On the custom of the Hebrews consult: H. Ewald, Altertiimer des Volkes Israel, pp. 192 sqq., Gottingen, 1866, Eng. transl., pp. 142 sqq., Boston, 1876; W Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, ii. 20 sqq., 90 sqq., Leipsic, 1878 (important discussion); Benzinger, Archaologie, § 72; Nowack, Archaologie, ii. 287 sqq.; J. Frey, Tod, Seelenglauhe wnd Seelenkult im alten Israel, pp. 127, 137 sqq., Leipsic, 1898; Matthes, in ThT, 1899, pp. 293 sqq.; V. Zapletal, Totemismus und die Urreligion Israels, pp. 81 sqq., Freiburg, 1901; W. Bousset. Religion des Judentums, pp. 202 sqq., Berlin, 1903; K. Marti, Geschichte der israelitischen Religion, Stuttgart, 1903; the commentaries on Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy; and the works on O. T. theology.
DEFINITOR: An official of rehgious orders who, according to the reformed constitutions of the Middle Ages, stood at the head of a district (definitio). The orders consisted of congregations, which were divided into definitiones, each including a certain number of monasteries. The heads of the houses were subject to the definitor, the latter to the provincial, and the provincial to the general.
DEGRADATION: A severe penalty inflicted upon delinquent clerics by the ancient ecclesiastical discipline (see Jurisdiction, Ecclesiastical). By the end of the twelfth century the doctrine of the Indelible character of holy orders had been generally accepted; and in connection with it and with the struggle of the Church for clerical immunities the earlier penalty of deposition was divided into what was now called deposition (the
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Defilement and Purification Beism
removal of a cleric from his office and benefice with the prohibition of the exercise of his orders) and degradation, which, in addition, withdrew from him all the privileges of the clerical state. The degradatio verbalis involved the pronouncement of the former penalties, and was performed by the bishop with the assent of the chapter in the case of the minor orders, of three bishops in that of deacons, and of six bishops, mitered abbots, or other dignitaries in that of priests. The solemn degradatio adualis went further and involved the observance of special formalities — the stripping of the culprit of his vestments, the shaving of the head to obliterate the tonsure, and the scraping of the thumbs and fingers as if to remove the unction bestowed at ordination. These ceremonies were supposed to take place in the presence of the secular authority, to whose jurisdiction the delinquent, as now no more than a mere layman, was then handed over.
DE HiERETICO COMBURENDO: A writ for the burning of heretics by the secular power after they had been condemned by the ecclesiastical power. It was issued in England under Henry IV in 1401; expanded under Henry V. in 1415; repealed in the twenty-fifth year of Henry VIII. (1534), and again in the first year of Edward VI. (1547); revived in the first year of Mary (1553); repealed in the first year of Elizabeth (1559), and finally in the twenty-ninth year of Charles II. (1678). In its original form it was directed against the Lollards, and was the earliest step taken by Parliament in their suppression, but was afterward used against Protestants in general. It solemnly abjures them to abstain entirely from preaching or otherwise circulating their " new doctrines and wicked, heretical, and erroneous opinions "; orders them to give up the books which advocate the same; threatens them with imprisonment for disobedience if they refuse; and on their condemnation by the ecclesiastical authorities lays it upon the secular authorities to burn them.
Bibliography: The full text of the writ is given in Gee and Hardy, Documents, pp. 133-137. Consult: J. Gairdner, The English Church in the 16. Century, pp. 146, 231, 249, 346, 362, London, 1903; J. H. Overton, The Church in England, i. 300, 418, ii. 19, ib. 1897.
DEISM.
I. England. Shaftesbury, Mandeville,
Lord Herbert of Cher- Dodwell, Bolingbroke
bury (§ 1). (§ 8).
Hobbes and Others (§ 2). Hume's Influence (§ 9).
Charles Blount (§ 3). II. France.
John Locke (§ 4). Voltaire (§ 1).
Toland, Collins, and The Encyclopedists (§ 2).
Others (§ 5). Holbach and the Ideo-
Matthew Tindal (§ 6). logical School (§ 3).
Morgan, Annet, and Mid- Rousseau (§ 4).
dleton (§ 7).
The term " Deism " properly denotes a belief in deity that is rational and universal, in contrast to Atheism and Pantheism (qq.v.), on the one hand, and to uncritical Theism (q.v.), on the other. ( Deism, which originated in England, represented an effort to find a standard of religious truth by which the conflicting claims of individual creeds and the pretensions of supernatural revelation might be tested, and which should harmonize with the metaphysical results of the new sciences. It
is in this sense that " natural religion " and the term " natural " itself are so intimately bound up with the history of Deism (see Natural Theology). Since the habit was to regard religion as a system of metaphysics, the desired standard of truth was sought in a metaphysics that should be universally cognizable and whose validity might be tested by the facts of experience. The development of Deism in consequence is closely bound up with the development of sensualism and mechanism, and with the struggle between the a priori philosophy and empiricism, as well as with the development of the theory of morals which at the same time had succeeded in emancipating itself from the sway of theology and sought to lay its f oimdations upon epistemology and psychology (see Ethics). Since the entire conception of natural religion is nothing but a restatement of the Stoic lex naturce (see Natural Law), Deism may be taken as the point of departure for the employment of the epistemological and psychological methods in the philosophy of religion. At the same time, in the attempt to decide between the conflicting claims of particular revelations, ^Deism made its chief problem the study of the historical connection between natural religion and revelation,J and became a philosophy of the history of religion in which the relation of elemental truth, as determined by the mind, to Christian revelation and to pagan truth was fixed on purely rational lines. Criticism of historic Christianity and the recognition of the relative truth contained in other creeds led to the abandonment of the system of the philosophy of history at first adopted and made way for the modern principles of the philosophy of religion.
As a contributory force, with Puritan radicalism, to the opposition with which the Anglican Church was confronted. Deism was naturally at odds with respectable conservatism in the State, the Church, and the world of literature and learning. Not till Hume and Gibbon took them up did the problems of Deism attain full scientific treatment in lasting and really literary form. Far more profound was the influence it exercised on French literature. The real tendency of Deism is best expressed in the name " freethinkers," which its advocates adopted; / by their opponents they were designated as Naturalists on account of their opposition to supernatural revelation.
I. England: The beginnings of Deism appear in the seventeenth century. Its main principles are to be found in the writings of Lord Herbert of Cherbury (d. 1648), one of the most original thinkers of his century, who devoted the calm evening of a life spent in a military and diplomatic career to a search for a standard and a guide in the conflicts of creeds and systems. He was a friend of Grotius, Casaubon, and Gassendi, and during a long sojourn in France made himself acquainted
1. Lord ^ith the thought of Montaigne, of
Herbert go^iin, and especially of Charron. His °^ works are: Be Veritate (Paris, 1624); Cherbury. j-eligione Gentilium errorumque apud eos causis (London, 1645); and two minor treatises, De causis errorum and De religione laid. The first
Deism