Armenian prelate named Isaac, who in the 8th century went over
to the Byzantine church: ``Christ did not hand down to us the
teaching to celebrate the mystery of the offering of the bread
in church, but in an ordinary house, and sitting at a common
table. So then let them not sacrifice the offering of bread in
churches. It was after supper, when his disciples were
thoroughly sated, that Christ gave them of his own body to
eat. Therefore let them first eat meats and be sated, and
then let them partake of the mysteries.'' These old canons are
adduced by way of ridiculing the Armenians, yet they reflect old
usage. They are given in the Historia Monothelitarum of
Combefisius, col. 317. Older MSS. of the Greek Euchologion
contain numerous prayers to be offered over animals sacrificed;
and in the form of agape such sacrifices were common
in Italy and Gaul on the natalis dies of a saint, and
Paulinus of Nola, the friend of Augustine, in his Latin
poems, describes them (c. 400) in detail. Gregory the
Great sent to Mellitus, bishop of London, a written rite of
sacrificing bulls for use in the English church of the early 7th
century. In Augustine's work against Faustus the Manichean
(xx. 4), the latter taxes the Catholics with having turned
the sacrifices of the heathen into agapes, their idols into
martyrs, whom they worship with similar rites. ``You appease,''
he says, ``the shades of the dead with wines and banquets, you
celebrate the feast-days of the heathen along with them . . .
in their way of living you have certainly changed nothing.''
This was true enough, but there is truth also in the remark of
Prof. Sanday (``Eucharist'' in Hastings' Dictionary of
the Bible) that Providence even in its revolutions is
conservative. The world could only be christianized on
condition that old holy days and customs were continued.
The early Christian agape admitted of adaptation to the
older funeral and sacrificial feasts, and was so adapted. The
association in the synoptics of the earliest eucharist with
the paschal sacrifice provided a model, and long after the
eucharist was separated with the agape on other days of the
year, we still find celebrated on the evening of Maundy Thursday
the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, immediately followed by an
eucharist. The 41st canon of the council of Carthage enacted
that the sacraments of the altar should be received fasting,
except on the anniversary of the Lord's supper. It is clear
that at an earlier date the agape preceded the eucharist.
Pagan Analogues.--In ancient states common meals called
sussitia (sussitia) were instituted, particularly in
the Doric states, e.g. in Lacaedemon and in Crete. Plato
advocated them, and perhaps the later Jews imitated the
Spartan community. Trade and other gilds in antiquity held
subscription suppers or iranoi, similar to those of the early
Corinthian church, usually to support the needs of the poorer
members. These hetairiae or clubs were forbidden (except in
cities formally allied to Rome) by Trajan and other emperors,
as being likely to be centres of disaffection; and on this
ground Pliny forbade the agape of the Bithynian churches,
Christianity not being a lawful religion licensed for such
gatherings. The custom which most resembles the eucharist
and agape was that known as charistia described by
Valerius Maximus ii. 1. 8. It was a solemn feast attended
only by members of one clan, at which those who had quarrelled
were at the sacrament of the table (apud sacra mensae)
reconciled. It was held on the 20th of February. Ovid in
his Fasti, ii. 617, alludes to it-- Proxima cognati dixere
charistia cari, Et venit ad socios turba propinqua deos.
AUTHORITIES.--``The Canons of Hippolytus,'' in Duchesne's
Origines du culte chretien (Paris, 1898).; A. Allen,
Christian Institutions (London, 1898); P. Batiffol,
Etudes d'histoire (Paris, 1902 and 1905); F. X. Funk,
``L'Agape,'' in the Revue de l'histoire ecclesiastique
(Louvain, Jan. 1903); Ad. Harnack, ``Brod und Wasser'' (Texte
und Untersuch. vii. 2, Leipzig, 1891); J. F. Keating,
The Agape and the Eucharist (London, 1901): F. X. Kraus,
arts. ``Agapes'' and ``Mahle'' in the Realencycklop. d.
christl. Altertumer; P. Ladeuze, ``L'Eucharistie et les
repas communs'' in the Revue de l'orient chretien, No.
3, 1902; Sir W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire
(London, 1894); A. Spitta, Zur Geschichte und Litteratur
(Gottingen, 1893); E. von der Goltz, Das Gebet in
altesten Christianheit (Leipzig, 1901); F. E. Warren; The
Liturgy and Ritual of the Antenicene Church (London, 1897);
T. Zahn, art. ``Agapen'' in Hauck's Realencyklop.; F.. C.
Conybeare, Rituale Armenorum (Oxford, 1905; it contains the
oldest Latin and Greek forms), The Key of Truth (Oxford,
1898), and art. on ``The Survival of Animal Sacrifices'' in
the American Journal of Theology (Chicago, Jan. 1903); F. X.
Funk, Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Paderborn,
1906); V. Ermoni, L'Agape (Paris, 1904); G. Horner, The
Statutes of the Apostles, translated from Ethiopic and
Arabic MSS. (London, 1904); Thefr. Drescher, Diss. de
vet. Christianorum Agapis (Giesse, 1824); L. A. Muratori,
Anecdota Graeca, ``De agapis sublatis'' (Patavii, 1709); I.
A. Fabricius, Bibliogr. Ant. p. 587; Muenter, Primord.
Eccl. Afr. p. 111; Walafrid Strabo, De Rebus Eccles.
capita 18,19; Gregory of Tours, De miraculis S. Juliani,
xxxi.; Pualini Nolani Carmen xii. in S. Felicem. (F. C. C.)
AGAPEMONITES, or COMMUNITY OF THE SON OF MAN. This sect,
based upon the theories of various German religious mystics,
and having for its primary object the spiritualization of the
matrimonial state, was founded in 1846 by the Rev. Henry James
Prince, a clergyman of the Church of England (1811-1899).
He studied medicine, obtained his qualifications in 1832
and was appointed medical officer to the General Hospital in
Bath, his native city. Compelled by ill-health to abandon
his profession, he entered himself in 1837 as a student at
St. David's Theological College, Lampeter, where he gathered
about him a band of earnest religious enthusiasts, known as
the Lampeter Brethren, and was eventually ordained to the
curacy of Charlinch in Somerset, where he had sole charge
in the illness and absence of the rector, the Rev. Samuel
Starkey. By that time he had contracted his first ``spiritual
marriage,'' and had persuaded himself that he had been absorbed
into the personality of God and had become a visible embodiment
of the Holy Spirit. During his illness Mr. Starkey read one
of his curate's sermons and was not only ``cured'' forthwith,
but embraced his strange doctrines, and together they procured
many conversions in the countryside and the neighbouring
towns. In the end the rector was deprived of his living and
Prince's licence withdrawn, and together with a few disciples
they started the Charlinch Free Church, which had a very brief
existence. Prince shortly afterwards became curate of Stoke in
Suffolk, where, however, the character of his revivalist zeal
caused his departure at the end of twelve months. It was now
decided that Prince, Starkey (whose sister Prince had married
as his second wife) and the Rev. Lewis Prince should leave the
Church of England and preach their own gospel; Prince opened
Adullam Chapel, Brighton, and Starkey established himself at
Weymouth. The chief success lay in the latter town, and
thither Prince soon migrated. A number of followers,
estimated by Prince at 500, but by his critics at one-fifth
of the number, were got together, and it was given out by
``Beloved'' or ``The Lamb''--the names by which the Agapemonites
designated their leader--that his disciples must divest
themselves of their possessions and throw them into the common
stock. This was done, even by the poor or ill-furnished,
all of whom looked forward to the speedy end of the present
dispensation, and were content, for the short remainder of this
world, to live in common, and, while not repudiating earthly
ties, to treat them as purely spiritual. With the money
thus obtained the house at Spaxton, which was to become the
``Abode of Love,'' was enlarged and furnished luxuriously, and
three sisters, who contributed L. 6000 each, were immediately
married to three of Prince's nearest disciples. Despite the
purely spiritual ideas which underlay the Agapemonite view
of marriage, a son was born to one of these couples, and
when the father endeavoured to carry it away an action was
brought which resulted in the affirmation of the mother's
right to its custody. The circumstance in which a fourth
sister who joined the community was abducted by her brothers
led to an inquiry in lunacy and to her final settlement at
Spaxton. A few years after the establishment of the ``Abode
of Love,'' a peculiarly gross scandal, in which Prince and one
of his female followers were involved, led to the secession
of some of his most faithful friends, who were unable any
longer to endure what they regarded as the amazing mixture
of blasphemy and immorality offered for their acceptance.
The most prominent of those who remained received such titles
as the ``Anointed Ones,'' the ``Angel of the Last Trumpet,''
the ``Seven Witnesses'' and so forth. In 1862 ``Brother
Prince'' sent ``to the kings and people of the earth'' letters
``making known to all men that flesh is saved from death.''
At that period the Agapemonites counted their adherents at
600, and it was no doubt a grievous shock to them when their
deathless founder died on the 8th of March 1899, four years
after he had opened a branch church at Clapton, London, which
is said to have cost L. 20.000. This church, decorated with
elaborate symbolism,'was styled the ``Ark of the Covenant,''
and in it the elect were to await the coming of the Lord.
On the death of ``Brother'' Prince, the Rev. T. H. Smyth-Pigott,
pastor of the ``Ark,'' became the acknowledged head of the
sect. He was born in 1852, of an old Somersetshire county
family, and, after a varied career as university man, sailor
before the mast, soldier, coffee-planter, curate in the Church
of England and evangelist in the Salvation Army, was converted
about 1897 to the views of Prince. For five years after
this he was not heard of outside his own sect. On the 7th of
September 1902, however, the congregation, assembled at the
Ark of the Covenant for service, found the communion table
replaced by a chair. In this Pigott presently seated himself
and proclaimed himself as the Messiah with the words, ``God is
no longer there,'' pointing upwards, ``but here,'' pointing to
himself. This astonishing announcement was followed by an
excellent sermon on Christian love. Pigott's claim was at
once admitted by the members of his sect, including even
his own wife, as the fulfilment of the promise of Christ to
appear in due time in the ``Ark.'' By the outside world the
affair was greeted with mingled ridicule and indignation,
and the new Messiah had to be protected by the police from
the violence of an angry mob. After providing ``copy'' for
the newspapers for a few days, however, the whole thing was
forgotten. Pigott retired to the headquarters of the sect,
the ``Abode of Love'' in Somerset, and all efforts to interview
him or to obtain details of the life of the community were
abortive. At last, in August 1905, the long and mysterious
silence was broken by the announcement that a son had been
born to Pigott by his ``spiritual wife,'' Miss Ruth Preece, an
inmate of the Agapemone. This event by no means disconcerted
