STEPHENS, THOMAS: English Jesuit and missionary. See INDIA, I., 4, § 2.
STERCORANISTS: The name given (from stercus, "excrement") in the Middle Ages to those who might possibly hold, as a theoretical position, that the body of Christ, received in the Lord's Supper, was masticated, digested, and finally excreted. It was first mentioned as a possible error and rejected by Radbertus Paschasius (De corpore et sanguine Domini, xx.) in reference to the pseudo-Clementine Epistle to James, but Radbertus did not assert that it was held by his opponents. Amalarius of Metz (q.v.) left the question open whether the body of Christ was eaten and digested in a natural way, but appealed to Matt. xv. 17. Rabanus appealed to the same passage. But, after the doctrine of transubstantiation had been adopted, the question concerning the natural eating of the body of Christ no longer permitted discussion. The term "Stercoranist" seems to have been used first by Cardinal Frederic of Lorraine, later Pope Stephen IX., in his Responsio sive contradictio adversus Nicetae Pectorati libellum, xxii., and thence came into quite common use.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. d'Achery, Spicileg%um, iii. 330, Paris, 1723; C. M. Pfaff, De atercoranistia medii au%, Tiibingen, 1750; J. M. SchrSckh, Kirchengesch%chte, xxui. 429 aqq., 35 vole., Leipaic, 1772-1803; J. Bach, Dogmengeschichte des Mittelalters, i. 185-188, Vienna, 1873; K. Werner, Gerbert van Auriltac, pp. 165-188, ib. 1878; J. Sehwane, Dogmengeachichte des Mittelaltera, p. 830, Freiburg, 1882; J. Schnitzer, Berengar von Tours, pp. 205 aqq., Stuttgart, 1892; R. MSnchemeier, Amalar von Metz, pp. lOS eqq., Miwster, 1893; KL, xi. 782-783.
STERNE, LAURENCE: Church of England, clergyman, wit, and novelist; b. at Clonmel (46 m. n.e. of Cork), Ireland, Nov. 24, 1713; d. in London Mar. 18, 1768. He was the great grandson of Richard Sterne, archbishop of. York, and his father was an officer in the army, whose death in 1731 left Laurence unprovided for. Young Sterne was a student at Halifax, but was unsystematic in his work; by his uncle he was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge (B.A., 1736; M.A., 1740), where physical weakness was indicated by a hemorrhage of the lungs before he finished his studies. He was ordered deacon in 1736 and ordained priest in 1738, this step being taken on the advice of his uncle, who had sent him to college; but his tastes and temperament were not such as really to qualify him for the ministry, the work of which was probably always irksome to him. He became vicar of Sutton-in-the Forest in Yorkshire, 1738; prebend of Givendale
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1889; J. G. Wilson, Life, Character and Death of Rev. T. H. Stockton, Philadelphia, 1889.
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