E.P I E P 1 483 tongucd ; but if his knowledge of languages was really so extensive, it is certain that he was utterly destitute of critical and logical power. His early asceticism seems to have imbued him with a love of the marvellous ; and his roligioua zeal served only to increase his credulity, so that many of the most absurd legends in the early church have received the sanction of his authority. His works are, in fact, chiefly valuable from the quotations which they embody. EPIPHANY, FESTIVAL OF, one of the chief festivals of the Christian church, kept on the 6th of January, as the closing day of the Christmas commemoration, the English "Twelfth Day." The name "Epiphany" (17 ETri^aveia, or TCI E7ri(avia, also Qeocfxivta, and Xpio-ro</>avta) marks it o-it as a commemoration of the manifestation of Jesus Christ to the world as the Son of God. This manifestation l:is been variously interpreted in different sections of the church. In tho East, where, as its Greek name indicates, the festival had its origin, it was associated with our Lord s baptism as the " manifestation " of Christ as Son of God by tho voice from heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit. From this connection the Epiphany became one of the chief days for the baptizing of catechumens. The vater in the font was consecrated on this day, and bottles of the sacred fluid were carried home by the faithful and preserved till the day came round again. Baptism being regarded as the illumination of the soul (</>omoy/.os), this day gained the title of " the lights," or tha " day of lights " (ret <wTa, rjfjiepa TWI <amm ). The Epiphany was never a day of baptism in tbe Western Church. This com memoration of Christ s baptism arose in the East before that of His Nativity. From a forced interpretation of Luke iii. 23, our Lord was supposed to have been baptized on the thirtieth anniversary of His birth, and tho two events were commemorated on the same day, January 6. Other manifestations were also associated with these two, especially the displays of our Lord s miraculous power at the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee, and the feeding of the five thousand. It was not till the latter half of the 4th century that the Nativity had a distinct celebration in the East on the 25th of December. In the Western Church the two commemorations have always been separated; and the Epiphany has been associated with the visit of the Magi, or Wise Men of ths East, to the infant Siviour, almost to the exclusion of any other reference. These mysterious strangers, who in process of tima developed into three kings, named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, descended respectively from Ham, Shem, and Japheth, being regarded as the first-fruits of the heathen world to Christ, the festival obtained the designation it bears in tho English Common Prayer Book, " the Epiphany, or manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles." In the Latin Church it is known as "festum trium regum." The popular name in Rome is la Beffana, a corruption of the medieval " Bethphania," derived from the manifesta tion in the house (Hebrew, beth} at Cana of Galilee. The earliest mention of the festival in the West is in the account given by Ammianus Marcellinus of a visit paid by Julian to a church at Vienne on this day (lib. xxi. c. 2). It eventually took rank as a leading church festival. Abstinence from servile work, which had been enjoined by fie Apostolical Constitutions (lib. v. c. 13, lib. viii. c. 33), was enacted by the emperors Theodosius II. and Justinian, together with the suspension of public games and l r >gal business. Another custom of the early church v.-as for the metropolitans at the Epiphany to announce to their suffragan bishops the date of Easter and the other movable feasts (Tndictio Paschalis] by letters known as " Festal Epistles." To describe the curious and picturesque customs connected with this festival would carry us far beyond our limits. They may be found in Hone s Every- Day Book and Year Book, Chambers s Book of Days, and Brand s Popular Antiquities. One custom deserves to be particularized. The sovereigns of England on this day make an oblation of gold, frankincense, and myrrh at the altar of the Chapel Royal. This is now performed by deputy, but till comparatively recent times the offering was made in person. Bingham, Origints, bk. xx. ch. iv. pp. 6-9 ; Augusti, Ilandbuch der Christl. Archdol. vol. i. pp. 542 ff., and vol. ii. p. 376; Binterim, Denkwiirdiykeiten, vol. v. part 1, pp. 310 ff. (E. V.) EPIPHYTES. See BOTANY, vol. iv. p. 94. EPIRUS, or EPEIRUS, was that part of Northern Greece which stretched along the Ionian Sea from the Acrocer- aunian promontory on the N. to the Ambracian gulf on the S., and was conterminous on the landward side with Illyria, Macedonia, and Thessaly thus corresponding to the southern portion of Albania. The name Epirus ("H-rmpos, or in the local dialects "A-Trapos) signified main land, and was originally applied to the whole coast south ward to the Corinthian gulf, in contradistinction to the neighbouring islands, Corcyra, Leucas, &c. The country is all more or less mountainous, especially towards the east, where the Pindus chain, in its main massif of Lacmon, feeds the fountains of nearly all the great rivers of North ern Greece, the Peneus, the Achelous, the Arachthus, and the Aous. In ancient times it did not produce corn suffi cient for the wants of its inhabitants ; but it was celebrated, as it has been almost to the present day, for its cattle and its horses. According to Theopompus, a writer of the fourth century B.C., the Epirots were divided into fourteen independent tribes, of which the principal were the Chaones, the Thesproti, and the Molossi. The Chaones, identified by one theory with the Chones who dwelt on the Tarentine gulf in Italy, inhabited the northern portion of the country along the Acroceraunian shore, the Molossians the inland district of which the lake of Pambotis or Yannina may be regarded as the centre, and the Thesprotians the region to the north of the Ambracian gulf. Aristotle places in Epirus the original home of the Hellenes, though the com mon opinion among his countrymen traced them rather to Thessaly. In any case Epirus, in spite of its distance from the chief centres of Greek thought and action, and the fact that its inhabitants were hardly regarded as other than barbarians, exerted even at an early period no small influence on Greece, by means more especially of the oracle of Doclona. One of the earliest and most flourishing settle ments of the- Greeks proper in Epirus was the Corinthian colony of Ambracia, which give its name to the neighbour ing gulf. The happy results of the experiment appear to have tempted other Greek states to imitate the example, and Elatria, Bucheta, and Pandosia bore witness to the enterprise of the people of Elis. Among the other towns in the country the following were of some importance : in Chaonia Palseste and Chimaara, fortified posts to which the dwellers in the open country could retire in time of war ; Onchesmus or Anchiasmus, now represented by Santi Qnarante, or -f/ 0x01X0, TWV Ayuov ^dpavra, the Harbour of the Forty Saints ; Phcenice, still so called, the wealthiest of all the native cities of Epirus, and after the fall of the Molossian kingdom the centre of an Epirotic League ; Buthroton, the modern Butrinto ; Phanote, well known from its connection with the wars of the Romans ; and Hadrianopolis, founded by the emperor whose name it bore ; in Thesprotia the Elean settlements already mentioned ; Cassope, the chef lieu of the Cassopseans, the most power ful of the Thesprotian clans ; Ephyra, afterwards Cichy- rus, a very ancient site, identified by Leake with the mon astery of St John three or four miles from Phanari, but by
Bursian with the ruins on the hill of Kastri at the northern