Ecclesias´tes (-tēz), the title by which the Septuagint translators rendered the Hebrew Koheleth ('the gatherer of the people'), a symbolic name explained by the design of the book and the dramatic position occupied by Solomon in it, one of the canonical books of the Old Testament. The book consists of 12 chapters, being a series of discourses on the vanity of earthly things, and the tone, which is sceptical, is such as is found in Omar Khayyám. According to Jewish tradition, it was written by Solomon; but the best modern criticism has decided that its style and language, no less than its thought, belong to a much later date.
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, in England, a body corporate, constituted in 1836, with extensive powers in regard to the organization of the Church, the distribution of episcopal duties, and the formation of parishes. It consists of all the bishops of England and Wales, five cabinet ministers, four judges, and twelve others. Their decisions are ratified by orders in council, and acquire the force of Acts of Parliament. The Commissioners deal with an annual income of about 2 million pounds.
Ecclesiastical Courts, courts in which the canon law is administered and which deal with ecclesiastical cases, affecting benefices and the like. In England they are the Archdeacon's Court, the Consistory Courts, the Court of Arches, the Court of Peculiars, the Prerogative Courts of the two archbishops, the Faculty Court, and the Privy Council, which is the court of appeal, though its jurisdiction may by Order in Council be transferred to the new Court of Appeal. No separate ecclesiastical courts existed in England before the Norman Conquest, but by a charter of William I a distinction was made between courts civil and courts ecclesiastical. In Scotland the ecclesiastical courts are the Kirk-session, Presbytery, Synod, General Assembly (which is the supreme tribunal as regards doctrine and discipline), and the Teind Court, consisting of the judges of the Court of Session, which has jurisdiction in all matters affecting the teinds of a parish. In the Isle of Man ecclesiastical courts still have, as formerly in England, jurisdiction in probate and matrimonial cases.
Ecclesiastical Law may, in the broad sense of the term, be taken to include the regulations existing in any Church or sect, however small, for the formation of its own polity and for the control of its members. It is, however, more generally applied to those legal bonds which exist between Established Churches and the State. The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one and only true Church, regards her laws as being of universal application, and herself as an equal with the State; nevertheless she has, in non-Catholic countries, no higher legal standing than any small and obscure dissenting congregation, and is in this respect a 'free' Church. Protestant ecclesiastical law claims no such sovereign power, and in no way interferes with the State law. In England the Convocations of York and Canterbury have no authority to change the law, their power being limited to the making of recommendations. All changes in Church law are made by Parliament. Laymen can be, and often are, officials of the ecclesiastical courts. The civil law is subject to the canon law, above which is the common law, with, yet higher, statute law. Over all is the nominal supremacy of the Crown. Ecclesiastical law deals with such affairs and property of the Church of England as ecclesiastical parishes, churches, and matters matrimonial; but only so far as these are not controlled by common or statute law. It has long ceased to have any practical control of the laity. In Ireland, ecclesiastical law disappeared with the disestablishment of the Church.
Ecclesias´ticus, a book placed by Protestants and Jews among the apocryphal scriptures. The author calls himself Jesus the son of Sirach,
Originally written in Hebrew, it was translated into Greek by the author's grandson in the second century B.C. In 1896 fragments of four MSS. in the Hebrew original were discovered in the Geniza, or hiding-place for worn out copies of biblical books, in the synagogue at Cairo. Another fragment was discovered in Palestine by Mrs. Agnes Lewis.—Cf. Schechter and Taylor, The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Portions of the Book Ecclesiasticus.
Échelles, Les (lā-zā-shāl; 'the Ladders'), a village, France, department of Savoie, 12 miles south-west of Chambéry, in a valley from which egress at one end was formerly by means of ladders, but now by a tunnel. Pop. 798.
Échelon (esh´e-lon), a formation of successive and parallel units facing in the same direction, each on a flank and to the rear of the unit in front of it.
Echeneis, the type genus of a small family (Echeneididæ) of aberrant spiny-finned fishes, in which the first dorsal fin is modified into a transversely ridged suctorial disc. See Remora.
Echeveria (ech-e-vē´ri-a), a genus of succulent plants, ord. Crassulaceæ (house-leek), chiefly natives of Mexico, but now cultivated in European and other gardens and greenhouses, some for their flowers, others for their foliage.