Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/368

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HICEEY


322


HIERARCHY


Order by Abraham Bzovius; "De Conceptione Im- maculata B. Mariae Virginis"; "De Stigmatibus S. Catharins Senensis", written by order of the Sacred Congregation of Rites; "Ad pleraque dubia moralia, et ascetica, gravissimse responsiones". This work, which Wadding calls "opus doctissimum " , is still in MS. Among the MSS. preserved in the Franciscan Convent, Dublin, are several letters WTitten to Father Hickey from Ireland on the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of that country. There is also an important letter of his on the Irish language. Many of the Irish bishops consulted him on matters of grave moment. His acquaintance with the history, language, and antiquities of Ireland was extensive, and in co-opera- tion with John Colgan, Hugh Ward, and other Irish scholars, he drew up a plan for a critical history of Ireland in all its branches, — but this idea was not realized.

Waddingus-Sbaralea, Scriptorea Ord. S. Franciaci (Rome, 1S06): loANNES A S. Antonio, Bibliotheca Vniv. Franciscuna (Madrid, 1732) ; Vernul^u.s, De Academia Lovaniensi ; Wahe- Harris, Works (Dublin, 1764); Brennan, Ecclesiastical His- tory of Ireland (Dublio, 1840).

Gregoey Cleahy. Hickey, Thomas F. See Rochester, Diocese of.

Hierapolis, titular archdiocese, metropolis of the Province of Euphrates, in the Patriarchate of Antioch. The native name, Mabog or Maboug, the Greeks make Baii^vK-rj and Seleucus Nicator transforms into Hierapolis or Hieropolis, both forms being found on the coins. This appellation of "Holy City" is an allusion to the celebrated temple erected to the SjT- ian goddess Atargatis or Derceto, who was also vener- ated at Palmyra, Ascalon, and elsewhere. The dove was sacred to this goddess, who is represented under the form of a woman-fish. The temple of Hierapolis was pillaged by Crassus at the time of his expedition against the Parthians. Lucian of Samosata tells us that numerous pilgrims repaired thither twice a year in order to pour water through the opening of an abyss. Under the Seleucides and the Romans, Hiera- polis became a great commercial centre, a halting- place for the caravans going from Seleucia to Babylon. As the capital of the province of Commagene, or Eu- phrates, it became an important military stronghold where the Roman and Byzantine armies were con- centrated, once the Persians had crossed the frontier and taken the first line of the defences. Julian the Apostate stopped here for some days before marching against Sapor. In 540 the city escaped pillage by the troops of Chosroes only by the payment of a hea\'y fine. Justinian fortified it, reducing the extent of the ramparts, which, with their numerous towers, also built by this emperor, are still standing. It requires about an hour to make the circuit of them. In 106S the Emperor Romanus Diogenes took the city, thus staying the progress of the Turks.

Lequien (Or. Christ., II, 92.5-8) names ten bishops of Hierapolis. Among the best-known may be men- tioned Alexander, an ardent advocate of the Nestorian heresy, who died in exile in Egypt; Philoxenus or Xenaia (d. about 523), a famous Monophysite .scholar; Stephen (c. 600), author of a life of St. Golindouch. Under the Patriarch Anastasius, in the sixth century, the metropolitan See of Maboug had nine suffragan bishoprics (Echos d'Orient, 14, 145). Chabot (Revue de I'orient Chretien, VI, 200) mentions thirteen Jacob- ite archbishops from the ninth to the twelfth century. One Latin bishop. Franco, in 1136, is known (Lequien, III, 1193). Thisseemust not be confounded with Hier- apolis in Arabia, a large number of who.se titulars in the fifteenth century are mentioned by Eubel (II, 181). To-day Membidj is a caza of the sanjak and vilayet of Aleppo in a rich plain. The village is situated twenty miles west of the Euphrates, and contains 1.500 in- habitants, all Circassians. The ruins of the city of Hierapolis are thirteen miles north, at Kara-Membidj,


where remains of aqueducts and the Byzantine walls of Justinian are still to be seen.

Chesnet, Expedition Euphrate, I, 5, 6; Smith, Dictionary of Creek and Roman Geography, I, 1064; Chabot, La frontiire dr VEuphrate (Paris. 1907). 338-340; ChjiNET, La Turouie d'Asie, II (Paris, 1S92), 218-20.

S. Vailh^.

Hierapolis, a titular see of Phrygia Salutaris, suf- fragan of Synnada. It is usually called by its inhab- itants Hieropolis, no doubt because of its hieron (which was an important religious centre), is men- tioned by Ptolemy (v, 2, 27), and by Hierocles (Synecd.,676,9). It appears as a see in the "Notitise Episcopatuum" from the sixth to the thirteenth cen- turies. It has been identified as the modern village of Kotchhi.ssar in the vilayet of Smyrna, near which are the ruins of a temple and the hot springs of Uidja. Hierapolis once had the privilege of striking its own coins. We know three of its bi.shops: Flaccus, pres- ent at the Council of Nica'a in 325 and at that of Phi- lippcpolis in 347; Avircius, who took part in the Council of Chalcedon, 451 ; Michael, who assisted at the .second Council of Nicaea in 787. St. Abercius, whose feast is kept by the Greek Church on 22 Octo- ber, is celebrated in tradition as the first Bishop of Hierapolis. He was probably only a priest, and may be identical with Abercius Marcellus, author of a treatise against the Montanists (Eusebius, H. E., V, xvi) about the end of the .«econd centurj'. On the epitaph of Abercius and its imitation by Alexander, another citizen of Hierapolis, see Abercius, Inscrip- tion OF. The town in question must not be con- founded with another Hierapolis or Hieropolis, more important still, a see of Phrj-gia Pacatiana. Lequien in his "Oriens Christianus" makes this error (I, 831 sqq.). There is also another Hierapolis. a see of Isau- ria, suffragan of Seleucia (Lequien, II, 1025).

Ramsay. Cities and Bishoprics of Phryfjia (Oxford. 1895- 1S97): Idem, Trov* viUes phrygiennes in Bulletin de correspon- dance hellhiiqve, 1882. VI; Duchesne. Hierapolis, patrie d' Aber- cius in Revue des questions historiques (.luly, 1883).

S. Petrides.

Hierarchy (Or. 'Upapxia-; from iepAs, sacred; H-px^'-", rule, command). This word has been used to denote the totality of ruling powers in the Church, ever since the time of the P.seiido-Dionysius Areopa- gita (sixth century), who consecrated the expression in his works, "The Celesti.al Hierarchv" and "The Ecclesia.stical Hierarchy" (P. G., Ill, 119 and 370). According to this author and his two commentators, Pachymeres (P. G., III. 129) and Maximus (P. G.. IV, .30), the word connotes the care and control of holy or sacred things, the sneer ]irnieip(itus. The " Hierarcha", it is here explained, is he who has actual care of these things; who, indeed, both obeys and commands, but does not obey those he commands. There is, consequently, a necessary gradation among hierarchs; and this gradation, which exists even among the angels, i. e. in the heavenly hierarchy (on which the ecclesiastical hierarchy is modelled), must a jnrliori be fouml in a human a.-^sembly subject to sin, and in which this gradation works for peace and har- mony ("S. Gregorii Reg. Epist.", V, 54, in P. L., LXXVII, 786; "Decreta Dionysii papic", in the Hinschius ed. of the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, 195- 6, Berlin, 1863; "Decretum" of Gratian (Pseudo- Boniface), pt. I, D. 89, c. vii). The hierarchy, there- fore, connotes the totality of powers established in the Church for the guiding of man to his eternal salvation, but divided into various orders or grades, in which the inferior are subject to and yield obedience to the higher ones.

I. Hierarchy of Order and of Jurisdiction. — It is usual to distinguish a twofold hierarchy in the Church, that of order and that of jurisdiction, corre- sponding to the twofold means of sanctification, grace, which comes to us principally through the sacraments.