Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/484

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430

position that a St. Firmin, native of Pampeluna, was martyred during the persecution of Diocletian, it is certain that the first bishop known to history is St. Eulogius, who defended the divinity of Christ in the councils held during the middle of the fourth century. Among the bishops of Amiens are counted: Jessé, who played an important part in the time of Charlemagne, and was deposed under Louis the Pious; William of Mâcon, at the end of the thirteenth century, called the greatest jurist of the University of Paris; Jean de Lagrange, known as the Cardinal of Amiens (d. 1402), who figured prominently in the great Schism; the Franciscan monk, François Faure, preacher at the court of Louis XIV, who converted to Catholicism the Duke de Montausier and James II, the future King of England; Bombelles, ambassador to Venice under Louis XVI, who after the Revolution, became a priest, and was Bishop of Amiens from 1819 to 1822. The cathedral (thirteenth century) is an admirable Gothic monument, and was made the subject of careful study by Ruskin in his "Bible of Amiens". The nave of this cathedral is considered a type of the ideal Gothic. The church of St. Acheul, near Amiens, and formerly its cathedral, was, in the nineteenth century, the home of a very important Jesuit novitiate. The beautiful churches of St. Ricquier and Corbie perpetuate the memory of the great Benedictine abbeys and homes of learning founded in these places in 570 and 662. The Diocese of Amiens, at the end of the year 1905, counted 537,848 inhabitants, 60 cures, or parishes; 609 succursales, or mission churches, and 49 vicariates, with salaries formerly paid by the State.

Gallia Christiana (Vetus, 1656), II, 110–554; Mioland, Actes de l'Eglise d'Amiens (Amiens, 1848); Corblet, Hagiographie du diocèse d'Amiens (1869–76).

Georges Goyau

Amiot, Joseph Maria, a missionary to China, b. at Toulon, 8 February, 1718; d. at Pekin, 8 or 9 October, 1793. He v/as admitted into the Society of Jesus in 1737. Sent to China as a missionary in 1740, he soon won the esteem and confidence of the Emperor Kien Long, whose language, the Tatar, he spoke fluently. His thorough mastery of this tongue as well as the Chinese, and his extensive knowledge of physics, literature, history, mathematics, and music, enabled him to give to the European world, in a voluminous correspondence, much striking and curious information concerning the Chinese. He made a special study of their music. Most of the important works of Amiot are found in the collec- tion: "M^moires concernant I'histoire, les sciences, les arts, les moeurs et les usages des chinois, par les missionaires de Pekin" (Paris, Nyon ainc, 1776- 89). He composed a Tatar-Manchu grammar and dictionary in French, and a chronological table of the Chinese Emperors from the sixty-first year of the Empire to 1769. There are also articles from his pen on the weights and measures of the Chinese, their military science, music, language, teaching of their books, the geography and climate of their country, as well as historical treatises on the migrations of the Tatar-Tourgouths. These and other works, and where they can be found , are noted by Sommervogel in liis " Bibliothfique de la Compagnie de J6sus", I, 294 sqq. SoM-MERVOQEL, /rf« hommea utiles; Vie et Testament du R. P. Amiot membre de la Compagnie de Jesus missionaire en Chine, 1718-93 (Paris, 1881); Feti», Biogr. des mmiciens; Les missions Catholiqucs (1895), VII, 496. Joseph M. Woods. Amisus, a titular see of Pontus in Asia Minor. It wa« a rich commercial centre under the kings of Pontus. a royal residence and fortress of Mithridates, and included in its territory the dwelling place of the fabled Amazons. Lkqijikn, Oriens Christinnus (1740). I, 533-536; Smith, Oict. of Greek and Roman Qeogr., 1, Vi'Z. Ammanati, Gi.como. See Piccolomini. Ammen, Da.viel, .American naval officer and autliur, b. in Brown County, Ohio, 15 May, 1820; d. in Washington. D. C, 11 July, 1898. His father, a soldier of the war of 1812, migrated to Ohio from N'irginia. He was appointed midshipman, 7 July, 1834, and ordered to W^est Point, where he studiecl for tliree months, under his brother Jacob Ammen, later a brigadier general in the United States AiTny. .After serving at sea for several years, he was sent to the Naval School, then near Philadelphia. He was appointed lieutenant 4 November, 1849, and became rear admiral 11 December, 1877. During the Civil War, he was engaged in blockade duty with Admiral Dupont's fleet. He was chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks from 1 May, 1869, to 1 October, 1871, and chief of the Bureau of Navi- gation from 1 October, 1871, until his retirement, 4 June, 1878. He devoted much time to work on harbour defences, and designed the ram Katahdin, also the " -Ammen balsa ", or life-raft, used in the navy. In 1872 he was appointed member of a commission to examine and report on the feasibility of constructing a canal through Nicaragua. The commission reported in favour of the Nicaraguan route, which he strongly advocated. In 1879 he was sent as a delegate to a congress in Paris to dis- cuss Isthmian canal questions. He also served on the board for the location of the new Naval Ob- servatory. After his retirement he purchased a farm twelve miles from Washington, at a station named in his honour Ammendale, the seat of the Normal School of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, where through his generosity St. Josepli's church was built. Among his works are "The Atlantic Coast" (New York, 1883); "Recollections of Grant" (1885); "The Old Navy and the New" (autobiographical) (Philad., 1891); " Country Homes and Their Improvements"; "Fallacies of the Inter- oceanic Tran.sit Questions", and various contribu- tions to current literature. Milton E. Smith. Ammon (Egyp. Amun or Amen, "the hidden one". Heb. 'AnuJn, Gr. Afi/iu^). The supreme divinity of the Egyptian pantheon. He was originally only the chief god of the city of Thebes, but later his worship became predominant in Egypt and extended even to Lybia and Ethiopia. Thebes, however, always re- mained the centre of his worship, whence it was called Nc Amun, "the city of Amun", Heb. A'o'- 'Amdn (Nah. iii, 8, Heb. text), and the god himself is designated by Jeremias (xlvi, 25, Heb. text) as 'Am6n min No', Ammon of No, i. e. Thebes. Am- mon was worshipped under several names with different attributes. As Ammon-Ra, he was the sun-god, with his chief temple at Thebes; as Khem or Min, he was the god of reproduction; as Khnum, he was the creator of all things, "the maker of gods and men". In the latter character he was represented with the head of a ram, the animal sacred to him, or simply with ram's horns; imder this form Ammon was best known to classical writers, who always attribute horns to him. The chief temple of Khnimi was in the oasis of Ammon (now Siwali), where Alexander the Great worshipped him. The Greeks and Romans identified Ammon with Zeus or Jupiter (Zeus Ammon, Jupiter Ammon), wlience the name Diospolis, City of Zeus, given to Thebes by the Greeks. Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1897); ViQounoux, I,a Bible et les dccour. mod. Bth. eil., (Paris. 1896), II, 513 sqq.; PlEliRET, Diet, d'archi'ologie fgupt.,

i5, 270, 519.

F. Bechtel. Ammon, Saint sometimes called Amun or Amus, b. about:!.')0; an Egyi)tian who, forced into niarriage when twenty-two years old, persuaded liis wife on the bridal night to pronounce a vow of chastity, which