Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/72

ABINGTON Holy Trinity in 1268. Hence Willis supposes that he was the first abbot to possess the privilege. He was present at the Council of Lyons in 1272. The last Abbot of Abingdon was Thomas Pentecost (alias Rowland), who was among the first to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy. With the rest of his community he signed the surrender of his monastery in 1538, receiving the manor of Cumnor for life or until he had preferment to the extent of £223 per annum. The revenues of the Abbey (26 Hen. VIII) were valued at £1876, 10 s. 9d.

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Abington (or ), an English antiquarian, b. 1560; d. 1647. His father, who was treasurer to Queen Elizabeth, had him educated at Oxford, Reims, and Paris. For six years he was imprisoned in the Tower, being accused, with his brother Edward, of having taken part in the plot of Babington to effect the escape of Mary Queen of Scots. On his release he retired to Hinlip Castle in Lancaster, where he gave asylum to the Jesuit Fathers, Henry Garnett and Oldcorne, accused of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. For this he was condemned to death, but through the intervention of his son-in-law. Lord Monteagle, the sentence was commuted to exile. His "History of Edward IV" was published after his death and also an English translation of "Gildas" (London, 1638). He also left in manuscript a "History of the Cathedral of Worcester" and "Researches into the Antiquities of Worcester".

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Abipones, .—This Indian tribe, linguistically of Guaycuru stock, formerly roaming the east side of the Paraná river, was finally concentrated between the Rio Bermejo on the north, the Rio Salado on the south, and the Paraná on the east, on the soil of the present Argentine Republic. Their customs appear to have been the same of those of South American tribes in general; clanship, an elaborate animism, or fetishism, complete sway of the medicine-men over private and tribal matters; chiefs eligible, or imposed through the impression created by casual achievements combined with wiles of the Shamans. Their weapons were lances, bows, and arrows, though the lance was preferred. They had most of the customs of the Guaycuru, including the couvade. In 1641 the Abipones had already obtained the horse from the Spanish settlers. At that time they were, according to tradition, still north of the Rio Bermejo, whence it is likely they were driven south by the Tobas, a warlike tribe of their own linguistic stock. Their horses, thriving on the grassy plains, soon made the Abipones very dangerous to Spanish colonization by means of raids on the settlements, by which they increased their own stocks of horses and cattle. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the Jesuits undertook the task of taming these unruly centaurs of the "Grand Chaco". With great difficulty, Fathers Casado, Sanchez, and especially Father Martin Dobrizhoffer, who was for eighteen years a missionary in Paraguay, succeeded in forming several settlements of Christianized Abipones near the Paraná. These colonies were maintained in spite of the turbulent spirit of the neophytes, which caused incessant trouble with Spanish settlers, and above all, in spite of the murderous onslaughts made by the Tobas and Moobobis, strong and warlike tribes, upon the missions, when these showed signs of material prosperity. The expulsion of the Jesuits from Paraguay in 1768 and 1769 was the deathknell of the Abipones. The Tobas and Moobobis destroyed them in the course of less than half a century. It is to the work of Father Martin Dobrizhoffer, S.J., that we know most of our knowledge of the Abipones.

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Abisai, 'ăbhîshay, 'ábhshay; Sept., son of David's sister Sarvia, and brother of Joab, a most valiant warrior (II K., xxiii, 18, 19; I Par., xi, 20, 21), and a faithful friend of David in his struggles against Saul (I K., xxvi, 6–9; II K., ii, 24; iii. 30), against the Ammonites, Syrians, and Edomites (II K., viii, 13; x, 9–14; I Par., xviii, 12; xix, 11–15), against Absalom (II K., xvi, 9, 10; xix, 21, 22; xviii, 2), Seba (II K., xx, 6), and the Philistines (II K., xxi, 15–17).

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Abjuration, a denial, disavowal, or renunciation under oath. In common ecclesiastical language this term is restricted to the renunciation of heresy made by the penitent heretic on the occasion of his reconciliation with the Church. The Church has always demanded such renunciation, accompanied by appropriate penance. In some cases the abjuration was the only ceremony required; in others abjuration was followed by the imposition of hands or by unction, or both by the laying on of hands and by unction. St. Gregory the Great ( 590–604) in a letter (Epistolæ, lib. XI, Ep. lxvii, P.L., Tom. LXXVII, Col. 1204–08; Decret. Gratiani, Pars III, Dist. iv, c. xliv) to Quiricus and the Bishops of Iberia concerning the reconciliation of Nestorians, sets forth the practice of the ancient Church in this matter. According to this testimony of St. Gregory, in cases where the heretical baptism was invalid, as with the Paulinists, Montanists, or Cataphrygians (Conc. Nicæn., can. xix, P.L., II, 666; Decret. Gratiani, Pars II Causa I, Q. i, c. xlii), Eunomians (Anomœans), and others, the rule was that the penitent should be baptized (cum ad sanctam Ecclesiam veniunt, baptizantur); but where the heretical baptism was considered valid converts were admitted into the Church either by anointing with chrism, or by the imposition of hands or by a profession of faith (aut unctione chrismatis, aut impositione manus, aut professione fidei ad sinum matris Ecclesiæ revocantur).

Applying this rule, St. Gregory declares that Arians were received into the Church in the West by the imposition of hands, in the East by unction (Arianos per impositionem manus Occidens, per unctionem vero sancti chrismatis … Oriens, reformat), while the Monophysites, who separated from the Church in the fifth and sixth centuries, were treated with less severity, being admitted, with some others, upon a mere profession of the orthodox faith [solâ verâ confessione recipit (Ecclesia)]. St. Gregory's statement applies to the Roman Church and to Italy (Siricius, Epist., i, c. i; Epist., iv, c. viii; Innoc. I, Epist. ii, c. viii; Epist. xxii, c. iv), but not to the whole Western Church, since in Gaul and Spain the rite of unction was also in use [Second Coun. of Arles, can. xvii; Coun. of Orange ( 529), can. ii; Coun. of Epaon, can. xxi; Greg. of Tours, Historia, lib. II, c. xxxi; lib. IV, cc. xxvii, xxviii; lib. V, c. xxxix; lib. IX, c. xv].

As to the Eastern Church, St. Gregory's phrase entirely agrees with the rule laid down in the seventh canon of Constantinople, which, though not emanating from the Œcumenical Council of 381 bears 