RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Hickes Hieronymites
84; DCB, iii. 24-25; Neander, Christian Church, i. 713- 716; KL, v. 2005-06.
HIERARCHY (from Gk. hieros, " sacred," and archia, " rule "): The rule of sacred things; then a body of rulers organized for such rule. The Roman Church probably presents the most perfect example of a hierarchy organized monarchically, the whole power centering in the pope, and most minutely graded, both with respect to orders — bishops, priests, deacons (the ordines juris divini), and subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, lectors, doorkeepers, etc. (the ordines juris ecclesiastici), and with respect to jurisdiction — archbishops, metropolitans, exarchs, patriarchs, deans, vicars, cardinals, legates, etc. In the Greek Church the hierarchical organization is oligarchical: above the several patriarchs there is no pope. In the Evangelical Churches, where the State rules the Church, more or less of the hierarchical apparatus may be retained, as in the Church of England and the Prussian Church; while, when the Church is established on the principle of universal priesthood, and the congregation rules itself, as in the American churches and many free churches in Europe, all hierarchy disappears. See Church; Clergy; Jurisdiction, Ecclesiastical; Orders, Holy.
HIEROCLES : A persecutor and literary opponent of the early Christians; d. not before 306. He is probably the Sossianus Hierocles of an inscription from Palmyra between Mar. 1, 293, and May 1, 305, the governor of the province to which Palmyra then belonged. The responsibility for the outbreak of the persecution of Diocletian is placed chiefly upon him by Lactantius (De morte persecutorum, xvi. 4; De divinis institutionibus, V., ii. 12). As governor of Bithynia, he was at Nicomedia, the very center of the persecution and the place where it first broke out, when the church there was destroyed on Feb. 23, 303, and the edict against the Christians promulgated the next day. He was succeeded in the governorship of Bithynia by Priscillianus, and became prefect of all Egypt. Here also he persecuted the Christians, even confining Christian women and virgins dedicated to the ascetic life in houses of debauchery. The Christian iEdesius went to Alexandria, accused him to his face of overstepping the provisions of the law, and struck him, but was tortured and thrown into the sea. Hierocles was one of the two literary antagonists of the Christians whom Lactantius describes (De institutionibus, V., ii. 2) as coming forward in the spring of 303. In the few extant fragments of his work he appears as the upholder of a philosophic monotheism, which, however, did not exclude a polytheistic cult. Its line of attack is dependent mainly upon Porphyry, especially in the attempt to point out inconsistencies in the Scriptures. He carries out in greater detail Porphyry's suggestion of a comparison between Christ and Apollonius of Tyana, in favor of the latter. With Hierocles the Neoplatonic criticism, which had before been merely theoretical, became practical and gained an influence on the government. (K. J. Neumann.)
Bibliography: The tract of Eusebius, Contra Hieroclem, ed. Gaisford, was published Oxford, 1852. W. Cave,
Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum hist, lileroria, i. 131, ii. 99, London, 16S8; C. Fleury, Hist, ecdesiastique, II., viii. 30, 36 vols., Paris, 1704-38; Tillemont, Memoires, xiii. 333; A. J. Mason, The Persecution of Diocletian, pp. 58-108, Cambridge, 1876; Neander, Christian Church, i. 173- 174; DCB, Hi. 26-27; KL, v. 2012-13.
HIEROGLYPHICS. See Inscriptions, I.
HIERONYMITES, hai"e-ren'i-moits (HERMITS OF ST. JEROME): The name of four religious orders in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, which lived after the rule of the Augustinian canons or hermits.
1. The Spanish Hieronymites were established in the diocese of Toledo about 1370 by Vasco, a Portuguese Franciscan tertiary, and Pedro Fernando Pecha of Guadalajara, chamberlain of Peter the Cruel. The order was confirmed by Gregory XL in 1374, and spread rapidly through Spain and Portugal, extending even to America. Its chief monasteries in Spain were Santa Maria de Guadelupe, San Yuste, San Isidor in Seville, and the Escorial near Madrid. In Portugal it possessed the monastery of Belem, near Lisbon. The habit of the order, whose members were favorite confessors of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, is a coarse white cassock with a small black cowl and a black scapular. An order of Hieronymite nuns was founded in 1375 by Maria Garcias of Toledo, but did not take solemn vows until the time of Pope Julius II. Their habit was a white cassock and brown scapular. Their last convents fell in the Carlist struggles of 1835.
2. The Observantine Hieronymites were founded by Lupus Olivetus (Lope d'Olmedo), third general of the Spanish Hieronymites (d. 1433), and were confirmed by Martin V in 1426. In Spain the order was united with the other Hieronymites in 1595, but in Italy, where it was known as the Congregation of St. Jerome of Lombardy, it possessed monasteries up to the middle of the nineteenth century.
3. The Poor Hermits of St. Jerome were established near Montebello in Italy in 1377 by Pietro Gambacorti or Petrus de Pisis (d. 1435), who formed his community from converted robbers. The rule was exceedingly strict, but was mitigated in 1444 and exchanged for that of St. Augustine in 1568. In the seventeenth century several communities of hermits in Bavaria and the Tyrol joined this order, but it now has only a few monasteries, especially one in Viterbo and one in Rome.
4. The Congregatio Fesulana or Clerici apostolici Sancti Hieronymi Jesuati was established in 1406 at Fiesole by Carlo de Montegranelli. The order was suppressed in 1668 by Clement IX., and most of its members joined the Poor Hermits of St. Jerome. (O. ZocKLERf.)
Bibliography: 1. P. de la Vega, Chronicon fratrum Hieronymitani ordinis, Complutum, 1539; Helyot, Ordres monastiques, iii. 423-447; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, ii. 235-237; KL, v. 2014-15; L. Holstenius, Codex regularum monasticarum et canonicarum, ed. M. Brockie, vi., Additamenta, i. 10-87, Augsburg, 1759. 2. Eusebio Cremonense, O vero delta vita e progressi de monachi Gieronimiani, Cremona, 1645; Helyot, ut sup., iii. 447-456; KL, v. 2015-16; Heimbucher, ut sup., ii. 239; L. Holstenius, ut sup., iii., Additamenta, xxvi. 43 sqq. 3. P. Bonnacioli, Pisana Eremus, vitae et gesta
Hieronymus High Places