RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Table of the Nations Taffin, Jean
TABORITES. See Hubs, John, Hussites, II., §§ 3-7.
TACHE, ta"she, ALEXANDRE ANTOINE: Roman Catholic archbishop; b. at Riviere-du-Loup, Canada, July 23, 1823; d. at Winnipeg, Canada, June 22, 1894. He was educated at the College of St. Hyacinth and the Seminary of Montreal, entered the order of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and began missionary activity among the Indians of the Red River. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1846, and five years later was consecrated titular bishop of Arath. He now made Ile-a-la- Crosse the center of his labors, and in 1853 became bishop of St. Boniface. He sought in vain to induce the Canadian government to remedy the grievances of the M6tis in 1869, but on his return from the Vatican Council he was requested by the government to use his good offices in quieting the insurrection which had meanwhile arisen, and in this he was successful. In 1871 St. Boniface was erected into a metropolitan see, and Tache' became its archbishop. He was the author of Esquisse sur le nordouest de VAmerique (Montreal, 1869; Eng. transl., Sketch of the Northwest of America, by D. R. Cameron, 1870) and Vingt ans de missions dans le nordouest de VAmerique (1866).
TADMOR (TAMAR) : A city named in the Bible only in I. Kings ix. 18 (keri) and II Chron. viii. 4, as built by Solomon and generally identified by geographers and historians with Palmyra (150 m. n.e. of Damascus). Practically the whole tendency of modern criticism, however, is to disconnect Solomon from any relationship with Tadmor (in both Biblical passages " Tamar " is doubtless right; the other places named there are in southern Palestine). Inherently, the probability is against any connection of Solomon with a place so far to the northeast of his kingdom. Its site was originally an oasis formed by springs or streams from the neighboring hills, and in the time of Pliny (Hist, nat., v. 24) it was a considerable town, which formed an independent state between the Roman and Parthian empires. In the second century it seems to have been beautified by the Emperor Hadrian, the name being changed to Hadrianopolis. Under Septimius Severus it became a Roman colony, and received the jus Italicum, but it was ruled by its own laws. The most interesting period in the history is the time of Odenatus and Zenobia. The Emperor Valerian being captured by the Persians, Odenatus, perhaps a man who had attained the position of prince of Palmyra, revenged the wrongs of the fallen emperor and vindicated the majesty of Rome. The services thus rendered to Rome were so great, that Odenatus was given the title of Augustus (264 a.d.). He enjoyed his dignity but a short time, being murdered only three years afterward. Zenobia, his widow, succeeded him as queen of the East, and ruled the country during a period of five years. In 272 the Emperor Aurelian turned his arms against her; and having defeated her in two pitched battles invested Palmyra. Zenobia attempted to escape, but was captured and taken to Rome to grace the triumph of Aurelian. Palmyra never recovered its former opulence. It eventually became the seat of a
bishop, but never attained importance. When the successors of Mohammed extended their conquests beyond the confines of Arabia, Palmyra became subject to the califs, and from that period seems to have fallen into decay. In 1173 it was visited by Benjamin of Tudela, who found there a considerable Jewish population, besides Mohammedans and Christians. It was again visited in 1751 by R. Wood, and since the beginning of the eighteenth century by many travelers. The inscriptions recovered at the place have exceptional interest and value.
Geo. W. Gilmore.
Bibliography: R. Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra, London, 1753 (highly valuable) ; L. de Laborde, Voyage de la Syrie, pp. 10-22, Paris, 1837; E. M. de Vogue, Syrie centrale, Paris, 1865-77; idem, Syrie, Palestine, Mount Athos, ib. 1876; Von Sallet, Die Fursten von Palmyra, Berlin, 1866; Barth^lemy, Reflexions sur V alphabet et sur la langue . . a Palmyra, Paris, 1874; P. V. N. Myers, Remains of Lost Empires, Sketches of the Ruins of Palmyra . , New York, 1875; L. Double, Les Cesars de Palmyre, Paris, 1877; E. Ledrain, Dictionnaire des noms propres palymyreniens, Paris, 1886; B. Moritz, Zur antiken Topographie der Palmyrene, Berlin, 1889; CIS, Inscriptions Aramaicce, 2 parts, Paris, 1889-93; Deville, Palmyre. Souvenirs de voyage et d'hist., Paris, 1894; W. Wright, Palmyra and Zenobia, London, 1895; E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ed. J. B. Bury, i. 372, 306 sqq., London, 1896; J. H. Mordtmann, Palmy renisches, Berlin, 1899; M. Sobernheim, Palmyrenische Inschriften, Berlin, 1905; Baedeker's Palestine and Syria, pp. 339—348, Leipsic, 1906; DB, iv. 673; EB, iv. 4886; JE, ix. 507; Vigouroux, Dictionnaire, fasc. xxx. 2070—72.
TAFFIIJ, JEAN: Dutch Reformer and preacher; b. at Tournai probably in 1528; d. at Amsterdam July 15, 1602. He came of a well to-do-family, but of his education and youth almost nothing is known . He first becomes known as secretary or librarian to Granvelle, bishop of Utrecht, but how he came to break with the Roman church is not known. He may have studied under Calvin and Beza at Geneva before the founding of the university there. He was in Amsterdam at the end of 1557, where in the controversy between Gaspar van der Heyden and Adrian van Ha^mstede he took part against the latter. Thence he seems to have gone to Aachen and worked in the Walloon congregation, which sent him in 1559 to Worms, and from Aachen to Strasburg in 1561, and thence as preacher to Metz, where he stayed till 1565. For a short time he worked in Tournai, but went the same year to Antwerp, where he preached secretly, and his arrest was ordered on the ground that he was " a great heretic and might do much harm." But he avoided arrest, and when the prince of Orange sanctioned public preaching, Sept. 2, 1566, he became preacher to the Walloons in the "Round Temple." But Protestant worship was precluded by agreement, and Taffin went to Metz again, where in Apr., 1569, Charles IX. closed the church; then Taffin settled at Heidelberg as preacher for the Walloon church there. He attended the Synod of Emden in 1571, and was deputed to convey a message to the next synod of the Reformed Church of France. In Heidelberg Taffin formed a close and lasting friendship with the prince of Orange, by whom he was sent on a confidential mission to Germany in Dec, 1576. He also assisted in promoting the marriage of the prince to Charlotte of Bourbon. Taffin was associated with the prince as court chaplain, representing the
Taffln, Jean
Tait, Archibald Campbell