Semitic Lanrnsses

parts, Louvain, 1890. SIGISMUND, sf'gis munt", JOHANN: Elector of Brandenburg 1608 19; b. at Halls N ov. 8 (18), 1572; d. at Brandenburg Dec. 23, 1619. During the sixteenth century there were various changes in the religious situation at Brandenburg, depending upon the attitude of the ruling elector. Joachim I. (1499 1535) was a strict Roman Catholic; under Joachim II. the Reformation of Luther entered the country. The period of Johann Georg (1571 98) was the time of undisputed sway of strict Lutheran­ism, but his son Joachim Friedrich was inclined toward the Calvinistic doctrine. Johann Sigismund, the son of Joachim Friedrich, was educated as a strict Lutheran, according to the directions of his grandfather, by Simon Gedicke, at that time court preacher in Halls; but in 1588 his father sent him, together with his brother, Johann Georg, to the University of Strasburg, where both princes were favorably impressed by Calvinism. In 1605 he was in Heidelberg, where he became a close friend of Count Palatine Friedrich IV., and his wife, the daughter of William of Orange. His personal inter­course with Reformed princes and theologians led him to become a decided opponent of the Formula of Concord. For some time he tried to keep his change of convictions secret, but in 1613, on Ascen­sion Day, a Reformed church service was held in the court chapel on the occasion of a visit of Land­grave Maurice, to the great vexation of the Lutheran clergy. On another occasion Martin Fiissel, super­intendent of Zerbst, administered the Lord's Supper after the Reformed rite. Simon Gedicke, provost of the cathedral, protested against the infringe­ment of the parochial rights of Brandenburg and published a treatise, Von den, Ceremonien bei dem heiligen Abendmahl (1613), against the Calvinists, especially against Salomo Finck, a court preacher newly called from Konigsberg, who showed himself a decided Calvinist. A committee of the estates re­quested Christoph Pelargus, general superintendent of the Mark and professor of theology in Frankfort­on the Oder, to proceed officially against the court preacher; his refusal made him also a suspect of Calvinism. Before the elector was now placed the alternative either to take measures against Finek and Pelargus or to make his statement of adherence to the Reformed faith. He chose the latter, and on Dec. 18, 1613, announced to the clergy that .he did not claim control over the consciences of his subjects, and similarly no one might dictate in the matter to him. He forbade untimely outbreaks from the pul­pit, and permitted communion in the Reformed. manner. He justified himself by appealing to the amended Augsburg Confession (Augustana variata) which, he said, was admitted in the Saxon kingdom. In an edict of Feb. 24, 1614, he again forbade in­vective from the pulpit and proclaimed as a basis of doctrine for all preachers "the doctrine of the divine Word according to the four chief symbols (including the Chalcedonian), the amended Augsburg Con­fession, and the Apology." On Feb. 21, 1614, there was designed a complete plan for subjecting the whole country to the Reformed faith. Strict Lu­therans like Gedicke and Willich, archdeacon of St.

40"1 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Si1r9bert rt

Peter, were forced to flee, and the elector called Abraham Scultetus (q.v.) to carry out the new plan. At his advice there was published on May 10 a " Con­fession of the Reformed Churches of Germany," the preface of which tried to show that even after the Reformation there were still left many Roman­istic errors in the new faith, and that it was neces­sary to reform the church of Brandenburg anew in order to equate it with other Evangelical churches. This confession was a reprint of one first published at Heidelberg in 1562. In the same year the elector issued his own confession of faith, Confessio Sagit:­mundi. It is not a complete confession, but touches merely the points of controversy. The elector again acknowledges the chief symbols and the emended Augsburg Confession as the basis of doctrine while he condemns all other writings " conceived by men," meaning principally the Formula of Concord. He rejects the doctrine of ubiquity and the Lutheran doctrine of the Communicatio Idiomatum (q.v.); in baptism he rejects the ceremony of exorcism; in the Lord's Supper bread and wine are visible symbols of invisible grace. The bread must be real unleavened bread, and the breaking of the bread must be pre­served according to the example of Christ. He adopts the doctrine of election. The Confessio Sigis­mttndi. became authoritative among the Reformed in the eastern parts of Brandenburg Prussia. Al­though the elector declared his intention not to in­terfere with the faith of his people, he continued the " reformation " of his country, by constituting a church council which was to take care of the inter­ests of the Reformed faith. On Oct. 3 a disputa­tion between Reformed and Lutherans was to take place, but the latter were so timid in the assertion of their rights that the elector himself broke off the colloquy and obliged every one present to observe the edict of Feb. 24. The hope of the clergy rested now upon the interference of the estates. In 1615 the estates seriously complained that preachers of doubtful standing were forced upon them, demanded the appointment of Lutherans in the schools and at the university, refused to acknowledge Pelargus as general superintendent, and asked the elector for the renewal and confirmation of his former pledges for the protection of Lutheranism. After they had made their demands a fourth time, the elector round it advisable to yield and declared now that " every­body in his country who desired, might adhere to the doctrine of Luther and the unchanged Augsburg Confession, also to the Book of Concord." Never­theless, the propaganda in behalf of the Reformed confession was continued. The church council con­tinued its activity; the state university and college were supplied with Reformed teachers; Reformed preachers presided over Lutheran congregations, and Pelargus in his love of peace ordained also Reformed clergymen. But after 1616 the opposition against the renovations became so strong and general both among the clergy and laity, that in 1618 the church council had to be dissolved, and thus the " work of the Reformation " in the Mark of Brandenburg came to an end. The Lutheran Church was pre­served, the elector standing almost alone with his change of confession. His wife together with her daughters adhered faithfully to the Lutheran creed.

His change of confession involved the elector in dif­ficulties with the duchy of Prussia, of which he was feudal lord. The Prussian estates uttered the re­proach that by adopting the Reformed confession Sigismund had violated the fundamental laws of the duchy. His theologians, Pelargus and J. Bergius, refused to accept an invitation to the Synod of Dort (1618), and its decisions acquired no authority in Brandenburg. The events in Brandenburg occa­sioned the issue of a great mass of polemical litera­ture. Between 1613 and 1619 there appeared 231 treatises, among the contributors, on the Lutheran side, being Leonhard Hutter, Hoe von Hoenegg (qq.v.), and Friedrich Balduin; the treatises advo­cating the Reformed faith were mostly anonymous. (G. KAWERAU. )

BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Keller, Die Gegenreformation in West­falen and am Niederrhein, iii. 219 sqq., Leipsic, 1895; A. Chroust, in Forschungen zur brandenburgischen and preussischen Geschichte, ix (1897), 12 sqq.; J. C. Bee­mann, Oratio secularis in memoriam a . . Johanne Sigis­mundo . . . introdueta! reformats religionis, Frankfort, 1713; D. H. Hering, Historische Nachricht von dem ersten Anfang der evangelisch reformierten Kirche in Branden­burg and Preussen, Halle, 1778; idem, Beitrdge zur Ge­schichte der evangelisch reformierten Kirche in den preus­sisch brandenburgischen Landern, Breslau, 1784; W. MBller, in Deutsche Zeitschrift fur christliche Wissenschaft, 1858, pp. 189 sqq.; Wangemann, Johann Sigismund and Paul Gerhardt, Berlin, 1884; E. Clausnitzer, Die markischen Stande unter Johann Sigimund, Halle, 1895; F. Dittrich, in Zeitschrift fur die Geschichte der Altertumskunde Erm­lands, xiu (1900), 72 sqq.; ADB, xiv. 169 sqq., cf. xxv. 328 sqq. For the Confessio Sigismundi consult: K. Maller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche, pp. lvi. sqq., 835 sqq., Leipsic, 1903, cf. 0. Seger, Zur Confessio Sigismundi, Berlin, 1899.

SIHLER, sirler, EDWARD WILHELM ALEXAN­DER: Lutheran (Missouri Synod); b. at Bernstadt, Silesia (22 m. e. of Breslau), Nov. 12,1801; d. at Fort Wayne, Ind., Oct. 27, 1885. From the gymnasium at Schweidnitz he entered the army, was a lieutenant of the line in 1819, in 1823 a student of the military academy in Berlin (with Von Moltke and Von Roon), but in 1826 left the service and became a student under Schleiermacher in Berlin (Ph.D., Jena, 1829). In 1830 he became an instructor in the famous Blochmann's Institute in Dresden, in 1838 a private tutor on the Livonian island of Oesel, and in 1840 the same at Riga. About 1835 he was converted and in 1843 came to the United States to labor among the Germans, who were then so destitute of religious teachers. His first charge was in Pomeroy, O., his second and only other charge at Fort Wayne from 1845 till his death. He was one of the organ­izers of the movement started in his study in 1846 out of which came the powerful Missouri Synod (see LUTHERANS, III., 5, § 1). He was its first vice­president and the first president of the middle district of his synod. He organized the Practical Seminary at Fort Wayne in 1845, and in it taught exegesis and dogmatics till 1861. He was a promi­nent preacher among the Germans of the Middle West and also an organizer of churches. He wrote in German several books, including an autobiography (down to 1843, St. Louis, Mo., 1879) and many articles.

SIHLER, ERNEST GOTTLIEB: Lutheran lay­man and classical scholar; b. at Fort Wayne,

Sikhs

THE NEW SCHAFF HERZOG

Ind., Jan. 2, 1853. He was educated at Concordia College, Fort Wayne (A.B., 1869), Concordia Lu­theran Divinity School, St. Louis (from which he was graduated in 1872), the universities of Berlin and Leipsic (1872 75), and Johns Hopkins (Ph.D., 1878). He was a classical instructor in New York City (1879 91); professor of classics at Concordia College, Milwaukee (1891 92); and since 1892 has been professor of Latin in New York University. In theology he " holds to the historical position of recorded Christianity, is a conservative in the full acceptance of Gospels and Epistles," and " believes that the spiritual failure of classical civilization is a profound argument for Christianity." He is the author of a number of editions of classics and of Testimonium Animm: or, Greek and Roman before Jesus Christ (New York, 1908), a series of essays and sketches dealing with the spiritual elements in classical civilization; and Annals of Ccesar; critical Biography, with a Survey of the Sources (1910).

SIKHS, siks, SIKHISM.

1. History of the Sikhs. Background and Sources (§ 1). Life of the Founder (§ 2). The Other Gurus (¢ 3). History from 1708 (§ 4). II. The Religion. The Granth (§ 1). Belief and Practise (5 2).

Sikh is the name accepted by a people in India found almost exclusively in the Punjab, who are bound together not by tribal affiliations but by a religious bond. The term, meaning " disciple," is the correlative of guru, "teacher," a common noun appropriated as the title of the founder of the re­ligion and transmitted to the nine men who suc­ceeded him as religious heads of the faith. The fact that " Sikh " came to have a semi national signifi­cance is not an essential of the system, but merely a consequence of the political conditions at the breaking up of the Mohammedan power in north­west India during the eighteenth century.

I. History of the Sikhs: While the religion was founded and developed by a series of ten teachers who were called Gurus, the beginnings of their faith are traced by themselves to a man named

Kabir, who, as so often in India, was r. Back  regarded as an incarnation of deity.

ground and His birth date is variously given as Sources. 1398 and about 1500. He is said to

have been miraculously conceived and born in or near Benares, to have grown up a relig­ious reformer, and to have composed hymns which are received among the sacred writings of the Sikhs. His revolt was against all distinctions of caste and religion, against the Puranas and Shastras of Hin­duism, and, necessarily, against the assumptions of the Brahmans, and no less against the bigotry fostered by the Koran. A number of sects, it is claimed, sprang from his teachings, the last of whom were the Sikhs. All these sects exemplify the tend­ency of Indian teaching to combine elevated ideals and noble reforms with gross superstition and fool­ish observances. The sources of knowledge of the Sikh religion and its founders and leaders are the following. The principal work and the sacred book

408

of the Sikhs is the Adi Granth or Granth Sahib (see below), a work in an obscure dialect of the Pan)abi called Gurmukhi, which includes compositions by the Gurus and also by Bhagats (Indian saints) who preceded the Gurus. Hymns are found also in Prakrit, Hindi, Marathi, Multani, and a number of local dialects. For the lives of the Gurus there is a series of works embodying accounts of their lives, teachings, and miracles, in various languages, prin­cipally Panjabi and Hindi, claiming to be by ad­herents of the faith who were in especially close relations with one or another of the Gurus. One manuscript of the earliest of these lives dealing with Guru Nanak bears the date of 1588, and was therefore written during the lifetime of a certain Bhai Budha, a venerable Sikh, who is admitted to have been a young contemporary and disciple of Nanak and to have lived to a great age, actually linking by his life the leadership of the first six Gurus. This would be of importance were it not for the fact that the life under discussion, and all later works of the kind, abound in the legendary, and have been besides extensively corrupted by the ad­mixture of characteristic Hindu material which vitiates them for critical use. Two of the most ex­tensive of these works, the Nanak Parkash, deal­ing with the life and teachings of Nanak, was writ­ten in 1823, and by the same author the Suraj Parkash, in 6 volumes, was written between that year and 1843. A great number of schismatic (for Sikhism had its schisms) and what may be called apocryphal works exist, all of which teem with the miraculous, while they are sparing of data which submit to verification.

The Gurus were ten in number, each of the nine last of whom became leader on the death (or retire­ment) of his predecessor. Their names and dates are as follows: Nanak (1469 1538), Angad (1504 52),

Amar Das (1479 1574), Ram Das

x. Life (1534 81), Arjan (1563 1606), Har

of the Gobind (1595 1645), Har Rai (1630­

Founder. 1661), Har Krishan (1656 64), Teg Bar

hadur (1622 75), and Gobind Rai or

Gobind Singh (1666 1708). The important names

here are Nanak, Ram Das, Arjan, Har Gobind, Teg

Bahadur, and Gobind Singh. The narrative, in

brief, of the life of Nanak will give the flavor of all

of these Indian lives. He was born in Apr. May,

1469, at or near Talwandi (a small town 30 m. s.w.

of Lahore), and died at Kartarpur (62 m. e. of La­

hore) in 1538. His father was an accountant and

agriculturist, consequently Nanak came not of

priestly but of lay lineage. This fact is significant

both for the character of the religion and for the

tongue in which the literature is cast the vernacu­

lar and not the Sanskrit. His home was away from

the centers of Mohammedan influence and fanati­

cism, and this accounts for the impetus the religion

secured before encountering opposition. Accord­

ing to reports, the astrologer who was called in at

his birth foretold his greatness some records affirm

the presence of the gods; at the age of five he be­

gan to meditate on heavenly themes; when at the

ages of seven he went to school, the master wrote

for him the alphabet, and he immediately composed

an acrostic on the alphabet and speedily excelled

409 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Sikhs

his master in knowledge; this experience was re­peated when he went to study Persian at the age of seven; while a youth engaged in herding cattle, as he meditated the cattle trespassed on a grain­field to the wrath of the owner, yet on examina­tion it was found that not a single shoot had been trampled; once while he was sleeping under a tree, the shadow remained fixed and protected him from the sun, and at another time a cobra spread its hood and shaded him (Cf. SERPENT IN WORSHIP; etc., IV., § 2). Apart from such tales, what may be gathered of his life is that he early reached con­clusions condemning the religious customs, both Hindu and Mohammedan, current about him, em­ployed himself in composing verses in the vernacu­lar embodying instruction on man's duty to God and man and expressive of revolt against the teach­ings and practises of the two dominant religions. He refused as a youth to put on the sacred thread and so declare himself a Hindu, confounding in argument the Brahman who was to perform the ceremony.

Nanak was married at fourteen, but could not be induced to take up an occupation, gaining the reputation of a madman. At length he took service under the governor of Sultanpur, spent the nights praising the Creator, and gave all but a pit­tance of his wages to fakirs. Having retired into the wilderness, he was gone three days, during which he thought he had a vision of the Supreme, drank nectar in the presence, and was pronounced the true Guru. On his return he uttered a cryptic sentence condemning Hindus and Mohammedans, then took up the life of a wanderer and religious teacher, and began to make disciples. Like Socrates, he found the themes for his teachings in the daily life about him, a question, a chance saying, or an experience giving him the text for a discourse in verse. Manifesting a supreme disregard for rank or dignity, he rebuked or taught with equal ardor, severity, or gentleness, as the case seemed to him to require, all who met him or listened to him, ad­dressing as on terms of equality ascetics, fakirs, thugs, Brahmans, nobles, princes, and kings, all of whom are said to have acknowledged the divine source of his teachings. He overcame the tempta­tion of the devil who sought to buy him with the riches of the earth from the accomplishment of his teaching mission. He is said to have traversed Middle and South India and to have visited Mecca and Medina. During his life the organization of the Sikh church had begun by the founding of socie­ties, and the Guru's hymns were committed to mem­ory as sacred scriptures. At the end of his life he inaugurated the practise followed by the other Gurus (except the tenth) and appointed his succes­sor, in this case Angad. Just before his death Mo­hammedans and Hindus contested for the honor of disposing of his remains, but in the morning the corpse had disappeared his supreme miracle. The methods of Nanak were often exceedingly apt and convincing. Thus to a man who had acquired great wealth and ostentatiously displayed it he gave a needle with the injunction to retain it carefully until it should be required of him in the next world. The man took it with the injunction to his wife,

who declared the Guru mad and told him to return it to the giver. The latter then asked, if so small a thing as a needle could not be taken into the next world, how so great wealth could accompany the rich. On being asked how to take it there he re­plied: " Give some of thy wealth in God's name, feed the poor, and thy wealth shall accompany thee" (Macauliffe, i. 130).

The name of the second Guru, Angad, embodies the theory respecting the person of the Guru. His name was Lahina, but this was changed to a word which included the word for " body,"

3. The the idea being that the Guru for the

Other time being was the embodiment of the

Gurus. first Guru, and that indeed all the Gurus

were not ten but one, the spirit of the

first descending to the second. A consequence of

this is that the compositions of the Gurus all carry

the pen name Nanak. Angad abandoned the wan­

dering mode of life, settled at a place called Khadur,

whither the Sikhs came for instruction and to bring

their free will offerings. His leadership was marked

by the first Sikh schism, a part of the followers of

Nanak choosing Sri Chand, oldest son of Nanak, as

Guru, and this sect received the name of Udasis

(" solitaries "). The period of the third Guru, Amar

Das, was marked by a second attempt at schism,

since Datu, the son of Angad, tried to set himelf up

in opposition, but was not recognized by the Sikhs.

Amar Das inaugurated the custom for the Sikhs of

visiting the Guru three times a year for instruction

in religion. It was he who began the work of build­

ing the sacred tank or pool. His period is marked

also by formal complaints to the Mohammedan

emperor against the faith, but Akbar dismissed these

and showed favor to the Guru. He formulated the

rules of the religion and created a sort of regulation

of life. By the fourth Guru, Ram Das, the work of

dissemination of the religion was undertaken by

the despatch of missionaries, part of whose work

was the collection of offerings for the completion of

the sacred tank. The importance of this structure

is great, since it gave the Sikhs a center and a home,

the environs of the pool being built up and becom­

ing the sacred city Amritsar, now the goal of the

Sikh pilgrimage. The compositions of this Guru and

of his predecessor were quite numerous. The fifth

Guru, Arjan, youngest son of Ram Das, completed

the erection of the tank and also the building of a

temple in the middle of it, also beginning the erec­

tion of the city of Kartarpur. His oldest brother

attempted to seize the leadership and created a sec­

ond schism, giving rise to the Mina sect. This fact

emphasized a growing tendency to diversity of faith

and practise and the rise of rival scriptures. Ac­

cordingly he conceived and carried through the col­

lection of the body of scriptures called the Adi

(" first ") Granth (see below), which was completed

in 1604 (or within about fifty years of the death

of the first Guru) and deposited it in the newly built

temple. The importance of this for the Sikhs can

not be overestimated, guaranteeing as it did the

perpetuity of the sect. His period is marked by in­

creased stress from the Mohammedans. Already

under the previous Guru there had been armed con­

flict, which in Arjan's time became serious; there

Sikhs

Siloam Inscription

was now demand made that hymns in the Granth hostile to Mohammedanism be destroyed. Arjan was taken prisoner by the emperor and tortured to death ostensibly for refusal to become a Mohamme­dan, possibly, however, for giving aid to a revolting son of the emperor. Har Gobind, the sixth Guru, was the son of Arjan. Probably because of the in­creasing pressure of Moslem opposition, he instituted a standing army for the Sikhs, and militarism be­comes more pronounced from this time on. Hos­tilities were frequent, the Guru was himself impris­oned, but the Sikhs were welded together by their trials. The next two Gurus were insignificant. The ninth, Teg Bahadur, youngest son of Har Gobind, took up again the practise of travel, but the mili­tary establishment was maintained. He is repre­sented as going to the court at Delhi practically as a sacrifice for his people, where he was beheaded. The tenth Guru, Gobind Rai, afterward Gobind Singh, was the son of Teg Bahadur. He was en­gaged in conflict with the hill rajahs for almost his whole guruship, and fighting with Mohammedans was also practically constant. His significance for the religion is great. He abolished for the Sikh conformity to the Hindu customs of cutting the hair and shaving the head, instituted fivefold bap­tism with water stirred with a sword after which each Sikh took the name Singh (" lion "), forbade intermarriage of Sikhs with Mohammedans, con­firmed tithes as the substitute for free will offerings, completed the Granth and made it better suited to the changed conditions, and finally refused to ap­point a successor, directing Sikhs to obey the Granth as " the visible body of the Guru." This left relig­ious direction in the hands of the official " reader of the Granth."

After the death of Gobind Singh in 1708, the his­tory of the Sikhs is obscure till 1800. It is known that they were persecuted, and that a price of from

five to twenty five rupees was for a

4. History time offered by the Mohammedan

from r7o8. ruler of the Punjab for each Sikh head.

But as Mohammedan power declined in the region during the eighteenth century, there was organization of minor Sikh confederacies in the Punjab under elected leaders. Ranjit Singh (b. 1780, governor of Lahore 1800, d. 1839) conceived the plan of utilizing Sikh military fanaticism and religious zeal to create a kingdom with Lahore as the capital, and extended the realm to the Sutlej, then the border of British rule. During his life the rela­tions between the British and the Sikhs was friend­ly. After his death the Sikhs crossed the frontier into British territory, and the dominion of the latter was gravely threatened. The Sikhs fought with their wonted bravery and were beaten back only after inflicting great losses and winning the respect of their foes. The second Sikh war in 1848 resulted in the same way, and the British then took over the administration of the Punjab. The Sikhs entered in numbers the British army in India, in which they still constitute a large and most loyal element. They proved their worth and loyalty first in the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Their numbers, as given by the census of 1901, are 2,195,339, all but 64,352 in the Punjab, and of these two thirds are in the United