1. Nature, Place and Function.

Polemics is that department of theology which is concerned with the history of controversies maintained within or by the Christian Church, and with the conducting of such controversies in defense of doctrines held to be essential to Christian truth or in support of distinctive denominational tenets. It is, however, a question whether polemics belongs to the special departments of dogmatics, ethics, or practical theology, or whether it constitutes an independent branch of study. Christianity has had, from the first, to battle with scientific weapons against Jews, heathens, heretics, and sehismatics, so that a rich and varied controversial literature was early developed in all branches of theology; though the means and the methods have varied according to the nature of the subject under discussion and the persons engaged.

Theoretically there is no distinct department of theological polemics; but practically there is a very real need of an independent branch of this nature. Theological polemics, therefore, scientifically combats erroneous conceptions and mistaken attitudes toward Christianity in its various phases, with the aim of defending the position of the communion to which the controversialist belongs. As the ancient Church had to fight against the classes of opponents already named, so modern polemics must defend the spirit of Christianity against nonChristian philosophies, sectarianism, indifferentism, and separatism. The problem next arises as to what place is occupied by polemics in the general field of theology. Schleiermacher divided theology into "philosophical," "historical," and "practical," and subdivided "philosophical theology" into " polemics " and " apologetics," apologetics being directed outwardly, and polemics inwardly. This division, however, is unsatisfactory. In the first place, polemics is applied dogmatics, for the polemic starts with certain dogmatic presuppositions. Again, it is applied symbolics, since dogmatic conceptions develop best in the orderly growth of a communion fully conscious of its distinctive organization. Theologically, therefore, polemics finds a place after dogmatics and apologetics. If, in addition to questions of doctrine, it takes into consideration the conduct of life, it becomes related to ethics, and may extend to organization and law, as well as to liturgics, missions, science, and art. The limits of the subject depend upon practical circumstances, the needs of the period, and the disposition of the controversialist.

2. Pre-Reformation and Roman Catholic Polemics.

False doctrines were combated by the apostles, and the Church Fathers followed along the same lines, so that polemic literature has existed since the time of Justin Martyr (q.v.) though his work "Against all Heresies " has been lost. Extant polemic literature begins with the "Against Heresies" of Irenaeus (q.v.). The  and De pr�scriptione h�reticorum of Tertullian (q.v.) followed; and Hippolytus (q.v.) continued in the third century with his work on heresies. The dogmatic theology of the Greek Church was strongly polemic from the fourth to the eighth century; and during the same period the theology of the west assumed a polemic character through its strife with Donatism, Pelagianism, Semipelagianism, and Manicheism, a large number of Augustine's writings being of this character. The polemic literature of the Middle Ages against heretics, Jews,

3. Protestant Polemics

The Protestants, in their turn, were no less active polemically from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Here special mention may be made of Martin Chemnitz, Examen concilii Tridentini (Frankfort, 1565); Konrad Schl�sselburg, H�reticorum catalogus (1597-99); Nicolaus Hunnius (d..1643), Diaskepsis de fundamentali dissensu doctrin� Lutheran� et Calvinian� (Wittenberg, 1616); Abraham Calovius, Synopsis controversiarum (1685); and Johann Georg Walch, Einleitung in die polemische Gottesgelehrtheit (Jena, 1752). Interest in polemics ceased with Friedrich Samuel Bock's Lehrbuch f�r die neueste Polemik (1782). In the Reformed wing mention should be made of Rudolf Hospinian, Concordia discors (Zurich, 1607); Daniel Chanier, Panstratia catholica (4 vols., Geneva, 1626) ; Johann Hoornbeck, Summa controversiarum, (Utrecht, 1653); Francesco Turretini, Institutio theologise elenchtic� (Geneva, 1681-85); and various writings of Friedrich Spanheim, the elder and the younger (qq.v.).

4. The Modern Phase.

Polemics entered upon a new phase with Schleiermacher, whose classification of polemics among the branches of theology has already been described. He was followed by Karl Heinrich Sack, with his Christliche Polemik (Hamburg, 1838), who defined polemics as that branch of the ology which detects and refutes errors that endanger Christian faith and the purity of the Christian Church; and by Johann Peter Lange, whose Christliche Dogmalik (3 parts, Heidelberg, 1849-52) calls polemics and irenics "applied dogmatics." Theoretically, since the middle of the nineteenth century, polemics has not been regarded as a distinct department of theology. Practically, however, a new era in polemics was begun by the sharp critiques of Protestantism by Roman Catholic scholars of recent times. This movement was inaugurated by Johann Adam M�hler's Symbolik (Mainz, 1832), essentially a polemic against Protestantism from an idealistic Roman Catholic point of view; and this work was followed by the great historical polemic of Johann Joseph Ignaz von D�linger, Die Reformation, ihre innere Entwickelung und ihre Wirkungen /I> (3 vols., Regensburg, 1846-18). The ultramontane spirit there displayed was equally manifest in Johannes Janssen's Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters (8 vols., Freiburg, 1877-94; Eng. transl., Hist. of the German People, 12 vols., St. Louis, 1896-1907), and Heinrich Suso Denifle's Luther und Luthertum in der ersten Entwickelung (2 vols., Mainz, 1904-10). The Protestants replied vigorously to these attacks with Ferdinand Christian Baur's Gegensatz des Katholicismus and Protestantwmus nach den Prinzipien and Hauptdogmen der beiden Lehrbegrife (T�bingen, 1834), Carl Immanuel Nitzsch's Protestantische Beantwortung der Symbolik Dr. M�hlers (Hamburg, 1835), and a number of other works. While the books just mentioned are necessarily limited in scope, a thoroughgoing, though purely negative, discussion of the chief points of difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism was supplied by Karl August von Hare's Handbuch der protestantischen Polemik gegen die romisch-katholische Kirche (Leipsic, 1862, 7th ed., 1900, Eng. transl., London, 1906) which discusses the Church (clergy and papacy), salvation (faith, works, sacraments), and accessories (ritual, art, science, literature, politics, nationality). Paul Tschackert followed this with his Evangelische Polemik gegen die r�mische Kirche (Gotha, 1885; 2d ed., 1888), which not only criticizes the Roman Catholic system in detail, but also affords a substitute for each point criticized by presenting the Protestant teaching on the tenet in question. Finally, mention should be made of the anti-Roman Catholic propaganda carried on by the Schriften des Vereins fur Reformationsgeschichte (Halle, 1883 sqq.) and by the Evangelischer Bund zur Wahrung der deutsch-protestantischen Interessen (founded in 1886).

(PAUL TSCHACKERT.)

5. In great Britain and America.

In Great Britain and America polemics has taken a different course from that which it assumed on the continent. Several causes have contributed to this. Theological encyclopedia has been far less exact in its divisions, and and where polemics has not been recognized as a separate discipline, it has been in corporated into the body of theological construction. There has, moreover, been but little interest in the history of this branch of theological discussion. Again, toleration has been a marked feature of English and American religious thought (cf. Milton, Areopagitica; and Jeremy Taylor, Liberty of Prophesying, which unfortunately he did not exemplify later). Still further, the edge of the controversial spirit has been dulled by the practical nature of the Anglo-Saxon mind, the disposition to compromise, the lack of thoroughgoing intellectual consistency, together with a rationalizing tendency which has tempered criticism of the positions of others. Polemics has appeared quite as often in apologetics as in doctrinal discussions. Only a few of the historical occasions of polemics and names of the chief persons involved are here indicated. (1) The deistic controversy (1648-1775; see DEISM), in which among the pamphleteers and

C. A. BECKWITH.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. B. Crooks and J. F. Hurst, Theological Encyclopaedia and Methodology, pp. 437 eqq., New York, 1894; P. Schaff. Theological Prop�deutic, pp. 411-412, ib. 1904; J. B. R�hm, Protestantiaehe Polemik, Hildesheim, 1882; W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, i. 15, New York, 1891; S. J. Hunter, Outline of Dogmatic Theology, 6, 84, ib. 1894; A. Cave, Introduction to Theology, pp. 521 sqq., Edinburgh, 1896 L. Emery, Introduction a l'�tude de la theolopie protestante, pp. 182-183, Paris, 1904; and the literature under THEOLOGY AS A SCIENCE.

POLEHZ, GEORGE OF. See GEORGE OF POLENZ.

POLIANDER, JOHANNES (JOHANN GRAMANNN, GRAUMANN): German Reformer; b. at Neustadt on-the-Main (42 m. s.e. of Frankfort) July 5, 1487; d. at Kbnigsberg Apr. 29, 1541. Educated at the University of Leipsic (B.A., 1506; M.A., 1516), he was first teacher and then rector at the Thomasschule in the same city. In 1519 he acted as amanuensis of Eck at his disputation with Luther and Carlstadt, and in consequence of Luther's argument he went to the University of Wittenberg in the autumn of the same year, where he was intimately associated with Luther and Melanchthon. Returning to Leipsic in the following year, he lectured on the Bible on the Wittenberg model. His success as a scholar and teacher brought Conrad, bishop of W�rzburg, to cause his appointment as cathedral preacher at W�rzburg in 1522, where he came into conflict, in 1524, with the monastic preachers because of his views on the veneration of the saints with the result that he was relieved of his position. He was then preacher to the Poor Clares (see CLARE, SAINT, AND THE POOR CLARES) at Nuremberg and preacher at Mansfeld. In 1525 he accepted the call of Duke Albrecht of Prussia to K�nigsberg, where he became pastor of the Altatadt, and together with his friends Paul Speratus and Johann Briesmann (qq.v.), the two other "evangelists of the Prussians," he established Protestant foundations in Prussia. Besides preaching he lectured publicly on the Bible. He also composed "Nun lob mein Seel den Herren" and probably the " Fr�lich muss ich singen," thus being one of the first Protestant hymn-writers. It is probable that he took part in compiling the first two collections of Protestant hymns for K�nigsberg (1527). In consequence of his pedagogical experience, Albrecht entrusted him with the organization of the new Protestant schools; and in 1531 he was one of

(DAVID ERDMANN�.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY. For sources consult: T. Kolde, in Beitr�ge zar bayerischen Kitchengeschiehte, vol. vi., parts 2 and 5, Erlangen, 1899; P. Tsahackert, Pubtikationen aus den k�nigl. preuss. Saatsarchiven, vols. aliii.-zlv., Leipsic, 1890-91. Consult farther: F. W. E. Rost, Memoria Poliandri. Leipsic, 1808; idem. Was hat die Leipsiger Thomasschule f�r die Reformation gethan ib. 1817; J. C. Cossck. P. Speratus Leban and Liedar, pp. 77 sqq., Brunswick, 1881.

POLITI, LANCELOTTI See CATHARINUS, AMBROSIUS.

POLITY, ECCLESIASTICAL.

I Introduction:

The emphasis in this discussion falls upon the developments which have occurred within the modern period, and upon the grounds of induction relative to the probable future of a church polity which are supplied by these developments. The Roman and Greek types in their pre-Reformation form were the product of a lengthened historical evolution, and only by sweeping dogmatic assumptions can they be identified with the primitive constitution of the Church. Some germs of them doubtless were on hand at an early date, but as they appeared at the opening of the sixteenth century they were remote from anything that was outlined by Christ or known to his immediate followers. It is to be noted that, while forms of polity may appropriately be named after certain leading characteristics, they are not likely to be adequately described by the titles thus affixed. In a theoretical point of view it makes a great difference whether a given polity is supposed to subsist by divine right, or simply on the basis of human discretion. Practically it is of large account whether a given polity is operated independently, or in close connection with the State. Furthermore, it is of consequence in judging a given polity to observe whether it is appreciably modified by the incorporation of some element from a different type. The subject is obviously one of great complexity.

II. Monarchical Type (Roman Catholicism)

1. Papal Authority Absolute

Since the promulgation of the decrees of the Vatican Council (q.v.) and the acceptance of those decrees as having ecumenical authority, it can not be denied that the constitution of the Roman Catholic Church is emphatically monarchical. Prior to the Vatican legislation it was permissible to assume that in the general body of the episcoIn pate there resided an authority at least coordinate with that of the pope. This assumption was widely current in the early part of the nineteenth century. But reaction from the disintegrating work of the French Revolution, powerfully seconded by pope and Curia, prepared for the enthronement of the opposing ultramontane theory. This result was consummated at the Vatican Council. The two decrees of that council relative to the papal office the one declaring that the pope possesses the fullness of the supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, together with the right of immedlate exerciseof it over all the faithful and the other asserting his indendent infallibility together constitute a formidable declaration of undivided and irresponsible rule. In the light of these decrees" one may express the outcome in the equation: In point of authority the pope plus the Church equals the pope minus the Church. As complete in itself and exempt from all lawful restriction or arrest, the authority of the pope rules out the very notion of a supplement. Roman apologists, it is true, disclaim the application of the term " absolute " to the papal monarchy. By divine ordinance, they say, bishops have a place in ecclesiastical administration. The pope is bound by this fixed element in the constitution. Furthermore, he is bound by the ex cathedra decrees of his predecessors on matters of faith and morals. Consequently, the papal moarchy is not of the absolutist type. But while the pope must consent to the existence of bishops, no bishop can enter upon his office without the permission of the pope, from whom, or through whom, comes all power of jurisdiction, and who has also the right either to appoint bishops or to determine the mode of their appointment. No bishop in office can go counter to the expressed will of the pope without being guilty of a misdemeanor. No bishop can remain in office against the will of the pope. No council of bishops can be assembled contrary to the will of the pope, and no assembled council can pass any authoritative decree against his judgment. As respects the ex cathedra decrees of predecessors the pope alone interprets them with full authority, and no one has the legal pre-rogative to gainsay his interpretation. The pope is absolute in the same sense in which the divine head would be absolute if visibly enthroned over the militant Church. Roman orthodoxy accepts in their full significance these words of Palmieri, "The jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff is the vicarial jurisdiction of Christ.

2. Roman Doctrine of Church and State.

Roman Catholic deliverances in recent times on the proper relation between Church and State show a very scanty abatement from the medieval platform (see CHURCH AND STATE, �� 3-8). The separation of Church and State is declared to be normal. The most that is conceded is that the scheme of separation can be condoned for the time being where the conditions are such as to make it practically necessary. " The Church," says Philipp Hergenrdther, " rejects on principle the system of the separation of Church and State "; and in saying this he but expresses the plain import of the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX., the encyclical on the Christian Constitution of States of Leo XIII., and the encyclical, Pascendi gregis of Pius X. Recent teaching promulgated by pontiffs, canonists, and theologians pronounces that Church and State are not related as equals, but that the Church, as representint the supernatural order and being the infallible guardian of morals, has a preeminence of rightful authority. The authority of the Church, it should be observed in this connection, means the authority of the hierarchy. As Phillips wrote near the middle of the last century, "the clergy is the sanctifying, the teaching, the ruling Church; the laity is the Church to be sanctified, to be taught, to be ruled." Very recently Pius X. in his encyclical against Modernism (q.v.) has strongly emphasized this sentiment by classing among reprehensible errors the contention that a "share in ecclesiastical government should be given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity," and by ordaining, as a condition of the assembling of congresses of priests, " that absolutely nothing be said in them that savors of Modernism, Presbyterianism, or Laicism." Herein the pontiff undoubtedly speaks in perfect conformity to the postulates of the Roman system.

In the practical exercise of ecclesiastical sovereignty the Roman Congregations constitute an important factor. At a recent date they numbered nineteen. The scheme of reorganization put forth by Pius X. in 1908 provided for reducing them to eleven.

III. Aristocratic Type (Eastern Church):

In one point of view it is more appropriate to speak of the Orthodox Eastern Churches than of the Orthodox Eastern Church (see EASTERN CHURCH, I.). While those who claim the title of " Orthodox " hold a common creed, make use of the same liturgy, and acknowledge bonds of intercommunion, they constitute in respect of government a number of independent bodies (in 1907, sixteen, namely, the churches of the four patriarchates of Congtantinopie, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem: the national churches of Russia, Greece, Servia, Montenegro, Roumania, and Bulgaria; the church of Cyprus; the churches of Carlowitz, Hermannstadt, Czernowitz, and Bosnia-Herzegovina within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy; the monastery of Mount Sinai). The model of church constitution which the Orthodox Eastern Church brought down to the modern period was that recognized by the ecumenical councils of the fourth and following centuries, which knows no eccelesiastcal monarch. The highest dignitaries are patriarchs set over the major provinces of the Christian world. The sole legitimate authority standing above them is the ecumenical council. Among the patriarchs of the. eastern division the one resident at Constantinople was understood to be vested by conciliar decrees, especially those of Chalcedon, with a certain primacy. Mohammedan conquests interfered not a little with the working of the patriarchal constitution, but in its general framework it survived to the modern era. The power which has wrought most effectively to modify this constitution has been the example and the influence of Russia. Since more than four-fifths of the entire membership of the Orthodox Eastern Church is included within that empire, naturally the ecclesiastical scheme espoused and supported by Russia claims the right of way. The Russian state has eliminated within its territory the jurisdiction of an outside party like the patriarch of Constantinople. In 1589 it instituted the patriarchal office at Moscow. In 1721 it did away with the patriarchate and organized the Holy Synod (made up now of eight or nine bishops with the addition of two priests) to serve as the supreme ecclesiastical authority, being entrusted with oversight of doctrine, worship, and matters of administration. Again, the policy of the Russian state was to keep a firm hand upon the managment of church affairs. And this is done through provisions which secure that the Holy Synod shall not antagonize the will of the sovereign. The czar appoints a part of the members and controls in no small degree the selection of the rest. In the meetings of the synod he is represented by a lay official styled the chief procurator. The Russian code recognizes him as the overlord in preserving good order in the Church and directing its legislation. While he is not credited with power to make dogmas, it falls within his prerogative to bring measures before the synod, and the conclusions of that body are subject to his judgment. In Greece and the other national churches in the domain of Eastern Orthodoxy both of these features-the independent relation to the patriarch at Constantinople and the prominence of State authority-the Russian model is largely followed. In all the branches of the Eastern Church the former feature is exemplified. Outside of his patriarchate proper in European Turkey and Asia Minor the patriarch of Constantinople enjoys at most some trivial tokens of an honorary primacy.

The hierarchy of the Orthodox Eastern Church is not widely distinguished as to its enumeration of ranks from the Roman Catholic, except that it stops short of monarchy. It includes patriarchs, metropolitan bishops, ordinary bishops, priests, and deacons. Below the deacon are the four minor orders of subdeacon, reader, exocist, and door keeper. A distinguishing feature is that the title "metropolitan" is in most instances simply honor-ary. Only a few metropolitans have suffragans. Another point of contrast with the Roman system is that the diaconate is not treated as a mere stepping-stone to the priesthood. Many deacons remain such all their lives and serve as curates in the parishes.

IV. Consistorial Type (Lutheran):

1. Luther's Doctrine of the Church.

While divine right is claimed both in Roman Catholic and in Orthodox Eastern theory for prominent features of the hierarchical system, Luther repudiated the notion of the jus divinum in the domain of church polity. He was disposed to regard polity as resting upon human election and having its sanction in practical demands. It was contrary to his emphasis on the universal priesthood of believers to exalt the pastor over the congregation as either a necessary medium of grace or embodiment of sovereignty. Aptness to teach he rated as the great pastoral cedential, and the ministration of Word and sacrement as the great pastoral function. Ordination meant for him simply a solemn public recognition of ministerial standing. On these points-the optional character of church polity and the non-sacerdotal standing of the Christian minister-Luther supplied a permanent standard to his followers (see CHURCH, THE CHRISTIAN, IV., � 2; LUTHER, MARTIN, �1 6, 14). With his stress upon the primacy of the Evangelical message in the Church Luther could easily have reconciled himself to any form of external arrangements compatible with normal opportunity for that message. He had no objection to episcopacy as such. Had a larger proportion of the bishops been friendly to the Evangelical movement, episcopacy might have had a fair chance to survive in the Lutheran domain. As it was, it maintained only a transient existence in any part of Germany. The Scandinavian countries took an exceptional course in uniting Lutheranism with the episcopal form of administration.

2. The Prince and the Consistory.

It was not long before Luther's somewhat idealized conception of the Church as essentially a teaching institute, governing and molding men by the power of the Word, submitted to practical modification under the presure of circumstances. The disturbances wrought by the Peasants' War, the ignorance and wildness of the people, and the readiness of the nobles to make spoil of church property emphasized the need of a directing and disciplining power. The one power available for the exigency seemed to be the Evangelical prince, the secular ruler who had espoused the Reformatation. So he stepped into the position of control, and theory was speedily accomodated to his actual standing by his being rated as heir, within his own territory, to the old episcopal authority. The resulting type of polity was distinctly Erastian. The government of the Church became very largely a matter of territorial sovereignty. The prince was not indeed expected to assume the spiritual office of administering the Word and the sacraments, but in the general ecclesiastical management he was accorded a preeminent function. The foremost organ of administration, under the temporal ruler, came at an early stage to be the consistory. Composed of theologians and jurists appointed by the State this body served as a constant tribual to pass on disputed points of administration, to supervise property and educational interests, and to render judgement in the major cases of discipline. In the next grade of official importance came the superintendents who were usually pastors, selected by the secular government to exercise a species of oversight over neighboring pastors. In the settlement of the pastors the deciding voice belonged to the State and to the local patron. The prerogative of the congregation was usually limited to the right of objecting to a presented candidate. The development, on the whole, may be described as being toward an emphatic preponderance of State, athority, it being understood that the consistory was very largely the instrument of the State. Such germs of presbyterial or synodal organization as were witnessed by the first generations of Lutherans were in no wise fostered and brought to maturity.

A serious and partially effective attempt to modify this consistorial polity was first made in the later part of the nineteenth century. An incentive in this direction was derived from the wide-spread movement toward the principle of constitutional rule which was started in 1848. Enlarged prerogative on the part of the general body of citizens naturally suggested enlarged privilege on the part of the membership in the government of the Church. The result was an extension of the rights of the local congregation in the management of its own affairs, and the granting of more or less important functions to representative bodies or synods meeting at stated intervals.

V. Episcopal Type (Church of England, Protestant Episcopal Church)

Among the communions which emerged from the Reformation movement the Established Churrch of England was specially distinguished by the extent to which it conserved the medival polity . It retained the hierarchical constitution, only cutting off the papacy at one end of the official line and the orders below the diaconate at the other rend. Also in the scheme for the parishes, the cathedral chapters, and such aids to diocesan administration as archdeacons and rural deans much of the old system was retained. It is noticeable, however, that English Churchmeen did not in the earlier period claim divine right, or exclusive validity, for their polity as against that of other protestand communions. The statements of such eminent representatives as Jewel, Hooker, and Whitgift amount to a disclaiming of that right. The wide currency which is now accorded to the theory of a necessary episcopal organization and apostolical succession is attributable in large part to Laud and other Carolinian divines, to the Nonjurors (q.v.), and to the Tractarians (see TRACTARIANISM). The royal "supremacy " over the Church of England as originally asserted in the reign of Henry VIII. included a full complement of substantial prerogatives. In the succeeding period also, so long as the Court of High Commission subsisted, the sovereign was capable of interposing very efficiently in the management of the Church. For the most part since the revolution of 1688 the royal supremacy has signified little else than a chief share in dispensing ecclesiastical dignities. As for the lay body in general, outside of the function of parliament in relation to the establishment, it has had very scanty recognition in the plan of government of the Church of England. It has been wholly shut out from the houses of convocation (q.v.), which however cannot perform any real work of ecclesiastical government without being favored with "letters of business" from the sovereign. In the view of not a few thoroughly devoted members of the Church of England the situation calls for remedy. It is urged that in order to be inspired with due interest in the Church laymen must be associated with the clergy in the management of affairs in parish councils, diocesan councils, and the houses of convocation. Only when the lay element comes to this measure of recognition, it is argued, will the nation have any disposition to grant the Church due autonomy by enlarging the prerogatives of its own proper assemblies. This feature has become well-established in the daughter communions. In the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States the laity has been representedd from the start in the house of deputies, which, with the coordinate house of bishops, forms the General Convention, which constitutes the hihgset legislative authority in that Church (see PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH). Laymen have seats also in the diocesan conventions with equal right of voice and vote. Usually laymen help to make up the diocesan committee which serves the bishop as an advisory body; they have also a large function in the settling of pastors and in determining the period of their incumbency. Thus in the polity of this communion episcopalianism has been united with a considerable Presbyterian element. Partly owing to the influence of the American example a similar politv has gained wide curreny in, the churches afiliatated with the Church of England. Laymen have been members of the governing assemblies of the Episcopal Church of Ireland- since 1871. The same has been true of the Scottish Episcopal Church since the revision of its constitution in 1876. The principal colonial churches--in Canada, South Africa, and Australia-as they enjoy practical autonomy have adopted in like manner the plan of governing assemblies composed Jointly of clergy and laity.

VI. Presbyterian Type:

1. Rise and Extension

This form of polity, which received its initial impulse from Calvin and the Genevan model, was represented before the end of the sixteenth century in Poland, various parts of Germany, Holland, France, and Scotland, and gained a standing later as an appreciable factor throughout the English-speaking world. The Calvinian conception of the Church from which the Presbyteriaan type proceeded has some points of distinction from the original Lutheran conception. In the former a less exclusive stress was placed upon the Church as a channel of grace through the saving ministry of the Word. Prominence was also given to the office of the Church as an ms rumen or promoting the rule of God in the world. Proceeding from this standpomt; the Calvinian communions naturally made larger account of discipline than did the Lutheran, and were somewhat more ready to carry, a militant spirit into their religion. The training of the elect to give practical effect to God's sovereign right was relatively a conspicuous feature in their ecclesiastical scheme. In the Calvinian theory State and Church were rated as coordinate powers, having each its own province.The extent of the alliance which might be consummated be tween them was regarded as determined by the possibilities of mutual serviceableness. At Geneva Calvin thought it appropriate to give considerable scope to the prerogatives of the State in ecclesiastical management as being best suited to achieve the aim of the Church the practical rule of God over the community. In Holland also Presbyterianism made connection with the State, and in Scotland it has held the status of an "established" religion. It received legal establishment in England under the Long Parliament, but did not have opportunity to enter largely into the standing assigned in the legislation. Generally. a rather Jealous attitude toward State interference has been characteristic of Presbyterian bodies. In the American versionof the Westminster Confession the legitimate function of civil mazistrates in relation to ecclesiastical matters is defined to be the impartial protection of all denominations of Christians.

2 Divine Right; Characteristics.

The claim of divine right for their plolity has had considerable currency among Presbyterians. Its advocates, however, have never meant by this claim what is asserted for the papal constitution in the bull Unam Sanctam (see BONIFACE VIII.) and implied in the anathemas of the Vatican Council. It has not been held at any period that the acceptance of presbyterial rule is a condition of salvation. In the Westminster Assembly there were stanch Presbyterians, and enough of them to constitute a respectable minority, who opposed the theory of the jus divinum In later declarations it has often been affirmed that the presbyterial form of church government is agreeable to and founded on the Word of God. But no violence is done in construing these statements in the sense of this declaration in the Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church South (1879): "The scriptural doctrine of presbytery is necessary to the perfection of the order of the visible Church, but is not essential to its existence." The central feature of Presbyterian church constitution is a series of governing assemblies constituted on the principle of representation in which series the decisions of a lower assembly are subject to revision by a higher, up to one vests with sureme jurisdiction though not free in its exercise from certain consitutional restrictions. A second prominent feature is the parity of ministers, or the exclusion of all hierarehirel graduations. A third feature is the union of ministers and Iaymen in the governing assemblies. According to a typical arrangement the governing assemblies are of four kinds, namely, church session, Presbytery, synod, and general assembly. The first, which is entrusted with the supervision of the spiritual interests of the local church, is composed of the pastor and the lay

The presbyterian type obtains in the Dutch Reformed and the German Reformed communions (see REFORMED [DUTCH] CHURCH; REFORMED [GERMAN] CHURCH) as well as in the numerous bodies bearing the Presbyterian name. The polity of Lutheran communions in this country is essentially Presbyterian. There is some distinction, however, as respects the legal authority of the highest assembly. While in the Iowa Synod it may approach the Presbyterian standard, it is very much below that standard in the Synodical Conference, and also below it in theory in the General Synod, the General Council, and the United Synod of the South. In the "Meetings" of the Friends-yearly, quarterly, and monthly-the scheme of a hierarchy of assemblies is illustrated. Still the divergence of their polity from the usual Presbyterian type is by no means slight, since they have no general assembly, and all the meetings are democratic in composition.

VII. Congregational Type:

1. Distribution.

While the distinctive features of the Congregational polity were anticipated in some measure by the Anabaptists (q.v.) on the continent, was in England at the extreme of the Puritan reaction against prelacy that this polity began in the more positive sense its record in modern history. From the days of Robert Browne, Jeremiah Burroughes, John Greenwood, and John Robinson (qq.v.), in the latter part of the sixteenth century, it has had a continuous succession of earnest adherents. The pilggrims brought it to Plymouth in 1620, and it remained the distinctive form of church order in blew England during the entire colonial period. The Baptists in all fields have been almost universally its stanch advocates. It is represented furthermore by the Disciples of Christ , the Christian Connection, the Unitarians, and most branches of the Adventists (qq.v.). The polity of the Universalists lies between the Congregational and the Presbyterian form.

2. Essentials; Divine Right of Church and State.

The most pronounced feature of Congregationalism is the autonomy of the individual church. The various churches of a communion may- have, very appropriately, means of fellowship and interaction, such as councils associations, or conventions. But none of these are properly accorded any legislative or judicial authority over the local church. They are assemblies for conference, and their action is ever advisory rather than mandatory. Ecclesiastical sovereignty begins and ends with the local church. [Congregationalists hold as a second fundamental of their polity the fellowship of the churches as exercised in the conventions, associations, and councils referred to.] Within the individual congregation, according to the original Church New-England scheme, the proper officers were the pastor, the teacher, the ruling elders, and the deacons. The second and third, however, were not long retained. At present, within communions of the Congregational order, the regular officers are very commonly enumerated as simply pastors and deacons. The principle of the separation of Church and State was contained in initial Congregationalism as represented by the teaching of Robert Browne (q.v.). Baptists have always been earnest advocates of that principle. The peculiar conditions, however, in New England, where at first the company of citizens and that of church members were substantially identical, led to a somewhat intimate connection between Church and State. While in important respects the churches continued to exercise the functions of self-governing societies, State patronage and control ran through no insignificant range (cf. W. Walker, in American Church History Series, iii. 249, New York, 1894). The last remnant of this scheme of Congregational "establishments" disappeared in 1833.

In recent years there has been relaxation in the advocacy of the divine right of Congregational polity. Representative writers of the Congregationalists repudiate the notion that an exclusive right can be asserted for any given form of church constitution, and affirm that their own polity is happily conformed to New-Testament principles. Among Baptists the teaching is not uniform. The question occurs whether communions which adhere to the Congregational polity have been able to maintain the scheme of direct democracy, or autonomous local churches, without substantial modification. One indisputable fact is that within the last century instrumentalities for giving expression to the collective sentiment and enterprise of the whole group of churches of like name have been greatly multiplied. Very frequently the advocates of the Congregational polity declare that the style of collectivism which has thus been evolved works no detriment to the -Congregational principle, since the councils or associations which have been instituted are engaged to respect the autonomy of the local church. On the other hand, some admit that the introduction of these bodies and the enlargement in various respects of their functions amount to the intrusion of a Presbyterian element into the actual administration.

VIII. Ecelectic Types (Methodist Churches)

1. Constituent Elements.

Among commnunions which illustrate a union of Presbyterian and Episcopalian elements a prominent place is occupied by the Methodist Episcopal Churches (see METHODISTS). There is also a union of Presbyterian and Episcopalian elements in the church order of the -United Brethren in Christ, of the Evangelical Association, and of the Unity of the Brethren (qq.v.). The Congregational element (in certain features of local self-government) discoverable in the churches mentioned is relatively inconspicuous. Recent developments in these comumnions have been largely in the direction of enlarging the sphere of popular government. By the last part of the nineteenth century all had come to include laymen in the higher governing assemblies. The same kind of development has been illustrated in non-episcopal Methodism, as, for instance, among the English Wesleyans (see METHODISTS, I., 1, �� 6, 8). In the Methodist Protestant Church lay delegation has been a feature from the start (see METHODISTS, IV., 3).

2. Resultant Forms of Government

Within the principal Methodist churches the list of assemblies includes quarterly, annual, and general conferences. Between the first and the seconcd the district conference is often interposed. Where existing it assumes various functions which otherwise would fall to the quarterly conferences. The latter are made up of the officials of the individual church--its resident ministers, local preachers, trustees, stewards, class leaders, Sunday-school superintendent, etc. The district conference consists of Ministerial and lay delegates. The annual conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church is (1910) a ministerial body; that of the Methodist Episcopal Church South includes, besides the ministers, four laymen from each presiding elder's district. The general conferences of both churches are made up of ministers and laymen in equal numbers. Among the United Brethren in Christ (q.v.) laymen are accorded a place in all the governing assemblies. The general conference is the supreme trbunal in the entire group of communions under consideration. Within certain constitutional limitations it exercises full legislative and judicial authority. A special feature in the constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church South is the provision that the board of bishops may challenge the constitutionality of a rule or regulation passed by the general conference, and hold it suspended until it has been approved in the use of the regular method for amending a "restrictive rule" (that is, one of the cardinal limitations imposed by the constitution). As a Presbyterian element finds illustration in the governing assemblies of the Methodist economy, so an Episcopalian element is exemplified in its ministerial ranks. In that economy deacon and elder (or presbyter) are related much as they are in the Church of England and in the Protestant Episcopal Church (q.v.). Methodist episcopacy, on the other hand, has a special character as being non-diocesan. It is also free from the aristocratic assumptions often connected with the episcopal form of organization. Methodist bishops are simply the formost executives in their respective communions. In the Book of Discpline of the Methodist Episcopal Church a note prefixed to the form of episcopal consecration implies that bishops represent a distinct office rather than a distinct order. It remains true, nevertheless, that in the larger Methodist bodies very weighty official (executive, not legislative) responsibilities are devolved upon the bishops. The legal prerogative is with them to station all the ministers (outside the limited circle of general conference appointees), though the advice of the presiding elders and the preferences of the individual churches are practically of great moment. Methodist communions generally which have an episcopal organization, as also the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Association (qq.v.), make use of a kind of subepiscopate embodied in presiding elders or district superintendents, who are placed over divisions of the territory of the annual conferences. Among the Unity of the Brethren the Presbyterian feature is prominent, the bishops, aside from the function of ordaining, having ex offcio no administrative significance, and coming in practise to possess such significance only as being customarily elected to the governing boards and conferences.

Connection with the State has been foreign to Methodist history, and the same is true of the doctrine of the divine right of a specific form of ecclesiastical polity. On this theme Methodists stand with Lutherans, and only insist that in its spirit ecclesiastical administration is obligated to be conformable to the demands of the New-Testament conception of Christian citizenship.

IX. Conclusion:

In view of the enthronement of an extreme dogma as respects ecclesiastical monarchy in the Roman Catholic Church, and the propagation of a radical type of sacerdotalism through a considerable section of the Church of England, it can not be said that recent movements in the field of church polity have been uniformly in a single direction. There has been an undeniable advance in the line of the most pronounced Highchurch assumptions. But some rather significant tokens of reaction are already apparent. The universal movement toward constitutional rule in the secular sphere tends to make men restive under the demands of a pretentious sacerdotalism. In the ecclesiastical sphere generally, outside of the specified domains--not to mention the comparatively stationary Orthodox Eastern Church--the development in recent times has been almost uniformly in favor of popular government. Whether it has been in the interest of the specifically democratic form of ecclesiastical polity, with its emphasis on the autonomy of the local church, is a question which is likely to elicit different answers. Probably the balance is not on that side, but rather on the side of some form of representative government, though in constructing this form it may not be out of place to give a larger scope to the proper Congregational element than is done ordinarily in Presbyterian communions or in those which combine Presbyterian with Episcopalian characteristics.

On a couple of points the development has been quite pronounced. The doctrine of divine right, in anything like a stringent form, has been consigned to a diminishing constituency. A close union of Church and State, or one which makes either essentially a dependency of the other, has become through a widening circle a matter of distinct opposition.

HENRY C. SHELDON.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Richard Hooker, Eclesiasical Polity, London, 1594-1982, best ed. by J. Keble, 3d ed., 3 vols., 1845 (frequently republished); Bingham, Origines (these two books are standard and with their constant citation of historical sources may not be overlooked). Consult further the works on church law (Kirchenrecht) by P. Hergenr�ther, Freiburg, 1905; G. Phillips, Regensburg, 1845-89; J. Winkler, Lucerne, 1878; R. Sohm Leipsic, 1892; J. B. Sllgmtiller, Freiburg, 1904; and E. Friedberg. 8th ed., ib. 1909 (contains an extensive and classified list of works, pp. 5-12) Also: S. Davidson, Ecclesiastical Polity of the N. T. Unfolded and its Points of Coincidence or Disagreement with Prevailing Systems Indicated, London, 1850; F. Wayland, Notes on the Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches, New York 1857; T. Harnack, Die Kirche, ihr Amt, ihr Regiment, Nuremberg, 1882; W. Cunningham; Discussions on Church Principles, Edinburgh, 1883; O. Meier Die Grundlagen des lutherischen Kirchenregiments, Rostock, 1864; W. L. Clay, Essays on Church Polity, London, 1868; T. Witherow, The Apostolic Church, which is it? An Inquiry . . . whether any existing Form of Church Government is of Divine Right, new ed., Belfast, 1869; G. A. Jacob, Ecclesiastical Polity of the N T., London, 1871; W. Pierce, Ecclesiastical Principles and Polity of the Wesleyan Methodist., ib. 1873; E. M. Goulburn, The Holy Catholic Church; its divine Ideal, Ministry, and Institutions, New York, 1875; C. Hodge, Discussions in Church Polity, ib. 1878; E. Hatch, Organisation of the Early Christian Churches, London, 1881; G. T. Ladd, The Principles of Church Polity, New York, 1882; A. A. Pelliocia, The Polity of the Christian Church of Early, Mideval, and Modern Times, London, 1883; E. D. Morris, Ecclesiology, ib. 1885; W. D. Killen, The Framework of the Church; a Treatise on Church Government, Edinburgh, 1890; D. Palmieri, Tractatus, de Romano pontifce, Rome, 1891; F. Markower Die Ver assung der Kirche von England, Berlin, 1894; W. J. Seabury, An Introduction to the Study of Ecclesiastical Polity, New York 1894; A. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars and Russians part 3 ib. 1896; C. Gore, Essays in Aid of the Reform of the Church London, 1898; K. Ricker, Grunds�tse reformierter Kirchenverfassung, Leipsic, 1899; E. L. Cutts, A Handy Book of the Church of Enqland, London, 1900; G. M. Boynton , The Congregational Way, New York, 1903; H. Gallwitz, Die Grundlaqen der Kirche, Eisenach, 1904; J. J. Tigert, A Constitutional Hist. of American Episcopal Methodism, Nashville, 1904; E. C. Dargan, Ecclesiology, Louisville, 1905; H. H. Henson. Moral Discipline in the Christian Church, London, 1905; A. Fortesque, The Orthodox Eastern Church, ib. 1907; W. F. Adeney, The Greek and Eastern Churches, pp. 132-146, 325-354, 404-433 New York, 1908; H. C. Sheldon, Sacerdotalism in the 18th Century, ib 1909. For the details of polity the reader is referred to the Books of Discipline and Church Order issued by the various ecclesiastical bodies, and to the literature under the articles to which reference is made in the text, especially the bibliographies attached to the various denominational articles.

¹ In connection with the following treatment the reader should consult the articles on the various churches and denominational bodies of which mention is made in the course of the discussion, which articles usually contain accounts of the principles and the details of church government prevailing within the several bodies. See also such articles as CHURCH, THE CHRISTIAN; CHURCH GOVERNMENT; CHURCH AND STATE; COLLEGIALISM; TERRITORIALISM; BISHOP; DEACON; EPISCOPACY; and ORGANIZATION OF THE EARLY CHURCH.

POLLOCK, BERTRAM: Church of England bishop; b. at Wimbledon (7 m. s. of St. Paul's, London) Dec. 6, 1863. He received his education at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1885; M.A., 1889; B.D., 1902; D.D., 1903); was made deacon in 1890 and priest in 1891; was assistant master at Marlborough College, 1886-93; master of Wellington College, 1893-1910; and became bishop of Norwich in 1910. He served also as select preacher at Cambridge in 1895, and at Oxford in 1907-08; examining chaplain to the bishop of Litchfield, 1900-10; and chaplain in ordinary to the king, 1904-10.

POLLOK, ALLAN: Presbyterian; b. at Buckhaven (15,} m. s.w. of St. Andrews), Fifeshire, Scotland, Oct. 19, 1829. He was educated at the University of Glasgow (M.A., 1852), was sent by the Colonial Committee of the Church of Scotland to Nova Scotia, where he was minister of St. Andrew's, New Glasgow (1852-75), professor of church history and practical theology in the Presbyterian College, Halifax (1875-1904), acting also as principal (1886-1904). He still lectures occasionally in the college, and in theology is a " moderate Calvinist, holding the doctrines of the Westminster Confession in all essentials." He has written Lectures on the Book of Common Order (New York, 1897), and Studies in Practical Theology  (Edinburgh, 1907).

POLLOK, ROBERT: Scotch poet; b. at North Moorhouse, Eaglesham Parish (8 m. s. of Glasgow), Renfrewahire, Oct. 19, 1798; d. at Shirley Common, near Southampton, Sept. 18, 1827. He graduated at Glasgow University (M.A., 1822); and studied theology at Union Secession Hall and Glasgow University (1822-27). He is famous for The Course of Time, a religious poem, projected on a stupendous scale, in ten books, on the destiny of man (London, 1827; seventy-eighth thousand, 1868; many editions in the United States). He was the author, also, of Helen of the Glen (Glasgow, 1830), The Persecuted Family (3d ed., Edinburgh, 1829), and Ralph Gemmell (1829); the three republished separately and together under the title, Tales of the Covenanters (Edinburgh, 1833; later ed., 1895).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Pollok, The Life of Robert Pollok, with Selections from his Correspondence, Edinburgh, 1843; a Memoir prefixed to later issues of The Course of Time�and DNB, xlvi. 89-70.

POLYCARP: Bishop of Smyrna and martyr; b. in the second half of the first century; d. at Smyrna Feb. 23, 155. He is first mentioned in the letters of Ignatius to the Ephesians (xxi. 1; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 58) and to the Magnesians (xv.; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 65) and to Polycarp. The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, however, is a letter written to accompany the transmission of the letters of Ignatius and was requested by the Philippians (xiii.; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 36). Those who dispute the letters of Ignatius as genuine would have to reject this also as an interpolation; yet it should not be overlooked that Ireneeus had this letter in mind as a witness of Polycarp's faith and his preaching of the truth (H�r., iii. 3-4, Eng. transl., ANF, i. 416). The charge that it was falsified together with the letters of Ignatius is excluded by the peculiar character of the epistle and the charge of interpolation is contradicted by the use of I Clement, equally distributed throughout all the parts. The desire of Ignatius expressed in " To the Smyrneans," xi. (Eng transl., ANF, i. 91) and "To Polycarp," viii. (Erg. trans]., ANF, i. 100) throws light on the letter or letters of the Philippians to be transmitted to the Syrians mentioned in xiii. of Polycarp's letter. This letter of Polycarp was therefore written at the time of the martyrdom of Ignatius in the reign of Trajan (98-117). It is preserved in Greek only together with the Epistle of Barnabas as far as ix. 2; the remainder, in an inaccurate Latin translation (ix. and xiii. also in Eusebius, Hist. eccl, III., xxxvi. 13-15; Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., i. 168-169). The points of recognition of the letter through Ireneeus are substantiated by the contents: Christ, who has suffered for us and as the risen one is exalted, will also raise us if we do the will of God. Its admonitions deal plainly with the Christian walk in life, in reliance upon the New-Testament Scriptures, especially I Peter. The apostasy of a presbyter Valens is deplored (xi.). He writes of the Smyrnean congregation, whose representative he and the presbyters in whose name he writes are, that (in contrast with the Philippians) in the time of Paul they knew not yet God (xi.; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 35). This does not show that he and the presbyters lived at that time, but that the Philippians turned to him, and Ignatius considers his intercourse with him as worthy of mention and writes to him personally, inasmuch as Polycarp must have been by 110-115 a widely known personage.

This is corroborated by the letter which the Smyrnean congregation directed to the congregation at Philomelium and all the congregations of the Catholic Church concerning the martyrdom of Polycarp, less than a year later (xviii. 2; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 43), which points not only to the esteem in which he was held in his own congregation but to his fame also outside of the Church (xvi., xii.; Eng. transl., i. 43; cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl., Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., i. 188-193). The accounts of his martyrdom have received confirmation from inscriptions discovered since 1880 (cf. J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, i. 613 sqq.) which also prove the reliability of the additional chapter xxi. not known to Eusebius; for they prove Philip the asiarch (xii.) and high-priest of Tralles (xxi.) to have been asiarch in 149-153, and highpriest and agonothete at Tralles since 137 for life. From this additional chapter, the Acts of Pionius, and the ancient martyrology it is seen that Polycarp was martyred Feb. 23, on a greater Jewish Sabbath (viii. 1, xxi.; perhaps feast of Purim; cf. Lightfoot, ut sup. 692 sqq.) during the proconsulship of Statius Quadratus, fixed by Waddington, using the representations of the rhetorician Aristides, at 154-156, during which the 23d of February occurred as a Sabbath only in 155. W. Schmid attempts to show that the Quadratus of Aristides, evidently Avillius Urinatius Quadratus the consul suffectus of 156, was proconsul in 165-166 under Marcus Aurelius, in accordance with the chronicle of Eusebius delivered by Jerome, Feb. 23, 166, being also on a Sabbath. In all probability, however, the Statius Quadratus of the time of Polycarp's martyrdom is identical with the consul of that name in 142, who, in the course of advancement, must have been the proconsul in 155. The Asiarch Philip also would have been too aged to be high-priest and asiarch in the time of Marcus Aurelius. At the time of his martyrdom Polycarp had been a Christian for eighty-six years (ix.; Eng. transl., ut sup., i. 41). Iren�us relates how and when he became a Christian and in his letter to Florinus (Eusebius, V., xx.; Eng. transl., i. 238-239) stated that he saw and heard him personally in lower Asia; in particular he heard the account of Polycarp's intercourse with John and with others who had seen the Lord. Iren�us also testifies (H�r., iii. 3-4; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 415-417) that Polycarp was converted to Christianity by apostles, made a bishop, and had intercourse with many who had seen the Lord. He repeatedly emphasizes the very old age of Polycarp (ut sup.). If the supreme recognition of Polycarp was due to his old age and former intercourse with the apostles, so were likewise his presence in Rome under Anicetus and his success in the conversion of heretics (154). In the disagreement with Anicetus, Polycarp appealed for authority to his intercourse with John and other disciples (Eusebius, V., xxiv. 16, Eng. transl., i. 415-116). Iren�us makes mention of several epistles to neighboring churches and individual Christians which are not extant (Eusebius, V., xx. 8, Eng. transl., i. 239). The Vita Polycarpi auctore Pionio, knowing chapter xii. and many letters and homilies of Polycarp, is corrupted with so many fables that to extract the historical is impossible. Feuardentius, in his notes to Irenaus, Hmr, iii. 3 (Cologne, 1596), gives several fragments ascribed to Polycarp which were preserved in a catena of Victor of Capua in his Liber responsorum, to which T. Zahn (Forschungen, vi. 103, Leipsic, 1900) admits the possibility of a partial genuineness. The statements of the learned Armenian Ananias of Shirak (600-650) in his " Epiphany of our Lord " also must speak for themselves. See PAPIAS.

(N. BONWETSCH.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The editions of Polyearp best worth noting are those of T. Zahn in Gebhwdt, Harnack, and Zahn's Patrum apostolicorum opera, ii. 109-133, Leipsic, 1878; F. X. Funk, ra patrum apostolicorum ed., T�bingen, 1901; J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1885, 2d ed., 1889, with Eng. transl.; and A. Hilgenfeld, Berlin, 1902. The Eng. transl. most available after that of Lightfoot, is in ANF, i. 33-38. For eds. of the Martyrium consult ASB, Jan., ii. 705 sqq.; E. Amblineau in PSBA, x (1888), 391-417; the eds. of Zahn, Funk, and Lightfoot ut sup.; R. Knopf, Augsew�hlten Martyracten, T�bingen, 1901; and O. von Gebhardt, Acta martyrum selecta, Berlin, 1902. Eng. transls. are by Lightfoot, ii. 1057-67, ed. of 1885; and in ANF, i. 39-44. The Vita Polycarpi of the 4th or 5th century by Pioniw (said by Funk to be "worthless") has been edited by L. Duchesne, Paris, 1881; J. B. Lightfoot, ut sup., ii. 1005 sqq., 1088 sqq.; and F. %. Funk, ut sup., ii. 291 sqq.; and is in ASB, Jan., ii. 695 sqq. A detailed list of literature is in ANF, Bibliography, pp. 7-10. Discussions of the first importance are in the editions and translations noted above, either as preface, prolegomena, or notes. Consult further: Iren�us, H�r, III., iii., Eng. transl. ANF, 1. 416; Eusebius, Hist. eccl., IV., xv., Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., i. 188-193; Jerome, De vir. ill., xvii., Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., iii. 367; A. Riteehl, Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche, pp. 284 sqq., 584 sqq., Bonn, 1857; J. Donaldson, Hist. of Christian Literature, i. 154-200, iii. 306-310, Oxford, 1864-66� idem, Apostolical Fathers, pp. 191-247, ib 1874; T. Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochen, pp. 494 sqq., Gotha, 1873; idem, Forsehungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, iv. 249 sqq., vi. 72 sqq., 94 sqq., Leipsic, 1891-1900; [Cassels], Supernatural Religion, i. 274-282, ii. 267-271, iii. 13-15 London, 1875; B. F. Westcott. General Survey of the Hist. of the Canon of the N. T., pp. 36-40, ib. 1875; T. Keim, Aus dem Urchriatenthum, pp. 90-133, Zurich, 1878; G. A. Jackson, Apostolic Fathers, pp. 7787, New York, 1879� F. Piper, Lives of the Leaders of Our Church Universal, ed. H. M. MacCracken, pp. 1422, Philadelphia, 1879; A. H. Charteris, Canonicity, passim, London, 1880 (references are very numerous); J. Nirsehl, Lehrbuch der Patrologie und Patristik, i. 121-131, Mainz, 1881; W. F. Adeney, in British Quarterly, lxxxii (1886), 31-67; O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altchriatlichen Literatur, i. 146 sqq., u. 615-616, Freiburg, 19021903; E. Schwartz, De Pionio et Polycarpo, G�ttingen. 1905; O. Pfleiderer, Dos Urchristentum, ii. 256 sqq., Berlin, 1902, Eng. transl., Christian Origins, London, 1906: H. Muller, Aus der UeberlieferunpspeschichtedesPolykarpMartyrium, Paderbom, 1908; Harnack, Geschichte, i. 69-74, 817, ii. 1, pp. 325 sqq., 334-356, 381-4118, ii. 2, pp. 303, 466 467; Kr�ger, History, pp. 25 sqq, 380; Ceillier, Auteurs Sacr�s, i. 392-398, 406 sqq., DNB, iv 423-431; the literature under IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, and the church historians on the Post-apostolic period, e.g., Schaff, Christian Church i. 109-111, 299, 335, 465, 661, 677, 680. On the date of the martyrdom consult: R. A. Lipsius, in JPT, 1878, pp. 751-768; K. Wieseler, Christenverfolgungen. pp. 3487, G�tersloh, 1878; idem in TSK, liii (1880), 141-165; T. Randell, in Studia Biblica, pp. 175-207, Oxford, 1885; W. M. Ramsay in Expository Times, Jan., 1907. pp. 188-189.

POLYCHROME BIBLE. See BIBLE TEXT, I., 3, � 4.

POLYCHRONIUS: Bishop of Apamea; flourished in the first half of the fifth century. Of his life nothing is known except that he was the brother of Theodore of Mopsuestia (q.v.), that he was bishop after 428, and that he was one of the most distinguished exegetes of the Antiochian school. Though never expressly anathematized, Polychronius was regarded as a heretic in later times, so of his exegetical works only fragments have been preserved in various catenas. It may be regarded as certain that Polychronius wrote exhaustive commentaries on Job, Daniel, and Ezekiel. The greater part of the fragments preserved are from Daniel, which he interpreted as referring to Antiochus Epiphanes instead of Antichrist, and saw in the fourth monarchy of the world the Macedonian empire, and in the ten heads the Diadochi. He sought always to establish the historical meaning and polemized against allegorical exegesis, as well as against the theory of a twofold sense. As a critic, however, he seems to have been more conservative than his brother. His knowledge of philology, antiquities, and history was considerable, but he shows a comparatively slight acquaintance with the Semitic languages. . His Christology was apparently that of his brother, though probably less pronounced.

(A. HARNACK.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Theodoret, Hist. eccl., v. 39, Eng. transl. NPNF, 2 ser., iii. 159; O. Bardenhewer, Polychronius Bruder Theodors, Freiburg, 1879; Fabricius-Harles, Bibliotheca Gr�ca, viii. 638-669, x. 362-363, Hamburg, 1802-1807; , iv. 434-436; Ceillier, Auteurs sacr�s, x. 60.

POLYCRATES, pe-lic'ra-t�z: Bishop of Ephesus; flourished in the second century. He is known only bration of Easter (about 190) [to whom he wrote a letter, given in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V., xxiv., Eng, transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., i. 242-244]. The controversy, according to Eusebius, took place under Commodus (d. Dec. 31, 192), and to Maximin of Antioch (whom Serapion succeeded in 190-191) letters are said to have been directed. At this time he had been a Christian sixty-five years, coming of a Christian family which had already furnished seven bishops. Victor had requested him to can a synod to decide the Easter problem (see EASTER); but this synod, led by Polycrates appealing to the usage of Asia Minor, decided in favor of Nisan 14th, whereupon the pope made an unsuccessful attempt to excommunicate the church of Asia Minor.

(N. BONWETSCH.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V., xxii., xxiv., Eng. transl., NPNF 2 ser., i. 240-244 (cf. note 9 on V xxiil,); Harnack, Litteratur, i. 260 ii. 1 p. 323; T. Zahn , Forschungen zur Geschichte der neutestamentlichen Kanons, iii. 187 vi. 162-163, 169 sqq., 208 sqq., Leipsic, 1890-1900; O. Bardenhewer, Geschicte der altkirchlichen Literatur, i. 580 Frelburg, 1902; DNB, iv. 436-437; Ceillier, Auteurs sacr�s, i. 535, ii. 542-543.

POLYGLOT BIBLES. See BIBLES, POLYGLOT.

POLYTHEISM.

• I. Scope and Definition.
1. Meaning in Scripture (� 1).
2. Lapse from Monotheism (� 2).
• II. Classification.
1. Fetishism (� 1).
2. Animism (� 2).
3. Sabaism (� 3).
• III. Development.
1. A Corruption of Monotheism (� 1).
• IV. Ethical Estimation.

I Scope and Definition:

1. Meaning in Scripture.

Polytheism or the doctrine and belief that there are more gods than one is the more scientific term for what is otherwise known as idolatry and heathenism, and refers to those religions which are in contradistinction to the monotheism of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism. It is based on the natural tendency of man to seek religious relations with deity in the light of the revelation of natural religion alone. In the evolutionary process nature proceeds from plurality to unity, and even pantheism appears as a philosophical elaboration and inspiration of primitive polytheism. The verdict of both the Old atld the New Testament on the nature and value of polytheism is essentially the same. Polytheism is the lapse from the living God to the worship of vain idols and the perversion of divinely revealed truth in order to smuggle in falsehood, darkness of spirit, and association with demons. The gods of the heathen are powerless (Jer. ii. 28; Isa. xli. 29, xlii. 17, xlvi. 1 sqq.), and made by man from perishable material (especially Isa. xli., xliv.; Ps. cxv. 4 sqq., cxxxv. 15-18). So far as they really exist, they are demons (Deut. xxxii. 17; cf. Deut. x. 1.7, xxxii. 17; Ps. xcvi. 15, cvi. 27). In the New Testament idols are vain, and are not really gods (Acts xiv. 15, xix. 26; I Cor. viii. 5; Gal. iv. 8), and he who eats of their offerings eats the meat of demons (I Cor. x. 19-21; Rev. ix. 20).

2 Lapse from Monotheism.

In considering the origin of polytheism, the usual development of pantheism from an earlier polytheism, illustrated in India by Brahmanism and in Greece by the Eleatic and Stoic systems, would naturally lead one to consider the primitive form of all religion to consist in the worship of a plurality of gods from which even Biblical monotheism was developed. Never theless, neither the Pentateuch nor the prophetic writings contain any traces whatsoever of an earlier polytheism, and the Old Testament very definitely regards the polytheism of the heathen as caused by a fall from primitive monotheism in the account of the tower of Babel (Gen. xi. 1 sqq.). The gradual development of polytheism from an original monotheism is supported by the history of Abraham (Gen. xiv. 18-20; Josh. xxiv. 2Gen. xxxi. 19-20, xxxv. 2-3); of Joseph, who married the daughter of an Egyptian priest of the sun (Gen. xli. 50), and of Moses who was able to keep his people true to the God of the covenant only by bitter struggle against the paganism of Egypt and Midian (cf. Num. xii. 1 sqq.; Deut. xxxii. 15 sqq.; Amos v. 25-26). Similar views are presented in the New Testament, as in Rom. i. 21 sqq.; Acts xiv. 16, xvii. 29.

II. Classification:

Granted that the theory of evolution is legitimate in the domain of natural science, the question arises whether it applies as well to this sphere in view of the facts of religious history. From the time of David Hume (q.v.) and the English deists and of the German G. L. Bauer, the theory of the origin of monotheism from polytheism has passed through three definite stages: gods were derived either from fetishes, dead ancestors or other spirits, or from the heavenly bodies. These three theories may conveniently be termed fetishism, animism (with its varieties of spiritism, Shamanism, q.v., ancestor worship, hero cult), and Sabaism.

1. Fetishism.

The theory of Fetishism (q.v.), dating from the period of Voltaire and Hume, was essentially established by Charles De Brosses in his Du cults des dieux f�tiches (Paris, 1780), and was further developed by Auguste Comte (especially in the fifth volume of his Cours de philosophie positive (Paris, 1830-42), who assumed that from the worship of rude objects of a childlike superstition in magic, or fetishes, was developed first the polytheism of more civilized pagan nations, while from the latter was evolved monotheism as the highest ethical form of religion. This has become a favorite dogma of positivists in France, England, and North America as well as Germany, as illustrated by Lord Avebury's Origin of Civilization (London, 1870); S. Baring Gould's Origin and Development of Religious Belief (1889); C. Meiners, who held, in his Allgemeane kritiache Geschichte der Religionen (Hanover, 1808), that fetishism was not only the oldest but also the most general form of worship; G. P. C. Kaiser in his Biblische Theologie (Erlangen, 1813-21); Hegel in his Vorlesungen fiber Philosophie der Religion (Berlin, 1832) maintaining that magic, constantly changing its objects of worship in the form of fetishism, creates the first and lowest type of religion; and T. Waitz, in his Anthropologie der Naturvolker (Leipsic, 1859-85). The fetishistic theory was developed into a formal system by F. Schultze in Der Fetischismus, ein Beitrag zur Anthropologie and Religionsgeschichte (Leipsic, 1871), in which an interpretation of the individual tendencies of fetishism is attempted, on the assumption that the rudest fetishism of modern aborigines is necessarily the closest in approximation to the primitive type of all religions. This theory of fetishism has exercised more or less influence on historians of civilization like K. Twesten and F. von HellwaId, natural philosophers like C. Sterns, E. Haeckel, and investigators of religions like A. Wuttke, whose Geachiehte des Heidentums (Breslau, 1852-53), while proceeding from a rigidly monotheistic basis, regards fetishism as the oldest and most primitive type of religion known to history; and G. Roskoff in Geschichte des Teufels (Leipsic, 1889) and Religionswessen der rohesten Natur�lker (1880). In opposition to the frequent assumption after Darwin that there are numerous primitive peoples without any trace of religion, so that absolute atheism is alleged to be the real basis and starting period of the entire religious and ethical development of mankind, Roskoff, in the latter work, marshaled an array of facts confirmed by a company of scholars; but he falls in also with the naturalistic view, regarding magic as the prototype of all religious activity. The theory of fetishism is scientifically false. The fetish is not, according to De Brosses and the other naturalists, an enchanted and therefore prophetic object (as if from fari, fanum, or fatum), but is something artificially made (Portuguese, feiti�o-Latin facere) especially for religious purposes, such as an amulet, cross, or idol. Properly speaking, fetishes are devotional or cultic objects which imply a relatively developed stage of religion, and are even typical of an incipient decay of religious life. They are invariably relics of an older and more perfect concept of the deity; for some sort of an idea of a higher being to be invoked must have been present before steps could be taken to make a fetish. The atone, block, bone, or rag, which forms such a magic idol for the African, was never anything but an idol capriciously adapted to a long developed, even though rough and vague, concept of God. The worship of fetishes forms a rude parallel to the veneration of relics and objects of superstition like the tooth of Buddha in Ceylon, Mohammedan talismans, GrecoRoman amulets, or the teraphim or earthern serpents of the peoples with whom the Israelities came in contact. Far from belonging to the childhood of religion, as Meiners, Hegel, Lord Avesbury, and others have held, on the ground of the puppet shape of the fetishes and the childish homage of dances and drummings in their honor, fetishism is decadent, even as senility frequently assumes an appearance of childishness. Neither fetishism nor the primitive atheism assumed by Avesbury can rationally be made the foundation of religious development either of mankind as a whole or of individual stocks or peoples (cf. J. Happel, Die Anlage des Menschen zur Religion, pp. 112, 134 sqq., Leyden, 1877; O. Pfleiderer, Religionephilosophie, pp. 318-319, 742-743, Berlin, 1878; F. M. M�ller, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, especially vol. ii., London, 1878; P. Schanz, Apologie des Christentums, 2d ed., ii. 37, 297, and passim, Freiburg, 1887-88; and C. von Orelli, Allgemeine Religionsgeschichte, pp. 15, 285-288, 841842, Bonn, 1899). [For another view of the subject, see FETISHISM.]

2. Animism.

The animistic hypothesis, or soul-cult, as the source of all religious development is considerably later than that of fetishism. As introduced into comparative religion by E. B. Tylor in his Primitive Culture (London, 1871; new ed., 1903) and Anthropology (1881) animism denotes a belief, wide-spread among the primitive peoples throughout the world, in more or less powerful souls or spirits dwelling in material objects, in a word, " spirit worship " (cf. J. Lippert, Der Seelenkult nach seinen Beziehungen zur hebraischen Religion, Berlin, 1881; O. Seeck, Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, pp. 339-377, Berlin, 1901). Logically, this form of religion is a grade higher than fetishism, regarding its cultic objects as filled with, or possessed of, certain spiritual beings, which human magic can cause to appear and become operative. At the same time, cruder fetishistic views and usages are found in animism, especially in the magic character of the priests of both types. Three forms of animism may be distinguished: physiolatric, anthropolatric, and patriarcholatric. Physiolatric animism is the worship of certain nature spirits residing in wells or rivers (nymphs, nixies), in hills or rocks (cobalds), in trees (hamadryads), or in animals, and the like, the two chief subdivisions being the two last, phytolatry and zoolatry, the latter comprising ophiolatry. Anthropolatric animism is the worship of the dead, whether regarded as being in some inanimate medium or in some living animal from simple inhabitation to metempsychosis; this type is the darkest of spiritism issuing in necromancy and fanatical Shamanism. Patriarcholatry, or ancestor worship, is the worship of the ancestors of special families or entire stocks, this frequently passing over among wild tribes into totemism, in which the ancestors are held to have been certain beasts or birds, which thus become fixed emblems of the families or stocks in question. All attempts to make any or all of these types of animism the source of the development of religion have failed. Ancestor worship in particular, defended by H. Spencer in his Principles of Sociology (London, 1876,82), J. Lippert (ut sup.), and others, is rendered nugatory because the pious regard of ancestors presupposes too long a development and too ripe a civilization to be regarded as the primitive source of religion; as, for instance, the Chinese cult and the Pitris and Rishis of India and the Greeks. See COMPARATIVE RELIGION, VI., 1, a, �J 1-6; HEATHENISM, �� 2-4, 6.

3. Sabaism.

The Sabaistic theory, or the assumption that the cult of the heavenly bodies is the source of religion, seems to go back, strictly speaking, to such Church Fathers as Clement of Alexandria, and Firmicius Maternus, who held that, while monotheism was the original religion, the stages of decline had begun with the worship of the heavenly bodies. They were closely followed by Moses Maimonides (q.v.), and, among more recent students, by those who investigate mainly religions possessing an astronomical basis, as the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Phenician. A chief exponent of this theory was the French astronomer C. F. Dupuis, who, in his Origine de tous les cultes ou religion (12 vols., Paris, 1795), sought to prove that worship first of the sun and then of the other heavenly bodies was the point of departure for all religious evolution. Similar attempts were made by J. A. Kanne in Neue Darstellung der Mythologie der Griechen (Leipsic, 1805), J. G. Rohde in Versuch �ber das Alter des Tierkreises and den Alter der Sternbilder (Breslau, 1809), E. von Bunsen in his Einheit der Religion (Berlin, 1870) and Die Plejaden and der Tierkreis (1879), and C. Ploix in La Nature des dieuz (Paris, 1888), in which he blended Sabaism and fetishism. If, however, a stellar cult developed into adoration of the zodiac, the planets, and other celestial objects, it presupposes a degree of culture which is incompatible with the primitive period of mankind. The truly primitive forms of worship of the heavenly bodies seem rather to be monotheistic, the divine element being regarded not so much as the sun, moon, or " host of heaven," as the heaven itself as the symbol or manifestation of the highest beneficent power, in comparison with which the, individual stars constituted mere subdeities. A number of adherents of primitive monotheism have accordingly regarded Sabaism as the mediate stage through which man passed in his decline from monotheism to the baser forms of polytheism. Criticism of Sabaism leads necessarily to the positing of a primitive monotheism though not in its absolute form.

III. Development:

1. A Corruption of Monotheism.

A relative monotheism, consisting of a theistic basis with pantheistic elements, was assumed as the basis of all religious development by Schelling in Philosophie der Metologie and Ofenbarung (Stuttgart, 1856-59), and he was followed by many others. This relative monotheism of the earliest historic period was termed kathenotheism or henotheism by Max M�ller; and though restricted by him only to certain characteristics of the Vedic religion, yet it may well be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the earliest periods of the religion of various other peoples of similar antiquity. This henotheism is defined by M�ller as a naive faith in individual powers of nature which alternately appear as supreme. The religion of the Chinese seems to be an unfolding of the cult of heaven, and early Iranian religious records show similar traces of a relatively pure primitive monotheism, since between the supreme creator of the universe, Ormazd, and his subordinate deities, the six Amshaspands, a considerable interval is held to exist. The oldest religious concepts of the other Indo-Germanic peoples were richer in polytheistic elements, though even in them the aky god was dominant. Among the religions of south western Asia, the ancient Arabs and the Phenicians had a basis of primitive monotheism, consisting in the worship of a supreme god of the light or of the sun (Ilhh or Shamah in North Arabia, Bel among the Sabeans of South Arabia, and Baal Hamman among the Phenicians), though even in the earliest records this basis had received many accretions of stellar polytheism. The same statements hold good of the religion of ancient Babylonia. The most ancient supreme sky-god Anu must early have received by his side a Bel and an Ea, their number later being increased by various younger nature deities, such as the moon-god Sin and'the sun-god Shamash, as well as the five planetary deities Marduk, Ishtar, Adar, Nergal, and Nebo. Many of the most competent Egyptologists agree in placing at the head of the development of the Nilotic religion a creative celestial " king " or " father " of the gods, who was called Amon-Ra by the Thebans and Ptah at Memphis; and Le Page Renouf, in his Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 119 (London, 1880), declares: " The sublimer portions [of the Egyptian religion] are not the comparatively late results of a process of development or elimination from the grosser. The sublimer portions are demonstrably ancient; and the last stage of the Egyptian religion, that known to the Greek and Latin writers, was by far the grossest and most corrupt."

It must not be supposed, however, that this process of degeneration from monotheism everywhere took the same course or passed through the same phases. In like manner, various motives entered into the creation of early myths; and neither the one-sided interpretation of myths as personifications of meteorological phenomena nor the one sided anthropology of the euhemerists nor the operation of diabolical forces as held by early orthodoxy is in accord with the actual state of affairs.

IV. Ethical Estimation:

Regarding the relation of polytheism to morality, the stern judgment must hold which the Old and the New Testament alike pronounce upon idolatry without distinction of its various forms or grades. Idolaters are evildoers punished by the law with the severest penalties, and upbraided by the prophets for their enormities. In the New Testament sinners and heathen are parallel (Matt. xviii. 17; Gal. ii. 15; I Cor. v. 1), while idolatry is classed among the "works of the flesh," being placed between lasciviousness and sorcery (Gal. v. 20), and repeatedly designated as belonging to the worst abominations (Romans ii. 22; Rev. ii. 15, 20, ix. 21, xvii. 4-5, xviii. 22) and as leading to the gravest sensuality (Rom. i. 24-28). And this judgment not only holds true of classical antiquity, but of modern primitive peoples as well.

(O. Z�CKLER �.)

The conclusions reached by the author of the preceding article are not those of the modern school of comparative religionists. Every line of evidence exhaustively examined by these students leads to results that are in complete accord with the science of anthropology, which regards man himself as a development. Religion appears distinctly and unmistakably as a growth, in which monotheism is the choicest fruit, not the root. Wherever the history of religion can be traced for long periods, as in Babylonia and China, and now in Greece, the farther back one searches the more diffused is the worship, until the gods are lost in spirits or demons. This is confirmed by the study of primitive religion, where the objects of worship are spirits, not gods, with rare exceptions, and these exceptions afford no support to the theory of monotheism as original. Similarly in the organized religions, the irrational and animistic elements, for instance of ritual (in which are always preserved longest the traces of origin), are clearly derivable from the earlier stages and point to polytheism or animism, never to monotheism. While there may be reversion of a people from monotheism to polytheism (as in the decadent period of Jewish history), the case can always be shown to be reversion and not degeneration. The background of Hebrew religion is now recognized by the entire critical school as not only polytheistic but animistic. A case of this is the action of Jacob in anointing the stone (an act of worship) on which he slept while he saw his vision (Gen. xxviii. 18), which action was precisely that which Arab tribes directed to the stone deities which they worshiped (Smith, Red. of Sem., passim). The first commandment is an explicit recognition of the existence of other deities.

The conclusions of comparative religionists as to the order of development in religion are briefly indicated in COMPARATIVE RELIGION (q.v., especially VI., 2, d).

GEO. W. GILMORE.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Much of the best literature is named in the text, and many of the works given under COMPARITIVE RELIGION and FETISHISM are of first importance: use also the literature under separate lands, as Africa, China, Japan, etc. Consult further: A. Wuttke, Geschichte des Heidentums, 2 vols., Breslau, 1852-53; K. Werner, Die Religionen und Kultur den vorchristlichen Heidentums, Schaffhausen, 1871; E. L. Fischer, Heidentum and Offenbarung, Mainz, 1878; J. Legge, Religions of China, London, 1881; E. G. Steude, Ein Problem der allgemeinen Religionswiesenschaft, Leipsic, 1881; G. Rawlinson, The Religions of the Ancient World, London, 1882; C. F. Heman, Der Ursprung der Religion, Basel, 1888; W. Schneider, Die Naturv�lker, 3 vols., Monster, 1885-91; idem, Geachichte der Religion im Altertum, 2 parts, Gotha. 1895-98; K. von Orelli, Allgemeine Religionsgeschichte, Bonn, 1899; G. Stoeeh, Das Heidentum als religi�ses Problem, G�ttersloh, 1903; W. Mundt, V�lkerpsychologie, Leipsic, 1904 sqq.; W. Bouaset, What is Religion? New York, 1907; A. Bros, La Religion des peuplea non civilis�s, Paris, 1907; F. X. , Kortleitner, De polytheismo universo et quibusdam eias formis apud Hebr�os finitimasque gentes usitatis, Innsbruck, 1908; G. Foucart, La Methode comparative dans l'histoire des religions, Paris, 1909; L. Frobenius, The Childhood of Man, London, 1909; A. Le Roy, La Religion des primitifs, Paris, 1909; J. H. Leuba, Psychological Origin and Nature of Religion, London, 1909; S. Reinaeh, Orpheus. Hist. g�n�ale des religions, Paris, 1909, Eng, transl., Orpheus, London, 1909; W. St. C. Tisdall, Mythic Christs and the True: a Criticism of some modern Theories, London, 1909; H. G. Underwood, Religions of Eastern Asia, New York, 1910.

POMERIUS, JULIANUS: Galilean presbyter of Moorish descent; d. about 490. He is said by Cyprian to have been the teacher of famous Caesarius of Arles (q.v.), and according to the spurious addition to Gennadius' De vir. ill. (xcviii.) and Isidore's De scriptaribus eccleaiasticis (xv.), he wrote a dialogue De anim� nature (or De nature animie et qualitate eras) in eight books and a treatise De vita contemplative (or De contemptu mundi) in three books. The first book of the latter work (MPL, lix. 415-520) treats of the value of the contemplative life, the second of the active life of the Christian, and the third of vices and virtues. The entire works are full of the spirit of Augustine. The similarity of the latter treatise to the.eschatological meditations of St. Julian, bishop of Toledo, early led to Julian's identification with Pomerius, who flourished fully two centuries before him. Julian, a convert from Judaism, was archbishop from Jan. 29, 680, to Mar. 8, 690, and was zealous in defending and extending the faith and reformation of the clergy, at the same time maintaining a firm attitude toward Benedict II. when the pope criticized his creed. His apology addressed to Benedict, together with some of his other works, has been lost; but his Prognosticorum futuri seculi libre tres (Leipsic, 1535); De demonstratione sext� �tatis (Heidelberg, 1532); and Historia Wamb� regis Toletani (MPL, xcvi.) are extant. He probably took part in the final redaction of the old Spanish liturgy and of the Visigothic canon law.

(O. Z�CKLER �.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Histoire litteraire de la France, ii. 885-875; J. Niraehl, Lehrbuch der Patrologie and Patristik, iii. 285 sqq�, Maine, 1881; F. Arnold, C�sarius -von Arelate, pp. 80-84, 124-129, Leipsic, 1894; O. Bardenhewer, Patrologie, p. 540, Freiburg, 1901, Eng transl. St. Louis 1908; O. Z�ckler, Die Tugendlehre den Christentums, pp. 93-95, G�tersloh, 1904. On Julian of Toledo Consult: Patrum Tolelanorum . .Opera, ed. F. Lorenzano, pp. 3-385, Madrid, 1785; J. de Mariana, Histori� de rebus Hispania, vi. 248-249, Mainz, 1805, Eng. transl., The General Hist. of Spain, 2 parts, London, 1899; P. B. Gams, Kirchengeschichte von Spanien,

PONCE DE LEON, LUIS DE. See LEON, LUIS DE.

POND, ENOCH: Congregationalist; b. at Wrentham, Mass., July 29, 1791; d. at Bangor, Me., Jan. 21, 1882. He was graduated from Brown University (1813), studied theology under Nathaniel Emmons (q.v.), was licensed (1814), and ordained pastor of the Congregational Church in Ward (now Auburn), Mass. (1815). He was editor of The Spirit of the Pilgrims (Boston), an orthodox religious monthly which played an important part in the Unitarian controversy (1828-32); professor of systematic theology in the Bangor Theological Seminary (1832-58); professor of ecclesiastical history, lecturer on pastoral theology, and president from 1858 till his death. He was active in the building up of the institution and was a voluminous writer. Among his works are: Christian Baptism (Boston,1817); Morning of the Reformation (1842); The Mather Family (1844); Swedenborgianism Examined (New York, 1861); The Ancient Church (1851); Lectures on Pastoral Theology (Andover, 1866); Lectures on Christian Theology (Boston, 1868); and A History of God's Church from its Origin to the Present Times (Hartford, 1871).

PONTIANUS: Pope probably from July 21, 230, to Sept. 28, 235. During his pontificate the circular letter of Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, condemning Origen, was approved by a synod at Rome (see ORIGEN; and ORIGENISTIC CONTROVERSIES). Pontianus, together with the antipope Hippolytus, was exiled to Sardinia under the persecution of Maximmus Thrax, where he resigned.

(A. HARNACK.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Liber pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, vol. i., Paris, 1888, ed. T. Monamsen, in MGH, Gest. pont. Rom..  i (1898), 24-25; Harnack, Geschichte, i. 848, ii. 1, pp. 107 sqq.; Bower, Popes, i. 22-23; Plating, Popes, i. 43-45; Milman, Latin Christianity, i. 80.

PONTIFICAL: In the literal sense of the term, all that pertains to the bishop, especially his vestments and those functions that he alone may perform; more specifically, the term applied by the Roman Catholic Church to the book containing the ritual of those rites which may be celebrated only by bishops or by priests especially delegated by them to act as their representatives. At an early period the Roman Catholic Church took particular pains to prevent any deviations in specifically episcopal functions from the forms usual at Rome; and on Feb. 10, 1596, the new Pontificale Romanum  was approved, while at the same time all previous pontificals were declared to be superseded. Since, however, this edition was not free from errors, Urban VIII. ordered a new official edition (June 17, 1644) which should be the definitive model for all subsequent copies. The Pontifical was enlarged by Benedict XIV. in 1752. The standard edition authorised by Leo XIII. is entitled Pontificale Romanum a Benedicto XIV. et Leone XIII. recognitum et castigatam (Regensburg, 1898). The Pontifical consists of two parts, the first part containing those rites which relate to persons, and the second those which relate to things.

E. SEHLING.

PONTOPPIDAN, pon-top'p�-d�n, ERIK: Danish bishop; b. at Aarhus (on the eastern shore of Jutland) Aug. 24, 1898; d. at Copenhagen Dec. 20, 1764. He was educated at Fredericia (171(3-18), after which he was a private tutor in Norway, and then studied in Holland, and at London and Oxford, England. In 1721 he became informator of Frederick Carl of Carlstein (later duke of Pl�n), and two years later morning preacher in the castle and afternoon preacher at Nordborg. From 1726 to 1734 he was pastor at Hagenberg, where he so protected the pietists as to find it advisable to defend his course against the Lutherans with Dialogus; oder Untterredung Severi, Sinceri, und Simplicis von der Religion and Reinheit der Lehre (1726) and Heller Glattbensspiegel (1727). During this same period he laid the foundation of his later topographical and historical works in Memories Hafni� (1729); Theatrum Danice (1736); and Kurzgefasste Rejormationshistorie der d�nischen Kirche. Pontoppidan became successively pastor at Hiller�d and castle preacher at Frederiksborg (1734), Danish court preacher at Copenhagen (1735), professor extraordinary of theology at the University (1738), and a member of the mission board (1740), meanwhile writing his Everriculum fermenti: veteris (1736) and B�se Sprichw�rter (1739).

In 1736 Pontoppidan was directed by royal rescript to prepare an explanation of the catechism and a new hymnal, and through these two works Wahrheit zur Gottesfurcht (1737) and the hymn book (1740)-the pietistic cause in Denmark received powerful assistance. He likewise continued his historical investigations in his Marmora Danica (3 vols., 1739-41; a collection of noteworthy epitaphs and ecclesiastical monuments) and his uncritical Annales ecclesi�; Danica: (4 vols., 1741-52); and also wrote a novel, Menoza (3 vols., 1742-43), a critique of the religious conditions of Denmark and other countries. In 1747' he was appointed bishop at Bergen, where he introduced many educational reforms, and wrote Glossarium Norvagicum (1749) and Versuch einer nat�rlichen Geschichte Norwegens  (Copenhagen, 1752-53), while his pastoral letters formed in part the basis of his later Collegium pastorale practicum  (1757). The antagonism which Pontoppidan roused at Bergen, however, obliged him to go in 1754 to Copenhagen, where he became prochancellor at the university in the following year. But all his plans in this capacity were thwarted by his opponents, and he sought consolation in writing, the results being his Origines Hafnienses (1760) and the first two parts of his Den danske Atlas (1763-67), of which the last five volumes were edited posthumously. He was also active as a political economist, being the editor of Danmarks og Norges �konomiske Magozin (8 vols., 1757-64).

(F. NIELSEN �.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The literature (in Danish) is indicated in Hauck-Herzog, RE, xv. 551.

POOLE, MATTHEW: B. at York, Eng., 1624; educated at Emmanuel College, in Cambridge; he became minister of St. Michael-le-Quernes, London, in 1648, and devoted himself to the Presbyterian cause. In 1654 he published The Blasphemer Slain with the Sword of the Spirit, against John Biddle, the chief Unitarian of that time. In 1658 he published a Model for the Maintaining of Students, and raised a fund for their support at the universities. In the same year he published Quo warranto; or, a moderate Enquiry into the Warrantableness of the Preaching of unordained Persons. In 1662 he was ejected from his charge, for nonconformity, and devoted himself to Biblical studies. The fruit of these was produced, in 1669, in the Synopsis Criticorum (5 vols., folio), a monument of Biblical learning which has served many generations of students, and will maintain its value forever. Many subsequent editions have been published at Frankfort, Utrecht, and elsewhere. He was engaged, at his death, on English Annotations on the Holy Bible, and proceeded as far as Isa. lviii. His friends completed the work; and it was published (London, 1685, 2 vols., folio), and passed through many editions. Poole also took part in the Romish controversy, and published two very effective works: The Nullity of the Romish Faith, or, A Blow at the Root, etc. (London, 1666), and Dialogues between a Popish Priest and an English Protestant (1667). On this account he was greatly hated by the Papists, and his name was on the list of those condemned to death in the Popish Plot. He retired to Amsterdam, and died in Oct., 1679. Few names will stand so high as Poole's in the Biblical scholarship of Great Britain.

C. A. BRIGGS.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. I. Wood, Athena Oxonienses, ed. P. Bliss, ii. 205, 4 vols., London, 1813-20. A sketch of his life and writings appears in the English Annotations, ut sup., vol. iv., Edinburgh, 1801; S. Palmer, Nonconformist's Memorial, i. 167, London, 1802; DNB, xlvi. 99-100.

POOR CLARES. See CLARE (CLARA), SAINT.

POOR LAWS HEBREW: Poverty was unknown in the earliest Hebraic age. The nomad has few needs, and those are provided for by the tribe, since pasture-land is common property. Even after the conquest of Canaan there was at first no necessity for legal provision in behalf of the poor. But as soon as the people settled in the cities, the usual results of urban development followed. As the old simplicity disappeared, especially after Saul and David, national independence came in, politics began to have force, property became private, social distinctions arose, and with them the need of protecting the weak from those having the advantage in wealth.

The first efforts in that direction are found in the ancient law known as the Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx.-xxiii.). Very significant are the injunctions regulating the relation between debtor and creditor. To take usury from any of the people was forbidden (Ex. xxii. 25). A garment taken as pledge was to be returned before the sun set for the debtor to use as a covering (Ex. xxii. 26-27). The Hebrew slave was to be set free in the seventh year together with his wife and children (Ex. xxi. 2 sqq.). Field, vineyard, and olive-grove were to lie fallow the seventh year, and all that grew of itself during that year belonged to the poor (Ex. xxiii. 10-12). These enactments were no doubt observed by the right-minded in Israel, but there are reasons for believing that selfishness knew how to evade them. But even where they were observed, they did not suffice to check poverty. Under Solomon Israel began to engage in commerce. The riches which came into the country influenced all conditions of life. Prophets like Hoses, Amos, and Isaiah complained of the luxury of the rich, of their greediness, and of their usurious oppression of the poor. The rich land-owners joined house to house and field to field, till there was no place for the poor (Isa. v. 8, 22 sqq.; Mic. ii. 1 sqq.), and the usurer was not afraid to sell the poor for a trifle (Amos ii. 6-7, cf. iv. 1 sqq., v. 11, viii. 4). Naturally under these circumstances the well-meaning in Israel sought to find new means for the protection of the poor. So the law-book known as Deuteronomy came into existence during the later regal period and its author belonged to the prophetic school of thought. The legislation of Deuteronomy is in part social. Humaneness to the weak, consideration for widows, orphans, Levites, and strangers, are fundamental in the book. Former protective enact, merits are repealed, new ones are added (cf. Deut. xiv. 28 sqq., xv. 2 sqq., 12 sqq., xxiii. 20, 25-26, xxiv. 6, 10). The great priest-code, which obtained canonical authority after the exile, continued this effort to give protection and relief to the poor (Lev. xix. 9, xxiii. 22, xxv.). But with the decline of the monarchy, the executive authority to carry out these and like regulations vanished, and it is no wonder that they became a dead letter. Aside from laws which were impracticable (Deut. xv. 2 sqq., Lev. xxv. 2 sqq.) other laws were ignored. Such a law was the prohibition of usury, probably often kept, but just as often neglected. Though the immediate result of this legislation was not great, it must not be overlooked that the ideals which it expressed were not in vain. They produced their effects and promoted the knowledge that poverty and riches are differences which do not prevail before God but which as realities afford a field of labor for the highest ethical forces. The declaration of Jesus that the poor (in spirit) are blessed had its root in this legislation, which propounded the principle that the poor in spite of his poverty is a member of the people of God, and on account of it enjoys God's special protection.

(R. KITTEL.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Cassel, Die Armenverwaltung in alten lsrael, Berlin, 1887; F. E. Kobel, Die sociale . . . Gesettpebunp des A. T., Stuttgart, 1891; W. Nowaek, Die socialen Problems in Israel, Strasburg, 1892; idem, Arch�ologie, i. 350 sqq.; C. H. Comill, Das A. T. and die Humanit�t, Leipsic, 1895; E. Schall, Die Staatsverfassung der Judea auf Grund des A. T., ib. 1898; E. Day, Social Life of the Hebrews, New -York, 1901; C. F. Kent, Students' O. T., iv. 129-133, ib. 1907; DB, i. 579-880, iv. 19-20, 27-29, 323-326, Extra volume, pp. 357-359; EB, iii. 3808-11; DCG, ii. 385-386; JE, iii. 667-671.

POOR MEN OF CHRIST: Name assumed by the followers of Norbert (see PREMONSTRATENSIANS) and by the Waldenses (q.v.)

POOR MEN OF LYONS. See WALDENSES.

POOR RELIEF. See SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE CHURCH.

POPE, PAPACY, PAPAL SYSTEM.

• I. Development of the Papacy.
1. Roman Catholic Theory of the Papacy (� 1).
2. Papacy in Pre-Carolingian Times (� 2)
3. In Merovingian and Carolingian Periods (� 3).
4. Tendency to Absolutism Checked (� 4)
5. Spiritual and Temporal Supremacy Claimed (� 5).
6. Primacy of Jurisdiction (� 8).
7. Primacy of Honor (� 7).
• II. Election of the Pope
1. Development of Present Method ($ 1).
2. The Conclave (� 2).
3. The Election (� 3).
4. Procedure after Election (� 4).

I. Development of the Papacy:

1. Roman Catholic Theory of the Papacy.

Pope (Gk., pappas, " father ") designates the bishop of Rome in his position as supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church. According to the doctrine of that church, when Christ founded the Church as a visible institution, he assigned to the Apostle Peter the precedency over the other apostles-making Peter his vicar, and constituting him center of the Church in that he conveyed to him alike the supreme priestly authority (see KEYS, POWER OF THE), the supreme doctrinal authority, and the supreme direction of the Church (Matt. xvi. 18, 19; Luke xxii. 32; John xxi. 15-17). But since the Church is a perpetual institution, Peter must needs have a successor, and the ecclesiastical succession is to be secured in that position for all futurity. On account of Peter's connection with the bishopric of Rome, which he is held to have established, this succession, with its derivative rights and titular primacy, is permanently attached to the Roman see; though not, perforce, to its local site in the city of Rome. The succession devolves upon the actual bishop of Rome; and so Peter as vicar of Christ lives on in the Roman bishops, the popes. The doctrines thus outlined are dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church; and therefore they become immutable and fundamental principles of its formal constitution.

2. Papacy in PreCarolingian Times.

But in the light of objective historical contemplation, the pope's primacy appears to be solely the product of evolutionary centuries. It is not to be denied that even from the second century and in the third century the Roman congregation and the Roman episcopal see enjoyed a significant and positive esteem in the West. The Roman church not only stood accepted as founded by the Apostle Peter, but was also the sole church in the West which could boast of apostolic establishment, let alone the fact that its site was the pivot of the ancient world, and thus facilitated a vast range of communication with the other churches and congregations. Yet though even so early as in the third century the peculiar distinction and the precedency of the Roman church were based in Rome upon succession to the rights of Peter; nevertheless, not even the Council of Nic�a knows of a Roman primacy over the whole Church. But what really proved of decisive influence in winning legal prerogatives for the Roman bishop were the issues of the dogmatic controversies that agitated the Church from the fourth century forward; since in these controversies the position of the bishop of Rome was of determining weight for the very reason of the high respect enjoyed by his church, because Rome supported the due maintenance of orthodox doctrine. The Synod of Sardica (343) permitted a bishop who had been deposed by the metropolitan synod to appeal to the bishop of Rome. Just as this implied a right of supreme jurisdiction on the part of that dignitary to uphold which appeal could soon be made to the Council of Nicma, because the decrees of Sardica became consolidated with the canons of that council, so did Innocent I. (404) lay claim to a supreme right of adjudication in all "the more grave and momentous cases"; and about the same time, he claimed the right of issuing obligatory regulations for the several districts of the Church. At the outset, however, these were mere assumptions; nor could the bishops of Rome bring them to practical effect beyond Italy or in such countries as Illyria and southern Gaul, where the local situation happened to be favorable, and where there happened to be voluntary overtures in behalf of close connection with Rome. As a matter of fact, in the year 445, Leo I. obtained of Valentinian III. by an imperial law (Novell� Valentiniani, iii.. tit. 16), recognition of primacy, in particular that of the supreme judicial and legislative right of the Roman see. However, this law was binding only on the West; and it involved neither a renunciation of the emperor's right of exercising the imperial prerogative to legislate in ecclesiastical affairs, nor any abolishment of the rights of councils convened under imperial authority. It was not by legislation, but principally by interfering in this or that special, important concern that, both before and after this law, the Roman bishop was able to substantiate his assumed supreme control of the Church, and even in the fifth century to play a deciding hand in affairs of the Fast. Still more significant becomes the status of the Roman bishop from the close of that century, when the Germans found separate kingdoms in Italy. But, at the same time, his local sphere of power became narrowed by the establishment of the Germans in Gaul, Spain, and England; a condition that arrested the progress of the centralizing process already started in those countries.

3. In Merovingian and Carolingian Periods.

Especially in the most notable of these new states, in Merovingian "France," the direct control of ecclesiastical affairs through the Roman bishop was legally debarred. Anything of that kind could come about only subject to royal approbation, and though the pope was acknowledged to be the first bishop in Christendom, and the preservation of communion in the faith with him was accounted in dispensable. But the king alone possessed the deciding authority respecting the law of the Church, jointly with the royal or national synod by him convened, the decrees of which could become bind ing on the state only by the king's approbation. A change in this respect did not set in till in course of the eighth century; when the Carolingian majordomos, closely allied as they were with Boniface, endeavored to cooperate in his project of reorganizing and effectually reforming the secularized Frankish church. The same situation persisted under Charlemagne. In the universal Christian commonwealth, such as his empire came to be regarded, he exercised not only the chief temporal sovereignty but also the control of ecclesiastical affairs, though he evinced even greater zeal than his predecessors in assimilating the order of the Frankish church to the Roman canons and praxis. For Charlemagne, the pope ranks merely as the first bishop of Christendom and of the emperor's dominion, who possesses certain prerogatives above the other bishops, and is especially called, in view of his station, to watch over the spiritual side of the Church and over the proper maintenance of its canons and doctrine; yet who may not assume, independently of the emperor, any right of control over the church of the Frankish realm. Several things conspired to bring about a transformation of the earlier situation. These were the weakness of Charlemagne's successors; the political complications provoked through the struggles in the family of Louis the Frank; and the strifes among the Frankish bishops. The imperial and royal power was no longer in a position to preserve intact its ecclesiastical leadership, while the essentially moral influence exercised hitherto by the pope, merged into an encroachment upon ecclesiastical and political ground in proportion as he became repeatedly invoked by the wrangling parties themselves to decide the issue, while they sought to strengthen themselves through his authority. Above all,