[Ecclefechan], a market-town of Dumfriesshire, consisting for the most part of the High Street, 5 m. S. of Lockerbie, on the main road to Carlisle, 16 m. to the S.; noted as the birth and burial place of Thomas Carlyle.
[Ecclesiastes] (i. e. the Preacher), a book of the Old Testament, questionably ascribed to Solomon, and now deemed of more recent date as belonging to a period when the reflective spirit prevailed; and it is written apparently in depreciation of mere reflection as a stepping-stone to wisdom. The standpoint of the author is a religious one; the data on which he rests is given in experience, and his object is to expose the vanity of every source of satisfaction which is not founded on the fear, and has not supreme regard for the commandments, of God, a doctrine which is the very ground-principle of the Jewish faith; but if vanity is written over the whole field of human experience, he argues, this is not the fault of the system of things, but due, according to the author, to the folly of man (chap. vii. 29).
[Ecclesiastical Polity, the Law of], a vindication of the Anglican Church against the Puritans, written by Richard Hooker; the most splendid and stately piece of literary prose that exists in the language.
[Ecclesiastical States], territories in Italy once subject to the Pope as a temporal prince as well as ecclesiastically.
[Ecclesiasticus], one of the books of the Apocrypha, ascribed to Jesus, the son of Sirach, admitted to the sacred canon by the Council of Trent, though excluded by the Jews. It contains a body of wise maxims, in imitation, as regards matter as well as form, of the Proverbs of Solomon, and an appendix on the men who were the disciples of wisdom. Its general aim, as has been said, is "to represent wisdom as the source of all virtue and blessedness, and by warnings, admonitions, and promises to encourage in the pursuit of it." It was originally written in Hebrew, but is now extant only in a Greek translation executed in Egypt, professedly by the author's grandson.
[Ecclesiology], the name given in England to the study of church architecture and all that concerns the ground-plan and the internal arrangements of the parts of the edifice.
[Ecgberht], archbishop of York; was a pupil of Bede, and the heir to his learning; founded a far-famed school at York, which developed into a university; flourished in 766.
[Echidna], a fabulous monster that figures in the Greek mythology, half-woman, half-serpent, the mother of Cerberus, the Lernean Hydra, the Chimæra, the Sphinx, the Gorgons, the Nemean Lion, the vulture that gnawed the liver of Prometheus, &c.
[Echo], a wood-nymph in love with Narcissus, who did not return her love, in consequence of which she pined away till all that remained of her was only her voice.
[Eck, John], properly Maíer, a German theologian, of Swabian birth, professor at Ingolstadt; a violent, blustering antagonist of Luther and Luther's doctrines; in his zeal went to Rome, and procured a papal bull against both; undertook at the Augsburg Diet to controvert Luther's doctrine from the Fathers, but not from the Scriptures; was present at the conferences of Worms and Regensburg (1486-1543).