EOiS'IANS. — ABORATION OF THE CROSS. 555. 
jll ariif. It is derived from the Arabic verb a?Y{/h, to distinguish. Al-araf 
gives the denomination to the seventh chapter of the koran, wherein 
nienjion is made of this wall. Mahomet seems to have copied his 
Al-araf, either from the great gulf of separation mentioned in the 
New Testament, or from the Jewish writers, w'ho also speak of a thin 
wall dividing heaven from hell. Mahometan writers differ extremely 
as to the persons who are to be found in Al-araf. Some take it for 
a sort of limbus for the patriarchs, prophets, &c. others place here 
such whose good and evil w'orks so exactly balance each other, that 
they deserve neither reward nor punishment. Others imagine this 
intermediate space to be possessed by those who, going to war with- 
out their parents’ leave, and suffering martyrdom there, are excluded 
paradise for their disobedience, yet escape hell because they are 
martyrs. 
Eonians. 
These were the followers of Eon, a wild fanatic of the province 
of Bretagne, in the 12th century, whose brain was disordered. He 
concluded, from the resemblance between Eum, in the form for exor- 
’cising malignant spirits, viz. Per Eum, qui vent urns est judicare vivos 
et mortuos, and his own name Eon, that he was the Son of God, and 
ordained to judge the quick and the dead. He was solemnly con- 
demned by the council atRheims, in 1148, at which pope Eugenius HE 
presided, and ended his days in a miserable prison. He left a 
number of followers, whom persecution could not persuade to abandon 
bis cause, or to renounce an absurdity, which, says Mosheim, one 
would think could never have gained credit but in Bedlam. 
Superstitious Adoration of the Cross. 
The adoration of the cross appears to have been practised in the an- 
cient church, inasmuch as the heathens, particularly Julian, reproach 
the primitive Christians with it, and we do not find that their apologists 
disclaimed the charge. Mornay, indeed, asserted that this had been 
done by St. Cyril, but could not support his allegation at the confer- 
ence of Fontainbleau. St. Helena is said to have reduced the adoration 
of the cross to its first principle, as she adored in the wood, not the 
wood itself, which would have been direct idolatry, but Him who had 
been nailed to this wood. With such modification, some Protestants 
have been induced to admit the adoration of the cross. John Huss 
admitted of the phrase, provided it were expressly added, that the 
adoration was to the person of Christ. 
But however Roman Catholics may seem to triumph by such dis- 
tinctions and mitigations, it is well known they have no great place 
in their own practice. Imbert, the good prior of Gascony, was 
severely prosecuted, in 1683, for telling the people, that in the cere- 
mony of adoring the cross, practised in that church on Good Friday, 
they were not to adore the wood, but Christ who was crucified on it. 
The curate of the parish told him the contrary : —it was the wmod ! the 
wood! they were to adore, Imbert replied, it was Christ, not the 
