YULE. An old word signifying festival, and still in use to designate the festival of Christmas. The yule of August anciently signified Lammas. See Johnson in voc.
ZEALOTS. An ancient sect of the Jews, so called from their pretended great zeal for God’s laws, and the honour of religion. They were a branch of the Pharisees, though some account them a distinct sect. (See Pharisees.)
The Zealots were a most outrageous and ungovernable people, and, on pretence of asserting the honour of God’s laws, and the strictness and purity of religion, assumed a liberty of questioning notorious offenders, without staying for the ordinary formalities of law: nay, when they thought fit, they executed capital punishments upon them with their own hands. Thus, when a blasphemer cursed God by the name of any idol, the Zealots, who next met him, immediately killed him, without ever bringing him before the Sanhedrim. They looked upon themselves as the true successors of Phinehas, who, out of a great zeal for the honour of God, did immediate execution upon Zimri and Cozbi; which action was so pleasing to God, that he made with him, and his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood. In imitation of Phinehas, these men took upon them to execute judgment in extraordinary cases; and not only by the connivance, but with the permission both of the rulers and the people; till, in after-times, under this pretence, their zeal degenerated into all manner of licentiousness and extravagance. And they not only became the pests of the commonwealth at home, but opened the door for the Romans to break in upon the Jews, to their final and irrecoverable ruin; for they were continually encouraging the people to throw off the Roman yoke, and assert their native liberty.
They made no scruple of robbing, plundering, and killing the principal of the nobility, under pretence of holding correspondence with the Romans, and betraying the liberty of their country; and, upon the merit of this, they assumed to themselves the titles of benefactors and saviours of the people. They abrogated the succession of ancient families, thrusting ignoble and obscure persons into the office of the high priesthood, that by this means they might draw over the most infamous villains to their party. And, not contented to affront men, they injured the majesty of heaven, and proclaimed defiance to the Divinity itself, by breaking into and profaning the most holy place.
Many attempts were made, especially by Annas the high priest, to reduce them to order; but neither force of arms, nor fair and gentle methods, could prevail upon them. They persisted in these violent proceedings, and, joining with the Idumeans, committed all manner of outrage, and slew many of the high priests themselves; and even when Jerusalem was besieged by the Roman army, they never left off to promote tumults and distractions, till their intestine quarrels ended, at last, in the sacking of the city.
ZUINGLIANS. The disciples of Zuinglius, whose opinion was that Luther’s scheme of Reformation fell very short of the extent to which it ought to have been carried. Under this impression, and with a view, as he termed it, of restoring the Church to its original purity, Zuingle sought to abolish many doctrines and rites of the Roman Catholic Church, which Luther had retained. In some points of doctrine he also differed from Luther, and his opinion on the real presence made a complete separation between them. Luther held that, together with the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ were really present in the eucharist. Zuingle held, that the bread and wine were only signs and symbols of the absent body and blood of Christ; so that the eucharistic rite was merely a pious and solemn ceremony, to bring it to the remembrance of the faithful. The opinions of Zuingle were adopted in Switzerland, and several neighbouring nations. They gave rise to the most violent animosities between their favourers and the disciples of Luther. Frequent advances to peace were made by the Zuinglians; Luther uniformly rejected them with sternness. He declared an union to be impossible; he called them “ministers of Satan.” When they entreated him to consider them as brothers, “What fraternity,” he exclaimed, “do you ask with me, if you persist in your belief?” On one occasion, the ingenuity of Bucer enabled him to frame a creed, which each party, constructing the words in his own sense, might sign. This effected a temporary truce; but the division soon broke out with fresh animosity. “Happy,” exclaimed Luther, “is the man who has not been of the Council of the Sacramentarians; who has not walked in the ways of the Zuinglians.”
THE END.
JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY.
[1]. “An Ecclesiastical Biography, containing the Lives of Ancient Fathers and Modern Divines. By Walter Farquhar Hook, D. D., Vicar of Leeds.”