EKKEHARD, ek'ke-hart, OF AURA (Ekke hardus Uratigensis): Frankish Benedictine abbot of Aura (near Kissingen, 30 m. n.n.e. of Würzburg); b. in the eleventh century; d. Feb. 25 of some year after 1125. He was apparently a monk of the Bamberg monastery of Michelsberg, and in 1113 received benediction as abbot of Aura, which had been founded according to the rule of Hirschau, from Otto of Bamberg, who later became the apostle of the Pomeranians. He had previously lived in the monastery of Corvey, had visited Jerusalem sae a pilgrim in 1101, and had attended the Lateran

Council of April, 1102. He accompanied Otto of Bamberg on his visit to the pope in 1106, and was present at the Council of Guastalla. He apparently left his monastery in 1116, and attended the Lateran Council held in March. Ekkehard was the author of a universal chronicle, which he afterward revised four times. The original work extends to 1099, and is based on a similar work which originated in Würzburg, although-he amplified it from other authors, such as Einhard, Widukind, Liutprand, and Richer, as well as from oral tradition and his own knowledge. He subsequently extended it to 1106, when he revised it twice, the last time on the basis of the chronicle of Sigibert of Gembloux, and carried it successively to 1114 and 1125. His work, which is not a mere compilation, is the most complete o£ all the medieval chronicles, although he is surpassed in depth and insight by Otto of Freising.

(Wilhelm Altmann.)

Bibliography: Ekkehard'a Chronicon and Hieroeolimita, ed. G. Waits, are in MGH, vi (1844), 1-287. An excellent list of literature is given in Potthast, Wepweiaer, pp. 400-401, cf. Wattenbach, DGQ, ii (1894), 189-198. Consult N. Iteininger, in Archiv den historischen Vereina von Unterfranken and Aachafjenburp, avi. 1-98, Würzburg, 1862; G. Buchholz, Ekkehard -von Aura, Leipsic. 1888; J. Tessier, in Revue historiQue, xlvii (1891), 287-277.

EKKEHARD OF SAINT GALL. See Saint Gall, Monastery of.

ELAGABALUS, el"n-.gab's-Ivs (Varius Avitus Bassianus): Roman emperor; b. at Emesa, Syria, c. 201; killed by the pretoriane in Rome, 222. He was a son of the senator Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias, and a grandson of Julia Maesa (see Alexander Severus). Both mother and grandmother had retired to Emesa, and here they inculcated in the boy that Oriental religious fanaticism which was later to be the chief characteristic of the emperor. He was early consecrated as a priest of the sun-god at Emesa and later appropriated his name (Elagabalus=Syriac El gabal, " mountain [?] god "; by popular Greek etymologizing the name became Heliogabalus, from hellos, " sun "). The intrigues of his mother and the fall of Macrinus brought him to the throne in 218. His personal beauty impressed the soldiers, and his claim to be the son of Caracalla won their respect. He did not enter Rome till 219. Unnerved by indulgence of his passions and crazed by his practise of superstitious sorcery, he had now only two aims in life, to follow his own pleasure and to introduce into Rome the worship of the sun-god as the one supreme deity ruling throughout the whole world. All the attributes of other gods, even the sacra of the city, in so far as these were not profaned and put aside, were to be transferred to this one god.

This was the dream of a crazy boy in the year 219. Ninety years later the Church had to take account of a religious speculation essentially related to the views of this dissipated youth: viz. the idea of the oneness of God, as held by the emperor Alexander Severus (q.v.), and as represented in Neoplatonism (q.v.). At first Christianity was inclined to be peaceable toward this Neople,tonic speculation; but at the beginning of the fourth century it assumed an aggressive attitude and called

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its adherents out for the conflict, until Constantine (q.v.) and his followers adopted a religious policy of which, it must be admitted, the boy Elagabalus was the forerunner. As Elagabalus did not have time to carry out his plans, his reign was one of peace for the Church.

(Adolf Harnack.)

Bibliography: The sources are: Dion Cassius, " Roman History," lxxvii. 3011, Ixxix.; Herodian, " History of the Kings," v. 4-23; Lampridius. Elagabalus; Aurelius Victor, De Caaaritwa, xxiii.; idem, Epitome, xxiii. Modern accounts are: w. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, ii. 8-7, London, 1890; V. Duruy, History of Rome, VII. 1, pp. 102-118. Boston, 1890; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, i. 141-198; KL, v. 1748-50.