Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/419

AMALBERGA books to bring to France. Living just at this time when the liturgy was changing, when the fusion of the Roman and Gallican uses was taking place, he exercised a remarkable influence in introducing the present composite liturgy, which has finally supplanted the ancient Roman Rite. He sought to carry out the desire of the Emperor to introduce the Roman liturgy in order to obtain uniformity, but at the same time, like Alcuin and other liturgists of his age, he combined with the Roman whatever he deemed worth preserving in the Gallican Rite, as may be easily seen in his commentary on his own antiphonary. The chief merit of his works consists of the fact that they have preserved much accurate and valuable information on the state of the liturgy at the beginning of the ninth century, so that a comparison may easily be made between it and the present liturgy to determine what changes have occurred and to trace the development that has taken place. The most serious defect in his writings is an excessive mysticism which led him to seek far-fetched and even absurd symbolical origins and meanings for liturgical formulas and ceremonies, but the fault may be in a measure excused since it was common to all liturgical writers of that time. He may also have used more liberty in composing, changing, and transposing liturgical texts than ecclesiastical authority in later ages would permit, when the necessity of unity in the liturgy was more imperatively felt. In spite of these faults he exercised great influence on the development of the present Roman liturgy and his works are very useful for the study of the history of the Latin liturgies.

Author:John Francis Goggin.

Amalberga,, otherwise Amelia, was related in some way to Pepin of Landen. Whether she was sister or niece, the Bollandists are not sure. She was married to Witger and became the mother of three saints, Gudila, Reinelda, and Emembertus. The Norman chroniclers speak of her as twice married, which seems to be erroneous. Nor are Pharailda and Ermelende admitted by the Bollandists to have been her children. She and her husband ultimately withdrew from the world, he becoming a monk, and she a nun. There is very great confusion in the records of this saint, and of a virgin who came a century after. To add to the difficulty a third St. Amalberga, also a virgin, appears in the twelfth century. The first two are celebrated simultaneously on 10 July.

Author:Thomas Joseph Campbell.

Amalberga,, a virgin, very much revered in Belgium, who is said to have been sought in marriage by Charles, afterwards Charlemagne. Continually repulsed, Charles finally attempted to carry her off by force, but though he broke her arm in the struggle he was unable to move her from the altar before which she had prostrated herself. The royal lover was forced to abandon his suit, and left her in peace. Many miracles are attributed to her, among others the cure of Charles, who was stricken with illness because of the rudeness with which he had treated the saint. She died 10 July, in her thirty-first year, five years after Charles had ascended the throne.

Author:Thomas Joseph Campbell.

Amalec ( in Douay Vers.; or, ) a people remembered chiefly as the most hated of all the enemies of Israel, and traditionally reputed among the fiercest of Bedouin tribes.

.—According to a widely accepted interpretation of Gen., xxxvi, 10–12, their descent is to be traced from Amalec, son of Eliphaz and grandson of Esau, and ultimately therefore from Abraham; which account is credited by most modern scholars in so far as it indicates the Arabian origin of the Amalecites and a racial affinity with the Hebrews. The Amalec of Gen., xxxvi, 12, however, is not stated to be the ancestor of the Amalecites, though the main purpose of the context, which gives the origin of various Arabian tribes, favours that view; but against it is the earlier account of Gen., xiv, which can only be fairly interpreted to mean that the Amalecites, instead of being descended from Abraham, were already a distinct tribe in his day, when they were defeated at Cades (Kadesh) by Chodorlahomor (Chedorlamour), King of the Elamites. This evidence of their antiquity would be confirmed by the more probable interpretation of those who regard the obscure prophecy of Balaam, concerning "Amalec, the first of the nations" as indicating not their greatness, but their age, relative to the other nations mentioned in the oracle. No light on the origin of the Amalecites can be gathered from other sources; the Arabian traditions are late and add nothing trustworthy to the biblical data; and though it happens that nearly every passage of Scripture concerning their origin is subjected by competent scholars to different, and at times, even contradictory, interpretations, little doubt is entertained that the Amalecites were of Arabian stock and of greater antiquity than the Israelites. The belief in their Arabic descent is confirmed by their mode of life and place of dwelling.

.—The Amalecites were nomadic and warlike and their name is consequently connected in the Bible with various regions. Their original home, however, as appears from I K., xxvii, 8, was in the desert to the south and southwest of Judea, which stretches to the border of Egypt and to the foot of Mt. Sinai, and is now called Et Tih; a region too arid for cultivation, but fertile enough to afford excellent pasture. This indication of I K., xxvii, 8, is confirmed by other passages. It was in this desert, at Cades, that they suffered defeat from Chodorlahomor (Gen., xiv); here, farther to the south, at Raphidim, near the foot of Mt. Sinai, they offered opposition to Moses (Ex., xvii); here Saul attacked them (I K., xv), and here the last remnant of them perished under Ezechias (I Par., iv, 43). But they were not always confined to the desert; they pushed farther north and in Moses’s time some of them, at least, are found within the borders of Palestine, and frustrated the attempt of the Israelites to enter the country from the south (Num., xiii). Twice our present Hebrew text shows them even as far north as the territory of Ephraim (Judges, v, 14; xii, 15); but in both cases there seems to be a faulty reading in the Hebrew, which allows us, therefore, to dispense with the habitual speculations, based on these texts, regarding the great expansion and varying fortunes of the Amalecites and their puzzling possession of Mount Ephraim. (See commentaries of Moore and Lagrange on Judges, and Moore’s Hebrew text of Judges in Paul Haupt’s polychrome Bible.) Nomads and possessors of the Sinaitic peninsula, the Amalecites necessarily came into contact, and almost inevitably into conflict, with the Israelites.

.—Their first meeting took place in the first year of the wandering, after Israel came out of Egypt, and was of such a nature that Israel then conceived a hatred of the Amalecites that outlasted their extermination under King Ezechias, many centuries later. The first encounter was at Raphidim, where the Israelites under Moses had encamped on their way to Mount Sinai; in the desert home, therefore, of the Amale-