Octavian, Antipope, was born at Rome about 1095. He was a descendant of the Frascati family, and was made cardinal by Innocent II in 1138. Pope Eugenius III appointed him his legate to Germany, and gave him a mission to the Diet at Ratisbon, which he was prevented from fulfilling by the death of the emperor Conrad III in 1152. Under the pontificate of Adrian IV, Octavian began to show his ambitious views, seek- ing to create troubles in the Church ; and it is said he had great influence in fostering the dispute concern- ing investitures between Frederick I and the pope. Being sent to that prince to induce him to desist from his attacks against the see of Rome, he betrayed his trust, and sided with the emperor. After the death of Adrian IV, Octavian, who aspired to the papacy, con- tested the election of cardinal Ronald Rainucci, who had taken the title of Alexander III. Octavian caused him- self to be elected by two other opposing cardinals, John of Mercone, archdeacon of Tyre, and Gui of Crcme, Sept. 5, 1159, and took the name of Victor IV. Alexander had already assumed the scarlet cope of the office when Octavian tore it from him ; a senator who was present seized it, but Octavian, aided by his chaplain, secured it, and in his haste put it on wrong side out. At the same time an armed mob broke into the church to sup- port Octavian. A few days afterwards cardinal Ray- mond and Simon Borelli, abbot of Subiaco, went over to his side, and he succeeded in inducing Imar, a French cardinal, bishop of Frascati, to consecrate him, Oct. 1, 1159. On the 28th of the same month Octavian wrote to the emperor Frederick and to members of the nobil- ity, asking them to support his election, Frederick, who knew he could rely on him, answered favorably, and asseiTibled a council at Pavia, Feb. 5, 1160, which acknowledged Octavian as pope. Ilis death, which oc- curred at Lucca, April 22, 1164, did not end the schism, and Frederick appointed as his successor Gui of Creme, who took the name of Pascal III (q. v.). See Otho de Frisingen, De rehus Friderici; Baronius, Annates, vol. xii ; Fleury, Hist. Eccles. 1. Ixx, ch. xxxvii sq. ; Aubery, Tlist. des Cardinaitx, vol. i; Milman, Hist. Lat. Christ. iv, 289, 290 ; Cartwright, Papal Conclaves, p. 15.
Octaviauus or Octavius, Roman emperor. See Augustus.
October-Horse, Tiik, a horse anciently sacrificed in the month of October to Mars in the Campiw Mar-
tins at Rome. The blood that dropped from the tdl of the animal which was sacrificed was carefully pre- served by the vestal virgins in the temple of Vesta, for the purpose of being burned at the festival Palilia (q. v.), in order to produce a public purification by fire and smoke.
Octcechos is the name of a service-book used in the Greek Church. It consists of two volumes (folio), and contains the particidar hymns and services for every day of the week, a portion of the daily service being appropriated to some saint or festival, besides those marked in the calendar. Thus, Sunday is dedicated to the resurrection; Monday, to the angels; Tuesday, to St. John the Baptist; Wednesday, to the Virgin and the cross; Thursday, to the apostles; Friday, to the Saviour's passion ; and Saturday, to saints and martyra. The prayers being intoned in the Greek Church, the Octoechus enjoins which of the eight ordinarily in use is to be employed on different occasions and for different services. See Gardner, Faiths of the World, ii, 557.
Od (from the same root as Odin, and supposed to mean nll-pervadhuf), the name given by baron Reich- enbach to a peculiar physical force which he thought he had discovered. This force, according to hiin, per- vades all nature, and manifests itself as a flickering flame or luminous appearance at the poles of magnets, at the poles of crystals, and wherever chemical action is going on. This would account for the luminous figures said to be sometimes seen over recent graves. The od force has positive and negative poles, like mag- netism. The human body is od-positive on the left side, and od-negative on the right. Certain persons, called " sensitives," can see the odic radiation like a luminous vapor in the dark, and can feel it by the touch like a breath. As the meeting of like odic poles causes a disagreeable sensation, while the pairing of unlike poles causes a pleasant sensation, we have thus a sufficient cause for those likings and antipathies hitherto held unaccountable. Some sensitive persons cannot sleep on their left side (in the northern hemi- sphere), because the north pole of the earth, which is od-negative, affects unpleasantly the od-negative left side. All motion generates od; why, then, may not a stream running underground affect a sensitive water- finder, so that the divining-rod in his or her hand shall move without, it may be, any conscious effort of will? All the phenomena of mesmerism are ascribed to the workings of this od-force. Reichenbach does not pre- tend to have had the evidence of his own senses for any of those manifestations of his assumed od-force ; the whole theory rests on the revelations made to him by "sensitives." It may be added that few if any really scientific men have any belief in the existence of such a force. Those curious in such matters are referred for the details of the subject to Reichenbach's large work, translated into English by Dr. Ashburner, under the title of The Dynamics of Marjnetism, or to a briefer ac- count in his Odisch-3Iaf/nefische Briefe (Stutt. 1852). See also Lond. Qu. Rev. Oct. 1871, p. 162. — Chambers's Cyclop. See Odylisji.