Notable Crime is, in the Anglican Establisli- ment, any offence committed in the ordering of dea- cons and priests which is of a sufficiently serious char- acter to justify suspension of the ordination of a can- didate. The bishop, at the beginning of the ordina- tion office, requires that if any of the people know "any impediment or notable crime" in the person about to be ordained, " for which he ought not to be admitted to" the order of deacon or priest, the accuser shall come forth and declare "what the crime or impediment is." By "notable" is to be understood something of a highly flagrant and scandalous nature, known to the accuser as a sufficient reason, if proved, for the rejection of the candidate. Hence, in the rubric following the bishop's demand, the words " notable crime" are made synony- mous with "great crime" — with such a crime as will justify the bishop in delaying ordination till it is dis- proved. Similar remarks will apply to the use of the word ''^notorious"' in the rubric before the Holy Com- mimion. See Staunton, Eccles. Diet. s. v.
Notaras, Chkysanthe, an Eastern prelate of note, was born in the Morea about the middle of the 17th century. Descending from a noble Byzantine family, and nephew of Dositheus, patriarch of Jerusalem, he was destined for the high duties of the Greek Church. He received a liberal education, which he perfected by trav- elling in Italy and France. In Paris he received lessons from the astronomer Cassini, and formed connections, too, with several learned theologians. On his return to Constantinople he was appointed archbishop of CiBsarea, and Feb. 8, 1707, patriarch of Jerusalem. Although rarely residing in his diocese, Notaras was a zealous bishop, and the reconstruction of the temple of the Holy Sepulchre in 1719 is due to him. He died at Constan- tinople in 1732, leaving the reputation of one of the most pious, beneficent, and learned prelates of the Greek Church. His principal work is a collection of treatises in modern Greek Upon the Bites and Dogmas of the Oriental Church (Tergovisk, in Wallachia, 1715) ; among them are excellent treatises " Upon the Dignity of the Oriental Church," " Upon the Origin and Propagation of Christianity in Russia," " Upon the four Greek Patri- archs of the Ottoman Empire," and " Upon the Patri- archs of Russia." He also compiled a Geography in modern Greek (Paris, 1716, fol.). Notaras published in 1715 the History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, by his uncle Dositheus. See Journal des Savans, ann. 1726; Jcicher, Gelehiien-LexUcon, s. v.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, xxxviii, 296.
Notaricon (from the Latin notarius, a short-hand writer, one who among tlie Romans belonged to that class of writers who abbreviated and used single letters to signify whole words) is one of the thirteen Cabalistic rules (comp. Temurah, s. v. Atbach), which is employed when every letter of a word is taken as an initial or ab- breviation of a word. Thus, for instance, every letter
of the word ITiiliJXI^, the first word in Genesis, is made the initial of a word, and we obtain nx") H^'^TNia min bx-lO"! ibapi'IJ ninbx, in the beginning God saw that Israel would accept the laio ; or D1S, Adam, is made ni'O^ I'll D1X, Adam, David, Messiah ; a proof, say the Cabalists, that the soul of Adam was transmigrated into David, and David's i;ito the Mes- siah; or m'r, Sh'ma, is made c::'^3i:> tTiTQ INIU, Lift up your eyes to heaven, or ■|''i'^b" '^-'S "^Tw', To the almighty and most high King, or r.'^2'*i" lin;^ r'''~n'i' In the morning, afternoon, and evening, from which the rabbins infer that three times every day, i. e. morning, afternoon, and evening, prayers are to be performed. Sometimes very curious and ingenious combinations are derived from this system. For instance, the word C^DS, />assi»i, used in the passage, "And he made him a coat of (passi7n") many colors" (Gen. xxxvii. 3), is made to indicate the misfortunes which Joseph expe- rienced in being sold by liis brethren to ^3*^^13 C^3"i"!'2 Cbx^'ri Q-^-imO, Potiphar, Mercha7its (So- chrim), Ishmaelites, Midianites. It appears that the Christian fathers sometimes made use of the same rule ; as, for instance, our Lord and Saviour has been called by them 1X9Y2 (a fish), because these are the initials of those Greek words 'Ii]C!ovq Xptoroe, Qiov Tiof, 'Swri'ip, "Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour." Thus St. Augustine tells us, in his De civitate Dei, lib. xviii, c. 23, that when they were speaking about Christ, Flaccianus, a very famous man, of most ready eloquence and much learning, produced a Greek manuscript, say- ing that it was the prophecies of the Ervthrian sibj'l, in which he pointed out a certain passage that had the initial letters of the lines so arranged that those words could be read in them. Then he goes on and gives these verses, of which the initial letters yield that meaning, and says, "But if you join the initial letters of those five Greek words, they will make the word Ix^vc, that is, ' fish,' in which word Christ is mj'stically understood, because he was able to live, that is, to exist, without sin in the abyss of this mortality as in the depth of waters." See Cabala. (B. P.)
Notaries. See Notarii,
Notarii (Lat. for notaries) is the name given in ecclesiastical language to those persons who reported the examination and trial of martyrs and confessors, prepared protocols for the synods and acts of councils, and otherwise discharged the duties of secretaries. They were generally deacons, and sometimes a presbyter was the chief of them. Occasionally these notarii used a sort of short-hand, and were therefore employed in tak- ing down the sermons of eloquent preachers; by which means some of the discourses of Chrysostom have been preserved which otherwise would have been lost. The Ijishops also had a kind of secretary, or reader, called vTroypa(p(vc, the acolyth, who registered the names of persons to be baptized. Pope Julius I required the notaries, or the primicier of notaries, to digest the his- tory of the Church. In 1237 there were no public no- taries (tabelliones) in England.