustive monograph by M.

Leon Cledat in 1891. See also the editions of separate fabliaux by

Gaston Paris, Paul Meyer, Ebeling, August Scheler and other modern

scholars. M. Joseph Bedier's _Les Fabliaux_ (1895) is a useful summary

of critical opinion on the entire subject. (E. G.)

FABRE, FERDINAND (1830-1898), French novelist, was born at Bedarieux, in

Herault, a very picturesque district of the south of France, which he

made completely his own in literature. He was the son of a local

architect, who failed in business, and Ferdinand was brought up by his

uncle, the Abbe Fulcran Fabre, at Camplong among the mulberry woods. Of

his childhood and early youth he has given a charming account in _Ma

Vocation_ (1889). He was destined to the priesthood, and was sent for

that purpose to the seminary of St Pons de Thomieres, where, in 1848, he

had, as he believed, an ecstatic vision of Christ, who warned him "It is

not the will of God that thou shouldst be a priest." He had now to look

about for a profession, and, after attempting medicine at Montpellier,

was articled as a lawyer's clerk in Paris. In 1853 he published a volume

of verses, _Feuilles de lierre_, broke down in health, and crept back,

humble and apparently without ambition, to his old home at Bedarieux.

After some eight or nine years of country life he reappeared in Paris,

with the MS. of his earliest novel, _Les Courbezon_ (1862), in which he

treated the subject which was to recur in almost all his books, the

daily business of country priests in the Cevennes. This story enjoyed an

immediate success with the literary class of readers; George Sand

praised it, Sainte-Beuve hailed in its author "the strongest of the

disciples of Balzac," and it was crowned by the French Academy. From

this time forth Fabre settled down to the production of novels, of which

at the time of his death he had published about twenty. Among these the

most important were _Le Chevrier_ (1868), unique among his works as

written in an experimental mixture of Cevenol patois and French of the

16th century; _L'Abbe Tigrane, candidat a la papaute_ (1873), by common

consent the best of all Fabre's novels, a very powerful picture of

unscrupulous priestly ambition; _Mon Oncle Celestin_ (1881), a study of

the entirely single and tender-hearted country abbe; and _Lucifer_

(1884), a marvellous gallery of serious clerical portraits. In 1883

Fabre was appointed curator of the Mazarin Library, with rooms in the

Institute, where, on 11th February 1898, he died after a brief attack of

pneumonia. Ferdinand Fabre occupies in French literature a position

somewhat analogous to that of Mr Thomas Hardy amongst English writers of

fiction. He deals almost exclusively with the population of the mountain

villages of Herault, and particularly with its priests. He loved most of

all to treat of the celibate virtues, the strictly ecclesiastical

passions, the enduring tension of the young soul drawn between the

spiritual vocation and the physical demands of nature. Although never a

priest, he preserved a comprehension of and a sympathy with the clerical

character, and he always indignantly denied that he was hostile to the

Church, although he stood just outside her borders. Fabre possessed a

limited and a monotonous talent, but within his own field he was as

original as he was wholesome and charming.

See also J. Lemaitre, _Les Contemporains_, vol. ii.; G. Pellissier,

_Etudes de litterature contemporaine_ (1898); E.W. Gosse, _French

Profiles_ (1905). (E. G.)

FABRE D'EGLANTINE, PHILIPPE FRANCOIS NAZAIRE (1750-1794), French

dramatist and revolutionist, was born at Carcassonne on the 28th of July

1750. His real name was simple Fabre, the "d'Eglantine" being added in

commemoration of his receiving the golden eglantine of Clemence Isaure

from the academy of the floral games at Toulouse. After travelling

through the provinces as an actor, he came to Paris, and produced an

unsuccessful comedy entitled _Les Gens de lettres, ou le provincial a

Paris_ (1787). A tragedy, _Augusta_, produced at the _Theatre Francais_,

was also a failure. One only of his plays, _Philinte, ou la suite du

Misanthrope_ (1790), still preserves its reputation. It professes to be

a continuation of Moliere's _Misanthrope_, but the hero of the piece is

of a different character from the nominal prototype--an impersonation,

indeed, of pure and simple egotism. On its publication the play was

introduced by a preface, in which the author mercilessly satirizes the

_Optimiste_ of his rival J.F. Collin d'Harleville, whose _Chateaux en

Espagne_ had gained the applause which Fabre's _Presomptueux_ (1789) had

failed to win. The character of Philinte had much political

significance. Alceste received the highest praise, and evidently

represents the citizen patriot, while Philinte is a dangerous aristocrat

in disguise. Fabre was president and secretary of the club of the

Cordeliers, and belonged also to the Jacobin club. He was chosen by

Danton as his private secretary, and sat in the National Convention. He

voted for the king's death, supporting the _maximum_ and the law of the

suspected, and he was a bitter enemy of the Girondins. After the death

of Marat he published a _Portrait de l'Ami du Peuple_. On the abolition

of the Gregorian calendar he sat on the committee entrusted with the

formation of the republican substitute, and to him was due a large part

of the new nomenclature, with its poetic _Prairial and Floreal_, its

prosaic _Primidi_ and _Duodi_. The report which he made on the subject,

on the 24th of October, has some scientific value. On the 12th of

January 1794 he was arrested by order of the committee of public safety

on a charge of malversation and forgery in connexion with the affairs of

the Compagnie des Indes. Documents still existing prove that the charge

was altogether groundless. During his trial Fabre showed the greatest

calmness and sang his own well-known song of _Il pleut, il pleut,

bergere, rentre tes blancs moutons_. He was guillotined on the 5th of

April 1794. On his way to the scaffold he distributed his manuscript

poems to the people.

A posthumous play, _Les Precepteurs_, steeped with the doctrines of

Rousseau's _Emile_, was performed on the 17th of September 1794, and met

with an enthusiastic reception. Among Fabre's other plays are the gay

and successful _Convalescent de qualite_ (1791), and _L'Intrigue

epistolaire_ (1791). In the latter play Fabre is supposed to have drawn

a portrait of the painter Jean Baptiste Greuze.

The author's _Oeuvres melees et posthumes_ were published at Paris

1802, 2 vols. See Albert Maurin, _Galerie hist. de la Revolution

francaise_, tome 11; Jules Janin, _Hist. de la litt. dram._; Chenier,

_Tableau de la litt. francaise_; F.A. Aulard in the _Nouvelle Revue_

(July 1885).

FABRETTI, RAPHAEL (1618-1700), Italian antiquary, was born in 1618 at

Urbino in Umbria. He studied law at Cagli and Urbino, where he took the

degree of doctor at the age of eighteen. While in Rome he attracted the

notice of Cardinal Lorenzo Imperiali, who employed him successively as

treasurer and auditor of the papal legation in Spain, where he remained

thirteen years. Meanwhile, his favourite classical and antiquarian

studies were not neglected; and on his return journey he made important

observations of the relics and monuments of Spain, France and Italy. At

Rome he was appointed judge of appellation of the Capitol, which post he

left to be auditor of the legation at Urbino. After three years he

returned to Rome, on the invitation of Cardinal Carpegna, vicar of

Innocent XI., and devoted himself to antiquarian research, examining

with minute care the monuments and inscriptions of the Campagna. He

always rode a horse which his friends nicknamed "Marco Polo," after the

Venetian traveller. By Innocent XII. he was made keeper of the archives

of the castle St Angelo, a charge which he retained till his death. He

died at Rome on the 7th of January 1700. His collection of inscriptions

and monuments was purchased by Cardinal Stoppani, and placed in the

ducal palace at Urbino, where they may still be seen.

His work _De Aquis et Aquae-ductibus veteris Romae_ (1680), three

dissertations on the topography of ancient Latium, is inserted in

Graevius's _Thesaurus_, iv. (1677). His interpretation of certain

passages in Livy and other classical authors involved him in a dispute

with Gronovius, which bore a strong resemblance to that between Milton

and Salmasius, Gronovius addressing Fabretti as _Faber Rusticus_, and

the latter, in reply, speaking of _Grunnovius_ and his _titivilitia_. In

this controversy Fabretti used the pseudonym Iasitheus, which he

afterwards took as his pastoral name in the Academy of the Arcadians.

His other works, _De Columna Trajani Syntagma_ (Rome, 1683), and

_Inscriptionum Antiquarum Explicatio_ (Rome, 1699), throw much light on

Roman antiquity. In the former is to be found his explication of a

bas-relief, with inscriptions, now in the Capitol at Rome, representing

the war and taking of Troy, known as the Iliac table. Letters and other

shorter works of Fabretti are to be found in publications of the time,

as the _Journal des Savants_.

See Crescimbeni, _Le Vite degli Arcadi illustri_; Fabroni, _Vitae

Italorum_, vi. 174; Niceron, iv. 372; J. Lamius, _Memorabilia Italorum

eruditione praestantium_ (Florence, 1742-1748).

FABRIANI, SEVERINO (1792-1849), Italian author and teacher, was born at

Spilamberto, Italy, on the 7th of January 1792. Entering the Church, he

took up educational work, but in consequence of complete loss of voice

he resolved to devote himself to teaching deaf mutes, and founded a

small school specially for them. This school the duke of Modena made

into an institute, and by a special authority from the pope a teaching

staff of nuns was appointed. Fabriani's method of instruction is summed

up in his _Logical Letters on Italian Grammar_ (1847). He died on the

27th of April 1849.

FABRIANO, a town of the Marches, Italy, in the province of Ancona, from

which it is 44 m. S.W. by rail, 1066 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901)

town 9586, commune 22,996. It has been noted since the 13th century for

its paper mills, which still produce the best paper in Italy. A school

of painting arose here, one of the early masters of which is Allegretto

Nuzi (1308-1385); and several of the churches contain works by him and

other local masters. His pupil, Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1428), was a

painter of considerably greater skill and wider knowledge; but there are

no important works of his at Fabriano. The sacristy of S. Agostino also

contains some good frescoes by Ottaviano Nelli of Gubbio. The municipal

picture gallery contains a collection of pictures, and among them are

some primitive frescoes, attributable to the 12th century, which still

retain traces of Byzantine influence. The Archivio Comunale contains

documents on watermarked paper of local manufacture going back to the

13th century. The Ponte dell' Acra, a bridge of the 15th century, is

noticeable for the ingenuity and strength of its construction. The

hospital of S. Maria Buon Gesu is a fine work of 1456, attributed to

Rossellino.

See A. Zonghi, _Antiche Carte Fabrianesi_. (T. As.)

FABRICIUS, GAIUS LUSCINUS (i.e. "the one-eyed"), Roman general, was the

first member of the Fabrician gens who settled in Rome. He migrated to

Rome from Aletrium (Livy ix. 43), one of the Hernican towns which was

allowed to retain its independence as a reward for not having revolted.

In 285 he was one of the ambassadors sent to the Tarentines to dissuade

them from making war on the Romans. In 282 (when consul) he defeated the

Bruttians and Lucanians, who had besieged Thurii (Livy, _Epit._ 12).

After the defeat of the Romans by Pyrrhus at Heraclea (280), Fabricius

was sent to treat for the ransom and exchange of the prisoners. All

attempts to bribe him were unsuccessful, and Pyrrhus is said to have

been so impressed that he released the prisoners without ransom

(Plutarch, _Pyrrhus_, 18). The story that Pyrrhus attempted to frighten

Fabricius by the sight of an elephant is probably a fiction. In 278

Fabricius was elected consul for the second time, and was successful in

negotiating terms of peace with Pyrrhus, who sailed away to Sicily.

Fabricius afterwards gained a series of victories over the Samnites, the

Lucanians and the Bruttians, and on his return to Rome received the

honour of a triumph. Notwithstanding the offices he had filled he died

poor, and provision had to be made for his daughter out of the funds of

the state (Val. Max. iv. 4, 10). Fabricius was regarded by the Romans of

later times as a model of ancient simplicity and incorruptible

integrity.

FABRICIUS, GEORG (1516-1571), German poet, historian and archaeologist,

was born at Chemnitz in upper Saxony on the 23rd of April 1516, and

educated at Leipzig. Travelling in Italy with one of his pupils, he made

an exhaustive study of the antiquities of Rome. He published the results

in his _Roma_ (1550), in which the correspondence between every

discoverable relic of the old city and the references to them in ancient

literature was traced in detail. In 1546 he was appointed rector of the

college of Meissen, where he died on the 17th of July 1571. In his

sacred poems he affected to avoid every word with the slightest savour

of paganism; and he blamed the poets for their allusions to pagan

divinities.

Principal works: editions of Terence (1548) and Virgil (1551);

_Poematum sacrorum libri xxv._ (1560); _Poetarum veterum

ecclesiasticorum opera Christiana_ (1562); _De Re Poetica libri

septem_ (1565); _Rerum Misnicarum libri septem_ (1569); (posthumous)

_Originum illustrissimae stirpis Saxonicae libri septem_ (1597);

_Rerum Germaniae magnae et Saxoniae universae memorabilium

mirabiliumque volumina duo_ (1609). A life of Georg Fabricius was

published in 1839 by D.C.W. Baumgarten-Crusius, who in 1845 also

issued an edition of Fabricius's _Epistolae ad W. Meurerum et alios

aequales_, with a short sketch _De Vita Ge. Fabricii et de gente

Fabriciorum_; see also F. Wachter in Ersch and Gruber's _Allgemeine

Encyclopadie_.

FABRICIUS, HIERONYMUS [FABRIZIO, GERONIMO] (1537-1619), Italian

anatomist and embryologist, was surnamed Acquapendente from the

episcopal city of that name, where he was born in 1537. At Padua, after

a course of philosophy, he studied medicine under G. Fallopius, whose

successor as teacher of anatomy and surgery he became in 1562. From the

senators of Venice he received numerous honours, and an anatomical

theatre was built by them for his accommodation. He died at Venice on

the 21st of May 1619. His works include _De visione, voce et auditu_

(1600), _De formato foetu_ (1600), _De venarum ostiolis_ (1603), _De

formatione ovi et pulli_ (1621). His collected works were published at

Leipzig in 1687 as _Opera omnia Anatomica et Physiologica_, but the

Leiden edition, published by Albinus in 1738, is preferred as containing

a life of the author and the prefaces of his treatises. (See ANATOMY;

EMBRYOLOGY.)