Closely connected with this form of divination are the two following: (1.) "i3n, che^ber, a spell or en- chantment, by means of a cabalistic arrangement of certain words and implements (Deut. xviii, 11; Isa. xlvii, 9, 12), spoken also of serpent-charming (Psa- Iviii, G). See Charming ; Enchantment. (2.) Sor- cery (either wizard, i'Ti"', hioiving one. Lev. xix, 31 ; XX, G; Deut. xviii, 11; 1 Sam. xxviii, 3, 9; spoken also of the imp or spirit of divination by which they were supposed to be attended. Lev. xx, 27 ; or some form of vjds, kashaph', to act the witch, literally by magic incantations, 2 Chron. xxiii, G ; Exod. vii, 11 ; Deut. xviii, 10; Dan. ii, 2, etc.), which signifies prac- tising divination by means of the black art, with an implied collusion with evil spirits ; applied usually to pretending to reveal secrets, to discover things lost, lind hidden treasure, and interpret dreams. See Wiz- ard.
Familists, Familia Charitatis, Family of Love, a sect founded in the IGth century by Henry Nicholas, a native of Mimster, in Westphalia, who, after residing for some time in Holland, went to England in the latter part of the reign of Edward VI, and there es- tablished (1552) his familia charitatis, or Huis des Lief- de (Strj'pe's Cramner, ii, 410). His doctrines have of- ten been confounded with those of David Joris [see Jo- ris], whicli they resemble in many respects, and gen- erally with those of the Anabaptists. His followers, however, published a Confession of Faith in 1575 (given in Strype, Annals, ii, 577), and soon after an Apology, in which they attempt to prove the identity of their doctrines with those of the evangelical Confessions. The characteristic feature -of this sect was a tendency to mystic contemplation, and the belief that, through love, man could become absolutely absorbed in and identified with God, in a sul)jective sense. Nicholas represented himself as the apostle of this "service of Love," and it is said went so far as to claim superior- itj^ over Christ, on the ground that Moses only preach- ed hope, Christ faith, but he preached love. The sect was accused of denying the divinitj' of Christ, and of even rejecting the divinitj' of God liimself, in its liigh- er attributes, by maintaining that man would, in this life, become identified with (3od. The}^ on the con- trary, maintained in their Apology tlieir belief in the three general Christian creeds, and particularly in the- satisfaction rendered by Christ, while they merely claimed to emulate the state of life exhibited hy him. As thej^ looked upon themselves as perfect, they could not acknowledge the need of forgiveness, and stated in their Apologj^ that thej' tried with all the heart to be- lieve and keep the commandments, leaving the rest to God, as the power of so doing could only come from him. The}' distinguished themselves from tlie Ana- baptists l)v their recognition of infant baptism, and l)y their indifference as to the external part of the estab- lished worship, which the Anabaptists assailed with es-
FAMILY
478
FAIVIILY
pecial violence. Nicholas, -who at first kept prosel}'- ting quietl}-, came out more boldly during the reign of Eli/.al)eth, and announced himself as a prophet ap- pointed by the Lord, and anointed by the Holy Spirit. He is said to have been an uneducated man, yet ap- pears to iiave succeeded in gaining the ear of several theologians and persons of high ranlv. In 1580 Eliza- betli issued a proclamation against the sect, and direct- ed an irifiuiry to be made into their practices. They geem to have attracted considerable attention at that period, and accusations of all kinds were brought for- ward against them. Their books were ordered to be burnt in October, 1580. In 160i they presented a pe- tition to James I, to clear themselves from the imputa- tions laid against them. From this time their num- bers diminished, but they were not extinct even as late as 1G45. King James I, in his BacjiXiKuv vojpov, calls them infamem anabaptistaru7n seciam, quw Jcimilia ain- oris vacatur. A person named Etherington was made to recant as a Familist in 1G27 ; but he does not appear to have held precisely the same doctrine as the older Familists. See a curious book by J. li. (John Rogers), entitled The Displayint/ of cm horrible Sect )iaminf/ them- selves the Fami'y of Love (Lond. 1579) ; and Knewstub, Confutation oj monstrous and horrible Heresies tatiffhi hy II. N. etc. (Lond. 1579); Mosheim, Church History, c. xvi, § iii, pt. ii, § 25 ; Collier, Ecclcs. Hist, of England, vi, 009; vii,311; Hardwick, ^^/ormrt/iow, chap. v.
Family. The idea of the family (oIkoc), m Greece, ■was that of the nucleus of society, or of the state. "Aristotle speaks of it as the foundation of the state, and quotes Hesiod to the effect that the original fami- ly consisted of the wife and the laboring ox, which held, as he saj'S, to the poor the position of the slave {Polit. i, 1). The complete Greek family, then, con- sisted of the man, and his wife, and his slave ; the two latter, Aristotle says, never liaving been confounded in the same class l)y the Greeks, as by the barbarians {lb.). In this form, the family was recognised as tlie model of the monarchy, the earliest, as well as the simplest, form of government. When, bj' the birth and growth of children, and the death of the father, tlie original family is bi'oken up into several, the heads of which stand to each other in a co-ordinate rather than p. strictly subordinate position, we have in tliese the prototypes of the more advanced forms of govern- ment. Each brother, bj' becoming the head of a sep- arate famih", becomes a member of an aristocracy, or the embodiment of a portion of the sovereign power, as it exists in the separate elements of which a consti- tutional or a democratic government is composed. But at Eome the idea of the family was still more closely entwined with that of life in the state, and tlio natural power of the father was taken as the basis not only of the whole political, but of the whole social or- ganization of the people. Among the Romans, as with the Greeks, the family included the slave as well as the wife, and ultimatel}^ the cliildren, a fact which, indeed, is indicated by tlie etymologj^ of the word, which belongs to the same root as famidus, a slave. In its widest sense, the ftmilla included even the in- animate possessions of the citizen, who, as the head of a liouse, was his own master (suijwis) ; and Gains (ii, 1(12) uses it as synonymous vfith pati-imonium. In general, however, it was confined to persons — the wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, if such there were, and slaves of a full-blown Itoman citizen. Sometimes, too, it signified all those who had sprung from a comnifin stock, and would have been members of the family, and under tlie potestas of a common ancestor, had he been alive. In this sense, of course, the slaves belonging to the different nieml)ers of the family were not included in it. It was a family, in short, in the sense in which we speak of Mho royal family,' etc., with this difference, that it ■was possible for an individual' to quit it, and to ]iass into another by adoption. Sometimes, again, tlie word