had fallen victims. "Die grosse Totenbruderschaft" (1681) enumerates the people of prominence who died in 1679–80, in order to illustrate forcibly, and almost rudely, the reflection "that after death the prince royal is as frightfully noisome as the newborn child of the peasant." Similarly based on a critical event of history was the little book entitled "Auf, auf, ihr Christen" (Vienna, 1683), a stirring exhortation to Christians in arms against the Turk. This has become chiefly celebrated as the original of the sermon in the "Wallenstein's Lager" of Schiller. A collection of sermons which had been actually preached appeared in Salzburg in 1684 under the title of "Reim dich, oder ich lis' dich". In the following year a little pilgrimage book was printed for the monastery of Taxa entitled "Gaik, Gaik, Gaik a Ga einer wunderseltsamen Hennen." This grotesque title arose from the story of the origin of the monastery, according to which a picture of the Blessed Virgin was seen imprinted on a hen's egg. Abraham's masterpiece, the fruit of ten years' labour, is "Judas der Erzschelm" ("Judas, the archknave", Salzburg, 1686–95). This treats of the apocryphal life of the traitor Judas, and is varied with many moral reflections. While still at work upon this extensive book, he published a compendium of Catholic moral teaching, "Grammatica religiosa" (Salzburg, 1691), consisting of fifty-five lessons, and embracing the themes of thirty-three sermons. This appeared in a German translation (Cologne, 1699). The remaining works of the celebrated barefoot preacher are for the most part a confused mixture of verses, reflections, and sermons. Thus: Etwas für alle (Something for All Persons; Würzburg, 1699); Sterben und Erben (Death and Inheritance; Amsterdam, 1702); Neu eröffnete Welt-Galleria (Newly-Opened World-Gallery; Nürnberg, 1703); Heilsames Gemisch-Gemasch (A Salutary Mix-Mash; Würzburg, 1704); Huy! und Pfuy der Welt (Ho! And Fie on the World; Würzburg, 1707). All these treatises showed the influence of Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), which was even more apparent in the two following works: Centifolium stultorum in Quarto (A Hundred excellent fools in Quarto; Vienna, 1709), and Wunderwürdiger Traum von einem grossen Narrenest (Wonderful Dream of a Great Nest of Fools, Salzburg, 1710; also printed during the lifetime of Abraham). A year after his death there appeared Geistliche Kramerladen (Spiritual Haberdasher's Shop); Wohl angefüllter Weinkeller (A Well-filled Wine-cellar; Würzburg); and Besonders meublirt und gezierte Toten-Kapelle (A Strangely Furnished and Adorned Mortuary Chapel; Nürnberg). Five quarto volumes of his literary remains were published posthumously: Abrahamisches Bescheidessen (Abraham's Honour Feasts; Vienna, Brünn, 1717); Abrahamische Lauberhütt (Abraham's Leafclad Arbour; Vienna and Nürnberg, 1721–23); Abrahamisches Gehab dich wohl! (Abraham's Farewell; Nürnberg, 1729). A collective edition of his works appeared (Passau, 1835–46) in nineteen octavo volumes. Schiller, a Swabian compatriot of Abraham, has passed this interesting judgment on the literary monk in a letter to Göthe: "This Father Abraham is a man of wonderful originality, whom we must respect, and it would be an interesting, though not at all an easy, task to approach or surpass him in mad wit and cleverness." Moreover, Schiller was greatly influenced by Abraham; even more were Jean Paul Richter and other lesser minds. Even to the most recent times Abraham's influence is chiefly noticeable in the literature of the pulpit, though but little to its advantage. To honour the memory of Abraham the city of Vienna has begun a new edition of his works.
Von Karajan, Abraham a Sancta Clara (Vienna, 1867) (still the best work on the celebrated monk); Scherer, Vorträge und Aufsatze zur Geschichte des geistlichen Lebens in Deutschland und Œsterreich (Berlin, 1874); Id., article on Abraham in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie; Mareta, Ueber Judas den Erzschelm, in Programm des Schottengymnasium (Vienna, 1875); Bobertag, Abraham a Sancta Clara, Judas der Erzschelm, in Kurschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur; Blankenburg, Studien über die Sprache Abrahams a Sancta Clara (Halle, 1897); Nagl, Die erziehische Einwirkung Abrahams a Sancta Clara auf das osterreicherische Volk in Dittes' Pædagogium (1891); Nagl and Zeidler, Deutsch-Oesterreichische Literatur Geschichte (Vienna, 1899) 621–651.
Abraham Ecchelensis, a learned Maronite, born in Hekel, or Ecchel (hence his surname), a village on Mount Lebanon, in 1600; died 1664 in Rome. He studied at the Maronite College in Rome, published a Syriac grammar (1628), and taught Syriac and Arabic at the College of the Propaganda. In 1630 he began to teach the same languages in the Royal College Paris, and to assist in editing Le Jay's "Polyglot Bible", working with Gabriel Sionita on the Syriac and Arabic texts and their Latin translation. He contributed III Mach. in Arabic, and Ruth in Syriac and Arabic, with a Latin translation. Abraham and Gabriel soon quarrelled, and the former wrote three letters explaining this difference, and defending his work against its depreciators, especially Valerian Flavigny. In 1642 he resumed his teaching in Rome, but returned to Paris in 1645; after eight years he again went to Rome, where he remained until his death. Among his many works we may mention: a "Synopsis of Arab Philosophy" (Paris, 1641); some disciplinary canons of the Council of Nice, according to Eastern attribution, though unknown to the Latin and Greek churches (Paris, 1641) "Abr. Ecchellensis et Leon. Allatii Concordantia Nationum Christianarum Orientalium in Fidei Catholicæ Dogmate" (Mainz, 1655); "De Origine nominis Papae, necnon de illius Proprietate in Romano Pontifice, adeoque de ejus Primatu contra Joannem Seldenum Anglum" (Rome, 1660); "Epistola ad J. Morinum de variis Græcorum et Orientalium ritibus"; "Chronicon Orientale nunc primum Latinitate donatum, cui Accessit Supplementum Historiæ orientalis (Paris, 1653); "Catalogus librorum Chaldæorum tam Eccl. quam profanor., Auctore Hebed-Jesu Latinitate Donatus et Notis Illustratus" (Rome,1653); a "Life of St. Anthony"; a Latin translation of Abulfath's "Paraphrase of Apollonius' Conic Sections, 5, 6, and 7."
Lamy, in Dict. de théol., cath. (Paris. 1903), 116; Biographie universelle, s. v. Abraham d'Ecch.
Abraham Usque. See Bible Versions.
Abrahamites.—(1) Syrian heretics of the ninth century. They were called Brachiniah by the Arabs, from the name of their head, Ibrahim, or Abraham of Antioch. They denied the Divinity of Christ, and were looked on by some as allied to the Paulicians.—(2) A sect of Bohemian Deists. They claimed that they held what had been Abraham's religion before his circumcision. They believed in one God, but rejected the Trinity, original sin, and the perpetuity of punishment for sin, and accepted nothing of the Bible save only the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer. On their refusal to adopt some one of the religions tolerated in Bohemia, Joseph II banished them to Transylvania in 1783. Some became converted later on to the Catholic Faith. There are still found in Bohemia some whose religious belief suggests that of the Abrahamites.—(3) Martyrs in the time of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus, when a persecution of Catholics took place on account of the revival of the heresy of the Iconoclasts. At this time there was a monastery of monks in Constantinople called St. Abraham's. When the Emperor called on them to renounce the cult of holy images they defended the practice with
