Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/504

Rh 484 E P I -E P I end of the Acherusian Lake ; and in Molossia Passaron, where the kings were wont to take the oath of the constitu tion and receive their people s allegiance; and Tecmon, Phylace, and Horreum, all of doubtful identification. The Byzantine town of Rogus is probably the same as the modern Luro, formerly known as Oropus. History. The kings or rather chieftains of the Molossians, who ultimately extended their power over all Epirus, claimed to be de scended from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who, according to the legend, settled in the country after the sack of Troy, and transmitted his kingdom to Molossus, his son by Andromache. The early history of the dynasty is very obscure ; but Admetus, who lived in the 5th century B.C., has become famous for his hospitable reception of the banished Themistocles, in spite of the grudge that he must have har boured against the great Athenian, who had persuaded his country men to refuse the alliance tardily olfered by the Molossian chief when their victory against the Persians was already secured. He was suc ceeded about 429 B.C. by his son or grandson, Tharymbas or Arymbas I. who being placed by a decree of the people under the guardianship of Sabylinthus, chief of the Atintanes, was educated at Athens, and thus became at a later date the introducer of a higher kind of civilization among his subjects. Alcetas, the next king mentioned in history, was contemporary with Dionysius of Syracuse (about 385 B.C.) and was indebted to his assistance for the recovery of his throne. His son Arymbas II. (who succeeded by the death of his brother Neoptolemus) ruled with prudence and equity, and gave encouragement to literature and the arts. To him Xenocrates of Chalcedon dedicated his four books on the art of governing ; and it is specially mentioned that he bestowed great care on the education of his brother s children. Troas, one of his nieces, became his own wife ; and Olympias, the other, was mar ried to Philip of Macedou, and had the honour of giving birth to Alexander the Great. On the death of Arymbas, his nephew Alex ander, the brother of Olympias, was put in possession of the throne by the assistance of Philip, who was afterwards assassinated on occasion of the marriage of the youthful king with his daughter Cleopatra. Alexander was the first who bore the title of King of Epirus, and he raised the reputation -of his country amongst foreign nations. His assistance having boen sought by the Tarentines against the Samnites and Lucanians, he made a descent, 332 B.C., at Prcstum, near the mouth of the river Silarus, and reduced several cities of the Lucaui and Bruttii ; but in a second attack upon Italy he was surrounded by the enemy, defeated, and slain, near the city Pandosia, in the Bruttian territory. ^Eacides, the son of Arymbas II., succeeded Alexander, and es poused the cause of Olympias against Cassander; but he was de throned by his own soldiers, and had hardly regained his position when he fell, 313 B.C., in battle against Philip, brother of Cas sander. He had, by his wife Phthia, the celebrated Pyrrhus, and two daughters, Deidamia and Troas, of whom the former married Demetrius Poliorcetes. His brother Alcetas, who succeeded him, continued the war with Cassander till he was defeated; and he was ultimately put to death by his rebellious subjects, 295 B.C. The name of Pyrrhus, who next ascended the throne, gives to the history of his country an importance which it would never have other wise possessed; but for an account of his life we must refer to the article PYRIUIUS. Alexander, his son, who succeeded in 272 B.C., attempted to seize on Macedonia, and defeated Antigonus Gonatas, but was himself shortly afterwards driven from his kingdom by Demetrius. He recovered it, however, and spent the rest of his days in peace. Two other insignificant reigns brought the family of Pyrrhus to its close, and Epirus was thenceforward governed by a praetor, elected annually in a general assembly of the nation held at Passaron. It impru dently espoused the cause of Perseus in his ill-fated war against the Romans, 168 B.C. ; and it was consequently exposed to the fury of the conquerors, who destroyed, it is said, 70 towns, and carried into slavery 150,000 of the inhabitants. It never recovered from this blow. At the dissolution of the Achajan league, 146 B.C., it be came part of the province of Macedonia, receiving the name Epirus Yetus, to distinguish it from Epirus Nova, which lay to the east. On the division of the empire it became the inheritance of the emperors of the East, and remained under them until the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, in 1204, when Michel Angelus Com- nenus seized on JEtolia and Epirus. On the death of Michel in 1216, these countries fell into the hands of his brother Theodore. Thomas, the last of the direct line, was murdered in 1318 by his nephew Thomas, lord of Zante and Cephalonia, and his dominions were dismembered. Not long after, Epirus was overrun by the Samians and Albanians, and the confusion which had been growing since the division of the empire was worse confounded still. Charles II. Tocco, lord of Cephalonia and Zante, obtained the recognition of his title of despot of Epirus from the emperor Manuel Comnenus, in the beginning of the 15th century; but his family was deprived of their possession in 1431 by Amurath II. In 1443, Scanderbeg, king of Albania, made himself master of a considerable part of Epirus; but on his death it fell into the power of the Venetian?, from whom it passed again to the Turks, under whose domination it still remains. Xauze, &quot;Reeh. hist, sur les p^uples qui s e&quot;tablirent en pire,&quot; in Mem. dt I Acad. des /riser., 1729; Wolfe, &quot;Observations on the Gulf of Arta,&quot; in Jour. Roy. Geog. Soe., 1834; Merleker, Darsldlung d&amp;lt; : s Landes und dtr lii-icohner ron Epeiros, Konigs., 1841; J. II. Skene, &quot;Remarkable Localities on the Coast nf Epirus,&quot; in Jour. R. O. $.,1848 ; How-en, At/ios, Thessaly,and Epirus, 1852; II,i!i:i, Atbancsische Studien, 1854: liursian, Geogr. ron Griechenland, vol. i.. 18C2; Major R. Stuart, On Phys. Geogr. and Nat. Resources of Epirus,&quot; in J. R. G. S., 1SI.9; Guido Cora, in Cosmos; Dumont, &quot;Souvenirs de 1 Adiiatique, de 1 Epire,&quot; &c., in Rev. dcs Deux Mondes. 1872. EPISCOPACY. By Episcopacy we understand that form of church organization in which the chief ecclesiastical authority within a defined district or diocese is vested in bishops (episcopt), having in subordination to them priests, or presbyters, and deacons, and with the power of ordina tion. Of this form of government there are traces in apostolic times ; evidences of its existence become increas ingly frequent in the sub-apostolic period ; until when the church emerges from the impenetrable cloud which covers the close of the 1st and the beginning of the 2d century, we find every Christhn community governed by a chief functionary, uniformly styled its &quot; bishop,&quot; with two inferior orders of ministers under them, known as &quot; presbyters&quot; and &quot;deacons.&quot; It may be regarded as an established fact that before the middle of the 2d century diocesan Episcopacy had beoome the rule in every part of the then Christian world, and we have now to inquire when and under what circumstances this form of government arose, and with what amount of authority it is invested. On these points the most opposite opinions have been maintained. In the words of Dr Lightfoot (to whose admirable dissertation &quot; On the Christian Ministry,&quot; appended to his Commentary on the Epistle to the Philip- pians, we, though differing from him in some points, would once for all acknowledge our obligation), &quot; Some have recognized in Episcopacy an institution of divine origin, absolute and indispensable ; others have represented it as destitute of all apostolic sanction and authority.&quot; Some, that is, regard it as of the de esse of a church, so that no Christian community can have any right to claim to be considered, in the true sense, a branch of the church catholic if it have not episcopal organization. Others, on the other hand, consider it as of the de bene esse of a church, desirable to its good government, and to the maintenance of evangelical truth and apostolical order, but not essential to its existence. It will be our object in this article to review the evidence as to the origin of Episcopacy afforded by history, and to present the facts and the plain inferences from them in a candid and dispassionate spirit. I. In examining the question of the divine authority of Episcopacy, we have to consider carefully what we mean by the phrase. Do we intend that Episcopacy stands on the same level as Baptism and the Lord s Supper as a direct ordinance of Christ &quot; generally necessary for salva tion ;&quot; or do we mean that it was called into being by the apostles and first teachers of the Christian church under that most real, though perhaps to them insensible, direc tion of the Holy Spirit, to which their decisions and actions are continually ascribed in the sacred record (Acts viii. 29, x. 19, xi. 12, xiii. 2, xv. 28, xvi. 6, 7, xix. 21, xx. 23)1 Of the former opinion, though asserted as an unquestion able fact by many learned defenders of Episcopacy, we may safely assert that there is not a trace in the New Testament. That the episcopal organization of His church was among the &quot; things pertaining to the kingdom of God &quot; which formed the subject of the intercourse of Christ and the twelve in the interval between His re surrection and His ascension is a mere hypothesis desti tute of the semblance of proof. Neither the Acts nor the Epistles contain the slightest hint of any such autho ritative communication being made before our Lord s