Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/513

Rh E P I E P I 493 After the colony of the Caps of Good Hope had been in British possession for more than forty years, the episcopate was granted to it. Bishop Gray was consecrated first bishop of Cape Town on St Peter s Day 1847. This energetic prelate lost no time in subdividing his enormous diocese. The first new sees were those of Graham s Town and Natal, founded in 1853. St Helena became a bishopric in 1859, the Orange River Territory (now Bloemfontein) in 1863, Maritzburg in 1869, Zululand in 1870, and Pretoria (the Transvaal) in 1878. The diocese of Independent Kaffraria (St John s) was founded by the Scotch Episcopal Church in 1873. We must not omit to mention the missionary bishopric of Central Africa, or the Zambesi, founded by the Universities Mission in 1861, of which the lamented Charles Mackenzie was the first bishop. On the western coast of Africa, Sierra Leone was con stituted a diocese in 1850. In 1864 the Niger territory, including Lagos and Abbeokuta, was taken from it as a missionary diocese. On the seaboard between the two, the republic of Liberia is ecclesiastically subject to a bishop of the American church stationed at Cape Palmas. In 1842 Gibraltar was made the seat of a bishop, whose jurisdiction extends over the clergy and members of the Church of England on the seaboard and islands of the Mediterranean, Archipelago, and Black Sea. In 1846 a bishop was consecrated, under the title of .bishop of Jerusalem, to take oversight of the Protestant settlements in Asia Minor, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. The episcopate of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of North America was originally derived partly from the Episcopal Church of Scotland, partly from that of England. As, however, the Scottish bishops trace their succession to those consecrated by English bishops in 1661, the American Church may be regarded as a legiti mate daughter of the Anglican Church, with which she is united in doctrine and discipline, and in legally authorized communion. The first bishop of the American Church was Dr Samuel Seabury, elected by the clergy of Connec ticut. The oath of allegiance, with which the archbishop had no power to dispense without a special Act of Parlia ment, forming an inseparable obstacle to his consecration in England, Dr Seabury had recourse to the Scotch Episcopal Church, and was admitted to the episcopate at Aberdeen, November 14, 1784, by the hands of the bishops of Aberdeen, Ross, and Moray. Three years later, the formal difficulty having been in the meantime removed, Dr White and Dr Provoost, the elected respectively of the conventions of Pennsylvania and New York, were conse crated at Lambeth on February 4, 1787, by Archbishops Moore and Markham and Bishops Moss of Bath and Wells and Hinchcliffe of Peterborough. There being now three bishops in the American Church, the number held canoni cal ly necessary under ordinary circumstances to a rightful consecration, though not absolutely essential to its validity, they proceeded to consecrate others, the first being Dr Madison for Virginia. By the beginning of the new century the number of diocesan bishops had risen to seven, and now (1878) it amounts to fifty-seven, to whom must be added several missionary bishops consecrated for work among the heathen. The right of electing a bishop is vested, by the constitution of the American Church, in the convention of the diocese, lay as well as clerical. Their choice is submitted to the general convention, if sitting, if not, to the standing committees of the dioceses, and must receive the sanction of the majority before the bishops can consecrate. (E. v.) EPISCOPIUS,SiMON(1583-1643),a distinguished theo logian (whose name in Dutch was Bisschop), was born at Amsterdam on the 1st January 1583. In 1600 he entered the university of Leyden, where he took his master of arts degree in 1606. He afterwards studied theology under Arminius, and Arminius s opponent Gomar ; but soon be coming a strong sympathizer with the Arrainian doctrines, he, on the death of Arminius in 1609, left Leyden for the university of Franeker. In 1610, the year in which the Arminians presented the famous Remonstrance to the States of Holland, he was ordained minister at Bleyswich, a small village in the neighbourhood of Rotterdam ; and in the following year he advocated the cause of the Remon strants at the Hague conference. In 1612 he succeeded Gomar as professor of theology at Leyden, an appointment which awakened the bitter enmity of the Calvinists, and, on account of the influence lent by it to the spread of Arminian opinions, was doubtless an ultimate cause of the meeting of the Synod of Dort in 1618. Episcopius was chosen as the spokesman of the thirteen representatives of the Remonstrants before the synod; but he was refused a hearing, and the Remonstrant doctrines were condemned without any explanation or defence of them being per mitted. At the end of the synod s sittings in 1619, Epis copius and the other representatives were deprived of their offices and expelled from the country. Episcopius retired to Brabant, but ultimately went to France, and took up his residence at Rouen. He devoted the most of his time to the promotion by writings of the Arminian cause ; but the attempt of Wadding to win him over to the Romish faith involved him also in a controversy with that famous Jesuit. After the death of the stadtholder Maurice, the violence of the Arminian controversy began to abate, and Episcopius was permitted in 1626 to resume his duties in the Remonstrant church of Rotterdam. He was after wards appointed rector of the Remonstrant college at Amster dam, where he died in 1643. Episcopius maybe regarded as in great part the theological founder of Armiuianism. Its principles were enunciated by Arminius, but in a frag mentary and somewhat tentative shape, and it is to Epis copius that the merit is due of having developed them into a complete and distinctive form of belief, and of having given them a widely extended and permanent influence. Besides opposing at all points the peculiar doctrines of Cal vinism, Episcopius protested against the tendency of Calvin ists to lay so much stress on abstract dogma, and argued that Christianity was practical rather than theoretical, riot so much a system of intellectual belief as a moral power, and that an orthodox faith did not necessarily imply the knowledge of and assent to a system of doctrine which included the whole range of Christian truth, but only the knowledge and acceptance of so much of Christianity as was necessary to effect a real change on the heart and life. The principal works of Episcopius are his Confessio s. dedaratio scntenlia: pastorum qui in fmdcrato Bdgio Remonstrantcs vocantur super prcccipuis articulis rdigionis Christiance (1621), his Apologia pro Confessione (1629), and his uncompleted work I/islitutioncs Theo- lofjiccc. A life of Episcopius was written by Limborch, and one was also prefixed by his successor Curcelloeus to an edition of his collected works published in 2 vols. (1650-1665). EPITAPH (eVira^tos, sc. Xoyos, fromeVi, upon, and ra^os, a tomb) means strictly an inscription upon a tomb, though by a natural extension of usage the name is applied to any thing written ostensibly for that purpose whether actually inscribed upon a tomb or not. Many of the best known epitaphs, both ancient and modern, are merely literary memorials, and find no place on sepulchral monuments. Sometimes the intention of the writer to have his produc tion placed upon the grave of the person he has commemor ated may have been frustrated, sometimes it may never have existed ; what he has written is still entitled to be called an epitaph if it be suitable for the purpose, whether the purpose has been carried out or not. The most obvious external condition that suitability for mural inscription imposes is one of rigid limitation as to length. An epitaph