Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/461

 MITYLENE

407

MIVART

San Michele di Murano near Venice. After joining the Camaldolese Order at the early age of fourteen, he studied theology at Florence and Home, whereupon he taught philosophy and theology at the monastery of San Michele di Murano. Because he relinquished the scholastic methotl, his superiors sent him to the monas- tery of San Parisio in Treviso where he became con- fessor and archivist. In 1760 he was elected Abbot of San Michele di Murano and in 1765, General of his Order for the space of five years during which he re- sided in Rome; in 1770 he returned to his monastery where he remained as abbot until his death. His monumental work, in the preparation of which he was assisted by his confreres Costadini and Calogera, is the "Annales Camaldulenses ordinis S. Benedicti, ab anno 907 ad aimum 1770" 9 vols, folio (Venice, 1755-73). It follows the plan of Mabillon's "An- nales ordinis S. Benedicti". His other works are: "Memorie della vita di San Parisio, e del monastero dei Santi Christina e Parisio di Treviso" (Venice, 1748), " Memorie del monastero della Santa Trinita di Ftenza" (F;enza, 1749), "Ad Scriptores rerum Itali- carum A. Muratorii accessiones historia? Faventince" (Venice, 1771), " De litteratura Faventmorum " (Ven- ice, 1775), and the posthumous work " Bibliotheca codicum Mss. monasterii St. Miclicelis de Murano cum appendice librorum 15, sreculi" (Venice, 1779).

Fabroni, De vita Mitfardtii. prefixed to the last named work of Mittarelli; Idem. Vita Italorum docfrina excellentium qui sec. 17 et IS fiorueruni. \ (Pisa. 177S-1S04), 369-91; Brau.v- MULLER in Kirchenlex; Weiss iq Biographic Vniverselle, XXVIII,

427. Michael Ott.

Mitylene, a titulary archbishopric in the island of Lesbos. Inhabitated, first by the Pelasgians, then by the ^Eolians, it was ruled in tuni Ijy the Persians, the Athenians, the Macedonians, the Seleucidae, and the Romans. Included in the empire of the East after the time of Theodosius it suffered much from the dif- ferent invasions of the Scythians in .370, the Slavs in 769, the Arabs in 821, SSI, 1035, the Russians in 864 and 1027. In 1204 after the foundation of the Latin empire, the city became a possession of the French, only to be reconquered in 1248 by .lohn Ducas Vatat zes. It belonged to the ( ienoese when the sultan, Mahomet II, conquered it in 1462. The home of many famous per- sons, among them Sappho, Alcaeus, and the sage Pitta- cus, Mitylene was famous for its beauty and for the strength of its walls. St. Paul stopped there during his third journey (Acts, xx, 14). Among its bish- ops, whose names will be found in part in Le Quien, "Oriens christianus", I, 953-962, are Zacharias Rhetor, or the Scholastic, author of an Ecclesiastical History about the year 536; Saint George who died in exile at Cherson before 821 and whose feast occurs on 7 April and 16 May; another Saint George who died in 843 and is venerated by the Greeks on 1 February with his two brothers. Saint Simeon and Saint David (Analecta boUandiana XVIII, 209 sq.). Until this time Mitylene was only an autocephalous archbishop- ric ; the " Notitia " of Leo the Wise aliout 900 describes it as a metropolitan see with five suffragans. Doro- theus of Mitylene stands out among the friends of the LTnion at the Council of Florence of %vhich he wrote a history in Greek (Mansi, XXXI, 463 sq., 997, 1009). The list of the Latin titularies of 1205 to 1412 may be found in Le Quien, III, 991-994; Eubel, I, 370; Gams, 449. The present city of Metilin num- bers 15,000 inhabitants, the greater number schismatic Greeks; the 700 C.atholics of the island are chiefly grouped about Metilin and are included in the arch- bishopric of Smyrna. The parish is directed by the Franciscans ; the Marist Brothers ha\ea school forbovs.

Le Quien. Orims chriKiinm,.': I. n-,:i-'.ifii ; TIT, 9ai-!)!>4; La- CROIX. lies de la Grice (Paris. \fin?,). J97 :!:!S; Cuinet. La Tur- Quied'Asie. I (.Pans. 1892). 449-74: KnnET.VEV Die aniiken Bauresten der Insel Lesbox (Berlin, ISOO); Wroth. Calaloque of Greek Coins of Troas, Ealis. and Lesbes (London, 1894), 184-21.').

S. Salaville.

Mivart, St. George Jackson, Ph.D., M.D., P.R.S., V.P.Z.S., F.Z.S., Corresponding member of the Acad- emy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; Member of the Comicil of Linnean Society, etc., b. in London, 30 November, 1S27, d. there, 1 April, 1900.

Professor Mivart., whom Darwin styled the "dis- tinguished biologist", third son of James Edward Mivart, owner of Mivart's Hotel in Brook Street, was born at 39 Brook .St., Grosvenor Square, London. His parents were Evangelicals; and his early educa- tion was received at the Clapham Grammar School, at Harrow, and at King's College, London; from which latter institution he intended to go to Oxford. His enthusiasm for architecture led him, at the age of sixteen, to make a tour of Pugin's Gothic churches; and while visiting St. Chad's, in Birmingham, he met Dr. Moore (afterwartls President of .St. Mary's College, Oscott) who received him into the Catholic Church in 1844. Mivart's conversion is said to have been de- termined by Milner's " End of Religious Controversy". On his reception he proceeded to Oscott College, where he remained until 1846. On 15 January of that year he became a student at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Bar in 1S51. He did not, however, follow a le- gal career, but gave himself to scientific and philosoph- ical studies; and in 1862 was appointed Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at St. Mary's Hospital Medi- cal School. In 1S74, he was appointed professor of Biology at the ((^'atholic) University College, Kensing- ton. From 1890 to 1893 he gave a course of lectures on " The Philosophy of Natural History " in the Uni- versity of Louvain. From 1849 he was a member of the Royal Institution; Fellow of the Zoological Society from 1S5S, and Vice-President twice (1869 and 1882); Fellow of the Linnean Society from 1S62; Secretary of the same during the years 1874-80, and Vice-Presi- dent in 1892. In 1867 he became a member of the Royal Society — elected on account of the merit of his work " On the .\ppentlicular skeleton of the Primates". 'This work was communicated to the Society by Pro- fessor Kuxley. Mivart was a member of the Meta- physical Society from 1874. He received the degrees of Doctor of Philo.sophy from Pope Pius IX in 1876, and of Doctor of Jledicine from Louvain in 1884. His communications, dating from 1864, to the "pro- ceedings" of learned Societies — notably the Royal, the Linnean, and the Zoological — are numerous and of great scientific value. He contributed articles to the " EncyclopEedia Britannica," and to all the leading English and American reviews.

In 1871 he pulilished his "Genesis of Species", in which work, foreshadowed by an article in the "Quar- terly Review " of the same year, he took his stand as the leading opponent of the Darwinian hypothesis. This estranged him from Darwin and Huxley; but his repu- tation as a specialist in biological science was in no way impaired by the position he took up. In subse- quent editions of his " Origin of Species " Darwm deals at great length with the objections raised by Mivart.. HLs since published " Life and Letters " afford ample evidence of how weighty he felt them to be. Mivart, however, himself professed a theory of evolution ; but he unhesitatingly and consistently asserted the ir- reconcilialile difference between the inanim.ate and animate, as well as between the [)virely animal and the rational. By maintaing i<; tlic rreationist theory of the origin of the Iiuiikih soul In- ,lI Icrniiled to recon- cile his evolutionism wilh I Ih' ( 'al hulic failli. In phil- osophical prolilcms, towards which he turned more and more in later years, his attitude was rather that of a neo-schohistic .o-s .against the post-Cartesian philoso- phies; and he opposed with success a critical, or mod- erate realist. system of knowledge to the widely preva- lent agnostirisin of liistime. Towards the close of his life Mivart's philosophical speculations l)eg.an to verge on an " interpretation" ofjtheological dogma that was incompatible wilh the Faith. 'The crisis, however,