and by example, philologists greater than themselves, and of having kindled the national enthusiasm for ancient learning. It is chiefly in hermeneutics that Ernesti has any claim to eminence as a theologian. But here his merits are distinguished, and, at the period when his Institutio Interpretis N. T. was published (1761), almost peculiar to himself. In it we find the principles of a general interpretation, formed without the assistance of any particular philosophy, but consisting of observations and rules which, though already enunciated, and applied in the criticism of the profane writers, had never rigorously been employed in biblical exegesis. He was, in fact, the founder of the grammatico-historical school. He admits in the sacred writings as in the classics only one acceptation, and that the grammatical, convertible into and the same with the logical and historical. Consequently he censures the opinion of those who in the illustration of the Scriptures refer everything to the illumination of the Holy Spirit, as well as that of others who, disregarding all knowledge of the languages, would explain words by things. The “analogy of faith,” as a rule of interpretation, he greatly limits, and teaches that it can never afford of itself the explanation of words, but only determine the choice among their possible meanings. At the same time he seems unconscious of any inconsistency between the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible as usually received and his principles of hermeneutics.
Among his works the more important are:—I. In classical literature: Initia doctrinae Solidioris (1736), many subsequent editions; Initia rhetorica (1730); editions, mostly annotated, of Xenophon’s Memorabilia (1737), Cicero (1737–1739), Suetonius (1748), Tacitus (1752), the Clouds of Aristophanes (1754), Homer (1759–1764), Callimachus (1761), Polybius (1764), as well as of the Quaestura of Corradus, the Greek lexicon of Hedericus, and the Bibliotheca Latina of Fabricius (unfinished); Archaeologia litteraria (1768), new and improved edition by Martini (1790); Horatius Tursellinus De particulis (1769). II. In sacred literature: Antimuratorius sive confutatio disputationis Muratorianae de rebus liturgicis (1755–1758); Neue theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1760–1769); Institutio interpretis Nov. Test. (3rd ed., 1775); Neueste theologische Bibliothek, vols. i. to x. (1771–1775). Besides these, he published more than a hundred smaller works, many of which have been collected in the three following publications:—Opuscula oratoria (1762, 2nd ed., 1767); Opuscula philologica et critica (1764, 2nd ed., 1776); Opuscula theologica (1773). See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie; J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Class. Schol. iii. (1908).
ERNESTI, JOHANN CHRISTIAN GOTTLIEB (1756–1802),
German classical scholar, was born at Arnstadt, Thuringia, and
studied under his uncle, J. A. Ernesti, at the university of Leipzig.
On the 5th of June, 1782, he was made supplementary professor
of philosophy at his own university; and on the death of his
cousin August Wilhelm in 1801 he was for five months
professor of rhetoric. He died on the 5th of June of the following
year.
His principal works are:—Editions of Aesop’s Fabulae (1781); of the Glossae sacrae of Hesychius (1785) and Suidas and Phavorinus (1786); and of Silius Italicus Punica (1791–1792); Lexicon Technologiae Graecorum rhetoricae (1795); Lexicon technologiae Latinorum rhetoricae (1797), and Cicero’s Geist und Kunst (1799–1802).
ERNST, HEINRICH WILHELM (1814–1865), German violinist
and composer, was born at Brünn, in Moravia, in 1814. He was
educated at the Conservatorium of Vienna, studying the violin
under Joseph Böhm and Joseph Mayseder, and composition
under Ignaz von Seyfried. At the age of sixteen he made a
concert tour in south Germany, which established his reputation
as a violinist of the highest promise. In 1832 he went to Paris,
where he lived for several years. During this period he formed
an intimacy with Stephen Heller, which resulted in their charming
joint compositions—the Pensées fugitives for piano and violin.
In 1843 he paid his first visit to London. The impression which
he then made as a violinist was more than confirmed in the following
year, when his rare powers were recognized by the musical
public. Thenceforward he visited England nearly every year,
until his health broke down owing to long-continued neuralgia
of a most severe kind. The last seven years of his life were spent
in retirement, chiefly at Nice, where he died on the 8th of October
1865. As a violinist Ernst was distinguished by his almost
unrivalled executive power, loftiness of conception, and intensely
passionate expression. As a composer he wrote chiefly for his
own instrument, and his Elegie and Otello Fantasia rank among
the most treasured works for the violin.
ERODE, a town of British India, in the Coimbatore district
of Madras, situated on the right bank of the river Cauvery,
which is here crossed by an iron railway girder bridge of 22 spans.
Pop. (1901) 15,529. Here the South Indian railway joins the
South-Western line of the Madras railway, 243 m. from Madras.
There are exports of cotton and saltpetre; and the town has
a steam cotton press.
EROS, a minor planet discovered by Witt at Berlin on the 14th
of August 1898, and, so far as yet known, unique in that its
perihelion lies far within the orbit of Mars.
EROS, in Greek mythology, the god of love. He is not
mentioned in Homer; in Hesiod (Theog. 120) he is one of the
oldest and the most beautiful of the gods, whose power neither
gods nor men can resist. He also evolves order and harmony
out of Chaos by uniting the separated elements. This cosmic
Eros, who in Orphic cosmogony sprang from the world-egg
which Chronos, or Time, laid in the bosom of Chaos, and which is
the origin of all created beings, degenerated in later mythology
into the capricious god of sexual passion, the son of Aphrodite
and Zeus, Ares or Hermes. He is commonly represented as
a mischievous boy, the tormentor of gods and men, even his
own mother not being proof against his attacks. His brother is
Anteros, the god of mutual love, who punishes those who do not
return the love of others, without which Eros could not thrive;
he is sometimes described as the opponent of Eros. The chief
associates of Eros are Pothos and Himeros (Longing and Desire),
Peitho (Persuasion), the Muses and the Graces; he himself
is in constant attendance on Aphrodite. Later writers (Euripides
being the first) assumed the existence of a number of Erotes (like
the Roman Amores and Cupidines) with similar attributes.
According to the philosophers, Eros was not only the god of
sexual love, but also of the loyal and devoted friendship of men;
hence the Theban “Sacred Band” was devoted to him, and the
Cretans and Spartans offered sacrifice to him before going into
battle (Athenaeus xiii. p. 561). In Alexandrian poetry Eros is
at one time the powerful god who conquers all, at another the
elfish god of love. For the Roman adaptation of Eros see Cupid,
and for the later legend of Cupid and Psyche see Psyche.
In art Eros is represented as a beautiful youth or a winged child. His attributes are the bow and arrows and a burning torch. The rose, the hare, the cock and the goat are frequently associated with him. The most celebrated statue of him was at Thespiae, the work of Praxiteles. Other famous representations are the Vatican torso and Eros trying his bow (in the Capitoline museum).
See J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903); G. F. Schömann, De Cupidine Cosmogonico (1852); E. Gerhard, Über den Gott Eros (1850); articles in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, and Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie.
ERPENIUS (original name van Erpe), THOMAS (1584–1624),
Dutch Orientalist, was born at Gorcum, in Holland, on the 11th
of September 1584. After completing his early education at
Leiden, he entered the university of that city, and in 1608 took
the degree of master of arts. By the advice of Scaliger he studied
Oriental languages whilst taking his course of theology. He
afterwards travelled in England, France, Italy and Germany,
forming connexions with learned men, and availing himself of the
information which they communicated. During his stay at Paris
he contracted a friendship with Casaubon, which lasted during his
life, and also took lessons in Arabic from an Egyptian, Joseph
Barbatus, otherwise called Abu-dakni. At Venice he perfected
himself in the Turkish, Persic and Ethiopic languages. After a
long absence, Erpenius returned to his own country in 1612, and
on the 10th of February 1613 he was appointed professor of
Arabic and other Oriental languages, Hebrew excepted, in the
university of Leiden. Soon after his settlement at Leiden,
animated by the example of Savary de Brèves, who had established
an Arabic press at Paris at his own charge, he caused new
Arabic characters to be cut at a great expense, and erected a press
in his own house. In 1619 the curators of the university of Leiden
