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Foregleams of Immortality (1858), The Fourth Gospel the Heart of Christ (1872), and Sermons and Songs (1875). His writings are noted for their great spiritual power and beauty; he wrote also two exquisite Christmas-hymns, "Calm on the listening ear of night," and "It came upon the midnight clear" (1834 and 1849 or 1850).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. W. Duffield, English Hymns, pp. 264265, New York, 1886; Julian, Hymnology, p. 1036.

SEBASTIAN, se-bas'ti-an or bast'yan: Saint and martyr; patron of archers, and formerly invoked to avert pestilence; martyred at Rome. Ambrose (MPL, xiv. 1497) states that Sebastian was born at Milan and suffered martyrdom at Rome; and it is also certain that he suffered martyrdom on Jan. 20 of an unknown year (3057). These few facts are all that are certainly known concerning him. The Acts of St. Sebastian (ASB, Jan., ii. 265-278) contains, besides many miracles and conversions, such a mass of historical inconsistencies that, even though probably written in the early part of the fifth century, they can not be regarded as original documents. Three data in the life of the saint, however, were from an early period regarded as authentic. His martyrdom was fixed in the first reign of Diocletian; he was an officer of the imperial bodyguard; and he was shot with arrows in the Colosseum. These three statements are derived from the forged Acts. That he fell a victim to the great Diocletian persecution of 303 sqq., as the Acts state, is merely a conjecture not wholly devoid of plausibility; but the so-called Depositio martyrum of the Chronicle of Liberius affirms that St. Sebastian was buried in the catacombs on Jan. 20, 354. Again, Roman criminal law did not prescribe execution by shooting with arrows as a death penalty for Christians, the punishments in question being decapitation, crucifixion, fighting with wild beasts, or death by burning or scourging. A mosaic picture of the saint, dating from about 682, is preserved in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli. It represents St. Sebastian, not, as in Renaissance art, as naked and young, but as a bearded man of adult age, with a long mantle, the fine raiment of a courtier, a nimbus, and a diadem in his right hand. No representation of the martyrdom is known from the first six centuries; nor does even this earliest portrait contain any trace of an arrow to symbolize the supposed manner of St. Sebastian's death. (FRANZ GORRES.)

BIRLIOGRAPHY: Documents other than the Acta are published in MGH, Script., xv. 1 (1887), 379-391, 2 (1888), 771-773; ASM, iv. 1, pp. 383-410; and the fragment of the Sebastian saga by C. R. Unger in Heilagra Manna Siigur, ii. 228-235, Christiania, 1877. Consult further: J. C. F. Biihr, Geschichte der ri)mischen Literatur im karolingischen Zeitalter, p. 259, Carlsruhe, 1840; P. J. Chapusot, Notice sur la vie de S. S_bastien et sur la reliquie . . . conserves dans 1'eglise de Chalons, Ch8lons-sur-llfarne,,1863; J. 111. Triehaud, La Legende de S. Sebastien, Afarseilles, 1872; F. X. Kraus, Roma Sotterranea, pp. 119, 133,181, 518, Freiburg, 1879; F. GSrres, in ZTT'T, xxiii (1880), 3164, 165-197; idem, in JPT, Hiii. 511-518; P. Allard, La Persecution de Diocletien, i. 131-132, Paris, 1890; V. Cocchi, Memorie di S. Sebastiano, Frosinone, 1892; DCB, iv. 593.

SEBASTOS CYMINETES: Greek Orthodox theologian; b. at Cymina, near Trebizond, 1630; d. at

Trebizond Sept. 6, 1702. He was apparently educated in his native country, and in 1671 became the head of the Greek patriarchal school in Constantinople. Later he assumed a like position at Trebizond, where he spent the remainder of his life. He energetically opposed the entrance of Western theology into the Greek Orthodox Church. Only a few of his many works have appeared in print, among them being the Heortologion (Bucharest, 1701) and especially the posthumous Dogmatike didaskalia (1703). The latter consists of three parts: " When the elements are changed into the body and blood of Christ; that the Virgin was subject to original sin; that the `parts' are not changed into the body and blood of Christ." Some of the work was obviously not written by Sebastos, a portion being ascribed by Sathas to the patriarch Dositheos. In his work Sebastos maintains that the elements are transformed through the Epiklesis (q.v.), as the Orthodox liturgy teaches, but that the "parts" are not changed; he holds that the Virgin was born in sin, but was delivered from original sin through the annunciation, as Christians are freed through baptism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fabrieius-Harles, Bibliotheca Greece, xi. 531, 634, Hamburg 1808; F. Kattenbuseh, Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Confessionskunde, ii. 413-414, Freiburg, 1892; F. Legrand, Bibliographie hellUnique, iii. 47, 62, Paris, 1895.

SECESSION CHURCH. See PRESBYTERIANS, I., 2, 3, 6.

SECESSION CHURCH IN IRELAND. See PRESBYTERIANS, III., 3.

SECESSION CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, UNITED ORIGINAL. See PRESBYTERIANS I., § 6 .

SECKENDORF, sek'en-dtirf, VEIT LUDWIG VON: German Lutheran statesman and scholar; b. at Herzogenaurach (6 m. s.w. of Erlangen) Dec. 20, 1626; d. at Halle Dec. 18, 1692. He was educated at the University of Strasburg (1642-15); after which he was appointed page to Duke Ernest the Pious, his duties being to supervise the library, to draw useful and interesting material from designated books, and to communicate the results to the duke, a task which laid the basis for his own writings. In 1648 Seckendorf was made gentleman of the bedchamber, and in 1652 court councilor and councilor of justice. Three years later as privy court councilor and councilor of the board of domains he rendered important service in regulating the finances of the country and in a number of diplomatic affairs. In 1664 Duke Ernest made him chancellor, but in the same year he entered the service of Maurice, duke of Saxony-Zeitz, as chancellor and president of the consistory. These positions he held, in spite of many jealous attacks, until the death of Maurice in 1681. Still retaining his position as district director at Altenburg, Seckendorf now found time and leisure to indulge his literary