The admissibility of a simultaneum was much de- bated in German}', until the recess of the diet resolved, Feb. 25, 1803, § 63, that " the exercise of religion as hitherto practiced in any country shall be protected against all interference and interruption ; especially shall the possession and undisturbed enjoyment of its separate ecclesiastical property, including the school- fund, be insured to each religion according to the direc- tions of the Peace of Westphalia. The sovereign may, however, tolerate the adherents of other religions and allow them the exercise of all civil rights."
The simultaneum does not affect the dogmatic rela- tions of the several churches. The Church of Rome still regards Protestants as heretics and schismatics, and refuses to recognise the validity of their services ; and the different sections of Protestantism have fre- quently maintained towards each other an attitude no less hostile. Circumstances, however, have done much to bring about a state of things in which the spirit of a simultaneum is measurably realized. Legislation has done much in this regard, and the felt need of fraternal relations has not been least among the influences at work.
WHien the simultaneum has been fixed by special treaties, it must be judged in accordance with their terms, otherwise general principles must determine. The State does not assume the right to ordain the ob- servance of the usages belonging to one religious com- munity by another and different community on general grounds; but it may extend the benetits of institutions enjoyed by any community to others as well, e. g. when civil functions have been intrusted to the clergy of a particular Church, or when but a single burial-ground is available for any community.
It is reported {Prot. Kirchen- Zeitun<j, 18,54, No. 5, p. 102 ) that a very peculiar simultaneum existed at Giildenstadt, in Osnaburg, during two hundred years prior to 1850. A Roman Catholic and an Evangelical congregation had a common house of worshiji, and em- |)loyed in common a Romish priest antl a Protestant clerk. The priest and Romanists began the service with the fntroit, after which the Evangelicals chanted the Kyrie Klnson. Alternate chantings and readings followed, until the offering of the mass, in which the Evangelicals took no part, A sermon was preached to both parties in connnim, and was usually followed by the singing of an appropriate evangelical hymn. One instance is mentioni'd in wliich a sermon assailing the Lutheran ('onfession of Faith was followed by the sing- ing of Luther's hymn, " Eiue feste Burg," etc.
In America what are called " Union Services" are fre(|uently helil in a church used in common by several denominations. In such cases the services are some-
SIN
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SIN
times of a mixed character; at other times the different denominational services are held alternately.
On the general subject, see Imtrum, Fuels Osnahrvg. ; Putter, Geist des westph. Friedens (Giitt. 1795) ; Enders, Diss, de Pactoruni Hildens. in Confirm. Comm. Cathol. Loctr. circa Simultaneum Efiicaciu (1765, 1771); and in Schmidt, Thesaur. Juris Keel. torn, v, Nos. 7, 8, p. 257 sq., 326 sq. ; Diirr, Diss, de eo, quod Justum est circa Jus Re- form, in Territor. 0})pignerato, etc. (Mogunt, 1760, and in Schmidt, loc. cit.) ; Schottl, Gec/enseit. Gemeinsch. in Culiushandl. zio. Katholiken u. A /cathol. etc. ( Regensb. 1853). Comp. also the Austrian law of Jan. 30, 1849 ; Circular d. Consist, zu Detnwld, Jul}' 27, 1857 ; Yon Moser, in A llg. Kirchenhl. f. d. evangel. Deutschl. 1857, p. 372, etc. — Herzog, Real- Ency Mop. s. v.
Sin (Heb. Sin, '|ip ; Sept. SaVf [v. r. Tdvig] or 2?;- r)vi] ; Vulg. Pelusium ), the name of a town and of a desert perhaps adjoining. (The following account is chiefly talten from Smith's Diet, of the Bible.)
1. A city of Eg3'pt, which is mentioned in Ezek. XXX, 15, 16, in connection with Thebes and Memphis, and is described as " the strength of Egypt," showing that it was a fortified place. The name is Hebrew, or, at least, Sheraitic. Gesenius supposes it to signify "clay," from the unused root '\^'0, probably "he or it was muddy, clayey." It is identified in the Vulg. with Pelusium, IIj/XoiWiov, " the clayey or mudd}'" town, from 7rj;\()e; and seems to be preserved in the Arabic Et-Tineh, which forms part of the names of Fum et- Tineh, the Mouth of Et-Tineh, the supposed Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, and Burg or Kal'at et-Tiueh, the Tower or Castle of Et-Tineh, in the immediate neigh- borhood, " tin" signifying '■ mud," etc., in Arabic. This evidence is sufficient to show that Sin is Pelusium. The ancient Egyptian name is still to be sought for ; it has been supposed that Pelusium preserves traces of it, but this is very improbable. Champollion identifies Pelusium with the Poresoum or Peresom (the second being a variation held by Quatremere to be incorrect) and Baresoum of the Copts, El-Farmii of the Arabs, which was in the time of the former a boundary-city, the limits of a governor's authority being stated to have extended from Alexandria to Pilak-h, or PhiUe, and Peremoun (Acts of St. Sarapamon MS. Copt. Vat. 67, fol. 90, ap. Quatremere, Memoires Geog. et Hist, sur VEgypte, i, 259). Champollion ingeniously derives this name from the article ph prefixed to ep, " to be," and oum, " mud" {UEgypte, ii, 82-87 ; comp. Brugsch. Geogr. Inschr. i, 297). Brugsch compares the ancient Egyp- tian Ha-rem, which he reads Pe-rema, on our s)'stem Pe-rem, " the abode of the tear," or " of the fish rem" {ibid. pi. Iv, No. 1679). Pelusium he would make the city Samhat (or, as he reads it Sam-hud), remarking that "the nome of the city Samhud" is the only one which has the determinative of a city, and comparing the evidence of the Roman nome-coins, on which the place is apparently treated as a nome; but this is not certain, for there may have been a Pelusiac nome, and the etymology of the name Samhat is unknown {ihid. p. 128; pi. xxViii, 17).