ESPEN, ZEGER BERNHARD VAN: One of
the canonists who endeavored to carry out the principles of the episcopal system of the Roman Catholic Church as developed in France and exercised a great influence on the doctrine and practise developed from that system in the Netherlands and Germany; b. at Louvain July 9, 1646; d. at Amers-
Ess Essence
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
foort (12 m. e.n.e. of Utrecht) Oct. 2, 1728. He studied theology and canon law at Louvain, was made a priest in 1673, doctor of law in 1675 and professor of canon law in his native city. His lectures and elegantly written works soon made him famous, and from all sides his decisions on canon law were demanded. His main work, Jus ecclesiasticum universum (Louvain, 1700; Cologne, 1702), is still a treasure for the canonists, although it was put on the Index in 1704 because he defended the Jansenists. E. Sehling.
Bibliography: Du Pac de Bellegarde, Vie de van Espen, Louvain, 1767; F. Laurent, Van Espen, 3 parts, Brussels, 1860-63; KL, iv. 904-905.
ESS, KARL AND LEANDER VAN : Two Roman Catholic Bible translators.
1. Karl van Ess was born at Warburg (18 m. s.e. of Paderborn) Sept. 25, 1770; d. at Huysburg (30 m. s.w. of Magdeburg) Oct. 22, 1824. His education was begun in the gymnasium of the Dominicans at Warburg, whence he went to the abbey at Huysburg in 1788; he was made priest in 1794, and became prior of his abbey in 1801. When the abbey was closed in 1804, he became priest of the town of Huysburg and acted as vicar-general for Magdeburg, Halberstadt, and Helmstedt. He was an orthodox Catholic, but at first was so liberal in tendency that he included a number of Protestant hymns in the Osnabriick Hymnal. After the fall of Napoleon and the rise of Prussia he became pronouncedly ultramontane and, in a short " History of Religion " published in 1817 on the occasion of the celebration of the Reformation, criticized sharply the Evangelical churches. His literary activity includes his part in the translation of the New Testament with his cousin Leander, Kurze Geschichte der Abtei Huysburg (Halberstadt, 1810), Katechismus (1822), and the Kurze Geschichte der Religion referred to above. E. Nestle.
Bibliography: F. C. Felder von Borromaeo, Gelehrten una1 Schriftsteller-Lexikon, i. 202, Landshut, 1817; ADB, vi 377; KL, iv. 908.
2. Johann Heinrich, better known by his Benedictine name Leander van Ess, was born at Warburg Feb. 15, 1772; d. at Affolderbach (20 m. n.e. of Heidelberg) Oct. 13, 1847. He was educated by the Dominicans at Warburg; entered the Benedictine abbey Marienmunster near Paderborn, 1790; was made priest and pastor at Schwalenberg, 1796. He became preacher for the Catholic Church at Marburg and professor in the university there in 1812; and retired in 1822. He was deeply interested in the dissemination of the Bible, and wrote many pamphlets in which he advocated more frequent use of the Scriptures by the laity. With his cousin Karl he published a German translation of the New Testament (Brunswick, 1807); alone he published the Old Testament in German (part 1, Sulzbach, 1S22, part 2, 1830), and with his pupil Wetzer the whole Bible in three parts (1840). In 1821 he prefixed a preface to a work on mixed marriages by a Roman Catholic priest and it was put on the Index Dec. 17, 1821, and two days later the same was done with his translation ol the New Testament,-though the latter received the commendation of the Roman Catholic faculty at Tubingen
and of the vicar-general of Bruchsal. His edition of the Vulgate was published in three parts (1822- 1824); and of the Septuagint in 1824 (latest ed. by E. Nestle, with Prolegomena and Epilegomena, 1887) ; in his New Testament he combined the Complutensian and Erasmian readings. In the copies circulated by the BFBS, the prefaces have been removed. Other writings are: Pragmatica doctorum catholicorum Tridentini circa Vulgatam decreti sensum historia (Sulzbach, 1801); Pragmatisch-kritische Geschichte der Vulgata (Tubingen, 1821); Wesenlehren des christlichen Glaubens und Lebens (1823).
E. Nestle.
Bibliography: F. C. Felder von BorromEeo, Gelehrten und Schriftsteller-Lexikon, i. 203-204, Landshut, 1817; H. E. Scriba, Biographisch-literarisches Lexikon, i. 94-97, Darmstadt, 1831; ADB, vi. 377 sqq.; KL, iv. 909-910. '
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS: The title of a book projected and edited by Henry Bristow Wilson (q.v.) and published in London Mar. 24, 1860, which occasioned a remarkable theological controversy. It included seven essays by as many authors: The Education of the World, by Frederick Temple; Bunsen's Biblical Researches, by Rowland Williams; On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity, by Baden Powell; Seances historiques de Geneve, The National Church, by Henry Bristow Wilson; On the Mosaic Cosmogony, by Charles Wycliffe Goodwin; Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688-1750, by Mark Pattison; and On the Interpretation of Scripture, by Benjamin Jowett.
With the exception of Goodwin all the writers were clergymen, and with the exception of Williams and Goodwin all were Oxford men. The book attracted little attention until the appearance of an anonymous review in the Westminster Review for Oct., 1860. Under the title N eo-Christianity the writer (Frederic Harrison) assumed a jubilant tone and welcomed the essayists to the ranks of liberalism (the review is reprinted in Harrison's Creed of a Layman, London, 1907). The clergy now took alarm. Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford, after warning his clergy against the book in his autumn charge, took up the controversy in the Quarterly Review for Jan., 1861. He accused the essayists of neology, rationalism, and skepticism, and denounced them for their dishonesty in holding such views and remaining in the Church. A petition of protest was presented to the archbishop -of Canterbury at Lambeth Mar. 13, 1861, signed by 10,000 clergy. Meanwhile, on Feb. 16 there had appeared in the Times the so-called " Episcopal Manifesto," in the form of a letter from the archbishop of Canterbury in answer to one of the numerous remonstrances with which the bishops had been besieged; to it were affixed the names of twenty-five bishops, who joined the archbishop " in expressing the pain it has given them that any clergyman should
have published such opinions." Both houses of convocation expressed condemnation of the book, and Williams and Wilson were summoned before the court of arches, which pronounced final decision in Dec, 1862. Williams was convicted of denying the inspiration of Holy Scripture and of holding heretical views on propitiation and justifi-