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106 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Elder in Israel Elise Levity position (I dam. ii. 12 eqq.). For this reason a prophet first foretold to Eli God's judgment in the sudden death of his two sons, a curse upon the entire family, the members of which were to die early, after failing in preferment to their hereditary office. Finally Samuel announced to his master the near fulfilment of his doom (I Sam. iii.). In a war with the Philistines, Israel was completely overcome, both sons of Eli were killed and Eli, ninety-eight years of age, fell from his seat and died. The narrative relates the fulfil ment of the doom on Eli's hour during the reign of Solomon. C. VON ORELLI. ELLS (HELGESEN), PAULUS: Danish hu manist; b. at Varberg (on the Cattegat, 40 m. s. of Gothenburg), Holland, then a Danish province, about 1480; d. in 1535 (7). Educated in Skara, Veaterg6tland, he appears in 1517 as a monk in the Carmelite monastery in Elsinore, and it was prob ably from the patron saint of the Carmelites the prophet Elijah-that he chose the name " Paulus Helie " (Heliae, Elia;). Imbued with the spirit of humanism, he hailed with joy the appear ance of Luther, but when the latter broke com pletely with the Roman Church, he looked upon him as a dangerous revolutionist. In 1519 Elise was appointed lecturer in the Carmelite college at Copenhagen, and also lecturer in theology at the university there. In the beginning of his career he sympathized with King Christian IL, who dis played an active interest in the promotion of public schools, but the massacre of Stockholm changed his opinion of this king and he came to regard him as a godless tyrant. When, therefore, the king sent him a Latin pamphlet with a request to translate it, and he found it to be " an evil book, more calculated to teach yin than to improve mankind," he substitu ted for it Erasmus' writing on the duties of a Chris tian monarch, which he sent to the king. The result of this act as well as of his subsequent bold sermons in the royal chapel, taking Herod for his text, was that the king became enraged and Elise was compelled to flee to Jutland. Here he pre pared a Latin pamphlet setting forth his accusations against the king (cf. Mon. hilt. Dan., i. 121 sqq.), and this was used later for framing the obligations to be assumed by King Frederick II. After the flight of Christian II. Elite again became lecturer at the university, and for a time he offi ciated as provincial of the Carmelites as the suc cessor of Anders Christensen. In 1526 he pub lished a Danish translation of Luther's prayer-book, in the preface to which he defends himself against the accusation of having been a pupil of Luther, and he also states his opinion of the German Re former. During the following years Elia; proceeded with great zeal against the Reformation, publishing pamphlet upon pamphlet against those who had joined that movement, including several of his for mer colleagues from the Carmelite college. In 1530 he began an attack upon Hone Tausen and had to leave Copenhagen in consequence; three years later, however, he returned and renewed his attacks, causing Tausen to be branded as a heretic on account of his teachings regarding the Lord's
Supper. Having accomplished this, Elise went to Roskilde where he published his aforementioned pamphlet on the duties of Christian rulers. During the feud among the nobility he endeavored to mediate between the factions by publishing a "Brief Instruction in Christian Union and Reconciliation," which was partly an adaptation of Erasmus' commentary on Psalm lxxxiii (De amabili ecclesiee concordia). Besides a brief Latin history of the Danish kings, Elite wrote a chronicle of the first four kings of the house of Oldenburg, generally called the " S kibby-Chronicle." It is a remarkable attempt in the pragmatic method of historiography, and is filled with bitter one-aided opinions of the opponents of the Roman Church. This work closes in the middle of a sentence (Dum hwc aguntur . . .), from which it would appear that its author lived until the end of 1534 or the beginning of 1535. An unconfirmed report says that Elise joined the reform party and became pastor somewhere. Schmitt is of the opinion that he may have fallen victim to violence, but this is highly improbable; it is more likely that he fled to Holland, to the birthplace of his beloved Erasmus.
BIHLI068AYEf7: The " $kibbY-Chronicle " and some of the letters of Elise were published in 13. R.oerdam. Monuments h%storice Danioe, vol. i., Copenhagen. 1873. Consult further: C. Olivarius, De rites et saiptie Pauli Elio', Copenhagen, 1741; L. Schmitt, Der Karmel%ter Paul Elio, Freiburg, 1893.
ELIAS OF CORTONA. See FRANCIS, SAINT, OF Assisi, AND THE FR.ANCIBCAN ORDER, L, § 4, III., §§ 1-3.
ELIAS LEVITA (Elijah ben Asher ha-Levi): Rabbi; b. at Neuetadt-on-the-Aisch (20 m. n.w. of Nuremberg) 1489; d. at Venice Jan. 28, 1549. His German birth is explicitly declared in the first preface to his Massoret, a statement corroborated by Kimchi and by Sebastian Monster. But Italy became his second home, hence he could state at the end of the Methurgeman, that he " wished to return to Italy, the land whence he came, and die in his city of Venice." He taught Hebrew at Padua 1504-09, lost his property there at the sack of that city by the French, removed to Venice, thence to Rome (in 1512), where he was under the protection of Egidio of Viterbo. When Rome was taken by Charles V. (1527) a second time he lost his property. He removed to Venice, which became his permanent home, with the exception of a few intervals spent at Isny and in a visit to Germany, 1540-43.
Elias Levity would occupy an honorable place among Hebrew grammarians, even if an extraordinary significance had not been attached to his labor by the historical conditions under which it was accomplished. His w:rk became a factor of that historical advancement by which Christendom returned to the documentary sources of its doctrines. To this new beginning of linguistic and historical studies Elias Levity rendered important services. After Reuchlin under the direction of the physician Jacob Jehiel Loans (L. Geiger, ut inf., pp. 24, 26) had mastered Hebrew, and after Matthias Adrianus, a