Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

_History._--Moray, in the wider sense, was first peopled by Picts of the Gaelic branch of Celts, of whom relics are found in the stone circle at Viewfield and at many places in Nairnshire. Christianity, introduced under the auspices of Columba (from whose time the site of Burghead church has probably been so occupied), flourished for a period until the Columban church was expelled in 717 by King Nectan. Thereafter the district was given over to internecine strife between the northern and southern Picts, which was ended by the crushing victory of Kenneth MacAlpine in 831, as one result of which the kingdom of Pictavia was superseded by the principality of Moravia. Still, settled order had not yet been secured, for the Norsemen raided the country first under Thorstein and then under two Sigurds. It was in the time of the second Sigurd that the Firth was fixed as the northern boundary of Moray. In spite of such interruptions as the battle of Torfness (Burghead) on the 14th of August 1040, in which Thorfinn, earl of Orkney and Shetland, overthrew a strong force of Scots under King Duncan, the consolidation of the kingdom was being gradually accomplished. After Macbeth ascended the throne the Scandinavians held their hands. Though Macbeth and his _faineant_ successor, "daft" Lulach, were the only kings whom Moray gave to Scotland, the province never lacked for able, if headstrong, men, and it continued to enjoy home rule under its own marmaer, or great steward (the equivalent of _earl_, the title that replaced it), until the dawn of the 12th century, when as an entity it ceased to exist. With a view to breaking up the power of the marmaers David I. and his successors colonized the seaboard with settlers from other parts of the kingdom. Nevertheless, from time to time the clansmen and their chiefs descended from their fastnesses and plundered the Laigh, keeping the people for generations in a state of panic. Meanwhile, the Church had become a civilizing force. In 1107 Alexander had founded the see of Moray and the churches of Birnie, Kinneddar and Spynie were in turn the cathedral of the early bishops, until in 1224 under the episcopate of Andrew of Moray (de Moravia), the church of the Holy Trinity in Elgin was chosen for the cathedral. Another factor that drew men together was the struggle for independence. In his effort to stamp out Scottish nationality Edward I. came as far north as Elgin, where he stayed for four days in July 1296, and whence he issued his writ for the parliament at Berwick. Wallace, however, had no doughtier supporter than Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, and Bruce recognized the assistance he had received from the men of the north by erecting Moray into an earldom on the morrow of Bannockburn and bestowing it upon Thomas Randolph (see MORAY, THOMAS RANDOLPH, EARL OF). Henceforward the history of the county resolved itself in the main into matters affecting the power of the Church and the ambitions of the Moray dynasties. The Church accepted the Reformation peacefully if not with gratitude. But there was strife between Covenanters and the adherents of Episcopacy until, prelacy itself being abolished in 1689, the bishopric of Moray came to an end after an existence of 581 years. (For the subsequent history of the earldom, which was successively held by the Randolphs, the Dunbars, the Douglases, the royal Stewarts and an illegitimate branch of the Stewarts, see MURRAY or MORAY, EARLS OF.) Other celebrated Moray families who played a more or less strenuous part in local politics were the Gordons, the Grants and the Duffs. Still, national affairs occasionally evoked interest in Moray. In the civil war Montrose ravaged the villages which stood for the Covenanters, but most of the great lairds shifted in their allegiance, and the mass of the people were quite indifferent to the declining fortunes of the Stewarts. Charles II. landed at Garmouth on the 3rd of July 1650 on his return from his first exile in Holland, but hurried southwards to try the yoke of Presbytery. The fight at Cromdale (May day, 1690) shattered the Jacobite cause, for the efforts in 1715 and 1745 were too spasmodic and half-hearted to affect the loyalty of the district to Hanoverian rule. A few weeks before Culloden Prince Charles Edward stayed in Elgin for some days, and a month afterwards the duke of Cumberland passed through the town at the top of his speed and administered the _coup de grace_ to the Young Pretender on Drummossie Moor.

Twice Elginshire has been the scene of catastrophes without parallel in Scotland. In 1694 the barony of Culbin--a fine estate, with a rent roll in money and kind of L6000 a year, belonging to the Kinnairds, comprising 3600 acres of land, so fertile that it was called the Granary of Moray, a handsome mansion, a church and several houses--was buried under a mass of sand in a storm of extraordinary severity. The sandy waste measures 3 m. in length and 2 in breadth, and the sand, exceedingly fine and light, is constantly shifting and, at rare intervals, exposing traces of the vanished demesne. This wilderness of dome-shaped dunes divided by a loftier ridge lies to the north-west of Forres. The other calamity was the Moray floods of the 2nd and 3rd of August 1829. The Findhorn rose 50 ft. above the ordinary level, inundating an area of 20 sq. m.; the Divie rose 40 ft., and the Lossie flooded all the low ground around Elgin. The floods tore down bridges and buildings, and obliterated farms and homesteads.

AUTHORITIES.--Lachlan Shaw, _History of the Province of Moray_
(Gordon's edition, Glasgow, 1882); _A Survey of the Province of Moray_
(Elgin, 1798); W. Rhind, _Sketches of the Past and Present State of
Moray_ (Edinburgh, 1839); E. Dunbar Dunbar, _Documents relating to the
Province of Moray_ (Edinburgh, 1895); C.A. Gordon, _History of the
House of Gordon_ (Aberdeen, 1890); C. Rampini, _History of Moray and
Nairn_ (Edinburgh, 1897); C. Innes, _Elgin, Past and Present_ (Elgin,
1860); J. Macdonald, "Burghead" (_Proceedings of Glasgow
Archaeological Soc._), (1891); Sir T. Dick Lauder, _The Wolf of
Badenoch_ (Glasgow, 1886); _An Account of the Great Floods of August
1829 in the Province of Moray and Adjoining Districts_ (Elgin, 1873).

ELGON, also known as MASAWA, an extinct volcano in British East Africa, cut by 1 deg. N. and 34-1/2 deg. E., forming a vast isolated mass over 40 m. in diameter. The outer slopes are in great measure precipitous on the north, west and south, but fall more gradually to the east. The southern cliffs are remarkable for extensive caves, which have the appearance of water-worn caves on a coast line and have for ages served as habitations for the natives. The higher parts slope gradually upwards to the rim of an old crater, lying somewhat north of the centre of the mass, and measuring some 8 m. in diameter. The highest point of the rim is about 14,100 ft. above the sea. Steep spurs separated by narrow ravines run out from the mountain, affording the most picturesque scenery. The ravines are traversed by a great number of streams, which flow north-west and west to the Nile (through Lake Choga), south and south-east to Victoria Nyanza, and north-east to Lake Rudolf by the Turkwell, the head-stream of which rises within the crater, breaking through a deep cleft in its rim. To the north-west of the mountain a grassy plain, swampy in the rains, falls towards the chain of lakes ending in Choga; towards the north-east the country becomes more arid, while towards the south it is well wooded. The outer slopes are clothed in their upper regions with dense forest formed in part of bamboos, especially towards the south and west, in which directions the rainfall is greater than elsewhere. The lower slopes are exceptionally fertile on the west, and produce bananas in abundance. On the north-west and north the region between 6000 and 7000 ft. possesses a delightful climate, and is well watered by streams of ice-cold water. The district of Save on the north is a halting-place for Arab and Swahili caravans going north. On the west the slopes are densely inhabited by small Bantu-Negro tribes, who style their country Masawa (whence the alternative name for the mountain); but on the south and north there are tribes which seem akin to the Gallas. Of these, the best known are the El-gonyi, from whom the name Elgon has been derived. They formerly lived almost entirely in the caves, but many of them have descended to villages at the foot of the mountain. Elgon was first visited in 1883 by Joseph Thomson, who brought to light the cave-dwellings on the southern face. It was crossed from north to south, and its crater reached, in 1890 by F.J. Jackson and Ernest Gedge, while the first journey round it was made by C.W. Hobley in 1896. (E. He.)

ELI (Hebrew for "high"? 1 Sam. chaps, i.-iv.), a member of the ancient priesthood founded in Egypt (1 Sam. ii. 27), priest of the temple of Shiloh, the sanctuary of the ark, and also "judge" over Israel. This was an unusual combination of offices, when it is considered that in the history preserved to us he appears in the weakness of extreme old age, unable to control the petulance and rapacity of his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who disgraced the sanctuary and disgusted the people. While the central authority was thus weakened, the Philistines advanced against Israel, and gained a complete victory in the great battle of Ebenezer, where the ark was taken, and Hophni and Phinehas slain. On hearing the news Eli fell from his seat and died. In a passage not unlike the account of the birth of Benjamin (Gen. xxxv. 16 sqq.), it is added that the wife of Phinehas, overwhelmed at the loss of the ark and of her husband, died in child-birth, naming the babe Ichabod (1 Sam. iv. 19 sqq.). This name, which popular etymology explained by the words "the glory is removed (or, stronger, 'banished') from Israel" (cf. Hos. x. 5), should perhaps be altered from _I-kabod_ (as though "not glory") to Jochebed (_Yokebed_, a slight change in the original), the name which tradition also gave to the mother of Moses (q.v.). After these events the sanctuary of Shiloh appears to have been destroyed (cf. Jer. vii. 12, xxvi. 6, 9), and the descendants of Eli with the whole of their clan or "father's house" subsequently appear as settled at Nob (1 Sam. xxi. 1, xxii. 11 sqq., cp. xiv. 3), perhaps in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem (Is. x. 32). In the massacre of the clan by Saul, and the subsequent substitution of the survivor Abiathar by Zadok (1 Kings ii. 27, 35), later writers saw the fulfilment of the prophecies of judgment which was said to have been uttered in the days of Eli against his corrupt house (1 Sam. ii. 27 sqq., iii. 11 sqq.).[1]

See further, SAMUEL, BOOKS OF; and on Eli as a descendant of a Levite
clan (1 Sam. ii 27 sq.), see LEVITES (S 3). (W. R. S.; S. A. C.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] On the old views relating to the succession of the priests,
according to which the high-priesthood was diverted from the line of
Eleazar and Phinehas into that of Ithamar, see Robertson Smith, _Old
Test. in Jewish Church_, 2nd ed., p. 266.

ELIAS, of Cortona (c. 1180-1253), disciple of St Francis of Assisi, was born near Assisi, about 1180, of the working class, but became schoolmaster at Assisi and then notary at Bologna. In 1217 he was the head of the Franciscan mission to the Holy Land, and in 1219 St Francis made him first provincial minister of Syria. When St Francis was recalled from the East in 1220 he brought Elias with him. Elias played a leading part in the early history of the Franciscan order (see FRANCISCANS); Francis made him his vicar general in 1221; and he was the practical acting superior of the order till Francis' death in 1226, and the real superior till the general chapter of 1227. This chapter did not elect him minister general, but that of 1232 did; at the chapter of 1239 he was deposed. During these years he erected the basilica and monastery at Assisi which were entirely his creation--he collected the funds and carried the work through, being himself the builder and even the architect. Elias was a man of extraordinary ability, the friend both of Gregory IX. and of his opponent Frederick II. After his deposition Elias joined the party of the emperor and so incurred excommunication. Frederick sent him as ambassador to Constantinople. He dressed and lived as a Franciscan throughout and a small number of friars adhered to him; for these he built a church and monastery at Cortona. Unavailing efforts were made to bring about his reconciliation with the order and the Church; at last on his death-bed he made his submission to the pope and died in 1253, having received the Sacraments.

The best account of Elias is that by Ed. Lempp, _Frere Elie de
Cortone_ (1901), who points out the conflict of view, as to the
relations between Elias and Francis, between the _Speculum
perfectionis_ and the _First Life_, by Thomas of Celano; Lempp and
Sabatier accept the hostile picture given by the _Speculum
perfectionis_. But see further FRANCIS OF ASSISI, SAINT, "Note on
Sources," and especially the articles by Goetz, there referred to, in
the _Hist. Vierteljahrsschrift._ There is a good article on Elias, but
written before the new materials had been produced, in Wetzer und
Welte, _Kirchenlexicon_ (ed. 2). (E. C. B.)

ELIAS, JOHN (1774-1841), Welsh Nonconformist preacher and reformer, was born on the 2nd of May 1774, in the parish of Abererch, Carnarvonshire. In his youth he came under the influence of the Calvinistic Methodist revival and became a preacher at nineteen. In 1799 he married and settled at Llanfechell in Anglesey, giving up his trade as a weaver to become a small shopkeeper. His fame as a preacher increased, and under the direction of Thomas Charles of Bala he established numerous Sunday schools, and gave and secured considerable Welsh support to the founding of the London Missionary Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Religious Tract Society. On Charles's death in 1814 he became the recognized leader of the Calvinistic Methodist Church, and the story of his life is simply a record of marvellously successful preaching tours. He died on the 8th of June 1841; ten thousand people attended his funeral.

His eloquence was so remarkable that he was known as "the Welsh Demosthenes." His strength lay in his intense conviction of an intimate connexion between sin and punishment and in his power of dramatic presentation. As an ecclesiastic he was not so successful; he helped to compile his church's Confession of Faith in 1823, and laid great stress on a clause which limited the scope of the atonement to the elect. He was a stout Tory in politics and had many friends among the Anglican clergy; he opposed the movement for Roman Catholic emancipation. Several of his sermons were published in Welsh.

ELIAS LEVITA (1469-1549), Jewish grammarian, was born at Neustadt on the Aisch, a place in Bavaria lying between Nuremberg and Wurzburg. He preferred to call himself "Ashkenazi," the German, and bore also the nickname of "Bachur," the youth or student, which latter he gave as title to his Hebrew grammar. Before the end of the 15th century he went to Italy, which thenceforth remained his home. He lived first at Padua, went in 1509, after the capture of this town by the army of the League of Cambrai, to Venice, and finally in 1513 to Rome, where he found a patron in the learned general of the Augustinian Order, the future cardinal Egidio di Viterbo, whom he helped in his study of the Kabbalah, while he himself was inspired by him to literary work. The storming of Rome by the army of the Constable de Bourbon in 1527 compelled Elias to go to Venice, where he was employed as corrector in the printing-house of Daniel Bomberg. In the years 1541 and 1542 he lived at Isny, in Southern Wurttemberg, where he published several of his writings in the printing-house of the learned pastor Paul Fagius. The last years of his life he spent at Venice, continuously active in spite of ill-health and the weakness of old age. His monument in the graveyard of the Jewish community at Venice boasts of him that "he illuminated the darkness of grammar and turned it into light." The importance of Levita rests both in his numerous writings and in his personal activity. In the remarkable period which saw the rise of the Reformation and gave to the study of the Hebrew Bible and to its language an importance in the history of the world, it was Levita who furthered in an extraordinary manner the study of Hebrew in Christian circles by his activity as a teacher and by his writings. To his pupils especially belong Sebastian Minoter, who translated Levita's grammatical works into Latin, also George de Selve, bishop of Lavaur, the French ambassador in Venice (1536), who was instrumental in obtaining for Levita an invitation from Francis I. to come to Paris, which invitation, however, Levita did not accept. Levita's writings on Hebrew grammar (_Bachur_, a text-book, 1518; _Harkaba_, an explanation, alphabetically arranged, of irregular word-forms; a Table of Paradigms; _Pirke Elijahu_, a description--partly metrical--of phonetics, and other chapters of the grammar, 1520; his earliest work, a Commentary on Moses Kimhi's Hebrew Grammar, 1508) were by reason of their methodical exposition, their clear articulation, their avoidance of prolixity, especially suited as an introduction to the study of the Hebrew language. Amongst Levita's other writings is the first dictionary of the Targumim (_Meturgeman_, 1541) and the first attempt at a lexicon in which much of the treasure of late Hebrew language was explained (_Tishbi_, explanation of 712 new Hebrew vocables, as a supplement to the dictionaries of David Kimhi and Nathan b. Yehiel, 1542). Scientifically most valuable, and of original importance, are the works of Levita on the _Massora_; his Concordance to the Massora (_Sefer Zikhronot_ completed in the second revision 1536), of which hitherto only a small part has been published, and especially his most celebrated book _Massoreth Hamasoreth_ (1538), published with English translation by Chr. D. Ginsburg, London, 1867. This was the first attempt to give a systematic account of the contents and history of the Massora. By his criticism of the Massora, and especially by proving that the punctuation of the books of the Hebrew Bible is of late origin, Levita exercised an epoch-making influence. Of his other writings may be mentioned his running commentary on David Kimhi's Grammar and Dictionary (in the Bomberg editions 1545, 1546), his German translation of the Psalms (1545) and the _Baba-Buch_ (more properly _Buovobuch_, a German recension of the Italian novel _Historia di Buovo d' Antona_, 1508).

Of the literature on Levita may be mentioned: Y. Levi, _Elia Levita
und seine Leistungen als Grammatiker_ (Breslau, 1888); W. Bacher, "E.
Levita's wissenschaftliche Leistungen" in _Z. d. D. M. G._ xliii.
(1889), p. 206-272. (W. Ba.)

ELIE, a village and watering-place of Fifeshire, Scotland, on the shore of the Firth of Forth. Pop. 687. It is 10 m. due S. of St Andrews, but 20 m. distant by the North British railway, which makes a great bend by following the coast. Though it retains some old houses, and the parish church dates from 1639, Elie is, as a whole, quite modern and is one of the most popular resorts in the county on account of its fine golf links and excellent bathing. The royal burgh of Earlsferry (pop. 317) is situated in the parish of Elie, which it adjoins on the west. Its charter, granted by Malcolm Canmore, having been burned, it was renewed by James VI. The chief structure is the town hall, which is modern but has an ancient steeple. The place derived its name from its use by the earls of Fife as a ferry to the opposite shore of Haddington, 8 m. distant. Macduff's cave near Kincraig Point is believed traditionally to have been that in which the thane took refuge from Macbeth. Two and a half miles north is Balcarres House, belonging to the earl of Crawford, where Lady Anne Barnard (1750-1825) was born.

ELIE DE BEAUMONT, JEAN BAPTISTE ARMAND LOUIS LEONCE (1798-1874), French geologist, was born at Canon, in Calvados, on the 25th of September 1798. He was educated at the Lycee Henri IV. where he took the first prize in mathematics and physics; at the Ecole Polytechnique, where he stood first at the exit examination in 1819; and at the Ecole des Mines (1819-1822), where he began to show a decided preference for the science with which his name is associated. In 1823 he was selected along with Dufrenoy by Brochant de Villiers, the professor of geology in the Ecole des Mines, to accompany him on a scientific tour to England and Scotland, in order to inspect the mining and metallurgical establishments of the country, and to study the principles on which Greenough's geological map of England (1820) had been prepared, with a view to the construction of a similar map of France. In 1835 he was appointed professor of geology at the Ecole des Mines, in succession to Brochant de Villiers, whose assistant he had been in the duties of the chair since 1827. He held the office of engineer-in-chief of mines in France from 1833 until 1847, when he was appointed inspector-general; and in 1861 he became vice-president of the Conseil-General des Mines and a grand officer of the Legion of Honour. His growing scientific reputation secured his election to the membership of the Academy of Berlin, of the Academy of Sciences of France and of the Royal Society of London. By a decree of the president he was made a senator of France in 1852, and on the death of Arago (1853) he was chosen perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences. Elie de Beaumont's name is widely known to geologists in connexion with his theory of the origin of mountain ranges, first propounded in a paper read to the Academy of Sciences in 1829, and afterwards elaborated in his _Notice sur le systeme des montagnes_ (3 vols., 1852). According to his view, all mountain ranges parallel to the same great circle of the earth are of strictly contemporaneous origin, and between the great circles a relation of symmetry exists in the form of a pentagonal _reseau_. An elaborate statement and criticism of the theory was given in his anniversary address to the Geological Society of London in 1853 by William Hopkins (_Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc_.). The theory has not found general acceptance, but it proved of great value to geological science, owing to the extensive additions to the knowledge of the structure of mountain ranges which its author made in endeavouring to find facts to support it. Probably, however, the best service Elie de Beaumont rendered to science was in connexion with the geological map of France, in the preparation of which he had the leading share. During this period Elie de Beaumont published many important memoirs on the geology of the country. After his superannuation at the Ecole des Mines he continued to superintend the issue of the detailed maps almost until his death, which occurred at Canon on the 21st of September 1874. His academic lectures for 1843-1844 were published in 2 vols., 1845-1849, under the title _Lecons de geologie pratique_.

A list of his works was published in the _Ann. des Mines_, vol. vii.
1875. P. 259.

ELIJAH (a Hebrew name meaning "Yah[weh] is God"), in the Bible, the greatest and sternest of the Hebrew prophets, makes his appearance in the narrative of the Old Testament with an abruptness not out of keeping with his character and work (1 Kings xvii. 1).[1] The first and most important part of his career lay in the reign of Ahab, i.e. during the first half of the 9th century B.C. He is introduced as predicting the drought[2] God was to send upon Israel as a punishment for the apostasy into which Ahab had been led by his heathen wife Jezebel. During the first portion of this period Elijah found a refuge by the brook Cherith, "before the Jordan." This description leaves it uncertain whether the brook was to the east of Jordan in Elijah's native Gilead, or--less probably--to the west in Samaria. Here he drank of the brook and was fed by ravens, who night and morning brought him bread and flesh.[3] When this had dried up, the prophet betook himself to Zarephath, a Phoenician town near Sidon. At the gate of the town he met the widow to whom he had been sent, gathering sticks for the preparation of what she believed was to be her last meal. She received the prophet with hospitality, sharing with him her all but exhausted store, in faith of his promise in the name of the God of Israel that the supply would not fail so long as the drought lasted. During this period her son died and was miraculously restored to life in answer to the prayers of the prophet (1 Kings xvii. 8-24).

Elijah emerged from his retirement in the third year, when, the famine having reached its worst, Ahab and his minister Obadiah had themselves to search the land for provender for the royal stables. To the latter Elijah suddenly appeared, and announced his intention of showing himself to Ahab. The king met Elijah with the reproach that he was "the troubler of Israel," which the prophet boldly flung back upon him who had forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baalim.[4] The retort was accompanied by a challenge--or rather a command--to the king to assemble on Mount Carmel "all Israel" and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. (The four hundred prophets of Asherah have been added later.) From the allusion to an "altar of Jehovah that was broken down" (1 Kings xviii. 30) it has been inferred that Carmel was an ancient sacred place. (On Mount Carmel and Elijah's connexion with it in history and tradition see CARMEL.)

The scene on Carmel is perhaps the grandest in the life of Elijah, or indeed in the whole of the Old Testament. As a typical embodiment for all time of the conflict between superstition and true religion, it is lifted out of the range of mere individual biography into that of spiritual symbolism, and it has accordingly furnished at once a fruitful theme for the religious teacher and a lofty inspiration for the artist. The false prophets were allowed to invoke their god in whatever manner they pleased. The only interruption came in the mocking encouragement of Elijah (1 Kings xviii. 27), a rare instance of grim sarcastic humour occurring in the Bible. Its effect upon the false prophets was to increase their frenzy. The evening came,[5] and the god had made no sign. Elijah now stepped forward with the quiet confidence and dignity that became the prophet and representative of the true God. All Israel is represented symbolically in the twelve stones with which he built the altar; and the water which he poured upon the sacrifice and into the surrounding trench was apparently designed to prevent the suspicion of fraud! In striking contrast to the "vain repetitions" of the false prophets are the simple words with which Elijah makes his prayer to Yahweh. Once only, with the calm assurance of one who knew that his prayer would be answered, he invokes the God of his fathers. The answer comes at once: "The fire of the Lord (Gen. xix. 24, Lev. x. 2) fell and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench." So convincing a sign was irresistible; all the people fell on their faces and acknowledged Yahweh as the true God. This was immediately followed by the destruction of the false prophets, slain by Elijah beside the brook Kishon (xviii. 40). The deed, though not without parallel in the Old Testament history, stamps the peculiarly vindictive character of Elijah's prophetic mission.[6]

On the evening of the day that had witnessed the decisive contest, Elijah proceeded once more to the top of Carmel, and there, with "his face between his knees" (possibly engaged in the prayer referred to in James v. 17 sq.), waited for the long-looked-for blessing. His servant, sent repeatedly to search the sky for signs, returned the seventh time reporting a little cloud arising out of the sea "like a man's hand." The sky was speedily full of clouds and a great rain was falling when Ahab, to escape the storm, set out in his chariot for Jezreel. As a proof of Elijah's supernatural power, it is stated that the prophet, for some unknown object, ran before the chariot to the entrance of Jezreel, a distance of at least 16 m. On being told what had taken place, Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah with a vow that ere another day had passed his life would be even as the lives of the prophets of Baal, and the threat was enough to cause him to take to instant flight (xix. 1-3; cp. LXX. in v. 2). The first stage of the journey was to Beersheba, on the southern limits of Judah. Here he left his servant (according to old Jewish tradition, the widow's son of Zarephath, afterwards the prophet Jonah), and proceeded a day's journey into the wilderness. Resting under a solitary broom bush (a kind of _genista_), he gave vent to his disappointment in a prayer for death. By another of those many miraculous interpositions which occur in his history he was twice supplied with food and drink, in the strength of which he journeyed forty days and forty nights until he came to Horeb, where he lodged in a cave.[7] A hole "just large enough for a man's body" (Stanley), immediately below the summit of Jebel Musa, is still pointed out by tradition as the cave of Elijah.

If the scene on Carmel is the grandest, that on Horeb is spiritually the most profound in the story of Elijah (xix. 9 sqq.). Not in the strong wind that brake the rocks in pieces, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the still small voice that followed the Lord made himself known. A threefold commission was laid upon him: he was to return to Damascus and anoint Hazael king of Syria; he was to anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi, as king of Israel in place of Ahab; and as his own successor in the prophetic office he was to anoint Elisha (xix. 15-18).[8]

Leaving Horeb and proceeding northwards along the desert route to Damascus, Elijah met Elisha engaged at the plough probably near his native place, Abel-meholah, in the valley of the Jordan, and by the symbolical act of casting his mantle upon him, consecrated him to the prophetic office. This was the only command of the three which he fulfilled in person; the other two were carried out by his successor.[9] After the call of Elisha the narrative contains no notice of Elijah for several years, although the LXX., by placing 1 Kings xxi. before ch. xx., proceeds at once to the tragic story of Naboth's vineyard (see JEZEBEL). He is now the champion of freedom and purity of life, like Nathan when he confronted David for the murder of Uriah. Without any indication of whence or how he came, he again appeared, as usual with startling abruptness, in the vineyard when Ahab entered to take possession of it, and pronounced upon the king and his house that awful doom (1 Kings xxi. 17-24) which, though deferred for a time, was ultimately fulfilled to the letter (see JEHU).

With one more denunciation of the house of Ahab, Elijah's function as a messenger of wrath was fully discharged (2 Kings i.). When Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, having injured himself by falling through a lattice, sent to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether he should recover, the prophet was commanded to appear to the messengers and tell them that, for this resort to a false god, the king should die. The effect of his appearance was such that they turned back without attempting to fulfil their errand. Ahaziah despatched a captain with a band of fifty to arrest him. They came upon Elijah seated on "the mount,"--probably Carmel. The imperious terms in which he was summoned to come down were punished by fire from heaven, which descended at the bidding of Elijah and consumed the whole land. A second captain and fifty were despatched, behaved in a similar way, and met the same fate. The leader of a third troop took a humbler tone, sued for mercy, and obtained it. Elijah then went with them to the king, but only to repeat before his face the doom he had already made known to his messengers, which was almost immediately afterwards fulfilled. The spirit, even the style of this narrative, points unmistakably to its being of late origin. It shocks the moral sense with its sanguinary character more than, perhaps, any other Old Testament story.

The only mention of Elijah's name in the book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles xxi. 12-15) is where he is represented as sending a letter of rebuke and denunciation to Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. The chronological difficulties which are involved suggest that the floating traditions of this great personality were easily attached to well-known names whether strictly contemporary or not. It was before the death of Jehoshaphat that the last grand scene in Elijah's life occurred (2 Kings ii., see iii. 1). He had taken up his residence with Elisha at one of the prophetic guilds at Gilgal. His approaching end seems to have been known to the guilds at Bethel and Jericho, both of which they visited in their last journey. At the Jordan, Elijah, wrapping his prophet's mantle together, smote the water with it, and so by a last miracle passed over on dry ground. When they had crossed the master desired the disciple to ask some parting blessing. The request for a double portion (i.e. probably a first-born's portion, Deut. xxi. 17)[10] of the prophet's spirit Elijah characterized as a hard thing; but he promised to grant it if Elisha should see him when he was taken away. The end is told in words of simple sublimity: "And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kings ii. 11). It is scarcely necessary to point out, however, that through the figure the narrative evidently means to convey as fact that Elijah passed from earth, not by the gates of death, but by miraculous translation. Such a supernatural close is in perfect harmony with a career into every stage of which the supernatural enters as an essential feature. For whatever explanation may be offered of the miraculous element in Elijah's life, it must obviously be one that accounts not for a few miraculous incidents only, which might be mere excrescences, but for a series of miraculous events so closely connected and so continuous as to form the main thread of the history.

Elijah occupied an altogether peculiar place in later Jewish history
and tradition. For the general belief that he should return for the
restoration of Israel cf. Mal. iv. 5-6; Matt. xi. 14, xvi. 14; Luke
ix. 8; John i. 21, and on the development of the thought see Bousset,
_Antichrist_, s.v., and the _Jewish Encyc_. vol. v. p. 126. In
Mahommedan tradition Elijah is the everlasting youthful el-Khidr or
el-Khadir.

Elijah is canonized both in the Greek and in the Latin Churches, his
festival being kept in both on the 20th July--the date of his
ascension in the nineteenth year of Jehoshaphat, according to
Cornelius a Lapide. The natural and most reliable estimate of the
career of Elijah is that which is based upon a critical examination of
the narratives; see, in addition to Robertson Smith, _Prophets of
Israel_(^2), pp. 75 sqq., Cheyne, _Hallowing of Criticism_, the
articles by Addis in _Encyc. Bib_., and J. Strachan, Hastings' _Dict.
Bib_., H. Gunkel, _Elias, Yahve u. Baal_ (Tubingen, 1906), the
literature to KINGS, BOOKS OF, and the histories referred to in JEWS.
There is difference of opinion as to the historical importance of both
Elijah and Elisha; for a useful summary of views, as also for fuller
bibliographical information, see W.R. Harper, _Amos and Hosea_
(_Internat. Crit. Comm._), pp. xxxiv.-xlix., and article HEBREW
RELIGION. (W. R. S.; S. A. C.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The text is uncertain. According to the LXX., he was a native of
Tishbeh in Gilead; a more natural reading. Klostermann's conjecture
that the original name of his home was Jabesh-Gilead is attractive
but unnecessary. His appearance in the narrative, like Melchizedek,
"without father, without mother" (Heb. vii. 3), gave rise to various
rabbinical traditions, such as that he was Phinehas, the grandson of
Aaron, returned to earth, or that he was an angel in human form.

[2] Its duration is vaguely stated; from Luke iv. 25, James v. 17, we
learn that it lasted three years and a half; but according to
Phoenician tradition (Jos. _Ant_. viii. 13. 2) only one year.

[3] The rationalistic view that the word translated "ravens" should
be "Arabians" is improbable. Cheyne's suggestion that the unknown
brook Cherith should be placed to the south of Judah agrees with
Josephus (_Ant_. viii. 13. 2, "he departed into the southern parts")
and with 1 Kings xix. 3, 8; "Jordan" may refer to another river, if
it be not a gloss; see Cheyne, _Ency. Bib_., s.v. "Cherith."

[4] The sudden introduction of Elijah in xvii. 1 may be accounted for
by the supposition that the commencement of the narrative had been
omitted by the editor of xvi. 29 sqq. Hence we are not told the cause
of Ahab's hostility towards Elijah, nor is the allusion to Jezebel's
massacre of the prophets (xviii. 3, 13) explained. It would appear
from Obadiah's words in ver. 9 that he himself was in fear of his
life. Later tradition supposed he was the captain of 2 Kings i. 13,
or that the widow of 2 Kings iv. 1 had been his wife.

[5] The definition of time by the stated oblation (xviii. 29, 36) is
very noteworthy (cp. 2 Kings iii. 20).

[6] It is obvious that a purely rationalistic interpretation of the
great sign whereby Jahweh manifested himself would be out of place.
But there is an interesting parallel in the legend of the kindling of
the sacred fire and the igniting of the "thick water" in the time of
Nehemiah (2 Macc. i. 18-36). Elsewhere, there were sacred fires
kindled by the aid of magical invocations (e.g. Hypaepa, Pausanias v.
27. 3).

[7] Yahweh is here supposed to have his seat on the ancient mountain.
"It was the God of the Exodus to whom he appealed, the ancient King
of Israel in the journeyings through the wilderness." For the cave,
cp. Ex. xxxiii. 22.

[8] The theophany is clearly no rebuke to an impatient prophet, nor a
lesson that the kingdom of heaven was to be built up by the slow and
gentle operation of spiritual forces. It expresses the spirituality
of Yahweh in a way that indicates a marked advance in the conception
of his nature. See Skinner, _Century Bible_, "Kings," _ad loc_.

[9] The geographical indications imply that in one account the
journey to Damascus and the anointing of Hazael and Jehu must have
intervened, and were omitted because another account ascribed these
acts to Elisha (2 Kings viii. ix.). In the latter we possess a more
historical account of the anointing of Jehu, and Robertson Smith
observes: "When the history in 1 Kings represents Elijah as
personally commissioned to inaugurate [the revolution] by anointing
Jehu and Hazael as well as Elisha, we see that the author's design is
to gather up the whole contest between Yahweh and Baal in an ideal
picture of Elijah and his work" (_Ency. Brit_. (9) art. Kings, vol.
xiv. p. 85).

[10] Understood in Eccles. xlviii. 12 (Heb.) to mean that Elisha was
_twice as great_ as Elijah.

ELIJAH WILNA, or ELIJAH BEN SOLOMON, best known as the GAON ELIJAH OF WILNA (1720-1797), a noted Talmudist who hovered between the new and the old schools of thought. Orthodox in practice and feeling, his critical treatment of the rabbinic literature prepared the way for the scientific investigations of the 19th century. As a teacher he was one of the first to discriminate between the various strata in rabbinic records; to him was due the revival of interest in the older Midrash (q.v.) and in the Palestinian Talmud (q.v.), interest in which had been weak for some centuries before his time. He was an ascetic, and was a keen opponent of the emotional mysticism which was known as the new Hassidism.

See S. Schechter's _Studies in Judaism_ (London, 1896). His voluminous
writings are classified in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_, v. 134.
(I. A.)

ELIOT, CHARLES WILLIAM (1834- ), American educationalist, the son of Samuel Atkins Eliot (1798-1862), mayor of Boston, representative in Congress, and in 1842-1853 treasurer of Harvard, was born in Boston on the 20th of March 1834. He graduated in 1853 at Harvard College, where he was successively tutor (1854-1858) and assistant professor of chemistry (1858-1863). He studied chemistry and foreign educational methods in Europe in 1863-1865, was professor of analytical chemistry in the newly established Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1865-1869), although absent fourteen months in Europe in 1867-1868; and in 1869 was elected president of Harvard University, a choice remarkable at once for his youth and his being a layman and scientist. With Johns Hopkins University, Harvard, in his presidency, led in the work of efficient graduate schools. Its elective system, which has spread far, although not originated by President Eliot, was thoroughly established by him, and is only one of many radical changes which he championed with great success. The raising of entrance requirements, which led to a corresponding raising of the standards of secondary schools, and the introduction of an element of choice in these entrance requirements, which allowed a limited election of studies to secondary pupils, became national tendencies primarily through President Eliot's potent influence. As chairman of a national Committee of Ten (1890) on secondary school studies, he urged the abandonment of brief disconnected "information" courses, the correlation of subjects taught, the equal rank in college requirements of subjects in which equal time, consecutiveness and concentration were demanded, and a more thorough study of English composition; and to a large degree he secured national sanction for these reforms and their working out by experts into a practicable and applicable system. He laboured to unify the entire educational system, minimize prescription, cast out monotony, and introduce freedom and enthusiasm; and he emphasized the need of special training for special work. He was first to suggest (1894) co-operation by colleges in holding common entrance examinations throughout the country, and it was largely through his efforts that standards were so approximated that this became possible. He contended that secondary schools maintained by public funds should shape their courses for the benefit of students whose education goes no further than such high schools, and not be mere training schools for the universities. His success as administrator and man of affairs and as an educational reformer made him one of the great figures of his time, in whose opinions on any topic the deepest interest was felt throughout the country. In November 1908 he resigned the presidency of Harvard, and retired from the position early in 1909, when he was succeeded by Professor Abbott Lawrence Lowell. In December 1908 he was elected president of the National Civil Service Reform League.

His writings include _The Happy Life_ (1896); _Five American Contributions to Civilization, and Other Essays and Addresses_ (1897); _Educational Reform, Essays and Addresses 1869-1897_ (1898); _More Money for the Public Schools_ (1903); _Four American Leaders_ (1906), chapters on Franklin, Washington, Channing and Emerson; _University Administration_ (1908); and with F.H. Storer, a _Compendious Manual of Qualitative Chemical Analysis_ (Boston, 1869; many times reissued and revised). His annual reports as President of Harvard were notable contributions to the literature of education in America, and he delivered numerous public addresses, many of which have been reprinted.

See "President Eliot's Administration," by different hands, a summary
of his work at Harvard in 1869-1894, in _The Harvard Graduates'
Magazine_, vol. 2, pp. 449-504 (Boston, Mass., 1894); and E.
Kuhnemann, _Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard_ (Boston, 1909).

His son, CHARLES ELIOT (1859-1897), graduated at Harvard in 1882, studied landscape architecture at the Bussey Institution of Harvard and in Europe, successfully urged the incorporation of the Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservations (1891) and of the Metropolitan Park Commission (1892) of Boston, became landscape architect to the Metropolitan Park Commission in 1892, and in 1893, with F.L. Olmsted and J.C. Olmsted, formed the firm of Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot, which was employed by the Metropolitan Commission. His life was written by his father, _Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect_ (Boston, 1902).

ELIOT, GEORGE, the pen-name of the famous English writer, _nee_ Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans (1819-1880), afterwards Mrs J.W. Cross, born at Arbury Farm, in Warwickshire, on the 22nd of November 1819. Her father, Robert Evans, was the agent of Mr Francis Newdigate, and the first twenty-one years of the great novelist's life were spent on the Arbury estate. She received an ordinary education at respectable schools till the age of seventeen, when her mother's death, and the marriage of her elder sister, called her home in the character of housekeeper. This, though it must have sharpened her sense, already too acute, of responsibility, was an immense advantage to her mind, and, later, to her career, for, delivered from the tiresome routine of lessons and class-work, she was able to work without pedantic interruptions at German, Italian and music, and to follow her unusually good taste in reading. The life, inasmuch as she was a girl still in her teens, was no doubt monotonous, even unhappy. Just as Cardinal Newman felt, with such different results, the sadness and chain of evangelical influences from his boyhood till the end of his days, so Marian Evans was subdued all through her youth by a severe religious training which, while it pinched her mind and crushed her spirit, attracted her idealism by the very hardness of its perfect counsels. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that when Mr Evans moved to Coventry in 1841, and so enlarged the circle of their acquaintance, she became much interested in some new friends, Mr and Mrs Charles Bray and Mr Charles Hennell. Mr Bray had literary taste and wrote works on the _Education of the Feelings_, the _Philosophy of Necessity_, and the like. Mr Hennell had published in 1838 _An Enquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity_. Miss Evans, then twenty-two, absorbed immediately these unexpected, and, at that time, daring habits of thought. So compelling was the atmosphere that it led to a complete change in her opinions. Kind in her affection, she was relentless in argument. She refused to go to church (for some time, at least), wrote painful letters to a former governess--the pious Miss Lewis--and barely avoided an irremediable quarrel with her father, a churchman of the old school. Here was rebellion indeed. But rebels come, for the most part, from the provinces where petty tyranny, exercised by small souls, show the scheme of the universe on the meanest possible scale. George Eliot was never orthodox again; she abandoned, with fierce determination, every creed, and although she passed, later, through various phases, she remained incessantly a rationalist in matters of faith and in all other matters. It is nevertheless true that she wrote admirably about religion and religious persons. She had learnt the evangelical point of view; she knew--none better--the strength of religious motives; vulgar doubts of this fact were as distasteful to her as they were to another eminent writer, to whom she refers in one of her letters (dated 1853) as "a Mr Huxley, who was the centre of interest" at some "agreeable evening." Her books abound in tributes to Christian virtue, and one of her own favourite characters was Dinah Morris in _Adam Bede_.

She undertook, about the beginning of 1844, the translation of Strauss's _Leben Jesu_. This work, published in 1846, was considered scholarly, but it met, in the nature of things, with no popular success. On the death of Mr Evans in 1849, she went abroad for some time, and we hear of no more literary ventures till 1851, when she accepted the assistant-editorship of the _Westminster Review_. For a while she had lodgings at the offices of that publication in the Strand, London. She wrote several notable papers, and became acquainted with many distinguished authors of that period--among them Herbert Spencer, Carlyle, Harriet Martineau, Francis Newman and George Henry Lewes. Her friendship with the last-named led to a closer relationship which she regarded as a marriage. Among the many criticisms passed upon this step (in view of the fact, among other considerations, that Lewes had a wife living at the time), no one has denied her courage in defying the law, or questioned the quality of her tact in a singularly false position. That she felt the deepest affection for Lewes is evident; that we owe the development of her genius to his influence and constant sympathy is all but certain. Yet it is also sure that what she gained from his intimate companionship was heavily paid for in the unceasing consciousness that most people thought her guilty of a grave mistake, and found her written words, with their endorsement of traditional morality, wholly at variance with the circumstances of her private life. Doubts of her suffering in this respect will be at once dismissed after a study of her journal and letters. Stilted and unnatural as these are to a tragic degree, one can read well enough between the lines, and also in the elaborate dedication of each manuscript to "my husband" (in terms of the strongest love), that self-repression, coupled with audacity, does not make for peace. Her sensitiveness to criticism was extreme; a flippant paragraph or an illiterate review with regard to her work actually affected her for days. The whole history of her union with Lewes is a complete illustration of the force of sheer will--in that case partly her own and not inconsiderably his--over a nature essentially unfitted for a bold stand against attacks. At first she and the man whom she had described "as a sort of miniature Mirabeau in appearance," went abroad to Weimar and Berlin, but they returned to England the same year and settled, after several moves, in lodgings at East Sheen.

In 1854 she published _The Essence of Christianity_, a translation from Feuerbach, a philosopher to whom she had been introduced by Charles Bray. During 1855 she translated Spinoza's _Ethics_, wrote articles for the _Leader_, the _Westminster Review_, and the _Saturday Review_--then a new thing. It was not until the following year that she attempted the writing of fiction, and produced _The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton_--the first of the _Scenes of Clerical Life_. These, published in _Blackwood's Magazine_, were issued in two volumes in 1858. The press in general extended a languid welcome to this work, and although the author received much encouragement from private sources, notably from Charles Dickens, the critics were mostly non-committal, and it was not until the publication of _Adam Bede_ in 1859 that enthusiasm was attracted to the quality of the earlier production. _Adam Bede_, in the judgment of many George Eliot's masterpiece, met with a success (in her own words) "triumphantly beyond anything she had dreamed of." In 1860 appeared _The Mill on the Floss_. After the sensational good fortune of _Adam Bede_, the criticism applied to the new novel seems to have been disappointing. We find Miss Evans telling her publisher that "she does not wish to see any newspaper articles." But the book made its way, and prepared an ever-growing army of readers for _Silas Marner_ (1861), _Romola_ (1862-1863), and _Felix Holt_ (1866).