Strato

(300 B.c.) thought the same, but did not enter on the atomic theory of Epikouros, and called the Law of Nature a fluid nece ity (see Empedoklés and Stoiks). To Epikouros the god of Plato, and the Pronoia of Stoiks, were indefinable phantoms like our “ Providence”; and he laughed at the idea that the world was endowed with sense and spirit, His atoms, he thought, came together in a yacuum fortuitously, but were yet attracted by fixed _ laws. He was equally opposed to popular superstition and to Stoik fatalism. Yet he admitted a prolépseis or “preconception,” such as mankind generally have felt, in connection with the idea of a God. - He saw that men had recourse to the explanation of divine action when unable to account for phenomena, and so made for themselves ~ an awful and eternal master. Cotta, the old Roman priest, inclined to the Akademik doctrines, is represented (De Nat. Deorwm, 187) as telling the Epicureans that ' “they—only to avoid censure—do not deny the existence of the gods... they believe them to be wholly inactive, and regardle of everything.” They had no belief in the miraculous (183), and said that fear of the gods never restrained men actually from evil deeds. Epikouros taught that “he is not godle who rejects the gods of the crowd, but rather he who accepts them.” The greatest disciple of Epikouros in later days was Lucretius. _ Epimenidés. A Kretan poet and sage of Kno os, the capital of Minos, living a meditative life, which is fabled (as among Hebrews) ' to have lasted for 5 or 7 generations. The A then i ans carried him to Athens, to stay the plague in 596 B.c. This he did, ordering the city to be cleansed, while sundry rites and sacrifices satisfied people and priests. The only reward he asked was a decree of eternal friendship between Athens and Kno os. He was called one of the Seven Sages, but best known as an Orphik bard. Epiphanius. A writer of Jewish origin, converted to Christianity about 360 a.c., and born about 320 to 310 A.c., near Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrin) in S. Palestine. He was a monk who burned with zeal for ecclesiastical orthodoxy. He became a bishop in Cyprus, and a famous literary character (356 to 367 A.c.) residing at Salamis or Constant i a. He aided his great friend Hilar i on in estab- _ lishing monasticism in Syria: and he opposed the Arians, and the Semi-Arians whom most Eastern bishops favoured. He entered _ warmly into the controversies of the age; and in his great book on _ Heresies he bade Arabia to accept the dogma of the “ perpetual virginity” of Mary. In his Ankurdtos, and Pamarion (874 to 377 a.c.) he attacks Gnostiks, Arians, and followers of Origen, as “corrupt heretics who knew not the true gospels, and taught soul destroying errors.” He said that “only he, Jerome, and Paul in us, knew the gospels.” He apparently accepted the doctrines of the 2nd Council—that of Constantinople—in $81 a.c.; and when in Rome lived with Jerome at the house of his patrone Paula. She visited him later at Salamis, and went with him to rejoin Jerome in Palestine. The latter called Epiphanius the “ father of the episcopate.” He was wont to abuse Origen as the “father of Arian heresies,” and would not permit monks to read the works of that famous writer (see Origen). In spite of old age he set out, in 394 A.c., to denounce the Origenists at Jerusalem, where John, the bishop of the city, allowed him to preach in the Church of the Anastasis. He very ungraciously denounced John, and a violent quarrel followed, the populace taking his side, Even Jerome was not spared as having leanings to Origen’s teaching. On his return home in 399 A.c. he expelled Origenists, and was finally ordered to Constantinople by Chrysostom, with whom he had refused to hold communion. He died on board ship in 403 a.c. He is mainly remembered as an enemy of heretics, denouncing 80 heresies which arose, he said, between his own time and that of the birth of Christ. His Panarion was described as a “box containing cures for the bites of the heretical serpents.” Even in his days opinions were still very unsettled. His disquisitions are prolix, and we cannot feel a ured that his statements are reliable, for he called those who differed from him wild beasts, vipers, infidels, etc. He is not to be confused with Epiphanius Scholastic us (about 510 a.c.), the chaplain and amanuensis of Ca iodorus, the famous abbot of the Monasterium Vivariense, and a translator of Greek and Latin scriptures, and of other works such as those of the Greek historians So crates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, as well as of Joseph us. Epiphany. The feast of “ manifestation,” 12 days after Christmas, when traditionally the Magi visited Bethlehem. Their names are usually given as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, sons respectively of Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Even to the beginning of the 19th century kings used to offer gold, frankincense, and myrrh, at this feast in memory of these “Three Kings”; and Romans then still flocked to the Ara Ceelior “altar of heaven” (see Bambino). The vigil of “Twelfth Night” was famous also for the “Twelfth Cake” (see Beans), and for the election of the “Lord (or Abbot) of Misrule,” or of a Fool to lead the well-called “Feast of Fools”—a period of licentious revelry. 85