St., an ancient father of the church, born at Besancon, a village in Palestine, about the year 332. He founded a monastery near the place of his birth, and presided over it. He was afterwards elected bishop of Salamis, when he took part with Paulinus against Melitius, and ordained in Palestine Paulinian, the brother of St Jerome, on which a contest arose between him and John bishop of Jerusalem. He afterwards called a council in the island of Cyprus, in which he procured a prohibition of the reading of Origen's writings, and made use of all his endeavours to prevail on Theophilus bishop of Alexandria to engage St Chrysostom to declare in favour of that decree; but not meeting with success, he himself proceeded to Constantinople, where he refused to have any conversation with St Chrysostom, and formed the design of entering the church of the apostles to publish his condemnation of Origen. Being informed, however, of the danger to which he would be exposed, he resolved to return to Cyprus, but died at sea in the year 403. His works were printed in Greek at Basil, 1544, in folio, and were afterwards translated into Latin, in which language they have often been reprinted. Petavius revised and corrected the Greek text with the aid of two manuscripts, and published it together with a new translation at Paris in 1622. This edition was reprinted at Cologne in 1682.

EPHANY, a Christian festival, otherwise called the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, observed on the sixth of January, in honour of the appearance of our Saviour to the three magi or wise men, who came to adore him and bring him presents. The feast of epiphany was not originally a distinct festival, but formed part of that of the nativity of Christ, which being celebrated twelve days, the first and last of which were high or chief days of solemnity, either of these might properly be called epiphany, as that word signifies the appearance of Christ in the world.

The word in the original Greek, ἐπίφανες, signifies appearance or apparition, and, as some critics think, was applied to this feast, on account of the star which appeared to and guided the magi. St Jerome and St Chrysostom take the epiphany for the day of our Saviour's baptism, when he was declared to men by the voice, Ἡμεῖς ὁ θεὸς σου ἐστιν, ἐν τῷ ῥομανίῳ τοῦ πατρός σου, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; and accordingly it is still observed by the Copts and Ethiopians in this view. But others contend that the feast of Christmas, or the nativity of our Saviour, was held in different churches on this day, which had the denomination epiphany or appearance, by reason of our Saviour's first appearance upon earth at that time. And it must be allowed that the word is used amongst the ancient Greek fathers, not to signify the appearance of the star to the magi, but that of our Saviour to the world; in which sense St Paul uses the word epiphania in his second epistle to Timothy (i. 10.)