:ceed £' In Ireland, m. faculty or dispen- sation can be granted to any spiritual person to hold two .-r more benefices. In Scotland, before the Refor- mation, pluralities were also common. Abbacies and priories were likewise often bestowed in commendam. See Commexdam. of tin- twenty abbots that sat ill the Parliament which decreed tin Reformation, fourteen were commendators. Thus -peak- tin- Second Book of Discipline: "Meikle less i- it lawful] thai ony person amang these men sould have fyve, sax, ten, or twenty kirk-. ..r mac. all having the charge "I sanies: ami hruik the patrimonii- thairof, either he admission of the prima: or of the kirk, in this licht of the evangell; tor it is hut mockage to crave reformation where sic lyke Ins place." Ike question of pluralities in the Church of Scotland was raised in 1779, renewed in 1813, and the General Assem- bly decided against them in 181 I by an act which, how- ever, was repealed in 1816. In 1817 it was enacted that no professor could hold a parish unless it was near the -at ..f tin- university. The question was again raised ami keenly debated in 1824— to wit, the holding of a chair in a college ami of a parochial charge al the -am.- time. The university commission soon alter disapproved of tin- practice, hut not the Genera] Assembly of that pe- riod. Tin- tenure of many benefices by one person was finally abolished in the Church of England by 1 anil 2 Victoria, c. 106. In tin Roman Catholic Church this practice ha- been forbidden from a very early period in ii- history, a- by the councils of Chalcedon I A.I ». 151 ) and that ..f Sice - A.D. 787 |, and is still prohibited both by iln- Roman Catholic canon law and by statute law in the Established Church of England, lint the pro- hibition is evaded in various ways: and in all estab- lished churches pluralism, in one form or another, is not. uncommon. See Chambers's Encycl. s. v. ; Hammond, Canons of the ''A. p. 105 sq.; Eadie, Eccles. Cycl.s. v.
Fluschke, Joiiann G., an eminent German « >ri- ental scholar, was horn Aug. 20, 1780, at Rohnstock, near Schweidnitz, in Silesia, lie studied theology and philology, and tor a number of years held tin- professor- ship of philology ai Leipsic. In 1818 he was called as doctor ami professor ordinarius of theologj t.. Am- sterdam, to take the presidency of the Lutheran semi- nary at Amsterdam, ami died between 1837 ami 1840. riii-c-hke wrote, /'- radicum lingua Hebraica natu.ro, r., mm. grammatica Leips. 1817 : De Psatierii Syriaci Mediolanensis <t Cajetano Bugato editi peculiari indole ejusdemqm usu critico in emendando textu Psalterii Gratci sept, interpretum (Bonn, 1835): Lectiones Alex- andrines ,i Hebraica, sivi <1> emendando textu Veteris Teslumenti Graci LXX interpretum <f ii„l< Hebraico (ibid. 1837): /'. emendando Pentateucho Gn co LXX inteipretum etindt Hebraico addito codd. Holm sianorum ■ i textus Graci denuo castigati specimim (ibid. I rst, Bibl. Jud. iii. 107; Steinschneider, Handb. p. Ill ; Winer. Uandb. dertl p. -".7. 121, 711 : Thiersch, l>, Pentateuchi versi andrina, p. ■_-.;; Zuchold, Bibl. Theologica, ii, 1001 Bq. (B.P.)
Plutarch, an eminent Greek philosopher, noted also
raphical ami miscellaneous wriicr. deserves a
place In re for the moral tendency of all hi- writings,
and tin- vast influi in-, he ha- exerted in modern a- w. n a- ancient time-. Indeed, all that we know of him, which i- principally gleaned from his own and others' writings, place- him in a high rank a- measured by the ethics of society in hi- time, and -cis forth the moral- ity of certain portions of that Bociety itself during the tir-t century ..four asra, and among Bo-called heathens, in a light of no doubtful brilliancy. Many things he wrote might have hen written by the most ardent dis-
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ciple of the new creed, and much of his belief was more strictly in accordance with the teachings of the apos- tles than are the dogmas of other writers of those days who call themselves Christians. Yet, in taking his works as our guide, we find that Plutarch had no knowledge of the great innovation amid which he lived, and which was disturbing the West and the East alike ; or if he had a knowledge of it, he regarded it merely as a passing piece of Judaic sectarianism un- worthy of his notice.
Life. — Plutarch, who lived from the reign of Claudius to tliat of Hadrian, was born at Chreronea, a small city of Boeotia in Greece, which had also been the birth- place of Pindar. Plutarch's family was ancient in Chasronea: his grandfather, Lamprias, was a man em- inent for his learning and as a philosopher, and is often mentioned by Plutarch in his writings, as is also his own father. The time of Plutarch's birth is not known. He was early initiated in study, to which he was natu- rally inclined, and was placed under Ammonias, an Egyptian, who, having taught philosophy with reputa- tion at Alexandria, thence travelled into Greece, and settled at Athens. Under this master he made great advances in knowledge; and like a thorough philoso- pher, more apt to regard things than words, he pursued this knowledge to the neglect of languages. The Latin language, at that time, was not only the language of Rome, but of Greece also. Yet he became not conver- sant with it until the decline of life ; and though he is supposed to have resided in Rome at different times, yet he never seems to have acquired a competent skill in it at all. He is reputed to have visited Egypt, which was at that time, as formerly it had been, famous for learning; and probably the mysteriousness of their doctrine might tempt him, as it had tempted Pythag- oras and others, to go and converse with the priesthood of that country. On his return to Greece he visited the various academies and schools of the philosophers, and gathered from them many of those observations with which he has abundantly enriched posterity. He does not seem to have been attached to any particular sect, but culled from each of them whatever he thought excellent and worthy to be regarded. He could not bear the paradoxes of the Stoics, and yet was more averse to the impiety of the Epicureans; in many things he followed Aristotle; but his favorites were Socrates and Plato, whose memory he reverenced so highly that he annually celebrated their birthdays with much solemnity. Besides this, he applied him- self with extreme diligence to collect, not only all books that were excellent in their kind, but also all the say- ings and observations of wise men, which he had heard in conversation, or had received from others by tradi- tion; and likewise to consult the records and public instruments preserved in cities which he had visited in his travels. He took a particular journey to Sparta, to search the archives of that famous commonwealth, to understand thoroughly the model of their ancient government, the history of their legislators, their kings, and their ephori; and digested all their memorable deeds and sayings with so much care that he has not omitted even those of their women. He took the same methods with regard to many other commonwealths ; and thus was enabled to leave us in his works such a rich cabinet of observations upon men and manners, as, in the opinion of some, Montaigne and Bayle in par- ticular, have rendered him the most valuable author of antiquity. It appears from his writings that Plu- tarch visited Rome more than once, and that he deliv- ered lectures on philosophy in his vernacular, then the language of the cultured Romans. It is probable that the substance of these lectures was afterwards embodied in his moral writings. The latter part of his life was spent in honor and comfort in his native city, where he passed through various magisterial offices, and enjoyed the honors and emoluments of the priesthood. The time and circumstances of his death are unknown.