801 



EPHORI. 



EPIC POETRY. 



P02 



bility of Gosp. Hist./ vol. ii.) the writings of Ignatius, who was 

 St. Paul's contemporary, contain seven citations from this epistle. It 

 is also cited by Irenseus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Origen, 

 and many subsequent Christian writers. There were, however, several 

 important and numerous sects, aa the Nazarenes or Ebionites, and the 

 Severians, Encratitso and other followers of Tatian, who, in the 1st and 

 2nd centuries, denied both the genuineness and the authenticity of this 

 and the other writings of St. Paul ; rejecting them as a tissue of errors, 

 and denouncing St. Paul himself as an apostate, and a perverter of the 

 original system of Jesus of Nazareth. (Origen ' contra Celsum/ 1. v. ; 

 Euseb. ' Eccles. Hist.,' L iii., c. 21 and 27 ; Epiphanius, ' Hares.,' 30 ; 

 Hieron. 'in Math.,' c. 12 ; Nicephorus, ' Hist. Eccles.,' 1. iv., c. 4, 1. v., 

 c. 12 ; Toland's ' Nazarenus/ p. 25-29.) A second epistle of St. Paul 

 to the Ephesians is mentioned by Jerome (' De Scriptoribus Eccles.') 

 and by Epiphanius (' Horn.' 42). The place and date generally assigned 

 to this epistle by biblical critics are Rome, A.D. 61, that is, in the first 

 year of the apostle's imprisonment at Rome (ch. iii. 1, ch. iv. 1, 

 ch. vi. 20, and the postscript). Much has been written by commen- 

 tators for and against the opinion that St. Paul addressed this letter to 

 the Ephesians. The belief that it was so written is founded on the 

 disputed reading of the words of the first verse, " to the saints at 

 Ephesus " (ir 'f^iiaif), which appear in all the ancient manuscripts, and 

 on the postscript which says, " written from Rome unto the Ephesians." 

 This however is doubted and denied to be the fact by Grotius, Hammond, 

 Mill, Wetstein, Paley, and Greswell, who adopt the statement, said by 

 Tertullian to have been made by Marcion, that it was written to the 

 Laodicaeana. Macknight, Lardner, Hartwell Home, Dr. W. L. Alex- 

 ander, and Barnes (in his ' Commentaries '), see no difficulty in 

 believing it to have been addressed to the Ephesians, and so far to 

 establish the common opinion of the received reading of the introduc- 

 tory verse, addressing the epistle to " the saints in Ephesus." Of the 

 same opinion is Dr. John Eadie, in his ' Commentary on the Greek 

 Text of the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians ' (London, 1853) ; while 

 Conybeare and Howison believe it was not addressed to the Ephusians. 

 Archbishop Usher considered it a cyclical epistle addressed to no par- 

 ticular church, but to all, though Ephesus might have been the chief ; 

 and this opinion is advocated by Bengel, Michaelis and Hug. The style 

 is exceedingly animated and fluent, and has less metaphorical obscurity 

 than generally characterises the compositions of St. Paul; though 

 from the length of the sentences, the number of members in each 

 sentence, and the want of or imperfect punctuation, the original is 

 often capable of more than one interpretation. It is also noticeable 

 that, though St. Paul had resided so long, and was so well acquainted 

 with the members of the church, in Ephesus, he addresses no one by 

 name, but writes aa if he were addressing persons unknown to him. The 

 object appears to be to establish an earnest faith in the doctrines of 

 Christianity, by giving exalted notions of their importance and moral 

 excellence, and to encourage a perseverance in the Christian warfare 

 with temporal and spiritual enemies. The first three chapters are 

 occupied in especially setting forth the principles of predcstinarianism 

 (i. 4, 5, 11, iv. 30), and the last three are devoted chiefly to the en- 

 joining of moral duties with respect to husbands, wives, parents, 

 children, masters, and servants. " No real Christian," says Dr. Mac- 

 knight, " can read the doctrinal part of this epistle without being 

 impressed and roused by it, as by the sound of a trumpet." On the 

 undesigned coincidence! with the ' Acts ' see Paley's ' Horae Paulina;.' 

 The moral and doctrinal precepts of this epistle, with respect chiefly to 

 election, have occasioned theological critics, especially those of Germany, 

 to write elaborately on its proper interpretation. 



E'PHOKI (kpofot), a body of magistrates at Sparta, who were 

 possessed of great privileges. The institution of this office is usually 

 ascribed to Theopompus, the grandson of Charilaus the Proclid, but 

 from their being apparently placed among the institutions of Lycur- 

 gus by Herodotus (L 65) and Xenophon ('de Rep. Lac.,' viii. 3) 

 the office has been considered by some as a Dorian institution. 

 Mr. Grote however (' History of Greece,' vol. ii.) contends that the 

 institutions of Sparta were altogether peculiar to herself, and in no 

 respect characterise the Dorians. Dr. Arnold supposes (' Thucyd.,' 

 Yol. i. p. 646) that the ephori, who were five in number, were coeval 

 with the first settlement of the Dorians in Sparta, and were merely 

 the municipal magistrates of the five hamlets which composed the 

 city (see Muller, ' Dorians,' ii. p. 650, Engl. transl.) ; but that after- 

 wards, when the HeracliiUc began to encroach upon the privileges of 

 the other Dorians, and, it would seem, in the reign of Theopompus, who 

 endeavoured to diminish the powers of the general assembly of the 

 Spartan aristocracy, the Dorians, in the struggle which ensued, gained 

 for the ephori an extension of authority which placed them virtually 

 at the head of the state, although the nominal sovereignty was still 

 left in the hands of the Hcraclidrc. Thus the ephori were originally 

 popular magistrates as far as the Spartans themselves were concerned, 

 and were in fact the guardians of their rights from the encroachments 

 of the kings, though they were in relation to the Periocci (rifioutoi) the 

 oppressive instruments of an overbearing aristocracy, and formed in fact 

 a close and unscrupulous oligarchy. (Plato, ' Legg.,' iv. p. 712 D.') The 

 ephori were chosen in the autumn of every year; the first gave his 

 to the yar ; every Spartan was eligible to the office without 

 any regard to age or wealth. They were empowered to fine whom 

 they pleased, and exact immediate payment of the fine ; they could 



suspend the functions of any other magistrate, and arrest and bring 

 to trial even the kings. (Xenophon, ' de Rep. Laced.,' viii. 4.) They 

 presided and put the vote in the public assemblies (Thucyd., i. 87) 

 and performed all the functions of sovereignty in receiving and dis- 

 missing embassies (Xen. ' Hellen.,' ii. 13, 19), treating with foreign states 

 (Herod., ix. 8), and sending out military expeditions. (Xen., ' Hellen.,' 

 ii. 4, 29.) The king, when he commanded, was always attended by 

 two of the ephori, who exercised a controlling power over his 

 movements. (Herod., ix. 76.) The ephori were murdered on their 

 seats of justice by Cleomenes III., and their office overthrown 

 (Plutarch, ' Vit. Cleomen.,' c. viii.) ; but they were restored by Anti- 

 gonus Doson and the Achseans in 222 B.C. (Polyb., ii. 70 ; Pausan., 

 ii. 9, 2) ; and the office subsisted under the Roman dominion. 

 When Lysander with the Spartan forces made himself master of 

 Athens, B.C. 404, Ephori were appointed for that city, among whom 

 were Critius and Theramenes, but these soon gave way to the domina- 

 tion of the thirty tyrants. (See Bb'ckh, ' Corpus Inscriptionum,' i. p. 

 604-613.) On the ephoralty, the reader may consult Muller's ' Dorians,' 

 book iii. ; Plass's ' Geschichte des alten Griechenlands,' vol. ii. ; 

 Tittmann's ' Darstellung der Griech. Staatsverfasaungen ; ' and 

 Grote's ' History of Greece,' vol. ii. 



EPIC POETRY is that form of art which produces an imaginative 

 description of external facts and occurrences, as distinguished from 

 lyric poetry, which employs itself in registering, in an imaginative 

 manner, all those internal facts and occurrences which go by the name 

 of feelings and emotions. 



Those who find this definition insufficient must remember that it 

 does not and is not intended to apply to any single epic or lyric poem. 

 With the exception, perhaps, of some of our old national romances, 

 there does not exist an epic poem of any length which is perfectly free 

 from lyrical passages ; but this is no reason why we should confound 

 the two forms of art, and not assign to poetry the one name or the 

 other according to the proportion which it contains of either element. 



From what we know of the operations of our own minds, and of the 

 analogy which subsists between the growth of individual and national 

 intellect, it appears most natural that epic should be the earliest 

 species of poetry. A child, born into a crowd of circumstances all 

 claiming his attention and exciting his interest/busies himself with the 

 external world long before it ever occurs to liim to examine what is going 

 on within himself. Nay, more than this, his imagination, the idealising 

 faculty, takes the models of its exertions entirely from the external 

 world. His dreams, his reveries, his waking fancies, are active and 

 epical, as any one who has watched the movements of children must 

 acknowledge ; but the time when he begins to notice his own thoughts 

 and feelings the lyrical age does not come till later. 



The earliest specimens of the epic form of art, which probably con- 

 sisted of tales rhythmically arranged and recited to a very simple 

 musical accompaniment, no doubt belonged to the unconscious era, 

 during which the poet, setting before him no aim, or seeing it at best 

 but very imperfectly, acts purely from the stirring impulse of his own 

 imagination. Into this class we may perhaps admit some of our oldest 

 and simplest romances ; but the poetry of Homer and Hesiod, the two- 

 fold epic of the Greeks, cannot be denied to be, in great measure at 

 least, the work of conscious artists. We shall notice the writings of 

 the early Greeks first in order ; and as it would swell this article to an 

 unnecessary length were we to examine in detail the principal epic 

 poems which we possess, we shall confine ourselves, in a great measure, 

 to those which were composed during the periods both of ancient and 

 modern history, when epic poetry could be said to be the poetry of the 

 age, and leave those detached productions which owe their existence to 

 the imagination of isolated men, in times long after the disappearance 

 of the living epos, for a separate examination. 



There are two divisions into which the epic poetry of the Greeks 

 naturally falls ; the heroic or romantic epos of Homer and of the Cyclic 

 poets, and the hieratic epos of Hesiod. The attention of that age was 

 centred, as ours is at present, on two grand ideas the state and 

 religion ; whence we find a political and a hieratic epos. The ' Iliad ' 

 and ' Odyssey ' are the two poems which remain as specimens of the 

 former kind, and they are particularly worth the attention of all 

 who are interested in the history of epic poetry, as they afford by far 

 the most perfect instance of poems of that kind composed in an age 

 differing but little in its characteristics from that to which they refer, 

 and staud consequently in strong contrast to the ' ^Eneid,' a poein with 

 which they are most frequently compared. The ' JKnvid, 1 in common 

 with most Latin poetry, depends more on beauty of language and 

 arrangement than on anything in the story, exquisitely managed as it 

 is, to excite the interest of its readers. As it traces the life of an indi- 

 vidual, it stands in closer juxtaposition with the ' Odyssey ' than with 

 the ' Iliad ; ' but how superior is Ulysses to ^neas, and how much 

 more romantic are the adventures of the Greek than those of the 

 Trojan hero ! 



Perhaps there is not in the whole compass of literature a more per- 

 fectly drawn character than Ulysses, certainly none proceeding from 

 so early a source. His touching exhibitions of feeling, the inimitable 

 circumstantiality of the fictions which he spins in such profusion, 

 apparently for no purpose except to confound his auditors; the manner 

 in which all the interest of the story winds around him, the comic 

 nature of the interludes, and the peculiarities attaching to the super- 



