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 and by example, philologists greater than themselves, and of having kindled the national enthusiasm for ancient learning. It is chiefly in hermeneutics that Ernesti has any claim to eminence as a theologian. But here his merits are distinguished, and, at the period when his Institutio Interpretis N. T. was published (1761), almost peculiar to himself. In it we find the principles of a general interpretation, formed without the assistance of any particular philosophy, but consisting of observations and rules which, though already enunciated, and applied in the criticism of the profane writers, had never rigorously been employed in biblical exegesis. He was, in fact, the founder of the grammatico-historical school. He admits in the sacred writings as in the classics only one acceptation, and that the grammatical, convertible into and the same with the logical and historical. Consequently he censures the opinion of those who in the illustration of the Scriptures refer everything to the illumination of the Holy Spirit, as well as that of others who, disregarding all knowledge of the languages, would explain words by things. The “analogy of faith,” as a rule of interpretation, he greatly limits, and teaches that it can never afford of itself the explanation of words, but only determine the choice among their possible meanings. At the same time he seems unconscious of any inconsistency between the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible as usually received and his principles of hermeneutics.

Among his works the more important are:—I. In classical literature: Initia doctrinae Solidioris (1736), many subsequent editions; Initia rhetorica (1730); editions, mostly annotated, of Xenophon’s Memorabilia (1737), Cicero (1737–1739), Suetonius (1748), Tacitus (1752), the Clouds of Aristophanes (1754), Homer (1759–1764), Callimachus (1761), Polybius (1764), as well as of the Quaestura of Corradus, the Greek lexicon of Hedericus, and the Bibliotheca Latina of Fabricius (unfinished); Archaeologia litteraria (1768), new and improved edition by Martini (1790); Horatius Tursellinus De particulis (1769). II. In sacred literature: Antimuratorius sive confutatio disputationis Muratorianae de rebus liturgicis (1755–1758); Neue theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1760–1769); Institutio interpretis Nov. Test. (3rd ed., 1775); Neueste theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1771–1775). Besides these, he published more than a hundred smaller works, many of which have been collected in the three following publications:—Opuscula oratoria (1762, 2nd ed., 1767); Opuscula philologica et critica (1764, 2nd ed., 1776); Opuscula theologica (1773). See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie; J. E. Sandys, ''Hist. of Class. Schol.'' iii. (1908).

ERNESTI, JOHANN CHRISTIAN GOTTLIEB (1756–1802), German classical scholar, was born at Arnstadt, Thuringia, and studied under his uncle, J. A. Ernesti, at the university of Leipzig. On the 5th of June, 1782, he was made supplementary professor of philosophy at his own university; and on the death of his cousin August Wilhelm in 1801 he was for five months professor of rhetoric. He died on the 5th of June of the following year.

His principal works are:—Editions of Aesop’s Fabulae (1781); of the Glossae sacrae of Hesychius (1785) and Suidas and Phavorinus (1786); and of Silius Italicus Punica (1791–1792); Lexicon Technologiae Graecorum rhetoricae (1795); Lexicon technologiae Latinorum rhetoricae (1797), and Cicero’s Geist und Kunst (1799–1802).

ERNST, HEINRICH WILHELM (1814–1865), German violinist and composer, was born at Brünn, in Moravia, in 1814. He was educated at the Conservatorium of Vienna, studying the violin under Joseph Böhm and Joseph Mayseder, and composition under Ignaz von Seyfried. At the age of sixteen he made a concert tour in south Germany, which established his reputation as a violinist of the highest promise. In 1832 he went to Paris, where he lived for several years. During this period he formed an intimacy with Stephen Heller, which resulted in their charming joint compositions—the Pensées fugitives for piano and violin. In 1843 he paid his first visit to London. The impression which he then made as a violinist was more than confirmed in the following year, when his rare powers were recognized by the musical public. Thenceforward he visited England nearly every year, until his health broke down owing to long-continued neuralgia of a most severe kind. The last seven years of his life were spent in retirement, chiefly at Nice, where he died on the 8th of October 1865. As a violinist Ernst was distinguished by his almost unrivalled executive power, loftiness of conception, and intensely passionate expression. As a composer he wrote chiefly for his own instrument, and his Elegie and Otello Fantasia rank among the most treasured works for the violin.

ERODE, a town of British India, in the Coimbatore district of Madras, situated on the right bank of the river Cauvery, which is here crossed by an iron railway girder bridge of 22 spans. Pop. (1901) 15,529. Here the South Indian railway joins the South-Western line of the Madras railway, 243 m. from Madras. There are exports of cotton and saltpetre; and the town has a steam cotton press.

 EROS, a minor planet discovered by Witt at Berlin on the 14th of August 1898, and, so far as yet known, unique in that its perihelion lies far within the orbit of Mars.

 EROS, in Greek mythology, the god of love. He is not mentioned in Homer; in Hesiod (Theog. 120) he is one of the oldest and the most beautiful of the gods, whose power neither gods nor men can resist. He also evolves order and harmony out of Chaos by uniting the separated elements. This cosmic Eros, who in Orphic cosmogony sprang from the world-egg which Chronos, or Time, laid in the bosom of Chaos, and which is the origin of all created beings, degenerated in later mythology into the capricious god of sexual passion, the son of Aphrodite and Zeus, Ares or Hermes. He is commonly represented as a mischievous boy, the tormentor of gods and men, even his own mother not being proof against his attacks. His brother is Anteros, the god of mutual love, who punishes those who do not return the love of others, without which Eros could not thrive; he is sometimes described as the opponent of Eros. The chief associates of Eros are Pothos and Himeros (Longing and Desire), Peitho (Persuasion), the Muses and the Graces; he himself is in constant attendance on Aphrodite. Later writers (Euripides being the first) assumed the existence of a number of Erotes (like the Roman Amores and Cupidines) with similar attributes. According to the philosophers, Eros was not only the god of sexual love, but also of the loyal and devoted friendship of men; hence the Theban “Sacred Band” was devoted to him, and the Cretans and Spartans offered sacrifice to him before going into battle (Athenaeus xiii. p. 561). In Alexandrian poetry Eros is at one time the powerful god who conquers all, at another the elfish god of love. For the Roman adaptation of Eros see , and for the later legend of Cupid and Psyche see.

In art Eros is represented as a beautiful youth or a winged child. His attributes are the bow and arrows and a burning torch. The rose, the hare, the cock and the goat are frequently associated with him. The most celebrated statue of him was at Thespiae, the work of Praxiteles. Other famous representations are the Vatican torso and Eros trying his bow (in the Capitoline museum).

See J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903); G. F. Schömann, De Cupidine Cosmogonico (1852); E. Gerhard, Über den Gott Eros (1850); articles in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, and Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie.

 ERPENIUS (original name ), THOMAS (1584–1624), Dutch Orientalist, was born at Gorcum, in Holland, on the 11th of September 1584. After completing his early education at Leiden, he entered the university of that city, and in 1608 took the degree of master of arts. By the advice of Scaliger he studied Oriental languages whilst taking his course of theology. He afterwards travelled in England, France, Italy and Germany, forming connexions with learned men, and availing himself of the information which they communicated. During his stay at Paris he contracted a friendship with Casaubon, which lasted during his life, and also took lessons in Arabic from an Egyptian, Joseph Barbatus, otherwise called Abu-dakni. At Venice he perfected himself in the Turkish, Persic and Ethiopic languages. After a long absence, Erpenius returned to his own country in 1612, and on the 10th of February 1613 he was appointed professor of Arabic and other Oriental languages, Hebrew excepted, in the university of Leiden. Soon after his settlement at Leiden, animated by the example of Savary de Brèves, who had established an Arabic press at Paris at his own charge, he caused new Arabic characters to be cut at a great expense, and erected a press in his own house. In 1619 the curators of the university of Leiden