EPHESUS 



Ephesus, COUNCILS OF. Six im-; 

 portant councils of the Church held , 

 between the 2nd and 5th centuries. 

 The first took place A.D. 197, on the 

 question of the date of the obser- 

 vance of Easter ; and the second in 

 245, against the heresy of Noetus, 



The third council, 431, was the 

 third ecumenical council of the 

 Church, and dealt especially with 

 the Nestorian controversy on the 

 person of Christ (see Nestorians). 

 Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, 

 had denounced Nestorius, and the 

 emperors Theodosius and Valen- 

 tinian convoked a general council 

 to decide the matter. The council 

 confirmed the Nicene Creed, con- 

 demned the heresy of Nestorius, 

 and also settled certain points of 

 discipline. The fourth council, 440, 

 and the fifth, 447, met to decide a 

 question of episcopal succession. 

 The sixth or robber council, con- 

 vened by Theodosius in 449, dealt 

 with disputes about individual 

 bishops and clergy, but its general 

 findings were tainted by outside 

 influences and were superseded by 

 the council of Chalcedon in 451. 



Ephialtes (d. 456 B.C.). Athen- 

 ian statesman and democratic 

 leader, who opposed Cimon (q.v.), 

 the leader of the aristocratic party, 

 and was associated with Pericles. 

 Among the reforms of Ephialtes 

 was the limitation of the power of 

 the Areopagus. He is not to be con- 

 fused with the traitor of the same 

 name who, when Leonidas and his 

 Spartans were defending the pass of 

 Thermopylae in 480 B.C. against 

 the Persians, showed the enemy 

 a path whereby the defenders of 

 the pass could be taken in the rear. 

 In Greek mythology, Otus and 

 Ephialtes were giants, who rebelled 

 against the gods, and endeavoured 

 to pile Ossa on Olympus and Pelion 

 on Ossa. Pron. Effi-alteez. 



Ephod. Symbolical waistcloth 

 worn by the Jewish priests when 

 officiating. That worn by the high 

 priest was of 

 fine linen, col- 

 o u r e d gold, 

 blue, purple, 

 and scarlet, 

 worn over a 

 blue robe, fas- 

 tened round 

 the body by a 

 girdle, and 

 supported by 

 two shoulder- 

 s traps, each 

 ornamented 

 with an onyx 

 stoneinscribed 

 with the names 

 Ephod. Jewish high of six of the 12 

 priest wearing the tribes. At- 

 tached to the 

 plate front of it was 



2947 



the breastplate (q.v. ). References 

 are made in Exodus 28, 29, 39 ; 

 Lev. 8 ; Judges 17 ; 1 Sam. 2 and 

 22 ; 2 Sam. 6. 



Ephor (Gr. ephoros, overseer). 

 Spartan official. Originally ap- 

 pointed by the kings to take over 

 certain police and judicial duties, 

 the ephors gradually became the 

 most influential body in the state. 

 After the second Messenian War 

 (685-668 B.C.), they became an in- 

 dependent magistracy. Five in 

 number, and elected by the Apella 

 (the Spartan general assembly), 

 they held office for a year. They 

 possessed civil jurisdiction, looked 

 after public morals, had the right 

 of dismissing, fining, and imprison- 

 ing public servants, and even the 

 kings were subject to their author- 

 ity. Two of them accompanied the 

 king in the field to keep a watch on 

 his movements. They summoned 

 and presided at the public assem- 

 blies, controlled the finances, and 

 conducted negotiations with the 

 representatives of foreign powers. 

 When Agis IV tried to limit their 

 authority, he was imprisoned by 

 their order, and murdered (240). 

 The ephorate was abolished by 

 Cleomenes III, but restored after 

 he lost the throne in 221, although 

 it never recovered its former posi- 

 tion. See Sparta. 



Ephraem Syrus OR EPHRAIM 

 THE SYRIAN (c. 306-378), Theolo- 

 gian and sacred poet. A native of 

 Nisi bis, where he spent his youth in 

 study, about the year 363 he re- 

 moved to Edessa, where he lived 

 the life of a hermit, and was or- 

 dained deacon. He devoted his life to 

 teaching and writing, and assisted 

 the poor during a great famine. 



Ephraim. Second son of Joseph. 

 With his brother, Manasseh, he 

 was adopted by their grandfather 

 Jacob, and their descendants were 

 reckoned among the tribes of 

 Israel. Ephraim took precedence 

 of his elder brother Manasseh, but 

 nothing is known of his personal 

 career. The tribe of Ephraim oc- 

 cupied part of the northern terri- 

 tory of Palestine. Joshua belonged 

 to this tribe. 



Ephrath OR EPHRATHAH (fruit- 

 ful). Old name for Bethlehem 

 (q.v.}, in Palestine. 



Epiblast (Gr. epi, on ; blasios, 

 shoot). Term used in embryology 

 for the outer covering of the organ- 

 ism when it has reached the stage 

 of a sac or gastrula. It is sometimes 

 referred to as the ectoderm, the 

 exterior germinal layer of a de- 

 veloping embryo in an early stage. 

 See Embryology. 



Epic (Gr. epos, tale, song). Name 

 given to narrative poetry which 

 deals in dignified and elevated 

 style with some important action, 



EPIC 



usually heroic. The great examples 

 are the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, 

 which are unmatched in any other 

 language. Other peoples and later 

 ages, however, produced poetry de- 

 scriptive of great events to which 

 the term epic has been generally 

 and legitimately applied, such as 

 the French Song of Roland and the 

 English Beowulf. These all belong 

 to the authentic, as distinguished 

 from the literary, type, that is, they 

 are " poems of growth," not the 

 work of a single age or author, but 

 stitched together by generations of 

 bards from the myths and tradi- 

 tions of their race, embodied in 

 older and more primitive lays and 

 ballads. Such poems are important 

 as historical documents. Though 

 mingling fiction with fact, they 

 preserve irreplaceable accounts of 

 the manners and customs, and the 

 political, social, and religious ideas 

 of times otherwise unchronicled 



English Epics 



Beowulf, for example, raises the 

 curtain which hides the early life of 

 our forefathers, and in its persons, 

 scenes and episodes reveals many 

 of the mental and moral character- 

 istics of the race, as well as ele- 

 ments of the social order which 

 still prevails in the British islands. 

 Several other narratives which fall 

 short, indeed, of the unity and 

 completeness of the more famous 

 heroic poems, still display many of 

 their essential features, like the 

 English Maldon, a splendid though 

 comparatively late piece of the 

 llth or 12th century. Rhymed 

 chronicles like Layamon's Brut 

 partake of the epic character in 

 that they contain fragments of 

 actual history and are heroic in 

 scope and intention, but deficient 

 in plan and insufficiently elevated 

 in style to bear comparison with 

 the Iliad or Paradise Lost. Para- 

 dise Lost belongs, like Virgil's 

 Aeneid or Tasso's Gerusalemme 

 Liberata, to the artificial, in- 

 vented or literary type. These are 

 imitative poems, written in the epic 

 manner by learned authors in 

 epochs of advanced civilization. 

 They are the works of bookmen, 

 who describe events of which they 

 had no personal knowledge and 

 their value and interest rest wholly 

 upon the imagination and poetical 

 skill at work in their construction. 



Few such attempts were greatly 

 successful ; nevertheless, since they 

 followed the tradition and endea- 

 voured to treat a noble subject 

 worthily, they are properly to be 

 styled epic. The Renaissance, on 

 the other hand, produced many 

 chivalric and romantic narratives, 

 of epic dimensions certainly, like 

 those of Ariosto and Spenser. Some 

 are humorous, soma serious, but 



