The Alii.
ALBAN
131
ALBER
of white linen, but occasionally of more costly mate- rials.— Bingham, Orig. Eccl. lib. xiii, cap. viii, § 2.
Alban, St., protomartyr of England, is said to have serred seven years with Diocletian, after which, returning to his country, he took up his abode at Veru- lamium, in Hertfordshire, his birth-place. Shortly after this the persecution of Diocletian broke out, which drove Amphibalus, who had been the compan- ion of Alban, on his journey to Rome, and his fellow- soldier, to Britain for safety, where he at once betook himself to Verulamium. When the persecution of the Christians commenced in Britain, the name of Am- phibalus was brought before the prefect, Asclepiodotus, as that of a man guilty of following the new religion ; but, when he could not be found, Alban voluntarily presented himself to the judge, and was put to the tor- ment and imprisoned. Shortly after, both he and his friend, who had been discovered, were condemned to die as being Christians : Alban was put to death by the sword on a small hill in the neighborhood, called afterward by the Saxons Holmehurst, and where his body was also buried. When tranquillity had been restored to the Church, great honors were paid to the tomb of Alban, and a chapel was erected over it, ■which Bede says was of admirable workmanship. About 795, Offa, king of the Mercians, founded here a spacious monastery in honor of St. Alban, and soon after the town called St. Alban arose in its neighbor- hood. Pope Adrian IV, who was born in this neigh- borhood, directed that the abbot of St. Alban's should hold the first place among the abbots of England. He is commemorated by the Roman Church on June 22d. — Gough's Camden' s Britannia,!, 336; Tanner, Biblioth. Brit. p. 18 ; Collier, Eccl. Hist, i, 48 ; Landon, s. v.
Albanenses, a sect of the Cathari, which appear- ed toward the close of the eleventh century, and de- rived its name from Albania, where Dualism was quite prevalent ; others say, from Albano, in Italy. They held the Gnostic and Manichtean doctrines of two prin- ciples, one good and the other evil. They denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, and rejected the account of his sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension. They rejected the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, affirmed that the general judgment was already pass- ed, and that the torments of hell are the pains which men feel in this life. They denied man's free will, did not admit the doctrine of original sin, and held that man can impart the Holy Spirit to himself. — Mo- sheim, Ch. Hist. cent, xii, pt. ii, ch. v, § 5 ; Gieseler, Ch. Hist. per. iii, § 87. See Cathari.
Albati, a sect so called from the white, garments they wore. They entered Italy from the Alps about 1400, having as their guide a priest clothed in white, and a crucifix in his hand. He was deemed a saint, and his followers multiplied so fast that Pope Boniface IX, growing jealous of the augmenting power of the leader, sent soldiers, who put him to death and dis- persed his followers. (See Siber, De Albatis, Lips. 1736.) They are said (by their enemies and perse- cutors, however) to have been dissolute in their hab- its, while, at the same time, the}' professed to weep and sorrow for the sins and calamities of the times. — Mosheim, Church History, ii, 467.
Alber, Erasmus, a German Protestant theolo- gian, born at Sprendingen, near Frankfort on the Main, and educated at Wittenberg. In 1528 he was called by Landgrave Philip of Hesse as pastor to Sprendin- gen. Subsequently, he was court preacher to Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, by whom he was again dismissed on account of the violence of language with which he combated the taxation of the clergy. In 1543 he received from Luther the title of doctor of di- vinity. In 1545 he was called by the count of Hanau- Lichtenberg to carry through the reformation in his land. From Magdeburg, to which city he was subse- quently called as pastor, he was expelled on account
of his opposition to the Interim. In 1553 he was ap- pointed superintendent at Neu-Brandenburg, in Meck- lenburg, where he died, May 5, 1553. While court preacher of the elector of Brandenburg, he found in a Franciscan convent a work by a Franciscan monk, Bartholomew Albizzi (q. v.), entitled Liber Cimformi- tatum S. Francisci ad vitam Jesu Christi. This induced him to write his celebrated work, DerBarfmserMonclw Eulenspiegel und Alcoran, which was published, with a preface from Luther, at Wittenberg, in 1542, and soon appeared in a French, Latin, and Dutch translation. He wrote several other works against the Interim, against Andreas Osiander, against the followers of Karlstadt, against Witzel, fables for the youth in rhymes, and religious songs, published by Stromber- ger, in Geistliche Sanger der christlichen Kirche deutscher Nation, vol. x (Halle, 1857). A complete list of his works is in Strieder, Grundlage zu einer llessischen Gelehrten- und Schriftstellergesehichte (Gott. 1781), i, 24 sq. — See Herzog, Supplem. i, 33 ; Biog. Univ. i, 394.
Alber, John Nepomuk, a Roman Catholic theo- logian, was born at Ovar, July 7, 1753, died about 1840. He wrote a large work on Hermaneutics, in 16 vols. (Interpretatio Sacra Scripttine, Pesth, 1801-'4), which Home recommends as an able refutation of the opin- ions of the anti-supernaturalist divines of Germany. He also wrote Institutiones Historic Eccles. (Vienna, 1793); Institutiones Hermeneuticce, 1817; and Institu- tiones Linguce Hebraicce, 1826. — Hoefer, Biog. Generate, ii, 539.