A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

EULOGIÆ. (Gr.) So the Greek Church calls the Panis benedictus, or bread, over which a blessing is pronounced, and which is distributed to those who are unqualified to communicate. The name Eulogiæ was likewise anciently given to the consecrated pieces of bread which the bishops and priests sent to each other for the keeping up a friendly correspondence: those presents likewise, which were made out of respect or obligation, were called Eulogiæ.

St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, about the end of the fourth century, having sent five Eulogiæ at one time to Romanian, speaks to him in these terms: “That I may not be wanting in the duties of brotherly love, I send you five pieces of bread, of the ammunition of the warfare of Jesus Christ, under whose standard we fight, following the laws of temperance and sobriety.”

EUNOMIANS. A sect, so called from Eunomius, who lived in the fourth century of Christianity; he was constituted bishop of Cyzicum, and stoutly defended the Arian heresy, maintaining that the Father was of a different nature from the Son, because no creature could be like his creator: he held that the Son of God did not substantially unite himself to the human nature, but only by virtue and his operations; he affirmed blasphemously that he knew God as well as God himself; and those that were baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity he rebaptized, and was so averse to the mystery, that he forbade the trinal immersion at baptism. Upon divulging his tenets, he was expelled Cyzicum and forced also to leave Samosata, where he was also obtruded by the Arian faction. Valens restored him to Cyzicum, but being again expelled by the people, he applied himself to Eudoxius at Constantinople.

EUSTATHIANS. A denomination in the fourth century, who derived their name from Eustathius, a monk. This man was the occasion of great disorders and divisions in Armenia, Pontus, and the neighbouring countries; and, in consequence, he was condemned and excommunicated by the Council of Gangra, which was held soon after that of Nice.

EUTYCHIANS. Heretics in the fifth century, the followers of the error of Eutyches, who being a Constantinopolitan abbot, and contending against Nestorius, fell into a new heresy. He and his followers affirmed that Christ was one thing, the Word another; they denied the flesh of Christ to be like ours, but said he had a celestial body, which passed through the Virgin as through a channel; that there were two natures in Christ before the hypostatical union, but that, after it, there was but one, compounded of both; and thence concluded that the Divinity of Christ both suffered and died. Being condemned in a synod at Constantinople, he appealed to the emperor: after which, by the assistance of Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, he obtained a synod at Ephesus, called Latrocinium, or the assembly of thieves and robbers, wherein he got his heresy to be approved: however, in the fourth general council, under Marcian, A. D. 451, his errors were a second time condemned.

EVANGEL. (From εὐ, bene, and ἀγγελία, nuncius.) The gospel of Christ. The revealed history of our blessed Lord’s life.

EVANGELICAL. Agreeable to the gospel, or “evangel.” The term is used by that class of dissenters whose private judgment leads them to regard as Scriptural the facts of our Lord’s Divinity and atonement, to distinguish them from another class of dissenters, whose private judgment leads them to hold these sacred truths as unscriptural. (See the Evangelical Magazine.) The name is sometimes given to those persons who conform to the Church, but whose notions are supposed more nearly to coincide with the opinions of dissenters than with the doctrines of the Church; thereby most unjustly insinuating that the principles of all consistent members of the Church are not according to the gospel. The use of terms of distinction among members of the Church is much to be reprobated: among sects it cannot be avoided. In the strict and proper sense of the words, he who is truly evangelical must be a true member of the Church, and every true member of the Church must be truly evangelical.

EVANGELISTS. Persons chosen by the apostles to preach the gospel. It being impracticable for the twelve only to preach the gospel to all the world, Philip, among others, was engaged in this function. As for their rank in the Church, St. Paul places them after the apostles and prophets, but before the pastors and teachers, (Eph. iv. 11,) which makes Theodoret call them apostles of the second rank: they had no particular flock assigned, as bishops or ordinary pastors, but travelled from one place to another, according to their instructions received from the apostles, to whom they returned after they had executed their commission, so that, in short, this office, being extraordinary, expired with the apostles.

The title of Evangelists is now more particularly given to those four holy persons who wrote the history of our Saviour.

EVENS, or VIGILS. The nights or evenings before certain holy-days of the Church. Vigils are derived from the earliest periods of Christianity. In those times of persecution Christians held their assemblies in the night, in order to avoid detection. On these occasions they celebrated the memory of Christ’s death in the holy mysteries. When persecution had intermitted and finally ceased, although Christians were able to celebrate all their rites, and to minister the sacraments in the day-time, yet a custom which had commenced from necessity was retained from devotion and choice. The reason why some of the festivals have evens or vigils assigned, and some have not, appears to be this, that the festivals which have no vigils fall generally between Christmas and the Purification, or between Easter and Whitsuntide; which were always esteemed such seasons of joy that the Church did not think fit to intermingle them with any days of fasting and humiliation. To this rule there are exceptions, which may be severally accounted for, but such seems to be the rule: e.g. There is no vigil on St. Michael’s day, because, as Dr. Bisse remarks, the saints entered into joy through sufferings, and therefore their festivals are preceded by fasts; which circumstance is not applicable to the angels of God. St. Paul’s day commemorates not his martyrdom, but his conversion; St. Luke was not an apostle, nor does the calendar represent him as a martyr. The holy-days which have vigils may be seen in the Prayer Book, in the table of the Vigils, Fasts, and Days of Abstinence to be observed in the Year.