544 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



tercalated the years when necessary ; watched 

 over the purity of the priestly families by care- 

 fully examining the pedigrees of those priests 

 born out of Palestine, so that none born from 

 a suspicious or ill-famed mother should be 

 admitted to the sacred service. The mode of 

 procedure was extremely complicated ; and 

 such wag the caution of the court, especially 

 in matters of life and death, that capital 

 punishment was pronounced in the rarest in- 

 stances only. The Nasi had the supreme 

 direction of the court, and convoked it when 

 necessary. He sat at the head, and at his 

 right hand was the seat of the Ab-Beth-Din; 

 the rest of the seventy-one took their places, 

 according to their dignity, in front of them, 

 in the form of a semicircle, so that they could 

 be seen by both the chief officers. The meet- 

 ing place of the court was, on ordinary oc- 

 casions, in a hall at the southeast corner of 

 the Temple, but on extraordinary occasions it 

 met in the house of the high priest. It met 

 daily, with the exception of Sabbaths and 

 feast days. After the destruction of the 

 Temple and Jerusalem, the Sanhedrim, after 

 many emigrations, was finally established at 

 Babylon. 



Host. In conformity with the doctrines 

 of the Roman Catholic Church, the consecrated 

 bread of Eucharist is called the Host. In the 

 Latin Church it is a thin circular disk of un- 

 leavened bread, made of the finest flour, and 

 generally bearing some emblematic device. In 

 the Greek and other Oriental churches, as well 

 as in the various Protestant communities, the 

 Eucharist is celebrated in leavened bread, only 

 differing from ordinary bread in being of finer 

 quality. 



Schoolmen and Scholastics are the 

 terms applied to the class of learned theolo- 

 gians and philosophers who flourished in Europe, 

 mainly in France and England, during the 

 middle ages. They were largely givjen to hair- 

 splitting logic and endless argumentations and 

 speculations on points of the most unimpor- 

 tant and often silly nature. Still, in their 

 number were included men of great learning 

 and ability, as Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, 

 and Albertus Magnus, with whom this system 

 of philosophical theological scholasticism cul- 

 minated in the fourteenth century. Johannes 

 Erigena Scotus was not strictly a scholastic ; 

 he lived in the ninth century, in the prepara- 

 tory period of scholasticism. 



Colosseum, The. The Flavian amphi- 

 theater at Rome, known as the Colosseum, was 

 begun by the Emperor Vespasian, and was fin- 

 ished by the Emperor Titus, A. D. 80. It cov- 

 ers about five acres of ground, and contained 

 seats for 87,000 persons and standing room for 



15,000 more . It was in the form of an oval , the 

 longer diameter being 612 feet and the shorter 

 diameter 515 feet, and the height of the walls 

 from 160 to 180 feet. The arena where the 

 gladiators fought and the deadly conflicts with 

 wild beasts took place was 281 by 178 feet. 

 The exterior consists of three rows of columns, 

 Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, and above, a row 

 of Corinthian pilasters. Between the col- 

 umns there are arches which form open galler- 

 ies throughout the whole building, and be- 

 tween each alternate pilaster of the upper tier 

 there is a window. There were four tiers or 

 j stories of seats, corresponding to the four ex- 

 ternal stories. The first of these is supposed 

 to have contained twenty-four rows of seats, 

 and the second sixteen. These were separated 

 by a lofty wall from the third story, which is 

 supposed to have contained the populace. 

 Statues, sculptures, figures of chariots, metal 

 shields, and other embellishments adorned the 

 niches and salient points. On the occasion of 

 the dedication of the Colosseum by Titus, 

 5,000 wild beasts were slain in the arena, the 

 games having lasted for nearly 100 days. 

 There were means by which, when the com- 

 bats were ended, the immense arena could be 

 filled with water for the exhibition of sea- 

 fights. During the various persecutions of the 

 early Christians many of these were thrown to 

 the wild beasts in this amphitheater. One of 

 the first of these was St. Ignatius, who was 

 torn to pieces by lions. In the sixth century, 

 when Christianity gained the ascendancy, the 

 Church put an end to the use of the Colosseum. 

 It still stood entire in the eighth century, but 

 subsequently large quantities of the marble 

 was used in the construction of public and pri- 

 vate buildings. It was consecrated as a mon- 

 ument to the martyrs who had suffered within 

 its walls by Pope Benedict XIV., who erected 

 crosses and oratorios within it, and so put an 

 end to the process of destruction. 



Parsees, the followers of the ancient Per- 

 sian religion as reformed by Zerdusht, or Zo- 

 roaster, as he is commonly called. According 

 to Zerdusht there are two intellects, as there 

 are two lives one mental and one bodily ; 

 and, again, there must be distinguished an 

 earthly and a future life. There are two 

 abodes for the departed Heaven and Hell. 

 Between the two there is the Bridge of the 

 Gatherer, or Judge, which the souls of the 

 pious alone can pass. There will be a general 

 resurrection, which is to precede the last judg- 

 ment, to foretell which Sosiosh, the son of Zer- 

 dusht, spiritually begotten, will be sent by Ahu- 

 ramazdao. The world, which by that time 

 will be utterly steeped in wretchedness, dark- 

 ness, and sin, will then be renewed. Death, 



