Ecumenical Council of 431, at which Nestorius was condemned. The site of the city is now desolate; near it is a poor village, Aiasoluk.
Eph´od, a species of vestment worn by the Jewish high-priest over the second tunic. It consisted of two main pieces, one covering the back, the other the breast and upper part of the body, fastened together on the shoulders by two onyx stones set in gold, on each of which were engraved the names of six tribes according to their order. A girdle or band, of one piece with the ephod, fastened it to the body. Just above the girdle, in the middle of the ephod, and joined to it by little gold chains, rested the square breastplate with the Urim and Thummim. The ephod was originally intended to be worn by the high-priest exclusively, but a similar vestment of an inferior material seems to have been in common use in later times among the ordinary priests.
Eph´ors, or Eph´ori (Gr. ephoroi, overseers), magistrates common to many Dorian communities of ancient Greece, of whom the most celebrated were the Ephori of Sparta. They were five in number, were elected annually, and both the judicial authority and the executive power were almost entirely in their hands. Their power became an intolerable burden, especially to the kings, and in 225 B.C. Cleomenes III murdered the whole college and abolished the office.
E´phraem Syrus, that is, 'Ephraim the Syrian', writer of the Syrian Church, born at Nisibis, in Mesopotamia, about A.D. 306, died at Edessa in 373 or 378. He wrote several commentaries on Scripture, numerous homilies, and other works (as well as hymns), which have come down to us partly in Syriac, partly in Greek, Latin, and Armenian translations. They were edited by Assemani at Rome between 1732 and 1746, and by Overbeck at Oxford in 1865.
E´phraim, the younger son of Joseph, and the founder of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. When the Israelites left Egypt, the Ephraimites numbered 40,500, and their possessions in the very centre of Palestine included most of what was afterwards called Samaria. Ephraim is also a town mentioned in John, xi, 54, and to which Jesus retired after His raising of Lazarus, when the Jewish authorities manifested their hostility against Him.
Ep´ic, a poem of the narrative kind, dealing with a series of events or actions of permanent interest. Some authorities restrict the term to narrative poems written in a lofty style and describing the exploits of heroes. Others widen the definition so as to include not only long narrative poems of romantic or supernatural adventure, but also those of an historical, legendary, mock-heroic, or humorous character. Epic poetry is distinguished from drama in so far as the author frequently speaks in his own person as narrator; and from lyrical poetry by making the predominant feature the narration of action rather than the expression of emotion. Among the more famous epics of the world's literature may be noted: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Æneid, the German Nibelungenlied, the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf, the French Song of Roland, Dante's Divina Commedia, Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Milton's Paradise Lost, Spenser's Faerie Queene, Camoens' Lusiads (Portuguese), and Firdusi's Shah Namah (Persian). Hesiod's Theogony, the Elder Edda, the Finnish Kalevala, and the Indian Mahâbhârata may be described as collections of epic legends. The historical epic has an excellent representative in Barbour's Bruce; and specimens of the mock-heroic and humorous epic are found in The Battle of the Frogs and Mice, Reynard the Fox, Butler's Hudibras, and Pope's Rape of the Lock.—Bibliography: Chassang and Marcou, Les Chefs-d'œuvre épiques de tous les peuples; W. M. Dixon, English Epic and Heroic Poetry; A. Lang, Homer and the Epic.
Epicharmus (ep-i-kär´mus), a Sicilian comic poet and philosopher of the Pythagorean school, born in the Island of Cos about 540 B.C., died 450 B.C. He removed to Syracuse, where at the court of Hieron he spent the remainder of his life. He is credited with the invention of written comedy, and Plato called him "a master of the comic type".
Epicte´tus, a Greek Stoic philosopher, born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, about A.D. 60. He lived long at Rome, where, in his youth, he was a slave. Though nominally a Stoic, he was not interested in Stoicism as an intellectual system; he adopted its terminology and its moral doctrines, but in his discourses he appeared rather as a moral and religious teacher than as a philosopher. His doctrines approach more nearly to Christianity than those of any of the earlier Stoics, and although there is no trace in what is recorded of them of his having been directly acquainted with Christianity, it is at least probable that the ideas diffused by Christian teachers may have indirectly influenced them. The excellence of his system was universally acknowledged. When Domitian banished the philosophers from Rome (A.D. 94), Epictetus retired to Epirus, where he is supposed to have died. His disciple Arrian collected his opinions, which are preserved in two treatises called the Discourses of Epictetus, and the Manual or Enchiridion.
Epicu´rus, a Greek philosopher, founder of the Epicurean school, was born in the Island of Samos 342 B.C., died at Athens 270 B.C. He settled at Athens 306 B.C., and purchased a garden
in a favourable situation, where he established a philosophical school. Here he spent the remainder of his life, living in a simple manner and taking no part in public affairs. His pupils were numerous and enthusiastically devoted to him. His theory of the universe was based on the atomic theory of Democritus. The fundamental principle of his ethical system was that pleasure and pain are the chief good and evil, the attainment of the one and the avoidance of the other of which are to be regarded as the end of philosophy. The term 'Epicurean' has come to signify one who is indulging his sensual appetites without measure, but this is really due to a misapprehension of the meaning of the word pleasure as used by the philosopher. Epicurus himself was not an 'Epicurean' in this sense, for he endeavoured to give a moral tendency to this doctrine. He exalted the pure and noble enjoyments derived from virtue, to which he attributed an imperishable existence, as incalculably superior to the passing pleasures which disturb the peace of mind, the highest good, and are therefore detrimental to happiness. Peace of mind, based on meditation, he considered as the origin of all good. It is, however, easy to see that his use of the word 'pleasure' was calculated to produce the mischievous results with which Epicureanism has been charged. The philosophy of Epicurus has, therefore, been violently opposed and frequently misrepresented; but while it is not open to the charges of gross sensualism which have been brought against it, it cannot be considered as much better than a refinement of sensualism. In ancient times his philosophy appears to have been more popular in Greece than in Rome, although his disciples were numerous in both, and the Latin poem of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, is a poetical exposition of his doctrines. Epicureanism was resuscitated in France by Pierre Gassendi, and its principles have been professed by De la Rochefoucauld, Rousseau, and Voltaire. Epicurus was a very voluminous writer, but few of his writings are extant, what we possess comprising only some fragments of a Treatise on Nature, two letters, and detached passages. Lucretius, Cicero, Pliny, and Diogenes Laertius are our chief authorities for his doctrines.—Bibliography: Lange, History of Materialism; W. Wallace, Epicureanism; Guyau, La Morale d'Epicure; Taylor, Epicurus; W. Pater, Marius the Epicurean.