Mahommedan Fasts.-Among the Mahommedans, the month Ramadan, in which the first part of the Koran is said to have been received, is by command of the prophet observed as a fast with extraordinary rigour. No food or drink of any kind is permitted to be taken from daybreak until the appearance of the stars at nightfall. Extending as it does over the whole "month of raging heat," such a fast manifestly involves considerable self-denial; and it is absolutely binding upon all the faithful whether at home or abroad. Should its observance at the appointed time be interfered with by sickness or any other cause, the fast must be kept as soon afterwards as possible for a like number of days. It is the only one which Mahommedanism enjoins; but the doctors of the law recommend a considerable number of voluntary fasts, as for example on the tenth day of the month Moharram. This day, called the "Yom Ashoora," is held sacred on many accounts:-"because it is believed to be the day on which the first meeting of Adam and Eve took place after they were cast out of paradise; and that on which Noah went out from the ark; also because several other great events are said to have happened on this day; and because the ancient Arabs, before the time of the prophet, observed it by fasting. But what, in the opinion of most modern Moslems, and especially the Persians, confers the greatest sanctity on the day of Ashoora is the fact of its being that on which El-Hoseyn, the prophet's grandson, was slain a martyr at the battle of the plain of Karbala." It is the practice of many Moslems to fast on this day, and some do so on the preceding day also. Mahomet himself called fasting the "gate of religion," and forbade it only on the two great festivals, namely, on that which immediately follows Ramadan and on that which succeeds the pilgrimage. (See Lane, Modern Egyptians, chaps. iii., xxiv.)

FASTOLF, SIR JOHN (d. 1459), English soldier, has enjoyed a more lasting reputation as in some part the prototype of Shakespeare's Falstaff. He was son of a Norfolk gentleman, John Fastolf of Caister, is said to have been squire to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, before 1398, served with Thomas of Lancaster in Ireland during 1405 and 14c6, and in 1408 made a fortunate marriage with Millicent, widow of Sir Stephen Scrope of Castle Combe in Wiltshire. In 1413 he was serving in Gascony, and took part in all the subsequent campaigns of Henry V. in France. He must have earned a good repute as a soldier, for in 1423 he was made governor of Maine and Anjou, and in February 1426 created a knight of the Garter. But later in this year he was superseded in his command by John Talbot. After a visit to England in 1428, he returned to the war, and on the 12th of February 1429 when in charge of the convoy for the English army before Orleans defeated the French and Scots at the "battle of herrings." On the 18th of June of the same year an English force under the command of Fastolf and Talbot suffered a serious defeat at Patay. According to the French historian Waurin, who was present, the disaster was due to Talbot's rashness, and Fastolf only fled when resistance was hopeless. Other accounts charge him with cowardice, and it is true that John of Bedford at first deprived him of the Garter, though after inquiry he was honourably reinstated. This incident was made unfavourable use of by Shakespeare in Henry VI. (pt. i. act iv. sc. i.). Fastolf continued to serve with honour in France, and was trusted both by Bedford and by Richard of York. He only came home finally in 1440, when past sixty years of age. But the scandal against him continued, and during Cade's rebellion in 1451 he was charged with having been the cause of the English disasters through minishing the garrisons of Normandy. It is suggested that he had made much money

The facts of Fastolf's early career are to be found chiefly in the chronicles of Monstrelet and Waurin. For his later life there is much material, including a number of his own letters, in the Paston Letters. There is a full life by W. Oldys in the Biographia Britannica (1st ed., enlarged by Gough in Kippis's edition). See also Dawson Turner's History of Caister Castle, Scrope's History of Castle Combe, J. Gairdner's essay On the Historical Element in Shakespeare's Falstaff, ap. Studies in English History, Sidney Lee's article in the Dictionary of National Biography, and D. W. Duthie, The Case of Sir John Fastolf and other Historical Studies (1907). (C. L. K.)

FAT (O.E. fáett; the word is common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dutch vet, Ger. Fett, &c., and may be ultimately related to Greek Tiwv and πapós, and Sanskrit pivan), the name given to certain animal and vegetable products which are oily solids at ordinary temperatures, and are chemically distinguished as being the glyceryl esters of various fatty acids, of which the most important are stearic, palmitic, and oleic; it is to be noticed that they are non-nitrogenous. Fat is a normal constituent of animal tissue, being found even before birth; it occurs especially in the intra-muscular, the abdominal and the subcutaneous connective tissues. In the vegetable kingdom fats especially occur in the seeds and fruits, and sometimes in the roots. Physiological subjects concerned with the part played by fats in living animals are treated in the articles CONNECTIVE TISSUES; NUTRITION; CORPULENCE; METABOLIC DISEASES. The fats are chemically similar to the fixed oils, from which they are roughly distinguished by being solids and not liquids (see OILS). While all fats have received industrial applications, foremost importance must be accorded to the fats of the domestic animals-the sheep, cow, ox and calf. These, which are extracted from the bones and skins in the first operation in the manufacture of glue, are the raw materials of the soap, candle and glycerin industries.

FATALISM (Lat. fatum, that which is spoken, decreed), strictly the doctrine that all things happen according to a prearranged fate, necessity or inexorable decree. It has frequently been confused with determinism (q.v.), which, however, differs from it categorically in assigning a certain function to the will. The essence of the fatalistic doctrine is that it assigns no place at all to the initiative of the individual, or to rational sequence of events. Thus an oriental may believe that he is fated to die on a particular day; he believes that, whatever he does and in spite of all precautions he may take, nothing can avert the disaster. The idea of an omnipotent fate overruling all affairs of men is present in various forms in practically all religious systems. Thus Homer assumes a single fate (Moîpa), an impersonal power which makes all human concerns subject to the gods: it is not powerful over the gods, however, for Zeus is spoken of as weighing out the fate of men (Il. xxii. 209, viii. 69). Hesiod has three Fates (Moîpat), daughters of Night, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. In Aeschylus fate is powerful even over the gods. The Epicureans regarded fate as blind chance, while to the Stoics everything is subject to an absolute rational law.

The doctrine of fate appears also in what are known as the higher religions, e.g. Christianity and Mahommedanism. In the

town of Fatehpur is noted for the manufacture of ornamental whips, and Jafarganj for artistic curtains, &c.

FATEHPUR SIKRI, a town in the Agra district in the United Provinces of India, on the road from Agra to Jaipur. Pop. (1901) 7147. It is a ruined city, and is interesting only from an archaeological point of view. It was founded by Akbar in 1569 as a

FATE, in Roman mythology, the spoken word (fatum) of Jupiter, the unalterable will of heaven. The plural (Fata, the Fates) was used for the "destinies" of individuals or cities, and then for the three goddesses who controlled them. Thus, Fata Scribunda were the goddesses who wrote down a man's destiny at his birth. In this connexion, however, Fata may be singular, the masculine and feminine Fatus, Fata, being the usual forms in popular and ceremonial language. The Fates were also called Parcae, the attributes of both being the same as those of the Greek Moerae.

FATEHPUR, FATHIPUR or FUTTEHPOOR, a town and district of British India, in the Allahabad division of the United Provinces. The town is 73 m. by rail N.W. of Allahabad. Pop. (1901) 19,281. The district has an area of 1618 sq. m. It is situated in the extreme south-eastern corner of the Doab or tract of country between the Ganges and the Jumna, which respectively mark its northern and southern boundaries. The whole district consists of an alluvial plain formed by the deposits of the two great rivers. The central part is almost perfectly level, and consists of highly cultivated land interspersed with jungle and with tracts impregnated with saltpetre (usar). A ridge of higher land, forming the watershed of the district, runs along it from east to west at an average distance of about 5 m. from the Ganges. Fatehpur therefore consists of two inclined planes, the one 5 m. broad, sloping down rapidly to the Ganges, and the other from 15 to 20 m. broad, falling gradually to the Jumna. The country near the banks of the two rivers is cut up into ravines and nullahs running in all directions, and is almost entirely uncultivable. Besides the Ganges and Jumna the only rivers of importance are the Pandu, a tributary of the Ganges, and the Arind and Nun, which both fall into the Jumna. The climate is more humid than in the other districts of the Doab, and although fevers are common, it is not considered an unhealthy district. The average annual rainfall is 34 in.

The tract in which this district is comprised was conquered | in 1194 by the Pathans; but subsequently, after a desperate resistance, it was wrested from them by the Moguls. In the 18th century it formed a part of the subah of Korah, and was under the government of the wazir of Oudh. In 1736 it was overrun by the Mahrattas, who retained possession of it until, in 1750, they were ousted by the Pathans of Fatehpur. In 1753 it was reconquered by the nawab of Oudh. In 1765, by a treaty between the East India Company and the nawab, Korah was made over to the Delhi emperor, who retained it till 1774, when it was again restored to the nawab wazir's dominions. Finally in 1801, the nawab, by treaty, reconveyed it to the Company in commutation of the amount which he had stipulated to pay in return for the defence of his country. In June 1857 the district rose in rebellion, and the usual murders of Europeans took place. Order was established after the fall of Lucknow, on the return of Lord Clyde's army to Cawnpore. In 1901 the population was 686,391, showing a decrease of 2% in the decade. The district is traversed by the main line of the East Indian railway from

emperor Jahangir, foretold by Selim Chisti, a famous Mahommedan saint. The principal building is the great mosque, which is said by Fergusson to be hardly surpassed by any in India. "It measures 550 ft. east and west by 470 ft. north and south, over all. The mosque itself, 250 ft. by 80 ft., is crowned by three domes. In its courtyard, which measures 350 ft. by 440 ft., stand two tombs. One is that of Selim Chisti, built of white marble, and the windows with pierced tracery of the most exquisite geometrical patterns. It possesses besides a deep cornice of marble, supported by brackets of the most elaborate design. The other tomb, that of Nawab Islam Khan, is soberer and in excellent taste, but quite eclipsed by its surroundings. Even these parts, however, are surpassed in magnificence by the southern gateway. As it stands on a rising ground, when looked at from below its appearance is noble beyond that of any portal attached to any mosque in India, perhaps in the whole world." Among other more noteworthy buildings the following may be mentioned. The palace of Jodh Bai, the Rajput wife of Akbar, consists of a courtyard surrounded by a gallery, above which rise buildings roofed with blue enamel. A rich gateway gives access to a terrace on which are the "houses of Birbal and Miriam "; and beyond these is another courtyard, where are Akbar's private apartments and the exquisite palace of the Turkish sultana. Here are also the Panch Mahal or five-storeyed building, consisting of five galleries in tiers, and the audience chamber. The special feature in the architecture of the city is the softness of the red sandstone, which could be carved almost as easily as wood, and so lent itself readily to the elaborate Hindu embellishment. Fatehpur Sikri was a favourite residence of Akbar throughout his reign, and his establishment here was of great magnificence. After Akbar's death Fatehpur Sikri was deserted within 50 years of its foundation. The reason for this was that frequent cause in the East, lack of water. The only water obtainable was so brackish and corroding as to cause great mortality among the inhabitants. The buildings are situated within an enclosure, walled on three sides and about 7 m. in circumference. They are all now more or less in ruins, and their elaborate painting and other decoration has largely perished, but some modern restoration has been effected. See E. B. Havell, A Handbook to Agra and the Taj, Sikandra, Fatehpur Sikri, &c. (1904),

FATHER, the begetter of a child, the male parent. The word is common to Teutonic languages, and, like the other words for close family relationship, mother, brother, son, sister, daughter, appears in most Indo - European languages. The O. Eng. form is fæder, and it appears in Ger. Vater, Dutch vader, Gr. Tarp, Lat. pater, whence Romanic Fr. père, Span. padre, &c. The word is used of male ancestors more remote than the actual male parent, and of ancestors in general. It is applied to God, as the Father of Jesus Christ, and as the Creator of the world, and is thus the orthodox term for the First Person of the Trinity. Of the transferred uses of the word many have religious reference; thus it is used of the Christian writers, usually confined to those of the first five centuries, the Fathers of the Church (see below), of whom those who flourished at the end of, or just after the age of, the apostles are known as the Apostolic Fathers. One who stands as a spiritual parent to another is his "father," e.g. godfather, or in the title of bishops or archbishops, Right or Most Reverend Father in God. The pope is, in the Roman Church, the Holy Father. In the Roman Church, father is strictly applied to a regular," a member of one of the religious orders, and so always in Europe, in English usage, often applied to a confessor, whether regular or secular, and to any Roman priest, and sometimes used of sub-members of a religious society or fraternity

FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. The use of the word "father " as a title of respect is found in the Old Testament, where it is applied to patriarchs (Gen. 1. 24 (Septuagint); Exod. iii. 13, 15; Deut. i. 8), priests (Judg. xvii. 10, xviii. 19), prophets (2 Kings ii. 12, vi. 21, xiii. 14), and distinguished ancestors (Ecclus. xliv. 1). In the time of our Lord the scribes claimed the name with an arrogance which He disapproved (Matt. xxiii. 9); in the rabbinic literature the fathers are the more eminent of the earlier rabbis whose sayings were handed down for the guidance of posterity.1 The Christian Church, warned perhaps by the words of Christ, appears at first to have avoided a similar use of the term, while St Paul, St Peter and St John speak of their converts as spiritual children (1 Cor. iv. 14 f., Gal. iv. 19, 1 Pet. v. 13, 1 John ii. 12); they did not assume, so far as we know, the official style of "fathers in God." Nor is this title found in the age which succeeded to that of the apostles. When Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was martyred (A.D. 155), the crowd shouted, "This is the father of the Christians "2; but the words were probably prompted by the Jews, who took a prominent part in the martyrdom, and who naturally viewed Polycarp in the light of a great Christian rabbi, and gave him the title which their own teachers bore. In the next century members of the episcopal order were sometimes addressed in this manner: thus Cyprian is styled papas or papa by his Roman correspondents. The bishops who sat in the great councils of the 4th century were known as "the 318 fathers" of Nicaea, and "the 150 fathers" of Constantinople. Meanwhile the custom was growing up of appealing to eminent Church writers of a past generation under Thus Athanasius writes (ad Afros vi.): "We have the testimony of fathers (the two Dionysii, bishops of Alexandria and Rome, who wrote in the previous century) for the use of the word ouoovotos." Such quotations were multiplied, as theologians learnt to depend increasingly upon their predecessors, until the testimony of "our holy father" Athanasius, or Gregory the Divine, or John the Golden-mouthed, came to be regarded as decisive in reference to controverted points of faith and practice.

this name.

In the narrower sense thus indicated the "fathers" of the Church are the great bishops and other eminent Christian teachers of the earlier centuries, who were conspicuous for soundness of judgment and sanctity of life, and whose writings remained as a court of appeal for their successors. A list of fathers drawn up on this principle will begin with the Christian writers of the 1st century whose writings are not included in the New Testament: where it ought to end is a more difficult point to determine. Perhaps the balance of opinion is in favour of regarding Gregory the Great (d. 604) as the last of the Latin fathers, and John of Damascus (d. c. 760) as the last of the fathers of the Greek Church. A more liberal estimate might include John Scotus Erigena or even Anselm or Bernard of Clairvaux in the West and Photius in the East. The abbé Migne carried his Latin patrology down to the time of Innocent III. (d. 1216), and his Greek patrology to the fall of Constantinople (1453); but, while this large extension of the field is much to the advantage of his readers, it undoubtedly stretches the meaning of patrologia far beyond its natural limits. For ordinary purposes it is best to make the patristic period conterminous with the life 1 See Buxtorf, s.v. Abh, and cf. the title of the tract Pirke Aboth (ed. Taylor, p. 3). 2 Polyc. Mart. 8.

* Studia biblica, iv. p. 273.

4

A further question arises. Are all the Christian writers of a given period to be included among the "fathers," or those only who wrote on religious subjects, and of whose orthodoxy there is no doubt? Migne, following the example of the editors of bibliothecae patrum who preceded him, swept into his great collection all the Christian writings which fell within his period; but he is careful to state upon his title-page that his patrologies include the ecclesiastical writers as well as the fathers and doctors of the Church. For a comprehensive use of the term " ecclesiastical writers " he has the authority of Jerome, who enumerates among them such heresiarchs or leaders of schism as Tatian, Bardaisan, Novatus, Donatus, Photinus and Eunomius. This may not be logical, but long usage has made it permissible or even necessary. It is often difficult, if not impracticable, to draw the line between orthodox writers and heterodox; on which side, it might be asked, is Origen to be placed ? and in the case of a writer like Tertullian who left the Church in middle life, are we to admit certain of his works into our patrology and refuse a place to others? It is clear that in the circumstances the terms father," "patristic," "patrology" must be used with much elasticity, since it is now too late to substitute for them any more comprehensive terms.

By the "fathers," then, we understand the whole of extant Christian literature from the time of the apostles to the rise of scholasticism or the beginning of the middle ages. However we may interpret the lower limit of this period, the literature which it embraces is immense. Some method of subdivision is necessary, and the simplest and most obvious is that which breaks the whole into two great parts, the ante-Nicene and the post-Nicene. This is not an arbitrary cleavage; the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) is the watershed which actually separates two great tracts of Christian literature. The ante-Nicene age yields priceless records of the early struggles of Christianity; from it we have received specimens of the early apologetic and the early polemic of the Church, the first essays of Christian philosophy, Christian correspondence, Christian biblical interpretation: we owe to it the works of Justin, Irenaeus, the Alexandrian Clement, Origen; Tertullian, Cyprian. In these products of the 2nd and 3rd centuries there is much which in its own way was not surpassed by any of the later patristic writings. Yet the post-Nicene literature, considered as literature, reaches a far higher level. Both in East and West, the 4th and 5th centuries form the golden age of dogmatic theology, of homiletic preaching, of exposition, of letter-writing, of Church history, of religious poetry. Two causes may be assigned for this fact. The conversion of the empire gave the members of the Church leisure and opportunities for the cultivation of literary taste, and gradually drew the educated classes within the pale of the Christian society. Moreover, the great Christological controversies of the age tended to encourage in Christian writers and preachers an intellectual acuteness and an accuracy of thought and expression of which the earlier centuries had not felt the need.

The ante-Nicene period of patristic literature opens with the "apostolic fathers," i.e. the Church writers who flourished toward the end of the apostolic age and during the half century that followed it, including Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna and the author known as "Barnabas." Their writings, like those of the apostles, are epistolary; but editions of the apostolic fathers now usually admit also the early Church order known as the Didache, the allegory entitled the Shepherd, and a short anonymous apology addressed to one Diognetus. A second group, known as the "Greek Apologists," embraces Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras and Theophilus; and a third consists of the early polemical writers, Irenaeus and

In the post-Nicene period the literary output of the Church was greater. Only the more representative names can be mentioned here. From Alexandria we get Athanasius, Didymus and Cyril; from Cyrene, Synesius; from Antioch, Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom and Theodoret; from Palestine, Eusebius of Caesarea and Cyril of Jerusalem; from Cappadocia, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. The Latin West was scarcely less productive; it is enough to mention Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Leo of Rome, Jerome, Rufinus, and a father lately restored to his place in patristic literature, Niceta of Remesiana.1 Gaul alone has a goodly list of Christian authors to show: John Cassian, Vincent of Lerins, Hilary of Arles, Prosper of Aquitaine, Salvian of Marseilles, Sidonius Apollinaris of Auvergne, Caesarius of Arles, Gregory of Tours. The period ends in the West with two great Italian names, Cassiodorus and Pope Gregory I., after Leo the greatest of papal theologians.

The reader to whom the study is new will gain some idea of the bulk of the extant patristic literature, if we add that in Migne's collection ninety-six large volumes are occupied with the Greek fathers from Clement of Rome to John of Damascus, and seventysix with the Latin fathers from Tertullian to Gregory the Great.2

For a discussion of the more important fathers the student is referred to the articles which deal with them separately. In this place it is enough to consider the general influence of the patristic writings upon Christian doctrine and biblical interpretation. Can any authority be claimed for their teaching or their exegesis, other than that which belongs to the best writers of every age. The decree of the council of Trent (ut nemo . . . contra unanimum consensum patrum ipsam scripturam sacram interpretari audeat) is studiously moderate, and yet it seems to rule that under certain circumstances it is not permitted to the Church of later times to carry the science of biblical interpretation beyond the point which it had reached at the end of the patristic period. Roman Catholic writers, however, have explained the prohibition to apply to matters of faith only, and in that case the Tridentine decree is little else than another form of the Vincentian canon which has been widely accepted in the Anglican communion: curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est. The fathers of the first six or seven centuries, so far as they agree, may be fairly taken to represent the main stream of Christian tradition and belief during the period when the apostolic teaching took shape in the great creeds and dogmatic decisions of Christendom. The English reformers realized this fact; and notwithstanding their insistence on the unique authority of the canon of Scripture, their appeal to the fathers as representatives of the teaching of the undivided Church was as wholehearted as that of the Tridentine divines. Thus the English canon of 1571 directs preachers" to take heed that they do not teach anything in their sermons as though they would have it completely held and believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and what the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered from that doctrine." Depreciation of the fathers was characteristic, not of the Anglican reformation, but of the 1 The editio princeps of Niceta's works was published by Dr A. E.

Burn in 1905.

2. The Greek patrology contains, however, besides the text, a Latin translation, and in both patrologies there is much editorial

matter.

* Sess. iv.

E. G. Möhler, Symbolism (E. tr.)§ 42.

Now that the smoke of these controversies has passed`a way, it is possible to form a clearer judgment upon the merits of the patristic writings. They are no longer used as an armoury from which opposite sides may draw effective weapons, offensive or defensive; nor on the other hand are they cast aside as the rubbish of an ignorant and superstitious age. All patristic students now recognize the great inequality of these authors, and admit that they are not free from the faults of their times; it is not denied that much of their exegesis is untenable, or that their logic is often feeble and their rhetoric offensive to modern taste. But against these disadvantages may be set the unique services which the fathers still render to Christian scholars. Their works comprise the whole literature of our faith during the decisive centuries which followed the apostolic age. They are important witnesses to the text of the New Testament, to the history of the canon, and to the history of interpretation. It is to their pages that we owe nearly all that we know of the life of ancient Christianity. We see in them the thought of the ancient Church taking shape in the minds of her bishops and doctors; and in many cases they express the results of the great doctrinal controversies of their age in language which leaves little to be desired."

AUTHORITIES.-The earliest writer on patristics was Jerome, whose book De viris illustribus gives a brief account of one hundred and thirty-five Church writers, beginning with St Peter and ending Gennadius of Marseilles, Isidore of Seville, and Ildefonsus of Toledo; with himself. Jerome's work was continued successively by the last-named writer brings the list down to the middle of the 7th century. Since the revival of learning books on the fathers have been numerous; among the more recent and most accessible of these we may mention Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography, Hauck-Herzog's Realencyklopädie, Bardenhewer's Patrologie and Geschichte der altkirchlichen Litteratur, Harnack's Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bei Eusebius and Ehrard's Die altchristliche Litteratur und ihre Erforschung. A record of patristic collections Scriptorum SS. Patrum. The contents of the volumes of Migne's and editions down to 1839 may be found in Dowling's Notitia patrologies are given in the Catalogue général des livres de l'abbé Migne, and a useful list in alphabetical order of the writers in the Greek Patrologia has been compiled by Dr J. B. Pearson (Cambridge, 1882). Migne's texts are not always satisfactory, but since the completion of his great undertaking two important collections have been begun on critical lines-the Vienna edition of the Latin Church writers, and the Berlin edition of the Greek writers of the ante-Nicene period.s

fathers, which cover much of the ground; the Oxford Library of For English readers there are three series of translations from the the Fathers, the Ante Nicene Christian Library and the Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Satisfactory lexicons of patristic Greek and Latin are still a desideratum: but assistance may be obtained in the study of the Greek fathers from Suicer's Thesaurus, the Lexicon of Byzantine Greek by E. A. Sophocles, and the Lexicon Graecum suppletorium et dialecticum of Van Herwerden; whilst the new great Latin Lexicon, published by the Berlin Academy, is calculated to meet the needs of students of Latin patristic literature. For a fuller list of books useful to the reader of the Greek and Latin'fathers see H. B. Swete's Patristic Study (2nd ed., 1902). (H. B. S.)

FATHOM (a word common, in various forms, to Scandinavian and Teutonic languages; cf. Danish favn, Dutch vaam and Ger. Faden, and meaning "the arms extended"; the ultimate origin is a root pet, seen in the Gr. Teravvival, to spread), a measure of length, being the distance from the tip of one middle finger to the tip of the other, when the arms are stretched out to their widest extent. This length has been standardized to a measure of 6 ft., and as such is used mainly in soundings as a unit for measuring the depth of the sea. Fathom " is also used in the measurement of timber, when it is equivalent to 6 ft. sq.; similarly, in mining, a fathom is a portion of ground running the whole thickness of the vein of ore, and is 6 ft. in breadth and thickness. The verb “ to fathom," i.e. to sound or measure with a fathom-line, is used figuratively, meaning to go into a subject deeply, to penetrate, or to explore thoroughly.

See J. J. Blunt, Right Use of the Fathers, p. 15 ff.

• See Štanton, Place of Authority in Religion, p. 165 f.

7 Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum.

8 Griechischen christlichen Schriftstellern der ersten drei Jahrhunderte.

FATIMITES, or FATIMIDES, the name of a dynasty called after Fatima, daughter of the prophet Mahomet, from whom and her husband the caliph Ali, son of Abu Talib, they claimed descent. The dynasty is also called 'Obaidi (Ubaidi) after 'Obaidallah, the first sovereign, and 'Alawī, a title which it shares with other dynasties claiming the same ancestry. For a list of sovereigns see EGYPT, section History (Mahommedan period); three, however, must be prefixed who reigned in north-western Africa before the annexation of Egypt: al-Mahdi 'Obaidallah 297 (909); al-Qa'im Mahommed 322 (934); al-Mansur Ismā'il 334 (945).

The dynasty owed its rise to the attachment to the family of the prophet which was widespread in the Moslem world, and the belief that the sovereignty was the right of one of its members. Owing, however, to the absence of the principle of primogeniture there was difference of opinion as to the person whose claim should be enforced, and a number of sects arose maintaining the rights of different branches of the family. The Fatimites were supported by those who regarded the sovereignty as vested in Ismail, son of Ja'far al-Sadiq, great-great-grandson of Ali, through his second son Hosain (Husain). Of this Isma'il the first Fatimite caliph was supposed to be the great-grandson. The line of ancestors between him and Isma'il is, however, variously given, even his father's name being quite uncertain, and in some of the pedigrees even Ismail does not figure. Apparently when the family first became of political importance their Alid descent was not disputed at Bagdad, and the poet al-Sharif al-Radi (d. A.H. 406: A.D. 1015), in whose family the office of Naqib (registrar of the Alids) was hereditary, appears to have acknowledged it (Diwan, ed. Beirut, p. 972). When their success became a menace to the caliphs of Bagdad, genealogists were employed to demonstrate the falsity of the claim, and a considerable literature, both official and unofficial, rose in consequence. The founder of the dynasty was made out to be a scion of a family of heretics from whom the terrible Carmathian sect had originated: later on (perhaps owing to the rôle played by Jacob, son of Killis, in bringing the Fatimites to Egypt), the founder was made out to have been a Jew, either as having been adopted by the heretic supposed to be his father, or as having been made to personate the real 'Obaidallah, who had been killed in captivity. While the stories that make him of either Jewish or Carmathian origin may be neglected, as the product of malice, the uncertainty of the genealogies offered by their partisans renders any positive solution of the problem impossible. What seems to be clear is that secretly within the Abbasid empire propaganda was carried on in favour of one or 'other Alid aspirant, and the danger which any such aspirant incurred by coming forward openly led to his whereabouts being concealed except from a very few adherents. What is known then is that towards the end of the 3rd Islamic century the leader of the sect of Ismā'īlites (Assassins, q.v.) who afterwards mounted a throne, lived at Salamia, near Emesa (Homs), having agents spread over Arabia, Persia and Syria, and frequently receiving visits from pious adherents, who had been on pilgrimage to the grave of Hosain (Husain). Such visitors received directions and orders such as are usual in secret societies. One of these agents, Abū Abdallah al-Hosain called al-Shi'i, said to have filled the office of censor (muhtasib) at Basra, received orders to carry on a mission in Arabia, and at Mecca is said to have made the acquaintance of some members of the Berber tribe Kutama, south of the bay of Bougie. These persons persuaded him to travel home with them in the character of teacher of the Koran, but according to some authorities the ground had already been prepared there for a political mission. He arrived in the Kutama country in June 893, and appears very soon to have been made chief, thereby exciting the suspicion of the Aghlabite ruler of Kairawan, Ibrāhīm b. Ahmad, which, however, was soon allayed. His success provoked a civil war among the Berbers, but he was protected by a chief named Hasan b. Hārūn, and displayed sufficient military ability to win respect. Nine years after his arrival he made use of the unrest following on the death of the Aghlabite Ibrahim to attack the town of Mila,

which he took by treachery, and turned into his capital; the son and successor of Ibrāhīm, Abu'l-'Abbās 'Abdallah, sent his son al-Ahwal to deal with the new power, and he defeated al-Shi'i in some battles, but in 903 al-Ahwal was recalled by his brother Ziyadat allah, who had usurped the throne, and put to death. At some time after his first successes al-Shi'i sent a messenger (apparently his brother) to the head of his sect at Salamia, bidding him come to the Kutama country, and place himself at the head of affairs, since al-Shi'i's followers had been taught to pay homage to a Mahdi who would at some time be shown them. It is said that 'Obaidallah, who now held this post, was known to the court at Bagdad, and that on the news of his departure orders were sent to the governor of Egypt to arrest him: but by skilful simulation 'Obaidallah succeeded in escaping this danger, and with his escort reached Tripoli safely. Instructions had by this time reached the Aghlabite Ziyadatallah to be on the watch for the Mahdi, who was finally arrested at Sijilmāsa (Tafilalt) in the year A.H. 292 (A.D. 905); his companion, al-Shi'i's brother, had been arrested at an earlier point, and the Mahdi's journey to the south-west must have been to elude pursuit.

The invitation to the Mahdi turned out to have been premature; for Ziyadatallah had sent a powerful army to oppose al-Shi'i, which, making Constantine its headquarters, had driven al-Shi'i into the mountains: after six months al-Shi'i secured an opportunity for attacking it, and won a complete victory. Early in 906 another army was sent to deal with al-Shi'i, and an earnest appeal came from the caliph Muqtafi (Moktafi), addressed to all the Moslems of Africa, to aid Ziyādatallah against the usurper. The operations of the Aghlabite prince were unproductive of any decided result, and by September 906 al-Shi'i had got possession of the important fortress Tubna and some others. Further forces werę immediately sent to the front by Ziyādatallah, but these were defeated by al-Shi'i and his officers, to whom other towns capitulated, till Ziyādatallah found it prudent to retire from Al-Urbus or Laribus, which had been his headquarters, and entrench himself in Raqqada, one of the two capitals of his kingdom, Kairawan being the other. Ziyādatallah is charged by the chroniclers with dissoluteness and levity, and even cowardice: after his retreat the fortresses and towns in what now constitute the department of Constantine and in Tunisia fell fast into al-Shi'i's hands, and he was soon able to threaten Raqqāda itself.

By March 909 Raqqāda had become untenable, and Ziyādatallah resolved to flee from his kingdom; taking with him his chief possessions, he made for Egypt, and thence to 'Irak: his final fate is uncertain. The cities Raqqāda and Kairawān were immediately occupied by Al-Shi'i, who proceeded to send governors to the other places of importance in what had been the Aghlabite kingdom, and to strike new coins, which, however, bore no sovereign's name. Orders were given that the Shi'ite peculiarities should be introduced into public worship.

In May 909 al-Shi'i led a tremendous army westwards to the kingdom of Tahert, where he put an end to the Rustamite dynasty, and appointed a governor of his own: he thence proceeded to Sijilmāsa where 'Obaidallah lay imprisoned, with the intention of releasing him and placing him on the throne. After a brief attempt at resistance, the governor fled, and al-Shi'i entered the city, released 'Obaidallah and presented him to the army as the long-promised Imam. The day is given as the 26th of August 909. 'Obaidallah had been in prison more than three years. Whether his identity with the Mahdi for whom al-Shi'i had been fighting was known to the governor of Sijilmāsa is uncertain. If it was, the governor and his master the Aghlabite sovereign might have been expected to make use of their knowledge and outwit al-Shi'i by putting his Mahdi to death. Opponents of the Fatimites assert that this was actually done, and that the Mahdi presented to the army was not the real 'Obaidallah, but (as usual) a Jewish captive, who had been suborned to play the rôle.

The chief command was now assumed by 'Obaidallah, who took the title "al-Mahdi, Commander of the Faithful," thereby claiming the headship of the whole Moslem world: Raqqada