hats and green ribands, closing the procession. Having arrived at the scaffold, a sermon is delivered full of encomiums upon the Inquisition, and of invectives against its victims, and in which the burning of heretics is invariably held forth as one of the highest acts of charity;* after which a priest, ascending a desk, first receives the abjuration of the penitents, and then reciting the final sentence of those who are to be committed to the flames, delivers them over to the civil magistrate, with the farcical request, not to touch their blood, nor put their lives in danger. They are then loaded with chains, and having been first hurried to the secular gaol, are taken before the civil judge, who inquires of them " in what religion they intend to die?" Such as return for answer that they die in the communion of the church of Rome, are first strangled, and afterwards burnt to ashes. All others are burnt alive. When those who persist in their heresy are fastened to the stake, the Jesuits load them with officious admonitions, and at length in parting from them, declare that they leave them to the devil, who is at their elbow to receive their souls, and carry them into the flames of hell. A great shout is instantly raised by the infatuated populace, who exclaim," Let the dogs' beards be made!" which consists in thrusting flaming furze against the faces of the victims, who, from the position in which they are placed, are slowly roasted to death. This spectacle is usually beheld by both sexes, and all ages, with the most barbarous demonstrations of joy and delight! See Article, Inquisition.

AUTOS SACRAMENTALES, a sort of pious farces performed in Spain in honour of the holy sacrament in broad day-light and in the open streets.

AVE-MARIA. These words, being those with which the angel Gabriel saluted the Virgin Mary, were added in the fourteenth century by Pope John XXII. to the form of prayer then in use, and have ever since been retained by the church of Rome.

Bingham observes that among all the short prayers used by the ancients before their sermons there is not the least mention of an Ave-Maria, and that its original cannot be carried higher than the beginning of the fifteenth century. Vincentius Ferrerius was the first ecclesiastic that used it before his sermons, from whose example it soon gained such authority as not only to be generally affixed to sermons, but to be joined to the Lord's prayer in the breviary.-Bing. Orig. Eccl. lib. xiv. c. 4, s. 15.

"Burn them for the love of charity," has been the substance of every sermon that ever was preached at a Roman Catholic Act of Faith, where a sermon has always been part of the ceremony.-Southey's Colloquies, as above.

AZARECHAH, a sect of Mahometan heretics, whose leader was Nafê Ben Azrach. They greatly increased in number under the empire of the Califs, and became so considerable as often to defeat the armies that were sent against them. They are said to have acknowledged no power on earth, temporal or spiritual, as lawful, and joined all other sects in their enmity and opposition to the orthodox Mahometans.

AZYMITES, from a non, and un, leaven, those who administer the eucharist with unleavened bread. The Latins always using fermented bread at the celebration of the eucharist, this appellation was given to them by the members of the Greek church. For the same reason the Armenians and Maronites were also called Azymites by the Latins.

The propriety of using leavened or unleavened bread in the celebration of this sacrament has been made a point of no little contest; each party in this, as well as in other matters of as small a moment, superstitiously making an indifferent thing a matter of conscience. Our Saviour, as remarked by Wheatly, doubtless used such bread as was ready at hand; and therefore this sacrament being instituted immediately after the celebration of the passover, at which they were neither to eat leavened bread, nor so much as to have any in their houses, upon pain of being cut off from Israel (Exod. xii. 15—19.), proves that Christ used that which was unleavened. He further however observes that this perhaps was only on account of the passover, when no other but unleavened bread could be used by the Jews; and that after his resurrection he probably celebrated (if he celebrated at all) in leavened bread, and such as was in common use at all times, except the time of the passover. And that the primitive church always used common bread appeared in that the aliments for the holy eucharist were always taken out of the people's oblations of bread and wine, which doubtless were such as they themselves used upon other occasions. But that when these oblations began to be left off, the clergy were forced to provide the aliments themselves, and they, under pretence of decency and respect, brought it from leavened to unleavened, and from a loaf of common bread that might be broken, to a nice wafer, formed in the figure of a denarius, or penny, to represent, as some imagine, the thirty pence for which our Saviour was sold. To prevent however all further occasion of dissension and superstition upon this point, the fifth rubric after the communion in our book of Common Prayer declares, that it shall suffice that the bread be such as is usual to be eaten; but the best and purest bread that conveniently may be gotten.-See Wheatly on the Common Prayer, ch. vi. s. 30.

It has been judiciously remarked by Korneck, in his Full Account of the Nature, End, Design, and Benefits of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, that “the primitive church, and the Christians who succeeded the apostles, and who could not but know the sense of the apostles in this point, looked upon it as a thing indifferent, whether leavened or unleavened bread were used in the sacrament; and therefore, in times of persecution especially, they made use of such bread as they could get, never disputing whether it had leaven or no in it." "We make use," he adds, " of leavened bread in the church of England, because the substance or essence of the sacrament is not at all prejudiced by it; and in things merely circumstantial, the church hath not only varied from the first customs, but may lawfully vary as she sees occasion." Ch. vii.

B.

BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY, a period so called by the Italians, by way of derision, when the papal residence was removed from Rome to Avignon in France. Philip, the French king, upon the death of Benedict XI., having by intrigue procured the see of Rome for Bertrand de Got, a prelate of France, had sufficient influence with him to change his episcopal seat to that country, where it continued for the space of seventy years. This long residence of the popes in France conduced much towards the diminution of the papal authority; for during their absence from Rome, the faction of the Gibellines increased, and openly attacked the patrimony of St. Peter. Many cities also revolted, and Rome itself was filled with sedition and tumult.

BACANTIBI, a word supposed to be formed, by corruption, from vacantivi, were clerks who had no fixed residence, but wandered about from one church to another. These having no letters dimissory or commendatory from their own bishop, were looked upon as persons guilty of some misdemeanour, who had fled from ecclesiastical censure; and by the laws of the church no bishop was to permit any such to officiate in his diocese, or even to communicate with the faithful. So strict indeed were the laws of the ancient church in confining the inferior clergy to the service of that church to which they were at first appointed, that it was unlawful for them to move from hence on any account, unless at the discretion of the bishop who ordained them.- Bing. Orig. Eccl. b. vi. c. 4, s. 5.

BACHELOR, a man who is yet in a state of celibacy. Most nations have looked upon the state of celibacy as dishonourable. The Romans frequently imposed fines on bachelors of a certain age; and Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions an old constitution by which all persons of full age were obliged to marry. Under Augustus a law was made, called the lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus, by which bachelors were made incapable of taking legacies, or lands by will, unless from their near relations. The rabbins maintain that by the laws of Moses all persons, with some few exceptions, are obliged in conscience