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urity of the faith held among those first adherents to Christianity ,'or this reason, Origen distinguishes two kinds of Ebionitcs, in hisanswer to Celsus: the one believed that Jesus Christ was born ofa virgin: and the other, that he was born after the manner of othermen. The first was orthodox in every thing, except that to theChristian doctrine they joined the ceremonies of the Jewish law,with the Jews, Samaritans , and Nazarenes; together with the tra-ditions of the Pharisees . They differed from the Nazarenes,chiefly as to what regards the authority of tile sacred writings ; forthe: Nazarenes received all for scripture contained in the Jewish canon ; w hereas the Ebionites rejected all the prophets, and heldthe very names of David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Eze-kiel , in abhorrence. They also rejected all St. Paul’s epistles,whom they treated with the utmost disrespect. They receivednothing of the Old Testament but the Pentateuch ; which shouldintimate them to have descended rather from the Samaritans thanfrom the Jews . They agreed with the Nazarenes in using the He-brew gospels of St. Matthew , otherwise called the Gospel of theTwelve Apostles; but they' had corrupted their copy in manyplaces; and particularly, had left out the genealogy of our Saviour,which was preserved entire in that of the Nazarenes, and even inthose used by the Cerinthians.

EBONY, an exceedingly hard and heavy kind of wood, sus-ceptible of a very fine polish, and on that account used in mosaicand inlaid works, toys, &c. There are divers kinds of ebony : themost usual among us are black, red, and green, all produced inthe island of Madagascar, where the natives call them indifferentlyhazon mainthi, q. d. black wood. The island of St. Mauricelikewise furnishes part of the ebonies used in Europe . Authorsand travellers give very different accounts of the tree that yieldsthe black ebony. By some of their descriptions it seems to he asort of palm-tree ; by others, a cylisus, &c. The most authenticis that of M. Flacourt, who resided many years in Madagascar asgovernor; he assures us, that it grows very high and big, its barkbeing black, and its leaves resembling those of our myrtle, or adeep, dusky, green colour. Tavernier assures us, that the islandersalways bury trees, when cut down, to make them the blacker, andto prevent their splitting when wrought. E. plunder mentionsanother black ebony tree, discovered by him at St. Domingo,which he calls “ spartium portulaca: folks aculeatum ebeni ma-teria. Pliny and Dioscorides say the best ebony comes fromEthiopia, and the worst from India ; but Theophrastus prefers theIndian. Black ebony is much preferred to that of other colours.The best is a jet black, free from veins and rind, very massive,astringent, and of an acrid pungent taste. Its rind, infused in wa-ter, is said to purge piUiitg, and cure venereal disorders; whenceMatthiolus took guaiacum for a sort of ebony. It yields an agree-able perfume when laid on burning coals: when green, it readilytakes fire from the abundance of its fat. If rubbed against a stone,it becomes brown. The Indians make statues of tiieir gods, andsceptres of their princes, of this wood. It was first brought toRome by Pompey , after he had subdued Mithridales. It is nowmuch less used among us than anciently; since the discovery ofso many ways of giving other hard woods a black colour. Thecabinet-makers, inlayers, &c. make pear-tree and other woods passfor ebony, by giving them a black colour, by a few washes of a hotdecoction of galls; and when dry, adding ink, and polishing themwith a stiff brush, and a little hot wax. Others burn their woodblack.

EBORACUM, in ancient geography, a famous city of the Bri-gades in Britain , now called York, which see.

EBRBUHARITES, a sect among the Mohammedans, so namedfrom their founder Ebrbuhar, a disciple of Narschibendi. They pro-fess great sanctity, with a total dereliction of all worldly things; yetare regarded by the other Mussulmans, as little better than here-tics, because they do not go in pilgrimage to Mecca . From thislabour they excuse themselves, by pretending that the purity oftheir souls, their sublime contemplations, ecstacies, &c. shewthem Mecca and Mohammed’s tomb without stirring from theircells.

EBREUIL, or EBREUILLE, a town of France , in the de-partment of Allier, 6 miles W. of Gannat .

EBRO, a large river of Spain , which rises in the mountains ofSantillane, on the confines of Old; Castile, and falls with great ra-pidity into the Mediterranean, about 20 miles below Tortosa . Itwas anciently called Iberus.

EBSTORE, a town of Germany, in Lower Saxony * 47 milesW. N. \V. of Ultzen.

EBULLITION, [ ebullitio , Lat.] the act of boiling up withheat; any intestine violent motion of the parts of a fluid.

EBUSUS , in ancient geography, the greater of the two islandscalled Pityiwte, in the Mediterranean, S. \V. of Majorca. Nowcalled Ivica, 100 miles in compass, without any noxious animals.

ECASTOR, or MECASTOR, in antiquity, an oath whereinCastor was invoked. It was a custom for men never to swear byCastor, nor the women by Pollux.

ECAYESSADE, in the manege, is used for a jerk of thecavesson.

EC BAT AN A, in ancient geography, the royal residence andcapital of Media, built by Deioces, king of the Medes, accord-ing to Herodotus: Pliny says, by Seleucus ; but that could nothe, because it is mentioned by Demosthenes . It was situated ona gentle declivity, twelve stadia from Mount Orontes, and was incompass 150 stadia. Here stood the royal treasury and tombs.It was an open unwalled town, but had a very strong citadel, en-compassed with seven walls, within and vising above each other.The extent of tiie utmost was equal to the whole extent of Athens,according to Herodotus ; the situation favouring this construc-tion, as being a gentle ascent, and each wall was of a differentcolour.

Ecbatana, another town of Persia, inhabited by the Magi.

ECCENTRICAL, or ECCENTRIC, [cmvuf/wjii,] 1 . Deviating from the centre. 2. Not having the same centre withanother circle : such circles were supposed by the Ptolemaic phi-losophy.

ECCENTRICITY of the Planets , the distance betweenthe sun and the centre of the orbit in which the planet moves. SeeAstronomy.

ECCHEELENSIS, Abraham , a learned Maronite, whomthe president Le Jai employed in the edition of the PolyglottBible. Gabriel Siomla, his countryman, drew him to Paris , tomake him his fellow-labourer in publishing that bible. They fellout: Gabriel complained to the parliament, and defamed hisassociate; their quarrel made a great noise. The congregationde propagaada fide associated him, in 163(3, with those whom theyemployed in making an Arabic translation of the scriptures. They'recalled him from Paris , and he laboured in that translation atRome, in 1652. While lie was professor of the Oriental languagesat Rome, he was pitched upon by the great duke Ferdinand 11,to translate from Arabic into Latin the 5th, 6th, and 7th of Apol-lonius ’s Conics ; in which he was assisted by John Alphonso Bo-relli, who added commentaries to them, lie died at Rome, in1664.

ECCIIYMOSIS, [from txxy*, to pour out, or from «£, out of,and juice,] an effusion of humours from their respective

vessels, under the integuments; or, as Patilus ,'Egincla savs,“ When the flesh is bruised by the violent collision of any object,anti its small veins broken, and the blood is gradually dischargedfrom them.” This blood, when collected under the skin, is call-ed an ecchymosis, the skin in the mean time remaining entire;sometimes a tumour is formed by it, which is soft and livid, andgenerally without pain. If the quantity of blood is not consider-able, it is usually resorbed ; if much, it suppurates : it rarelyhappens that any farther inconvenience loilows ; though in a very-bad habit of body, a mortification may be the result.

ECCLESFECHAN, a town of Scotland, in Dumfries-shire ,15 miles E. of Dumfries . It has a fair once a month.

ECCLESIIALL, a town in Staffordshire , 7 miles N. W r . ofStafford. Lon. 2. 9. W. Lat. 53. 2. N.

ECCLESIANI, or ECCLESIANS, in church history, atitle given by the adherents of the emperors, to those who adheredto the interest of the church, during the disputes between the em-perors ami popes.

ECCLESIASTES, a canonical book of the Old Testament ,the design of which is to shew the vanity of all sublunary things.It was composed by Solomon; who enumerates the several ob-jects on which men place their happiness, and then shews the in-sufficiency of all worldly enjoyments. The Talmudists makeking llezekiah to be the author of it: Grotius ascribes it to Zoro-babel, and others to Isaiah ; but the generality of commentatorsbelieve this book to be the produce of Solomon’s repentance,

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