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129 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Succession 8ucooth-Benoth apostles at the time of the ascension of our Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom they were made patriarchs, bishops, and priests, and were authorized to bind and loose, as written by St. Matthew. " We, therefore, by virtue of our authority re ceived from God, authorize him to bind and loose, and elevating our voice, we offer thanks to God, and exclaim, ` Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Elei son.' Again, we pray to God to grant him cheer of face before hid throne of majesty, and that we and he may be made worthy to glorify him, now and at all times for ever and ever. " Given on the seventeenth of Konum Kolim of the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and ninety one (corresponding to the twenty-ninth of Decem ber, eighteen hundred and ninety-one) from the patriarchal palace of the monastery of Mardin." " (Signed) IGNATIUS PETER III." The ceremony performed in conformity with this apostolic authorization was unique in the simul taneous use of both the western and the eastern rites of episcopal consecration. The Portuguese Archbishop Alvarez, himself consecrated by Syrian prelates, conferred the episcopate on Pdre Vilatte, according to the forms of the Latin ritual, while concurrently, the two co-consecrating Syrian metro politans likewise conferred the episcopate according to the forms of the Syrian ritual, so that the validity of this new apostolic succession in the western patriarchate is indisputable either respecting ca nonical authority, intention, or rite. It will be no ticed that the title of consecration of Pere Vilatte is stated as archbishop-metropolitan of the arch diocese of America. This plenary canonical power was consistently conferred on Archbishop Vilatte by the patriarch of Antioch, because it is admitted by all unbiased canonists that, as the Western con tinent was unknown during the conciliar ages, it is obviously exempt from the exclusive jurisdiction of any patriarch, either of the eastern or western branches of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ. There is therefore in the western patriarchate, besides the Latin succession of the Independent Catholic Church of Holland, derived in 1724 from the French Bishop Varlet, the canonical Syrian succession of Archbishop Vilatte, who has already been solemnly recognized in his archiepiscopal character not only by the Church of Holland, but even by the Holy Office of the Roman Catholic Church. ` In view of this fact, the several reformed com munions in the Western Church are not now de pendent for a historic episcopate, either upon the disputed Anglican succession dating from the Eliza bethan restoration, or upon the valid but irregular succession of the Old Catholic bishops of Europe, since there is now available this newer apostolic and canonical episcopate derived direct from that first center of Christianity itself, that oldest of all the branches of the primitive Church, the Syrian Church of Antioch. ERNEST MARGRANDER. BlstsoGxnrxY: W. E. Gladstone, Church Principles Con sidered in their Results, London, 1840; W. Palmer, A Treatise on the Church of Christ, 3d ed., 2 vols., London, 1&12; H. P. Liddon, A Father in Christ. 3d ed., London, 1885: C. Gore, The Church arid the Ministry, London, 1889; J. Tod, Protestant Episcopacy in Relation to Apos XL-9
folic Succession, London, 1889: W. Earle, The Reunion of Christendom in Apostolical Succession, London, 1895; C. 73. Waller, Apoatolical Succession, St. Leonards, 1895; J. Brown, Apostolicad Succession in the Light of History and Fact, London, 1898; R. C. Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood . . . with an Appendix upon Roman Criticism of Anglican Orders, London, 1897; T. F. Loekyer, The Evangelical Succession, or, the Spiritual Lineage of the Christian
Church, London, 1899; R. Bruce, Apostolic Order and Unity, Edinburgh, 1903; W. H. M. H. Aitken, Apoatolical Succession in the Light of the History of the Primitive Church, London, 1903; R. E. Thompson, The Historic E,~p~iscopate, Philadelphia. 1910; and the literature under AYOBTOLIC SBCCEBBION.
SUCCOTH-BENOTH: A term used in IT Kings xvii. 30, evidently as the name of a deity of Babylon. The passage in which the term occurs (verses 2441) describes the settlement in the district of Samaria of the colonists brought by Sargon from different parts of the East to replace the northern Israelites carried by him into exile after the capture of Samaria (q.v., IL, 1, § 1). The phrasing of the passage is peculiar in that it is said that these settlers " made " (Hebr. `asu) the deities and " put them in the houses of the high places." Appareqtly the idea is that they made images of the deities and put them in the shrines left by the Hebrews; possibly, however, the meaning ig simply that they installed the worship of these deities on the high places. At first sight the passage seems very corrupt, for out of seven deities named only one, Nergal, is certainly recognizable (see ADRAMMELECH; ANAMMELECR; AaAIMA; NIBHAZ; and TARTAK); and yet it seems to pass the bounds of probability that in a short passage from a context that is generally clear six out of seven names should be so utterly distorted as to be unrecognizable.
With slightly different vocalization the term should mean " tents of (the) daughters," yet no deity is known whose name or title could be even approximately thus represented; and Marduk as god of Babylon is the deity whose name would be expected here. The various attempts at solution offered in the commentaries and elsewhere throw little light on the subject. Selden (De dis Syris, ii. 7) supposed a shrine where marriageable girls (banoth) offered their virginity as a religious duty; Gesenius (Thesaurus) changed banoth to bamoth (" high places "). A number of students see in the term a corruption of Zirpanitu (Zirbanit), the name of Marduk's consort. No progress is made by comparison of the word with the sikkuth of Amos v. 26 (cf. R. V. margin). And other suggestions in the commentaries display , ingenuity but give no solution which has commanded acceptance.
To be remembered is the fact that the colonists introduced by Sargon were almost certainly from the lower orders, who worshiped, in all probability, deities or spirits of an animistic sort whose names have not been transmitted. As in modern times in non-Christian lands (e.g., India) the state cults are often not those of the masses of the population (Kipling makes a countryman in Kim speak of " the good ` little gods' "), so in ancient times it is demonstrable in many cases that the objects of worship were deities whose names do not appear in the official records. Some of these names may in exact or confused form be present in the text awaiting
