RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Jacob the Patriarch Jacob of Eltz
was framed expressly for reciprocal protection in religious concerns, even against members of the confederacy, and for the recovery of apostate subjects; only the bishop was not to use force without the allies' consent. In 1580 he came out openly with his designs; he solemnly excommunicated the prominent adherents of the Reformation in Pruntrut, summoned the Protestant congregations of the diocese to return to the Roman Church, dismissed the Protestant preachers, reinstated Roman worship in certain places, and even preached himself, at the most endangered spots. The Jesuit Canisius devised a catechism for the bishopric; a synod, attended by two hundred priests, convened at Delsberg, in Apr., 1581, and conferred concerning a diocesan visitation, the reform of the hierarchy, synodical by-laws, and the revision of the liturgical books.
The city of Basel and the Protestant cantons had not failed to remonstrate when the bishop's first steps to repress the new doctrine be- Settlement came known. In reply Jacob Christoph of the affirmed his rights. Disturbances in Contention the districts affected by the bishop Between then moved the citizens of Basel to City and bring their grievances before the diet Bishop, of the confederacy. A court of arbitration was accordingly appointed, which, in the course of two years' proceedings, brought about a solution of the contention, in 1585. Two treaties were concluded: the first secured to the city of Basel the cession of all episcopal claims to sovereignty, both in the city and in the Sissgau and certain neighboring districts, for 200,000 florins; on its part the city renounced all sovereignty rights within the diocese. The cathedral chapter, in compensation for its ancient rights in the city, was to receive an indemnity of 50,000 florins. In the second treaty it was provided that the patronal privileges between Basel and congregations of the diocese should indeed still nominally exist, but that no right of the bishop should be thereby infringed, and that the city should be forbidden to protect subjects against the bishop; in return, the bishop pledged himself to suffer the subjects of the city to adhere to their own religion, merely reserving to himself the right of reinstating Roman Catholic worship. Every one was to enjoy freedom of choice in religion, and neither side should injure the other.
Although both the cathedral chapter and the pope protested against these treaties, it nevertheless appeared that they indicated the only proper course of action. The cession of untenable rights and titles of possession made the bishop unlimited lord in his domain. The city lost its influence over episcopal subjects. The prosecution of church reform no longer encountered insurmountable opposition; everywhere in the diocese the Roman Church recovered firm ground, and the number of Protestants continually decreased. Although the treaty allowed the Evangelicals of Basel free exercise of religion, it soon appeared that the bishop, in virtue of his conceded right of instituting Roman Catholic worship collaterally with the Evangelical, possessed the means of gradually abolishing the latter. The
Evangelical subjects were everywhere confronted with the bishop's Roman Catholic officials, from whom they could obtain justice only with difficulty. Though the Reformation maintained itself in most places to about 1595, it was nevertheless constantly decreasing, and at last quite vanished.
Walter Goetz.
Bibliography: P. Ochs, Geschichte der Stadt und Landschaft Basel, vl. vi., Berlin, 1829; J. Burckhardt, Die Gegenreformation . am Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts,
Basel, 1855; A. P. von Segesser, Litdwig Pfyffer und seine Zeit, vols, ii.-iii., Bern, 1880—82; L. Vautrey, Hist, des evegues de Bale, vol. ii., Einsiedeln, 1884.
JACOB (JAMES) OF EDESSA (Lat. Jacobus Edessenus or Orrhoenus; Syr. Urhaya; Arab, al- Rahawi) : The most important of all Syriac writers with the exception of Bar Hebraus (see Abulfaraj); b. at Indaba, near Antioch, c. 633; d. June 5, 708. The Syriac and Arabic names are derived from the older name for Edessa. He began his studies in a monastery near Kinnesrin and finished them in Alexandria. In 684 or 687 he became bishop of Edessa, but retired after four years; he was too severe for his clergy and burned the canons before the house of the patriarch as useless because not kept. For eleven years he lived as teacher of the monks in the monastery of Eusebona, and then for nine years in that of Telleda. On the death of Habib, his successor as bishop of Edessa, he was recalled, but died four months later while transporting his library to the city. Jacob belonged to the monophysitic branch of the Syrian Church, but is highly esteemed also by the Maronites. He was a " man of three tongues," a theologian, historian, philosopher, and grammarian — in many respects the Jerome of the Syrians. His numerous writings (see Bibliography) are not yet all published.
E. Nestle.
Bibliography: The works of Jacob, not all published, include one of the earliest of Syriac grammars, the extant fragments ed. W. Wright, London, 1871, and A. Merx in Historia artis grammaticae apud Syros, Leipsic, 1871; grammatical tracts, ed. J. P. Martin, London, 1869, and G. Phillips, 2 parts, Edinburgh, 1869-70; Scholia on the Old and the New Testaments, ed. Phillips, London, 1864; an exegetical work on the Hexaemeron, ed. with transl., A. Hjelt, Helsingfors, 1892. On his transl. of the Categories and Analytics of Aristotle S. Schiiler has a dissertation, Erlangen, 1897; on his correspondence, Journal of Sacred Literature, new series, x (1867), 430; ZDMG, xxiv (1870), 261, xxxii (1878), 465, 735; on the chronological canon, E. W Brooks, in ZDMG, liii (1899), 261, 534, 550; on his translation of the Bible, Ugolini in Oriens Christianus, ii. 2; on his ecclesiastical canons, the Germ, transl. of C. Kayser, Leipsic, 1886. The Carmen de fide contra Nestorium is not his, nor the legend on the sons of Rechab. A. L. Frothingham, The Existence of America Known early in the Christian Era, in the American Journal of Archaeology, iv. 1888, interprets a passage in the Hexaemeron. Consult: J. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca orientalis, i. 468-494, Rome, 1719; W. Wright, Catalogue of Syriac MSS., London, 1870-72; DCB, iii. 332-335 (quite full).
JACOB OF ELTZ AND THE COUNTER-REF- ORMATION IN TREVES: The Reformation nowhere gained firm footing in the arch- Aggressive diocese of Treves, and the principal Measures, work of the Counter-Reformation there was to renovate the ancient regime. To this task Archbishop Jacob III. of Eltz (1567- 1581) applied himself. Born in 1510, of an old
Jacob of Eltz Jacob of Sarug-