Escobar y Mendoza, Antonio, a Spanish Jea- uit and noted casuist, was l)orn at Valladolid in 1589, and took the vows of the order of Jesuits in 1604. He became very eminent as a preacher, and is said to have preached daily (sometimes twice a day) for fifty 3"ears. He was also a prolific writer, leaving more than forty folio volumes of ascetic divinity, sermons, casuistry, etc. His Liber Thealngue Moralis (Lyon, 1646, 7 vols. 8vo) passed through many (39 in Spain) editions, and was long the favorite text-book of the Jesuits. He also wrote Universce Theologim Moralis problemata (Lyon, 1652, 2 vols, fol.) : — Universce Theol. Moral, receptiores sententiw, etc. (Lj'on, 7 vols. fol.). Escobar became the butt of Pascal's wit in the Provin- cial Letters, a fact which will carry his name to the latest posterity. His "liberality" in morals was so excessive that even Rome was compelled to disavow some of his doctrines. His complete works fill 42 vol- umes. He died Julj' 4, 1669. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biogr. Generale, xvi, 375 ; Alegambe, Bibliuth. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu (Lou vain, 1854).
Escurial, or Escorial, a city of Spain, twentj'-four miles N. W. of Madrid, containing a celebrated convent- palace generall}' called Escurial. The convent, built for 160 monks of the order of Jerome, was erected 1653- 84, by Philip II, in fulfilment of a vow made at the bat- tle of St. Quentin, fought on the anni versarj' of St. Law- rence. It is built in tlje foiTii of a gridiron, in com- memoration of the martyrdom of the saint, and the king's palace forms the handle. The buildings are 740 feet long, inclosing 20 courts, in which are 63 fountains ; there are 17 cross paths, 890 doors, 1000 columns, 5000 windows, 9 towers surmounted b}' cupolas, a magnifi- cent church with 48 altars in side chapels. The main altar is adorned b^- a statue of St. Lawrence in solid silver, weighing 450 pounds. Underneath is the cost- h- burying vault of the king, of marble and jasper. The library of the convent contains some 4000 IMSS., mostly Arabic, and is the principal collection of Ori»
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ental history and literature. Many of the MS. and other treasures were lost when the place was sacked by the French in 1808. Besides these, there are some 24,000 vols, of ancient authors, principally on history. The picture-gallery contains some 4G5 original paint- ings. A park surrounds the king's palace, or Casa del Principe. — Penny Cyclopedia; lierzog, Eeal-Encykloj). iv, 157.
Esdraela. See Jezkeel.
Esdrae'lom. See Esdraelon.
Esdrae'lon [from v. r. "EadpariKMv] (or rather Esdnlon, 'E<jopti\wv, Judith, iii, 9 ; iv, 6 ; but '■'Esdre- lom," 'EacpijXM/j, Judith i, 8; "Esdraelom," vii, 3, •where it is called "the great plain," as simply in Jo- sephus everywhere, to Trtciov j-dyn), the name of a valley or large bottom, a Gr;ecized form derived from the old royal city of Jtzreel, which occupied a com- manding site, near the eastern extremitj^ of the pla- teau, on a spur of Mount Gilboa. ' ' The great plain of Esdraelon" extends across central Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, separating the mountain ranges of Carmel and Samaria from those of Galilee. The western section of it is properly the plain of Ac- cho or Acre ('Akka). The main body of the plain is a triangle. Its base on the east extends from Jenin (the ancient Engannim) to the foot of the hills below Nazareth, and is about 15 miles long ; the north side, formed by the hills of Galilee, is about 12 miles long ; and the soiith side, formed by the Samaria range, is about 18 miles. The apex on the west is a narrow pass opening into the plain of 'Akka. This vast ex- panse has a genth' undulating surface — in spring all green with corn where cultivated, and rank weeds and grass where neglected — dotted with several low gray tells, and near the sides with a few olive groves. Tliis is that valley of Megkhlo (11^2 r^'p3, so called from the city of Megiddo [q. v.], which stood on its-south- ern liorder), where Barak triumphed, and where king Josiah was defeated and received his death-wound (Judg. V ; 2 Chron. xxv). Probably, too, it was be- fore the mind of the apostle John when he figurativelj^ descril)ed the final conflict between the hosts of good and evil who were gathered to a place called Ar-ma- fjeddon (ApiAayitwwv, from the Heb. T^Sp "^V, that is, the city of3Iegiddo; Rev. xvi, 16). The river Kishon — "that ancient river" so fatal to the army of Sisera (Judg. V, 21) — drains the plain, and flows oft' through the pass westward to the ISIediterranean.
From the base of this triangular plain three branch plains stretch out eastward, like fingers from a hand, divided bj' two bleak gray ridges — one bearing the familiar name of Mount Gilboa; the other called by Franks Little Hermon, but In' natives Jebel ed-Duhy. The northern branch has Tabor on the one side, and Little Ilcrmon on the other; into it the troops of Ba- rak defiled from the heights of Tabor (Judg. iv, 6); and on its opposite side are the sites of Nain and En- dor. The southern branch lies between Jenin and Gil- boa, terminating in a point among the hills to the east- ward ; it was across it that Aliaziah fled from Jehu (2 Kings ix, 27). Tlie centnd branch is the richest as well as the most celebrated; it descends in green, fertile slopes to the banks of the Jordan, having Jezreel and Shunem on opposite sides at the western end, and Beth- shean in its midst towards the cast. This is the "val- ley of Jezreel" proper — the battle-field on which Gid- eon triumphed, and Saul and Jonathan were over- thrown (Judg. vii, 1 sq. ; 1 Sam. xxix and xxxi). In- deed, a large part of the most sanguinary battles fought in Palestine in everj' age have been waged upon this eventful jJain.