ment or communion of the Lord's Supper^ — was not vice or immorality, but a ditterence in theological opinion with the church from which he sought the privilege. The church was to decide who were its members, and thereby' entitled to partake in its privi- leges, but was not entitled to take upon itself the pun- ishment of ofl'ences by withholding these privileges, or by inflicting any other punishments on the ground of moral misconduct. Few authors so often referred to have been so little read as Erastus. The original theses are very rare. An English translation was published in 1669, and was re-edited h\ the Rev. Rob- ert Lee in 1845. By some inscrutable exaggeration, it had become the popular view of the doctrines of Erastus that Ins leading principle was to maintain the authoritj' of the civil magistrate over the conscience, and to subject all ecclesiastical bodies to his direction and control, both in their doctrine and their discipline. In the discussions in the Chuixh of Scotland, of which the result was the secession of a large body of the cler- gy and people because it was found that the Church could not make a law to nullify the operation of lay patronage, those who maintained within the Church the principle that it had no such power were called Erastians as a term of reproach. As in all cases where such words as Socinian, Arian, Antinomian, etc., are used in polemical debates, the party rejected with dis- dain the name thus applied to it. But it is singular that in the course of this dispute no one seems to have thought of explaining that the controversy in which Erastus was engaged was about a totally difl'erent mat- ter, and that only a few general and very vague re- marks in his writings have given occasion for the sup- position that he must have held the principle that all ecclesiastical authorities are subordinate to the civil. Erastus died at Basel on the 31st Dec-Jan. 1, 1583." — English Cydopadia ; "Wordsworth, Eccles. Biography ; Hoefer, Noiw. hiog. Gcner. xxxi, 174 ; Herzog, Reah Encyldop. iv, 121.
Erdt, Paulinus, a German Franciscan monk, pro- fessor of theology at the University of Freiburg, was born at Vertoch in 1737. He displayed much zeal in opposing infidelity, both by his translations from Eng- lish and French as well as his own works. The most important of his works is Ilistorice litterarim iheologim rtidimenta octodecim libris comprthensa, seu via ad his- torium litterarium theologiie revelatce, adnotationibics lit- terarris ivstriicta (Augsburg, 1785, 4 vols. 8vo). Erdt died Dec. 16, 1800.
Erebinthi, Village of ('Epf/?/ j'B-wj' oIkoc, house of chick-peas), a place on the line of Titus's wall of circumvallation around Jerusalem during the final siege (Josephus, IT «r, v, 12, 2) ; apparently on the brow of the hill opposite Mount Zion, on the west. See Jerusalem. Eusebius speaks of a village Eremintha ('Epmir^a, Onomast. s. v.), situated, however, in the south of Judiea, which Reland thinks (^Pah'st. ]i. 766) is the same as the Betherebin (fiii^'iptjin') mentioned by Sozonien {Hist. Eccl. ix, 27).
E'rech(Heb.£'VeZ;, Ti"^N,Ze)?/7^A; Sept. 'Opt x;"^^ulg. A rach), one of the cities which formed the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom in the plain of Shinar (Gen. x, 10). It is not said that he built these cities, but that he established his power over them ; from which we maj' conclude that they previously existed. It was probably also the city of the Archevites, who were among those who were transplanted to Samaria by Asnappcr ( Ezra iv, 9). Until recently, the received opinion, following the authority of St. Eiihrem, Je- rome, and the Targumists, identified Ercch with Edes- sa or Callirhoe (now Urfali), a town in the nortli-west of Jlesopotamia. This opinion is supported by Von Bohlen {Inirod. /o Gen. p. 233), who connects the name Callirhoe with the Biblical Ercch through the Syrian form Eiirholc, suggesting the Greek word tvfipuog. This identification is, however, untenable : Edessa was
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ERNESTI
pro1)ablj' built by Seleucus, and coukl not, therefore, have been in existence in Ezra's time (Ezra iv, 9), and the extent thus given to the land of Shinar presents a great objection. Erech must be sought in the neigh- borhood of Babjdon. Gesenius (Thesaur. p. 151), fol- lovvin"- Bochart {Phaleg, iv, IG), rather seeks the name in ih&" XoaKKci or Aracha of the old geographers, which Avas on the Tigris, upon the borders of Babylonia and Susiana (Ptolemy, vi, 3 ; Ammian. MarccU. xxxiii, 6, 20). This was probably the same city which Herodo- tus (i, 185; vi, 119) calls Ardericca (ApcepiKKa'), i. e. Great Erech. Rosenmiiller happih' conjectures (.4^- te7-lh. I, ii, 25) that Erech prol>ably lay nearer to Baby- lon than Aracca; and this has lately l)een confirmed by Col. Taylor, the British resident at Bagdad, who is disposed to find the site of the ancient Erech in the great mounds of primitive ruins, indifferently called Irak, Irka, Werka, and Senkerah, by the nomade Ar- abs, and sometimes El-Asayiah, "the place of pebbles" (Bonomi, Nineveh, p. 40). These mounds, which are now surrounded by the almost perpetual marshes and inundations of the lower Euphrates, lie some miles east of that stream, about midwaj^ between the site of Babylon and its junction with the Tigris. This is doubtless the same as Orcho'e ('Opx''"0 ^2 miles south, and 42 east of Babylon (Ptolemy, vi, 20, 7), the mod- ern designations of the site bearing a considerable af- finity to both the original names. It is likewise prob- able that the Orcheni ('OpY'}''"/) described by Strabo as an astronomical sect of the Chaldajans dwelling near Babylon (xxi, p, 739) ; in Ptolemy as a people of Ara- bia living near the Persian Gulf (v, 19, 2); and in Pliny as an agricultural population, who l)anked up the waters of the Euphrates, and compelled tliem to flow into the Tigris (vi, 27, 31), were really inhabit- ants of Orchoe and of the district surrounding it. This place appears to have been the necropolis of the Assyrian kings, the whole neighborhood being covered with mounds, and strewed with the remains of bricks and coffins. Some of the bricks bear a monogram of "tlie moon," and Col. Rawlinson surmises that the name Erech may be nothing more than a form of H'1"', the Heb. name for tliat luminarj- (Athenceum, 1854, No. 1377) ; but the orthography does not sustain this con- jecture. Some have thought that the name of Erech may be preserved in that of Irak (/;a^-Arabi), which is given to tiie region inclosed by the two rivers in the lower part of their course. (See Chesney, Euphrates Expedition, i, 116, 117 ; Ainsworth, Researches, p. 178 ; Loftus, Chaldcea, p. 160 sq., where a full description is given.) For another Erech, probably in Palestine, see Aeciii.