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 ''Encycl. Bibl. (by A. B. Davidson); Jew. Encycl.'' (by D. S. Margoliouth). Commentaries: F. Hitzig (1847); C. D. Ginsburg (1861); H. Grätz (1871); Tyler (1874); Delitzsch (1875); E. H. Plumptre (1881); C. H. H. Wright (1883); Nowack, revision of Hitzig (1883); Volck (in Strack u. Zöckler’s Kurzgef. Komm., 1889); Wildeboer (in Marti’s Kurzer Hand-Comm., 1898); C. Siegfried (in W. Nowack’s Handkomm., 1898); Oort (in De Oude Test., 1899). Other works: C. Taylor, Dirge of Koh. (1874); Wünsche, Midrash on Koh. (in his Biblioth. rabbin., 1880); E. Renan, L’Ecclésiaste (1882); Bickell, Der Prediger (1884) and Kohel.-Untersuchungen (1886; Engl. by E. J. Dillon, Sceptics of Old Test., 1895); Schiffer, ''Das Buch Koh. nach d. Auffass. d. Weisen d. Talmuds'', &c. (1884); A. Palm, ''Qoh. u. d. nach-aristotel. Philosophie (1885) and Die Qoh.-Lit. (1886); E. Pfleiderer, Die Phil. d. Heraklit'', &c. (1886); Cheyne, Job and Solomon (1887) and ''Jew. Relig. Life'', &c. (1898); W. Euringer, Der Masorahtext d. Koh. (1890); W. T. Davison, ''Wisdom-Lit. of Old Test. (1894); H. Winckler, in his Altorient. Forschungen (1898); J. F. Genung, Words of Koh. (Boston, Mass., 1904); P. Haupt, Ecclesiastes'' (Baltimore, 1905). The rabbinical discussions of the book are mentioned in Shabbath, 30b; Megilla, 7a; Eduyoth, v. 3; Mishna Yadaim, iii. 5, iv. 6; Midrash Koheleth (on xi. 9), ''Aboth d’ Rab. Nathan'', i.

 ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS, in England, a body corporate, whose full title is “Ecclesiastical and Church Estates Commissioners for England,” invested with very important powers, under the operation of which extensive changes have been made in the distribution of the revenues of the Established Church. Their appointment was one of the results of the vigorous movements for the reform of public institutions which followed the Reform Act of 1832. In 1835 two commissions were appointed “to consider the state of the several dioceses of England and Wales, with reference to the amount of their revenues and the more equal distribution of episcopal duties, and the prevention of the necessity of attaching by commendam to bishoprics certain benefices with cure of souls; and to consider also the state of the several cathedral and collegiate churches in England and Wales, with a view to the suggestion of such measures as might render them conducive to the efficiency of the established church, and to provide for the best mode of providing for the cure of souls, with special reference to the residence of the clergy on their respective benefices.” And it was enacted by an act of 1835 that during the existence of the commission the profits of dignities and benefices without cure of souls becoming vacant should be paid over to the treasurer of Queen Anne’s Bounty. In consequence of the recommendation of these commissioners, a permanent commission was appointed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1836 for the purpose of preparing and laying before the king in council such schemes as should appear to them to be best adapted for carrying into effect the alterations suggested in the report of the original commission and recited in the act. The new commission was constituted a corporation with power to purchase and hold lands for the purposes of the act, notwithstanding the statutes of mortmain. The first members of the commission were the two archbishops and three bishops, the lord chancellor and the principal officers of state, and three laymen named in the act.

The constitution of the commission was amended by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1840 and subsequent acts, and now consists of the two archbishops, all the bishops, the deans of Canterbury, St Paul’s and Westminster, the lord chancellor, the lord president of the council, the first lord of the treasury, the chancellor of the exchequer, the home secretary, the lord chief justice, the master of the rolls, two judges of the admiralty division, and certain laymen appointed by the crown and by the archbishop of Canterbury. The lay commissioners are required to be “members of the Church of England, and to subscribe a declaration to that effect.” The crown also appoints two laymen as church estates commissioners, and the archbishop of Canterbury one. These three are the joint treasurers of the commission, and constitute, along with two members appointed by the commission, the church estates committee, charged with all business relating to the sale, purchase, exchange, letting or management of any lands, tithes or hereditaments. The commission has power to make inquiries and examine witnesses on oath. Five commissioners are a quorum for the transaction of business, provided two of them are church estates commissioners; two ecclesiastical commissioners at least must be present at any proceeding under the common seal, and if only two are present they can demand its postponement to a subsequent meeting. The schemes of the commission having, after due notice to persons affected thereby, been laid before the king in council, may be ratified by orders, specifying the times when they shall take effect, and such orders when published in the London Gazette have the same force and effect as acts of parliament.

 ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. This phrase in its primary sense imports not jurisdiction over ecclesiastics, but jurisdiction exercised by ecclesiastics over other ecclesiastics and over the laity. “Jurisdiction” is a word borrowed from the jurists which has acquired a wide extension in theology, wherein, for example, it is frequently used in contradistinction to “order,” to express the right to administer sacraments as something superadded to the power to celebrate them. So it is used to express the territorial or other limits of ecclesiastical, executive or legislative authority. Here it is used, in the limited sense defined by an American Court, as “the authority by which judicial officers take cognizance of and decide causes.”

Such authority in the minds of lay Roman lawyers who first used this word “jurisdiction” was essentially temporal in its origin and in its sphere. The Christian Church transferred the notion to the spiritual domain as part of the general idea of a Kingdom of God correlative, on the spiritual side of man upon earth, to the powers, also ordained of God, who had dominion over his temporal estate (see ). As the Church in the earliest ages had executive and legislative power in its own spiritual sphere, so also it had “judicial officers,” “taking cognizance of and deciding causes.” Only before its union with the State, its power in this direction, as in others, was merely over the spirits of men. Coercive temporal authority over their bodies or estates could only be given by concession from the temporal prince. Moreover, even spiritual authority over members of the Church, i.e. baptized persons, could not be exclusively claimed as of right by the Church tribunals, if the subject matter of the cause were purely temporal. On the other hand, it is clear that all the faithful were subject to these courts (when acting within their own sphere), and that, in the earliest times, no distinction was made in this respect between clergy and laity.

The fundamental principle of ecclesiastical jurisdiction with its