MANIPLE, or MANUPLE. Originally a narrow strip of linen suspended from the left arm of the priest, and used to wipe away the perspiration from the face: gradually it received embellishments, it was bordered by a fringe, and decorated with needle-work. It is not improbable that its use might be to clean the sacred vessels, as has been supposed by some, for in the eleventh century it was given to the subdeacons as the badge of their order. It is distinguished from the epigonaton by being worn on the left side. The maniple is not retained among the ecclesiastical vestments of the Church of England.
MANSE. Mansio. The ancient name (as appears from old records) for an ecclesiastical residence, whether parochial or collegiate. In Scotland it was peculiarly appropriated to parsonage houses; and now designates the residences of the ministers of the Presbyterian establishment. It was anciently applied also to the prebendal houses there.—See M’Ure’s History of Glasgow.
MANSIONARIES. The permanently resident canons in some Italian cathedrals: in others of the same country the term was applied to certain of the inferior clergy.
MANUDUCTOR, (Lat.,) in the ancient Christian Church, was an officer, who, from the middle of the choir, where he was placed, gave the signal to the choristers to sing, marked the measure, beat the time, and regulated the music. He was so called, because he led or guided the choir by the motions and gesture of the hand.
The Greeks called the same kind of officer Mesochoros, because he was seated in the middle of the choir.
MARANATHA. On this word, which is added by St. Paul to the word Anathema, in 1 Cor. xvi. 22, Bingham, who has collected the authorities of the Fathers, tells us that St. Chrysostom says it is a Hebrew word, signifying The Lord is come: and he particularly applies it to the confusion of those who still abused the privileges of the gospel, notwithstanding that the Lord was come among them. “This word,” says he, “speaks terror to those who make their members the members of an harlot, who offend their brethren by eating things offered to idols, who name themselves by the names of men, who deny the resurrection. The Lord of all is come down among us; and yet ye continue the same men ye were before, and persevere in your sins.” St. Jerome says, it was more a Syriac than a Hebrew word, though it had something in it of both languages, signifying Our Lord is come. But he applies it against the perverseness of the Jews, and others who denied the coming of Christ: making this the sense of the apostle, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, the Lord is come; wherefore it is superfluous for any to contend with pertinacious hatred against him, of the truth of whose coming there is such apparent demonstration.” The same sense is given by Theodoret, by Hilary the deacon, and Pelagius, whose writings have passed under the names of St. Ambrose and St. Jerome respectively. And it is received by Estius and Dr. Lightfoot as the truest interpretation. So that, according to this sense, Maranatha could not be any part of the form of excommunication, but only a reason for pronouncing Anathema against those who expressed their hatred against Christ, by denying his coming; either in words, as the Jews did, who blasphemed Christ, and called Jesus Anathema or accursed; or else by wicked works, as those who lived profanely under the name of Christian. But Parkhurst is rather inclined to derive it from the Hebrew, miharem atha, signifying cursed art thou; the m being changed into n, as was frequent among Hellenizing Jews.
MARCIONITES. Heretics of the second century, so called from Marcion. He was born at Sinope, in Paphlagonia or Helenopontus, on the coast of the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea, and for that reason is sometimes called Ponticus. He studied the Stoic philosophy in his younger years, and was a lover of solitude and poverty; but being convicted of uncleanness with a virgin, he was, by his father, who was a bishop, expelled from the Church. After this he went to Rome, where being not admitted into Church communion, because his father had not consented to it, he in spite embraced Cerdon’s heresy, and became the author of new heresies, about A. D. 134. He held with Cerdon two gods, the one good, the other bad: the latter, he said, was the author of the world, and of the law; but the good, he said, was the author of the gospel and redeemer of the world. He said that Christ was sent on purpose to abolish the law, as being bad. Origen affirms, that he supposed there was a God of the Jews, a God of the Christians, and a God of the Gentiles. Tertullian wrote against him, and, more curiously than anybody else, observes the rest of his opinions, as that he denied the resurrection of the body, condemned marriage, excluding married people from salvation, whom he would not baptize, though he allowed of three sorts, and that the living were sometimes baptized for the dead. In his sect, the women commonly administered the sacraments. Rhodon, a Greek author, quoted by Eusebius, says, the disciples of this heresiarch added many other errors to his tenets; that the heresiarch meeting Polycarp in the streets of Rome, asked him whether he knew him. “Very well,” answered the good bishop, “I know you very well to be the first-born of Satan.” Constantine the Great published an edict against the Marcionites and the other heretics, in 366; and Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, converted 10,000 of them in 420.
MARIOLATRY. (See Angels, Idolatry, Popery, Virgin Mary, Mother of God.) The worship of the Virgin Mary: one of the sins of the Church of Rome, for defending which her theologians are guilty of heresy. The fact of the Romanists praying to the Virgin Mary is not denied. Their manner of doing so, not merely seeking her intercession, but actually addressing her in terms which sound very like blasphemy to those whose religion is catholic and Scriptural, may be seen from the following extracts made from the Psalter of Bonaventure.
Extract from the “Crown of the Blessed Virgin:”[[8]]
“O thou, our governor, and most benignant Lady, in right of being his mother, command your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that he deign to raise our minds from longing after earthly things to the contemplation of heavenly things.”