Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/290

 EBNER

244

ECCLESIASTES

and brought to Rome about a. d. 217 by Alcibiades of Apamea. Those who accepted its doctrines and its new baptism were called Elchesaites. (Hipp., "Philos.", IX, xiv-xvii; Epiph., "Hser.", xix, 1; liii, 1.)

Of the history of this sect hardly anything is known. They exerted only the slightest influence in the East and none at all in the West, where they were known as Symmachiani. In St. Epiphanius 's time small com- munities seem still to have existed in some hamlets of Syria and Palestine, but they were lost in obscurity. Farther east, in Babylonia and Persia, their influence is perhaps traceable amongst the Mandeans, and it is suggested by Uhlhorn and others that they may be brought into connexion with the origin of Moham- medanism.

Uhlhorn in Realencyk. f. prot. Theol. (1898), s. vv. Ebioni- ten, Elkesaiten, Klementinen; Id., Die Homilien und Recogni- tionen d. Clem. Rom, (Gottingen, 1854); Hjlgenfeld, Juden- thum u. Christenthum (Leipzig, 1886); Id., Ketzergeschichte des Urchr. (Leipzig, 1884); Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirch. Lit. (Freiburg, 1902); Qdarry, Notes on the Clemen- tine Homilies in Ha-mttlhti,n (Duijiin, 1890-1), VII, VIII; Bus- BEL, The Purpose nf llif Wnrld-Process. . . in the Clementine . . . Writings in ,s7»</iVi Bibl. (O.xford. 1896); Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Cent. (London, 1875).

J. P. Arendzen.

Ebner, the name of two German mystics, whom historical research has shown to have been in no wise related.

(1) Christina, b. of a patrician family on Good Fri- day, at Nuremberg, 1277 ; d. at Engelthal, 27 Decem- ber, 1355. From her mother she inherited a deeply religious spirit, which early manifested itself in a fond- ness for prayer and mortification. Hardly had she made her First Communion when her parents acceded to a desire, which she had expressed since her seventh year, of entering the Dominican convent at Engelthal in the vicinity of Nuremberg. At the end of her year of novitiate she was stricken with a dangerous illness, which reappeared three times annually from her thir- teenth to her twenty-third year. Each year, for the remainder of her life, she suffered a relapse of this mysterious sickness. Christina did not, however, on this account relax her penitential practices, nor fail in her duties as superior, to which she had been early elected. In her thirteenth year she began to enjoy frequent visits from the Master, from whose words she drew light and counsel for her own direction. As a result she was misunderstood by all save her con- fessor. Father Konrad of Ftissen, O.P., at whose com- mand, in the Advent of 1317, she began to write a di- ary of her spiritual experiences in chronological order. After an introduction in which she reviews in a simple, unaffected manner the whole history of her life till 1317, this touching piece of mystical literatiu'e is car- ried on till 1353. She speaks of herself in the third person as tmn dem menschen. Most of this diary was written by her own hand save when she dictated on account of illness. It is preserved, in a complete version of the fifteenth century, in a manuscript (cod. 90) at Nuremberg. Excerpts are to be found also at the same place (cod. 89, 91), at Stuttgart (cod. 90), and Medingen. We learn from tiiis source that Christina played an important part by her prayers in the settlement of the difficulties arising from the riots at Nuremberg in 1348; from the earthquake of the same year; the Black Death ; the Flagellants' proces- sions of 1349; and the long quarrel between Louis the Bavarian and the Holy See. She also tells us of the absence of a director from the removal of Konrad to Freiburg in 1324 till 1351, when Henry of Nordlingen visited her and gave her advice sufficient for the re- mainder of her life. The treatise "Von der genaden iiberlast" which the Stuttgart Literary Society edited over her name in 1871 is probably not her work.

(2) Mahcaretha, b. of rich parents at Donauworth, 1291 ; d. 20 .lune, 1351. She received a thorough clas- sical education in her homo, and later entered the Dominican convent at Maria-Medingen near Dillingen,

where she was solemnly professed in 130G. In 1312 she was dangerously ill for three years, and subse- quently for a period of nearly seven years she was most of the time at the point of death. Hence she could exercise her desire for penance only by absti- nence from wine, fruit, and the bath. On her return from home, whither she had gone during the campaign of Louis the Bavarian, her nurse died, and Margar- etlia grieved inconsolably, until Henry of Nordlingen assumed her spiritual direction in 1332. The corre- spondence that passed between them is the first col- lection of this kind in the German language. At his command she wrote with her own hand a full account of all her revelations and intercourse with the Infant Christ, as also all answers which she received from Him even in her sleep. This diary is preserved in a manu- script of the year 1353 at Medingen. From her letters and diary we learn that she never abandoned her ad- hesion to Louis the Bavarian, whose soul she learned in a vision had been saved.

LocHNER, Das mystische Leben der hi. Margaretha von Cor- tona, 141-322: Bericht aiis dem mystischen Leben der gottseligen Orden^jttngfrauen Christina und Margaretha Ebner aus Nitrn- berg (Ratisbon, 1862); Preger, Gesch, der deutschen Mystik, II, 247-50, 269-74; Strauch, Margaretha Ebner und Heinrich von Nordlingen, EinBeitrag {Freihurg, 1882); Stempfle, Die gottse- lige Margaretha Ebner, Klosterfrau zu Maria-Medingen (Augs- burg, 1838); ViLLERMONT, Un groupe mystique allemand (Paris, 1908): Rauschmeyer, Margaretha Ebner und ihre Zeit in Jahr- buch des historischen Vereins zu Dillingen (1894), 144-147; The True Story of Margaret of Cortana in The Messenger, XXXVI (New Yorlv, 1901). 1110-14.

Thos. M. Schwertner.

Ecchelensis, Abraham. See Abraham Ecchelen-

sis.

Ecclesiarch. See Sacristan.

Ecclesiastes (Sept. iKKk-qaiatrr-fi's, in St. Jerome also ("oNcioNATOR, "Preacher") is the name given to the book of Holy Scripture which usually follows the Proverbs; the Hebrew Qoheleth probably has the same meaning. The word preacher, however, is not meant to suggest a congregation nor a public speech, but only the solemn announcement of sublime truths [p'npH, passive S"lpJ, Lat. congregare, I (III) K., viii, 1, 2; 7r\p2, in publico, palam, Prov., V, 14; xxvi, 26; Vibi^p to be taken either as a feminine participle, and would then be either a simple abstract noun, prcrconium, or in a poetic sense, luba clangens, or must be taken as the name of a person, like the proper novms of similar formation, Esd., ii, 55, 57; corresponding to its use, the word is always used as masculine, except vii, 27]. Solomon, as the herald of wisdom, proclaims the most serious trutlis. His teaching may be divided as follows.

Introduction. — Everything human is vain (i, 1-11); for man, during his life on earth, is more transient than all things in nature (i, 1-7), whose unchangeable course he admires, but does not comprehend (i, S-11).

Part I. — Vanity in man's private life (i, 12-iii, 15): vain is human wisdom (i, 12-18); vain are pleasures and pomp (ii, 1-23). Then, rhetorically exaggerating, he draws the conclusion: "Is it not better to enjoy life's blessings which God has given, than to waste your strength uselessly?" (ii, 24-26). As epilogue to this part is added the proof that all things are im- mutably predestined and are not subject to the will of man (iii, 1-15). In this first part, the reference to the writer himself, the self-accusation, on account of the excessive luxury described in III Kings, x, is placed in the foreground. Afterwards, the author usually prefaces his meditations with an " I saw ", and explains what he has learned either by personal obser- vation or by other means, and on what he has medi- tated. Thus he saw: —

Part II. — Sheer vanity also in civil life (iii, 16-vi, 6). Vain and cheerless is life because of the iniquity which reigns in the halls of justice (iii, 16-22) as well as in the intercourse of men (iv, 1-3). The strong expressions