Ess, Leander van, a Rcanan Catholic theologian of German}', and cousin of the preceding one, was born a; Warburg, in Westphalia, Feb. 15, 1772. At an early age he entered the Benedictine abbey of Marienmiiu- stei", in the diocese of Paderborn. In 1813 he was appointed pastor at Marburg, and extraordinary pro- fessor at the university of that city ; and later he also became assistant director of the normal school. No priest in the Roman Catholic Church of the 19th century showed so great a zeal for the circulation of the Bible as Leander van Ess. Aided b}- his cousin Karl (q. v.), he prepared a German translation of the New Tes- tament, and enlisted the British and Foreign Bible So- ciety in its circulation. A translation of the Old Tes- tament he published in 1819 (Nuremberg). He alfo published an edition of the Vulgate (1822), and an edi- tion of the Greek New Testament cut from the Vatican manuscript (1824). The pope was highly indignant at his undertaking, and on this occasion issued one of the notorious papal bulls against Bible societies. Karl van Ess timidly receded from his liberal position, but Lean- der bravely maintained it. He resigned his othces at Marburg, and devoted his time chiefly to a literar}' de- fence of his efforts in circulating the Bible. He com- piled, to encourage Roman Catholic readers of the Bi- ble, "a selection from the works of Church fathers and other great Catholic writers concerning the necessary
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anfl useful reading of the Bible" {Ausziige aus den heil. Vdfeni, etc., Leips. 1808) ; a Latin treatise on tlie au- thority of the original text of tlie Bible as compared with the Vulgate (Prafjmatica doctorum Caikulicorum Trilentlni circa Vuljatum decreti sensuin testanthcm his- torlu, Salzburg, 181G ; in German, Tub. 1824) ; and sev- eral other works, urging a frequent reading of tlie Bi- ble by the people (^Was war die Bible der erstcn Chris- ten? 181G; Gedanken iiber Bibelti. Biljellesen,liili'>; Die Bible nicht ein Buck nur fur Priester, 1818). He also wrote a book in defence of marriages between Protes- tants and Roman Catholics (^Rechlfertigung der gemischt. Ehen, 1821). lie died Oct. 13, 1817. His very valu- able library, rich in manuscripts and incunables, was purchased by the Union Theological Seminary in New York.— Herzog, Real-EncyU. xix, 489. (A. J. S.)
Essence (essentia, from essejis, the old participle of esse, to be), a term in philosoph}^ corresponding to ou- aia in Greelv, and sometimes to nature, sometimes to being or substance in English. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xii, 11) derives it as follows : '^ SiciU ab eo quod est sa- pet fc, vacatur sapienlia ; sic ah eo quod est esse, vacatur essentia.'^ Chauvin {Lex. Phil.) gives tha definition, " Totuin illudper quod res est, et est id quod est." Locke (Essa;/, bk. iii, chap, iii, § 15) saj's : '■^Essence may be taken for the very being of anj'thing, whereby it is what it is." Locke distinguishes the I'eal and the nominil essence. "The nominal essence depends upon the I'eal essence ; thus the nominal essence of gold is that complex idea which the word ' gold' represents, viz. ' a body yellow, heavy, malleable, fusible, and fixed;' but its real essence is the constitution of its insensible parts, on which tliese qualities and all its other properties depend, which is wholly unknown to us. The essence of tilings is made up of that common nature wherein it is founded, and of that distinctive nature by which it is formed. This latter is cominonl)' understood when we speak of the fornialit3', or forma- lis ratio (the formal consideration) of tilings ; and it is looked upon as being more peculiarly the essence of things, though it is certain that a triangle is as truh' made up in part of figure, its common nature, as of the three lines and angles which are distinctive and peculiar to it" (Fleming, Vacab. of Philosophg, s. v.).
With regard to the Trinity, the Greek writers (Atha- nasius and others) distinguish ovaia (essentia, substan- tia"), which denotes what is common to the Father, the Son, and the Holj'' Spirit, from vivoaTaaiq (persona), which denotes what is individual, distinctive, and pe- culiar to the three in one. Shedd (flist07\ij of Doc- trine, ii, 363) distinguishes the various scholastic terms carefully, and says of ovaia, or essence, that it "de- notes that which is common to Father, Son, and Spirit. It denominates the substance, or constitutional being of the Deity, which is possessed alike and equally l)y eacli of the personal distinctions. The essence is in its own nature one and indivisiljle, and hence the state- ment in the creed respecting it affirms simple unity, and warns against separation and division. The terms 'generation' and 'procession' do not apply to it." lyicCosh discusses the term and its uses in his Intuitions of the Mind (1860, 8vo, p. 152).
Essenes ('E(T(t»;x'0(', Josephus generally; Esseni, riiiiy) or Ess.E.VNS (Effaaloi, Josephus, War, i, 3, 5, etc. ; Philo), a Jewish sect of mystico-ascetics, which combined foreign elements, especially Oriental and Greek, with Jewish doctrines, and with certain pecu- liar views and practices of their own. Tliej' rejected most of the Jewisli sacrifices, and made their fellow- ship an exclusive one.
L Signification of the-^ame. — Tliis has been verj' variously explained, as follows : 1. Philo (Quod omnis prob. lib. § 12) derives it from tlie Grool^ ilffior, holy. 2. Josephus, according to Jost (Geschichte d. Juden- thums, i, 207), seems either to derive it from the Chal- dee X'^n, to be quiet, to be mysterious, because he ren-