RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Six-Principles Baptists Skinner, John
ory XIII., kept him remote from affairs. During this period the increase of his collection of books was his absorbing pursuit in the beautiful villa on the Esquiline, which he exchanged in 1585 for the papal palace. When the election was settled, he surprised the constituency of the Church by showing himself the ruler born.
In the first place, Sixtus restored personal security and order in the Papal States. Within two years he exterminated brigandage, suppressing it with stern hand and by frequent executions. He also gave attention to the ordering of the civil administration and finances, terminated wastefulness and peculation, and within three years deposited three million crowns in Castle Saint Angelo as a prudential fund in event of need. Ultimately, however, he expended the sums acquired upon imposing public structures. Thus he had massive creations in stone achieved by the ingenious architect Domenico Fontana; whence the Rococo style came to dominate in Roman architecture for more than 100 years. His principal achievements in this line were the Via Sistina, and the Square of the Lateran. Moreover, Rome owes to this pope the restoration of one of the great aqueducts (named after him, Aqua Felice). Sixtus also left his footprints in the domain of ecclesiastical organization and administration; he found already in operation the still effective division of the governing boards as " congregations," whose number he increased to fifteen. Since the appointment of cardinals as members or as chairmen of the congregations had to emanate exclusively from the pope, the matter was duly provided that no opinions or decisions should be put forth which might contradict the general trend of papal policy. The administration of the city of Rome Sixtus concentrated in his own grasp, except for some few remnants of communal independence. Things took the same course in the remaining cities of the Papal States, and it was carefully provided that all significant positions came into the hands of ecclesiastics.
It is remarkable how Sixtus, who was inflexible in his own ecclesiastical and political policy, showed diplomatic pliancy even to the extent of wavering and indecision in dealing with other states. Thus Venice was able to enforce collection of tithes from the orders, as from the secular clergy. With Spain, despite the pope's yielding in the question of his feudal claims to Sicily, the situation came to open rupture because Sixtus declined to pay the 700,000 crowns promised toward equipment of the Great Armada on the ground that no landing was made on the English coast. So with Henry IV., the pope's continual changes so angered the king that he threatened openly to retract his obedience. Prior to a decision, Sixtus was overtaken by death, Aug. 27, 1590. K. Benrath.
Bibliography: The sources are illuminatingly discussed in Ranke, Popes, iii. 200-257, including the lives by G. Leti, 2 vols., Lausanne, 1669, and C. Tempesti, Rome, 1755, and a considerable number of documents. The account by Ranke, Popes, i. 34 sqq., is the best for the reader of English. The British Museum Catalog-ue has an interesting list of documents under " Rome, Church of. Popes, Sixtus V." Consult further. J. Dumesnil, Hist, de Sixte- Quint, Paris, 1869; J. A. Hubner, Sixte-Quint, 3 vols., ib. 1870; A. von Reumont, Oeschichte der Sladt Rom., iii.
584 sqq., Berlin, 1878; G. Gozzadini, G. Pepoli e Sisto V., Bologna, 1879; M. Brosch, Geschichte des Kirchenstaates, vol. i., chap, vii., Gotha, 1880; L. Capranica, Papa Sisto, 3 vols., Milan, 1884; I. Raulich, in Nuovo Archivio Veneto, iv (1892) ; Bower, Popes, iii. 322-325.
SKALSKY, GUSTAV ADOLF: Austrian-Hungarian theologian; b. at Opatovice near Czaslau (45 m. e.s.e. of Prague), Bohemia, Mar. 13, 1857. He received his education at the gymnasium in Teschen, the University of Vienna under the Protestant Evangelical Faculty (D.D., 1898), and the University of Erlangen; served as pastor in Klimov, Bohemia, and Lhota in Moravia, till 1896, when he became a member of the Protestant Evangelical Theological Faculty in the University of Vienna, lecturing on pastoral theology and Austrian Protestant church law. He has been active not only in the lines of his teaching work, but in labors for the benefit of the Czechs and Slovacs in Vienna and also in connection with the organization of the Young Men's Christian Association in Austria. His theological standpoint is that of the New Lutheran Erlangen school, so far as its position is applicable to conditions in Austria. Besides a considerable number of works in the Czech language, he has issued Zur Geschichte der evangelischen Kirchenverfassung in Oesterreich bis zum Toleranzpatente (Vienna, 1898); Zur Reform des oesterreichischen Eherechts (1906); Der oesterreichische Stoat und die evangelische Kirche im Oesterreich in ihrem wechselseitigen Verhaltnis I84.8-6I (1908); and /. A. Comenius als Reformator der Erziehung und der Schule (1908); and has edited a number of important papers bearing on the early history of the Unity of the Brethren.
SKEAT, skit, WALTER WILLIAM: Church of England; b. at London Nov. 21, 1835. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1858; M.A., 1861), and was curate at East Dereham, Norfolk (1860-62), and Godalming, Surrey (1863-64). He was mathematical lecturer at Christ's College (1863-71), and English lecturer (1867-83), while since 1878 he has been Elrington and Bosworth professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge. In 1873 he founded the English Dialect Society, and was its president till 1896. He is best known as an editor of Anglo-Saxon and Early English Texts, and among his works those of theological interest include his editions of Langland's Piers Plowman (2 vols., London, 1867-84); Joseph of Arimathcea (1871); The Four Gospels in Anglo- Saxon and Northumbrian (4 vols., Cambridge, 1871- 1887); Wycliffe's New Testament (Oxford, 1879); jElfric's Lives of the Saints (4 vols., London, 1881- 1900); The Gospel of St. Mark in Gothic (Oxford, 1882); The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (London, 6 vols., 1894); and the Proverbs of Alfred (1907).
SKINNER, JOHN: The name of two Scotch
divines.
1. Scotch Episcopal; b. at Longside (27 m. n. of Aberdeen), Scotland, May 17, 1744; d. at Aberdeen July 18, 1816. He received his higher education at Marischal College, Aberdeen; served as private tutor, 1761-63; was ordained deacon, 1763, and priest, 1764; took charge of the congregations of
Skinner Slavery