Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/246

 MESSALIANS

212

MESSIAS

He survivefl his friend and master only six months. The Armenians reail his name in tlie Canon of the Mass, and celebrate his memory on 1!) February.

Smith .vnd Wack. Dirt. Christ. Biug., s. v. Mr.irohs; Lang- Lois, Collection dcs Historicns dc VArmrnie, II (Paris, 1869); Weber. Die kathol. Kirche in Armenicn (1903); Neumann. Ver.sucA einer Gesch. der armcn. Litleratur (Leipzig, 18,'!6); Gahdthausen. Ueber den griech. Ursprung dcr armen. Schrift in Zeitschr. derdeuisch. morgenl/ind. GeseH.tcAa/f. XXX (1876); Le- NORM.UJT, Essai sur la propagation de Valphabel phrnicim, I (18^2). A. A. Vaschalde.

Messalians (Praying folk; participle Pa'el of N^JV, Aramaic for "to pray"), an heretical sect which origi- nated in Mesopotamia about .3(i ami survived in the East until the ninth century. They are al.so called Euchites from the Greek translation of their Oriental name (dx-fiTui from e(fxo/ioi, to pray); Adelphians from their first leader; Lanipetians from Lampetius, their first priest (ordained about 458); Enthusiasts from their peculiar tenet of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost by Whom they thought themselves inspired or possessed (evSoi's). The non-Christian sect of the Euphemites were also called Messalians, and Epipha- nius (Hser., Ixxx), our sole informant about these, considers them the forerunners of the Christian Mes- salians. The non-Christian Messalians are said to have admitted a plurality of gods, but to have wor- shipped only one, the Almighty (WavTOKpaToip). They were forcibly suppressed by Christian magistrates and many of them put to death. Hence they became self- styled Mart;iriani. The Christian Messalians were a kind of Eastern Circuincellions or vagrant Quietists. Sacraments they held to be useless, though harmless, the only spiritual power being prayer, by which one drove out the evil spirit which baptism had not ex- pelled, received the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and arrived at union with God, becoming so perfect that the passions ceased to trouble. They disregarded dis- cipline in the matter of fasting, wandered from place to place, and in summer were accustomed to sleep in the streets. To avoid persecution they would conform to ecclesiastical usages, profess orthodoxy, and deny any heretical doctrines ascribed to them. The.y en- gaged in no occupations, were solely occupied in prayer, as they said, or rather in sleep, as Theodoret sarcastically remarks. The intensity of their prayer brought them into immediate communication with the Godhead. When they had reached the passionless state {aTrdOeia, "apathy"), they saw the Trinity, the three Divine Persons becoming one and dwelling within them. They likewise saw the evil spirits that go through the world for the ruin of souls, and trod them under foot. In fact every man had within him a demon, who could only be replaced by the Holy Ghost. Even Christ's body was full of demons once. Flavian, the Bishop of Antioch, tried to suppress them in his city about 376. By feigning sympathy he made Adelphius disclose his real doctrines; and then he banished him and his followers. They then wan- dered to the south-east of Asia Minor. Amphilochius of Iconium caused them to be again condemned at the Synod of Side (.388 or 390). Letoius, Bishop of Meli- tene, finding some monasteries tainted with this Quietism, burnt them and drove the wolves from the sheepfold, as Theodoret narrates. The "Asceticus", "that filthy book of this heresy", as it is called in the public acts of the Third General Council (431), was condemned at Ephesus, after it had already been con- demned by a Council of Constantinople in 426 and by the local council at which Amphilochius of Side presided. Yet the sect continued to exist. At first it included only laymen. Lampetius, one of the leaders after the middle of the fifth centurj' was a priest, hav- ing been ordained by Alypius of Csesarea. He was degraded from his priesthood on account of unpriestly conduct. He wrote a book called "The Testament". Salmon refers to a fragment of an answer by Severus of Antioch tc this work of Lampetius (Wolf, "Anec-

dota Gra;ca", IH, 182). In Armenia in the middle of the fifth century strict decrees were issued against them, and they were especially accused of immorality; so that their very name in Armenian became the equivalent for " filthy". The Ncstorians in Syria did their best to stamp out the evil by legislation; the Messalians ceased to exist under that name, but re- vived under that of the Bogomili. In the West they seem hardly to have been known; when the Marcian- ists, who held somewhat the same tenets as the Mes- salians, were mentioned to Gregory the Great, he professed never to have heard of the Marcian heresy. EpiPHANiy.s, Har., Ixxx; Theodoret, Hist. Ec.^ IV, x; Idem, Hcer. Jab., IV, xi; Ctril of Alex., De Adorat. in Spir. ct Vent., Ill in P. G., LXVIII, 282; Timotheus in Eccles. Grcec. mon.. Ill, 400 sqq.; Ter-Mkrtt9chian, Die Paulikianer im byz. Kaiscrreich (Leipzig, 1893); Photius in P. G., GUI, 1S7 sqq.

J. P. Arendzen.

Messene, a titular see, suffragan to Corinth, in .4chaia. Under this name at least, the city dates only from the fourth century B. c. When Epaminondas had crushed the Spartans at Leuctra, he recalled the scattered Messenians and caused them to build, on the slopes of Mount Ithome, a new capital which they called Mes.sene (370 b. c). The fortified walls sur- rounding this city were over five and a half miles in length, and were accounted the best in Greece. The portion of them which still remains justifies this repu- tation. Christianity early took root there, though only a few of its bishops are known (Le Quien, " Oriens christianus", II, 195-98). At the beginning of the tenth century the " Notitia episcopatuum " of Leo the Wise gives Messene as an independent archbish- opric (Gelzer, " Ungedruckte . . . Texte der Notitise episcopatuum", 551) ; and the .same is true for the be- ginning of the fourteenth century (op. cit., 612). As this diocese does not figure in the "Notitia" of the fifteenth century, it may be assumed that it had then ceased to exist. The little village of Mavromati, with a population of 600, the capital of the Deme of Ithome, now stands upon the ruins of ancient Messene.

Leake, Morea, I, 336; Mure, Tour in Greece, II, 264; CnR- tius, Peloponnesos, II, 138; Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, II, 338-340.

S. Vailhe.

Messias. — The name Meo-o-fos is a transliteration of theHebrew, n'CJti, "theanointed". The word appears only twice of the promised prince (Dan., ix, 26; Ps. ii, 2) ; yet, when a name was wanted for the promised one, who was to be at once King and Saviour, it was natural to employ this synonym for the royal title, denoting at the same time the King's royal dignity and His relation to God. The full title "Anointed of Jahveh " occurs in several passages of the Psalms of Solomon and the Apocalypse of Baruch, but the ab- breviated form, "Anointed" or "the .\nointed ", was in common use. When used without the article, it would seem to he a proper name. The word Xpiirris so occurs in several passages of the Gospels. This, however, is no proof that the word was generally so u.sed at that time. In the Palestine Talmud the form with the article is almost universal, while the common use in the Babylonian Talmud without the article is not a sufficient argument for antiquity to prove that in the time of Christ it was regarded as a proper name. It is propo.sed in the present article: I, to give an out- line of the prophetic utterances concerning the Mes- sias; II, to show the development of the prophetic ideas in later Judaism; and III, to show how Christ vindicated His right to this title.

I. The Messias of Prophecy. — The earlier proph- ecies to Abraham and Isaac (Gen., xviii, 17-19; xxvi, 4-5) speak merely of the salvation that shall come through their seed. Later the royal dignity of the promised deliverer becomes the prominent feature. He is described as a king of the line of Jacob (Num., xxiv, 19), of Juda (Gen., xlLx, 10: "The sceptre shall