RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Neoplatonism Neri
attack by Dionysius of Alexandria on his lost " Refutation of the Allegorists " in the second book of the Peri Epangelion. From this it is clear that the chiliasts in Arsinoe regarded the works of Nepos as irrefragable proof of the future reign of Christ on earth and of the realistic interpretation of the Apocalypse. According to Gennadius (De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus, lv.), Nepos held that after the resurrection of the righteous there would be throughout the millennium a world of the unconverted, which would war upon the just at the expiration of the thousand years, only to be destroyed by God. Nepos was also a writer of hymns, and seems to have been an excellent exegete. His position represented the conflict between the eschatology of the early Church and the spiritualizing tendency of Origen; but the Nepotians mentioned by Fulgentius (MPG, lxv. 709) were at most mere chiliasts, having no organic affiliations with the doctrines of Nepos. (N. Bonwetsch.)
Bibliography: Eusebiua, Hist, eccl., VII., xxiv.; Tillemont, Memoires, iv. 261 sqq.; C. W. F. Walch, Historie der Ketzereien, ii. 152-167, 11 vols., Leipsic, 1762-85; DCB, iv. 23; Ceillier, Auteurs sacris, ii. 404-405, 564-565.
NERGAL, ner'gal: The patron deity of the Babylonian city Cutha, forming from the Assyrian period a political triad with Marduk of Babylon and Nebo of Bursippa. Nergal, who appears in the Assyrian lists of gods as Ne-uru-gal (" Lord of the Great Dwelling," i.e., of the dead), was the divinity of the burning heat of the sun, then of war and the chase, of disease (especially fever) and pestilence, and above all of the realm of the dead, of which his temple (yet undiscovered) was a copy. He was identified with the unlucky planet Saturn, but later was confused with Mars (cf. the Mandffian names Nirig and Nargil, " Mars "; see Mand^eans). As the god of the glowing sun Nergal was represented as a lion, a symbol of the sun common throughout eastern Asia, especially as during the dog-days the sun is in Leo. Nergal was known in Cyprus, Syria, and Sidon, the latter a center of his cult.
The Babylonian and Assyrian cult of Nergal is mentioned in II Kings xvii. 30; and in Isa. xxxv. 7 sharabh (R. V., " glowing sand ") has been interpreted as an allusion to Nergal, especially as a Babylonian list of gods states that Nergal was called Sharrabu among the Amorites. Winckler (Altorientalische Forschungen, i. 293, Leipsic, 1893), reading nergalim for nidhgaloth (R. V., " army with banners ") in Cant. vi. 4, 10, seeks to find here an allusion to Gemini, which was sacred to Nergal. The name of the deity occurs in the Old Testament as a component of the Babylonian Nergal-sharezer (" Nergal protect the king ") in Jer. xxxix. 3, 13. See Babylonia, IV., § 10, VII., 2, § 8.
(Alfred Jeremias.)
Bibliogbapay: Consult, besides the pertinent literature under Babylonia: A. Jeremias, in W. H. Roscher, Ausfilhrliches Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie, hi. 250-271, Leipsic, 1895; Schrader, KAT, pp. 412 sqq.; P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, i. 303-305, Tubingen, 1905.
NERI, PHILIP, SAINT, AND THE ORATORIANS:
The founder of the Roman Catholic order of Oratorians and his followers. The founder was born
at Florence, Italy, July 22, 1515, and died at Rome May 26, 1595. In early childhood he showed marked
evidence of piety, and in 1533 he went
Life and to Rome, where he studied with the
Character Augustinians, at the same time prac-
of the tising works of asceticism, mercy, and
Founder, religious instruction. On May 23,
1551, he was ordained to the priesthood in the church of St. John Lateran, and took an active part in the confraternities and other organizations evoked by the revival within the Roman Catholic Church for strengthening it and for saving the half-heathen populace in body and soul. He was one of the founders of the Confraternity of the Holy Trinity, designed primarily for the care of strangers and the convalescent poor. St. Philip gathered old and young, priests and laymen, to meditations held each evening, which, after 1556, crystallized into definite form. The meditations were held in the evening in an oratory, where prayer, readings from the Bible, the Church Fathers, and histories of martyrs alternated with catechizings and hymns set to music more popular in character than the Gregorian chant. No address was allowed to exceed half an hour in length, and all rhetoric and casuistry was excluded. From his apologetic lectures delivered here, Baronius formed the nucleus of his immortal Annates ecclesiastici, and from the music here sung the " oratorio " had its rise. The house of the community breathed a spirit of friendliness, joyfulness, and service, and several times a week the founder and his friends visited the hospitals to tend the sick, neglecting no menial tasks either there or in their own house. St. Philip was firmly convinced that a joyous demeanor was far more suited to win souls to Christian virtue than a melancholy air. His apparent light-heartedness and sociability brought upon him the suspicion of more puritanical leaders of the Roman Catholic movement for reform, and he was accused before the cardinal vicar of Rome of seeking empty honors and striving for high-church offices under cover of his conferences. He bore with patience his suspension from hearing confession and from preaching, and the charge that he contemplated establishing a new sect was abruptly ended by the sudden death of the cardinal vicar. The accusations were later renewed, though without disturbing his somewhat whimsical humor, in which he seems to have sought to rebuke the pharisaical puritanism which held sway in Rome at the period. At the same time, he was capable of severe ascetic sternness, and it must be borne in mind that his biographers commonly ascribe his apparent levity to his humility and his determination to avoid all praise of men. He was thus curiously like the rigid Pope Sixtus V. (1585- 1590), whose invincible humor likewise made a deep impression on the memory of the Roman people. Repeated efforts were made to induce St. Philip to accept the cardinal's hat, but in vain. Such was his influence, however, that when Clement VII. long refused to release Henry IV- of France from excommunication after his submission to the Church in 1593, St. Philip bade Baronius deny the pope absolution after his confession until he should grant it to Henry. Baronius obeyed in trembling, but
Neri Nerses