ADVOWSON (Advocatio) is the right of patronage to a church, or an ecclesiastical benefice, and he who has the right of advowson is called the patron of the church. For when lords of manors first built churches upon their own demesnes, and appointed the tithes of those manors to be paid to the officiating ministers, which before were given to the clergy in common, the lord, who thus built a church and endowed it with glebe or land, had of common right a power annexed of nominating such minister as he pleased (provided he were canonically qualified) to officiate in that church, of which he was the founder, endower, maintainer, or, in one word, the patron (patronus, and sometimes advocatus).

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orators, who were the pleaders; the advo- | remove his clerk. Where the patrons are cates, who instructed the orators in points of co-parceners, the eldest sister, or her aslaw; and the cognitores, or procuratores, signee, is entitled to present; and then at who discharged much the same office as the next avoidance, the next sister shall proctors or attorneys now. The first order present, and so by turns one sister after gradually merged into the second. another, till all the sisters, or their heirs, have presented, and then the eldest sister shall begin again, except they agree to present together, or by composition to present in some other manner. But if the eldest presents together with another of her sisters, and the other sisters every one of them in their own name, or together, the ordinary is not bound to receive any of their clerks, but may suffer the church to lapse. But in this case, before the bishop can take advantage of the lapse, he must direct a writ to inquire the right of patronage. Where an advowson is mortgaged, the mortgagor alone shall present, when the church becomes vacant, and the mortgagee can derive no advantage from the presentation in reduction of his debt. If a woman has an advowson, or part of an advowson, to her and her heirs, and marries, the husband may not only present jointly with his wife, during the coverture, but also after her death the right of presenting during his life is lodged in him, as tenant by courtesy, if he has children by her. And even though the wife dies without having had issue by her husband, so that he is not tenant by courtesy, and the church remains vacant at her death, yet the husband shall present to the void turn; and if in such case he does not present, his executor may. If a man, seized of an advowson, takes a wife, and dies, the heir shall have two presentations, and the wife the third, even though her husband may have granted away the third turn. Or, if a manor, to which an advowson is appendant, descends to the heir, and he assigns dower to his mother of the third part of the manor, with the appurtenances, she is entitled to the presentation of the third part of the advowson; the right of presentation being a chose in action which is not assignable. If an advowson is sold when the church is vacant, it is decided that the grantee is not entitled to the next presentation. If, during the vacancy of a church, the patron die, his executor, or personal representative, is entitled to that presentation, unless it be a douative benefice, in which case the right of donation descends to the heir. But if the incumbent of a church be also seized in fee of the advowson and die, his heir, and not his executors, shall present, because it did not fall vacant in his life.

Advowsons are of two sorts, advowsons appendant, and advowsons in gross. When annexed to a manor or land, so as to pass with them, they are appendant; for so long as the church continues annexed to the possession of the manor, as some have done from the foundation of the church to this day, the patronage or presentation belongs to the person in possession of the manor or land. But when the property of the advowson has been once separated from that of the manor by legal conveyance, it is called an advowson in gross, or at large, and exists as a personal right in the person of its owner, independent of his manor or land. Advowsons are also either presentative, collative, donative, or elective. An advowson presentative is where the patron has a right to present the parson to the bishop or ordinary to be instituted and inducted, if he finds him canonically qualified. An advowson collative is where the bishop is both patron and ordinary. An advowson donative is where the king, or any subject by his licence, founds a church or chapel, and ordains that it shall be merely in the gift or disposal of the patron; subject to his visitation only, and not to that of the ordinary; and vested absolutely in the clerk by the patron's deed of donation, without presentation, institution, or induction.

As to presentations to advowsons: where there are divers patrons, joint-tenants, or tenants in common, and they vary in their presentment, the ordinary is not bound to admit any of their clerks; and if the six months elapse within which time they are to present, he may present by the lapse; but he may not present within the six months; for if he do, they may agree and bring a quare impedit against him, and

As to the manner in which advowsons descend, it has been determined, that advowsons in gross cannot descend from the brother to the sister of the entire blood, but they shall descend to the brother of the half

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blood, unless the first had presented to it in his lifetime, and then it shall descend to the sister, she being the next heir of the entire blood. (See Lapse, and Phillimore's Ecc. Law, "Advowson.")

ELPHEAH. (See Alphege.) EONS. (Aloves, ages.) The name given by some of the Gnostic heretics to the spiritual beings, whom they supposed to have emanated from the Supreme Deity, and to be like Him eternal-whence the name. (See Valentinians.) AERIANS. A small sect founded by Aërius, a presbyter of Sebaste, in the lesser Armenia, about A.D. 355. St. Augustine (Hær. liii.) tells us that Aërius, the author of this heresy, was mortified at not attaining the episcopate; and having fallen into the heresy of Arius, and having been led into many strange notions by impatience of the control of the Church, he taught among other things, that no difference ought to be recognised between a bishop and a presbyter; whereas, until then, even all sectaries had acknowledged the episcopate as a superior order, and had been careful at their outset to obtain episcopal ordination for their ministers. (Dr. Newman's Fleury, bk. xix. 36.) Thus Aerius revenged himself upon the dignity to which he had unsuccessfully aspired; and he has left his history and his character to future ages, as an argument almost as forcible as direct reasoning and evidence, of the apostolical ordinance of the episcopate.

AETIANS. A sect of heretics in the fourth century. They had this name from their chief person Aëtius of Antioch. This man applied himself to the sciences at Antioch, Tarsus, and for a short time at Alexandria, and acquainted himself with the medical art, as well as with theology. As all his instructors were of Arian sentiment, he also applied his talents and his dexterity in debate to the vindication of the Arian doctrine, which he carried to the extreme conclusion that the Second and Third Persons in the Holy Trinity were utterly unlike the First Person. He was made a deacon at Antioch in 350: but deposed and banished in the reign of Constantine. Julian recalled him and gave him a bishopric (Stubbs' Besides Soames' Mosheim, i. 306–307). the Arian doctrines, the Aëtians maintained that faith without works was sufficient to salvation, and that no sin would be imputed to the faithful. Aëtius asserted that God had revealed to him, what He had concealed from the Apostles. His followers were commonly called Eunomians, from his pupil Eunomius, or Anomoans, from their doctrine that the Second and Third Persons in the Trinity were unlike (ávóμoto) the first. -Epiph. Hæres. lxxvi. c. 11; Socrat. H. E. ii. 35 Sozomen, H. E. iii. 15, iv. 12.

AFFINITY. Relationship arising from marriage. The wife's blood relatives are related by affinity to the husband, and his blood relatives are so to her. Affinity no less than consanguinity (see Consanguinity) has been deemed in Christian countries a The bar to marriage between relatives. prohibitions, which place both sexes on one and the same footing, forbidding marriage on either side to those related by consanguinity or affinity within the first or second degree, are fully and clearly exhibited in the Table annexed to the Book of Common Prayer. It is described as " A Table of Kindred and Affinity wherein whosoever are related are forbidden in Scripture and our Laws to marry together." It is these prohibitions which are referred to in the solemn charge addressed by the priest to the parties in the Office for the Solemnization of Matrimony: "Be ye well assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful.”

I. "God's Word" is chiefly to be found in Leviticus xviii. 6-18, and xx. 11-21. It is plain that the restrictions laid down in those chapters are not intended to bind the Jews only. The Canaanites are condemned in severe terms (xviii. 24–30; xx. 22, 23), and doomed to extermination for breach of these laws; and the Canaanites were never under the Levitical law, which was not even given when the Canaanities were here reckoned thus guilty. The laws laid down belong evidently to the common moral law binding on all mankind.

The ground on which these marriages are forbidden is declared in verse G, "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him": literally "flesh of his flesh," or as margin, "remainder of flesh," (sheer of his basar). The following verses down to verse 18 contain instances in illustration of this principle. The list is not exhaustive; it is intended only to give examples sufficient in number and nature to make the legislator's meaning clear. Various examples are set 66 near of kin." It cannot be down, all the relations specified being regarded as maintained that only those marriages are intended to be interdicted which are so in actual words; for marriage with a daughter or sister or niece by blood is not named. Nor can it be asserted that consanguinity only is recognized as a bar, for of the thirteen persons instanced as "near of kin," no less than seven are made relations only through marriage. To take one instance only: in Lev. xviii. 14, the uncle's wife is forbidden because "she is thine aunt"; where it is plain that affinity is counted a bar just as if it were consanguinity. In truth the prohibitions are unintelligible unless we regard them, in

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and the Karaites, who have been not inaptly termed the Protestants of Judaism, pride themselves on strict adherence to the letter of the written law, rejecting the whole mass of oral traditions and expositions with which the Jewish schools had overlaid the Word of God, and often made it of none effect. (See Herzog, Encyclopädie, article Karäer.) It must also be observed in general that the clear drift of the whole chapter ought not to be set aside on the authority of an obscure and doubtful verse; a verse probably corrupt, and which, if sound, admits of no less than fourteen varying interpretations. If marriage with a deceased wife's sister is sanctioned here, then, as Kalisch says, "unity of principle and harmony of detail are destroyed in the Levitical lists of forbidden degrees." We may add, as not without significance, that the Vatican MS. of the Septuagint contains in Deut. xxvii. 23 a special malediction against the connexion with a wife's sister, where the A. V. speaks of the mother-inlaw only. If this be an interpolation, it is certainly a very early one, and reflects at any rate the mind of the age in which it was made. It is more probable, however, that the Greek translator added the clause referring to the sister-in-law by way of bringing out more fully the sense of the Hebrew, for the word (cotheneth) really means any female relative by marriage.

But it is urged that in verse 18 we read, "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her, beside the other in her lifetime"; and that the legislator by prohibiting marriage with the wife's sister in her lifetime tacitly allows it after the wife's death. This is, however, a very obscure verse on any interpretation. Even if we admit that "sister" in it means sister by blood, and that Moses merely meant to interdict the polygamous Jews from that which their forefather Jacob did-having two sisters at once as wives-it is not clear what is intended by the words, “to vex her." Why should the first wife be more vexed that her husband should marry her sister than any other woman, if a second wife there must be? Family arrangements amongst the Jews would rather point to this as desirable, if to marry another sister were lawful at all. But in truth there is reason to think that the words "a wife to her sister" mean simply "a woman to her sister," "one woman to another," or one wife to Difficulties as regards prohibitions based on another," as the margin gives it. (See Bp. affinity have been raised in consequence of Wordsworth's Commentary, in loco.) Thus what is known as the law of the levirate laid the purport of the verse would be to put a down, Deut. xxv. 5-10; comp. St. Matt. check on polygamy, prohibiting it in the xxii. 23-28. It is to be observed in coninterests of domestic peace when it would nexion with this subject that marriage with "vex" the first wife, who would always the wife of a deceased brother was not, according to Oriental ideas have superior properly speaking, permitted by the Jewish estimation over those subsequently taken. law at all. On the contrary, it was strictly Dr. Kalisch however, a very high authority forbidden (see Levit. xviii. 16, xx. 21); and about Hebrew language and law, regards the denounced too as a defilement and an abomitext here as corrupted by interpolation. nation. On the other hand, in Deut. xxv. (See Historical and Critical Commentary 5-10, it is enjoined as a sacred duty, under on Leviticus, pp. 363-365, and 395-397; certain circumstances only, when a brother Longman & Co., 1872). He believes that died childless. The general result is surely the words originally ran simply, "Thou clear enough. The alliance in question, shalt not take a wife to her sister," and which, be it observed, is precisely similar so supports his view by referring to the Koran, far as affinity is concerned to a marriage which borrows its legislation in many such between a widower and his late wife's sister, matters from Moses. The corresponding was sternly prohibited as a rule by the passage in the Koran says plainly, "You general moral law. But to protect those are also forbidden to take to wife two agrarian rights which were at the basis of sisters." (Koran, iv. 27.) It is true that the Hebrew system and institutions as the Rabbinical Jews unanimously regard regards property, and to prevent the extincthe verse as permitting marriage with the tion of a family in Israel, this marriage was deceased wife's sister; but it is to be feared-not permitted-but rendered imperative that here as elsewhere determination to reject the Christian view of the question has prejudiced their opinion on the text. It is significant that the Karaite Jews have always held marriage with a deceased wife's sister to be forbidden by the law of Moses;

under special circumstances by the law of God. And the ignominious penalties annexed to violation of this obligation (see Deut. xxv. 9, 10; Ruth iv. 11) show how abhorrent the connexion was to Jewish customs. Where the special circumstances

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and the local and national emergencies | statutes were passed for taking away "dishave no place, this, like other connexions pensations," and invalidating all marriages within the Prohibited Degrees, must be not within the Levitical degrees. In these deemed to be according to the law of Moses (see 25th Hen. VIII. c. 22; 28th Hen. VIII. c. 7; 2nd and 3rd Edw. VI. c. 23), incestuous and prohibited. marriages within those degrees are already and repeatedly recognised as "prohibited by the laws of God." The Table of Prohibited Degrees was set forth in 1563 only in order to make clear and easily intelligible the relationships to which the statutes referred as obstacles to matrimony. This table is referred to by Canon 99 of 1603 as follows: "No person shall marry within the degrees prohibited by the laws of God, and expressed in a table set forth by authority in the year of our Lord 1563, and all marriages so made and contracted shall be adjudged incestuous and unlawful, and consequently shall be dissolved as void from the beginning, and the parties so married shall by course of law be separated. And the aforesaid table shall be in every church publicly set up at the charge of the parish.'

II. The Law of the Christian Church. No very early references to the subject can be found, probably because the ancient Roman law was very nearly coincident with the Mosaic. But, A.D. 305, the Council of Elvira (Can. Ixi.) imposed excommunication for five years on the man who should marry his wife's sister; and for life on him who should marry his step-daughter (Can. lxvi.) This is the first known ecclesiastical legislation about affinity. The Council of NeoCaesarea (A.D. 314) completes the prohibition on the woman's side. The Apostolical Canons (Can. ix.) declare marriages with two sisters or a niece to disqualify for ordination. St. Basil, in a letter to Diodorus (A.D. 373), declares connexion with two sisters to be unholy and " no marriage," and refers to the Mosaic Law. A Council at Rome under Innocent I. (A.D. 402) forbids marriage with a wife's sister, an uncle's wife, or first cousin; that of Agde (A.D. 506), brands as incestuous union with a brother's widow, wife's sister, step-mother, step-daughter, cousin, or any kinswoman. Like decrees were formulated by many later Councils, in which the Levitical degrees are frequently quoted or referred to. The Council of Mayence (A.D. 813) forbids marriage to those related in the fourth degree, and in later times the restrictions became more multiplied and rigid, till at length marriage was interdicted within seven degrees. (Comp. Decretum Gratiani, P. ii. causa 35.) This rigour could not be long retained, and at the fourth Lateran Council (A.D. 1215), under Innocent III., prohibition was limited to four degrees; and these were frequently relaxed by Papal "Dispensations." These concessions were granted on the assumption that the Pope possesses the power to suspend not only the Church Canons, but even the Scriptural ordinances. About the fact that relationships up to the second degree at any rate, whether of affinity or consanguinity, are barriers to marriage, there has been universal consent amongst all councils, churches, and doctors.

III The Law of the English Church and Realm has always been coincident with that of Christendom generally. The words of the late Lord Chancellor Hatherley in a speech delivered in St. James's Hall on Thursday, Feb. 26th, 1880, (reported in the Guardian newspaper of March 3rd, 1880) are weighty. "In England, he unhesitatingly declared, that there had been no change in the law since the baptism of Ethelbert." In the reign of Hen. VIII. and Edw. VI. various

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The

The status of marriage could only, up to 1857, be determined by the ecclesiastical courts and persons contracting unlawful unions availed themselves of the loopholes left by the requirements of the Canon Law, namely, that the parties should be separated and their marriage dissolved by sentence of court. They procured the commencement of a mock suit against themselves for incest, and this barred the way of a real prosecution, since two proceedings were not permitted to go on at the same time for the same offence. suit was protracted by technicalities until the death of one of the parties, after which the civil courts would not permit the validity of the marriage to be called in question. In order to put a stop to these evasions of the law, the Act 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 54, commonly known as Lord Lyndhurst's Act, was passed in 1835. It enacted that marriage within the Prohibited Degrees should be, not merely voidable by sentence of court as hitherto, but "absolutely null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever." It is therefore altogether false to assert that marriage with a deceased wife's sister was legal before 1835, and made illegal first by Lord Lyndhurst's Act. That Act only cured certain defects in procedure by means of which the law had been sometimes broken, but made no Marriage with a wife's sister was alteration whatever in the law of marriage itself. before 1835, as it still is, just as illegal as marriage with a man's own sister or own niece. In no case of incest, however revolting, prior to 1835 could the illegality become legally determined and the parties be separated without sentence of court. Since 1835 such marriages are void ipso facto. That is all the difference.