Oannes, the name of a Babylonian god, who, in the first year of the foundation of Babylon, is said to have come out of the Persian Gulf, or the old ErythriTjan Sea, adjoining Babylon. He is described as having the head and body of a fish, to which were added a human head and feet under the fish's head and at the tail. He lived among men during the daytime, without, however, taking any food, and retired at sunset to the sea from which he had emerged. Oannes had a human voice, and instructed men in the use of letters and in all the principal arts and sciences of civilization, Avhich he communicated to them. Such is the account of him preserved by Berosus and xVpollodorus. Five such mon- sters are said to have come out of the Persian Gulf: one, called Anedotos or Idotion, in the reign of Amenon.The fourth king of Babylon; another in that of the fifth king; and the last, called Odacon (or Ho Dagon), ap- parently the Plicenician Dagon, under the sixth. Many figures of Oannes, resembling that of a Triton, having the upper part of a man and the lower of a fish, or as a man covered with a lish's liody, have been fuimd in the sculptures of Kuyunjik and Khorsabad, as well as on many cylinders and gems. Oannes is supposed to have
GATES
255
GATES
symbolized the conquest of Babylonia by a more civil- ized nation coming in ships to the mouth of the Pai- phratos; but he is apparently a water-god, resembling in cliaractcr the Phoenician Dagon and the Greek Pro- teus and Triton. See Helladius, Apud. Phot. Cod. 279, p. 535, 34; Kichter, De Beroso ; Cory, Anc. Frar/m. p. 30 ; Bunsen, Egypfs Place, i, 700 ; Layard, Nineveh, p. 343. — Cliambers, Ci/dojjcedia, s. v. See Dagox.
Oates, Titus (alias Ambrose), a noted character in English ecclesiastical histor}', was born about 1G'20 at London. He was the son of a ribbon-weaver, who, having seceded from the Anabaptists among whom he had preached, after the Eestoration conformed to the doctrines of the English Established Church, took or- ders, and held a benefice. Titus was educated at Mer- chant Taylors' School in London, and at the University of Cambridge. ILiving received ordination, he was made chaplain to the duke of Norfolk, who also settled him in a small living. He was subsequently accused of perjury, but he escaped conviction, and became chaplain in one of the king's ships, from which he was disgracefully ex- pelled. Shortly afterwards he embraced Koman Catholic doctrines. Later he entered the college at St. Omer, and resided for some time among the students. On his re- turn from a mission to Spain in 1677, the Jesuits, who were heartily tired of their convert, dismissed him from theix seminary; and it is probable that resentment for thi^dismissal, combined with a prospect of gain, in- duced him to contrive the atrocious scheme known as the " Popish Plot," which alone has preserved his name in history. The English people were in Oates's time greatly agitated bj^ religious controversy. It was gen- erally asserted and believed that king Charles was at heart a Roman Catholic; and his brotlier, the duke of York, afterwards James II, was an active and avowed zealot on the same side. The growing confidence of the Roman Catholics was unconcealed; and with or without special reason, the cry so often since heard arose, and was everywhere re- echoed, that the " Protestant religion was in danger." In this fevered state of general feeling Oates saw his opportunity, and dex- terously and boldly availed himself of it. In September, 1G78, he made a disclosure before Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, a noted and ac- tive justice of the peace, and afterwards be- fore the council and the House of Commons, to the effect " that the pope felt himself en- titled to the possession of England and Ire- land on accoimt of the heresy of prince and people, and had accordingly assumed the sovereignty of these kingdoms; that power to govern them had been delegated by the pope to the Society of Jesuits, who, through Oliva, the general of their order, had is- sued commissions appointing various persons whom they could trust to the chief ofllces of state, both civil and military. Lord Arun- del (he said) was to be chancellor; lord Powis, treasurer; lord Bellasis, general of the papal army; lord Stafford, paymaster; Sir William Godolphin, privy seal ; and Coleman, secretary of state. All the dig- nities, too, of the Church he alleged to be newly appropriated, and many of them to Spaniards and other foreigners. Two men, named Grove and Pickering, he declared, were hired to shoot the king, and Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, had engaged to poison him, the queen her- self being privy to the scheme. He also stated that the Koman Catholics were to rise in different districts of the kingdom ; and that every means would be adopted for the extirpation of Protestantism." His ev- idence was confirmed by two men named Tonge and Bedloe, especially the latter, who
was of low extraction and bad reputation. (For the list of persons, both Jesuits and men of importance in the kingdom, who suffered imprisonment and execution through the accusations of Oates, we must refer to the general histories of the time.)