c. Protestant. — The Church of England, in the table of vigils, mentions fasts and days of abstinence sep- arately; but in the enumeration of particulars, they are called indifferently days of fasting or abstinence, and the words seem to refer to the same thing. The Word of God never teaches us that abstinence is good and valuable per se, but only that it ministers to holiness ; and so it is an instrument, not an end. — Bingham, Oriff. Eccles. bk. x, ch. 11, § 9. Sec Asceticism.
Abstinents, a sect of heretics that appeared in France and Spain about the end of the third century, during the persecutions of Diocletian and Maximin. They condemned marriage and the use of flesh and wine, which they said were made not by God, but by the devil. See Abstinence.
Absus, a river of Palestine, according to Vibius Sequester (see Reland, Palccst. p. 297), prob. the " gen- tle stream" (mollis) referred to by Lucan (v, 485), and by Caesar (Bell. Civ. iii, 13), as having been crossed by Pompey near Apollonia ; hence, no doubt, the brook- let that enters the Mediterranean at this place.
Abu'bus ("AfiovjSoc, prob. of Syrian origin), the father of rtolemy, the general of Antiochus, who slew Simon Maccabasus (1 Mace, xvi, 11, 15).
Abul-faraj (Arul-piiaragius, or Abulfara- dasch), Gregory (called also Bar-Hebraeus, from his father having been originally a Jew), was the son of Aaron, a physician of Malatia, in Armenia, and was born in 122G, and, like his father, was a Jacobite. He applied himself to the study of the Syriac and Arabic languages, philosophy, theology, and medicine : in the latter he became a great proficient, and acquired a high reputation among the Moslems. When only twenty-one years of age he was made bishop of Cuba by the Jacobite patriarch Ignatius ; and in 1247 he was made bishop of Aleppo. About 12GG he was made Maphrian, or primate of the Jacobites in the East, which dignity he retained till his death, in 128G. His works are very numerous ; the best known is the Syriac Chronicle, which is largely cited by Gibbon, and is, in fact, a repository of Eastern history. It consists of two parts : 1. The Dynasties — a Civil ( !hron- iclc from Adam to A.D. 128G ; 2. An Ecclesiastical 1 1 is- tory, which again falls into two divisions: (1.) A Cat- alogue and Chronicle of the Patriarchs of Antioch, called by this author the Pontiffs of the West; (2.) A Catalogue and Chronicle of the Primates, Patriarchs, and Maphrians of the East. The Civil Chronicle is pub- lished in Syriac and Latin, from the Bodleian MS., under the title Chronicon Syriacum, ed. P. J. Brims and G. G. Kirsch ( Lips. 1788, 2 vols. 4to) ; an abridgment of the whole chronicle made in Arabic by Abul-faraj, in Arabic and Latin by Pococke, under the title His- tnr'ii f'mnjx iiilius/t liymistinnim, ab Ed. Pocockio inter- prete (Oxon. 16G3, 2 vols. 4to). A complete edition was proposed in Germany by Bernstein, in 1847, but nothing beyond the prospectus has yet appeared. The "Ecclesiastical History" exists in MS. in the Vatican and Bodleian (?) libraries. The autobiography of Abul-faraj is given by Assemanni, Rihliothi <■« ttrini- talis, torn. ii. See Cave, Hist. Lit. Ann. 1284; Chris- tian Remembrancer, vol. xxx, p. 800.
Abuma. See Rumah.
Abuna (our father), the title given by the Abys- sinian Christians to their metropolitan. They receive i
this prelate from the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria. At one time, when the Abyssinians were greatly op- pressed, they applied to the pope for help, promising never again to accept their metropolitan from the Coptic patriarch ; but this forced submission to Home did not last long. See Abyssinian Church.
Abyss (* ' Afivorjoc,). The Greek word means lit- erally " without bottom" but actually deep, profound. It is used in the Sept. for the Hebrew tehom' (Cinpi), which we find applied either to the ocean (Gen. i, 2 ; vii, 11) or to the under world (Ps. lxxi, 21 ; cvii, 26). In the New Testament it is used as a noun to describe Hades, or the place of the dead generally (Rom. x, 7) ; but more especially Tartarus, or that part of Hades in which the souls of the wicked were supposed to be confined (Luke viii, 31; Lev. ix, 1, 2, 11; xx, 1, 3; comp. 2 Pet. ii, 4). In the Revelation the authorized version invariably renders it "bottomless pit;" else- where "deep." See Pit.
Most of these uses of the word are explained by reference to some of the cosmological notions which the Hebrews entertained in common with other East- ern nations. It was believed that the abyss, or sea of fathomless waters, encompassed the whole earth. The earth floated on the abyss, of which it covered only a small part. . According to the same notion, the earth was founded upon the waters, or, at least, had its foundations in the abyss beneath (Ps. xxiv, 2 ; exxxvi, G). Under these waters, and at the bottom of the abyss, the wicked were represented as groaning and undergoing the punishment of their sins. There were confined the Rephaim — those old giants who. while living, caused surrounding nations to tremble (Prov. ix, 18 ; xxix, 10). In those dark regions the sover- eigns of Tyre, Babylon, and Egypt are described by the prophets as undergoing the punishment of their cruelty and pride (Jer. xxvi, 14; Ezek. xxviii, 10, etc.). This was "the deep" into which the evil spir- its, in Luke viii, 31, besought that they might not be east, and which was evidently dreaded by them. See Creation; Hades. The notion of such an abyss was by no means confined to the East. It was equal- ly entertained by the Celtic Druids, who held that Annvn (the deep, the low part), the abyss from which the earth arose, was the abode of the evil principle (Gwarthawn), and the place of departed spirits, com- prehending both the Elysium and the Tartarus of an- tiquity. With them also wandering spirits were call- el Plant annun, "the children of the deep" (Davis's Ciltic Researches, p. 175; Myth, and Rites of the B. Druids, p. 49). — Kitto, s. v. See Deep.