Anastasius Bibliothecarius
(9th century), scholar. He was the best Greek scholar of his age in the W. and became Papal librarian (hence his title). He attended the final session of the Eighth Oecumenical Council (869–70) and ...
angel
Hermes was the messenger of Zeus. Iris was ascribed the same function; for Plato the two are the divine angeloi. By the 3rd cent. ad, angels played a large part in Judaism and Christianity, and they ...
Assumption of the BVM
The belief that the BVM, ‘having completed her earthly life, was in body and soul assumed into heavenly glory’ (definition, 1950). The belief was unknown in the early Church; it first appears in ...
Catechetical School of Alexandria
A Christian school in Alexandria, concerned with advanced teaching in theology and with a succession of teachers in charge from the 2nd to the 4th cent., is depicted by Philip Sidetes (5th cent.) ...
Energy
(ἐνέργεια). According to Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebios of Caesarea, and other church fathers, the activity of the Logos in creation and redemption derives ultimately from God the Father; it ...
epithet
An adjective or adjectival phrase used to define a characteristic quality or attribute of some person or thing. Common in historical titles (Catherine the Great, Ethelred the Unready), ‘stock’ ...
Georgian
Very little Georgian literature has been translated into English, even though Georgian (first recorded in 430 ce) is one of the world's oldest and richest literary languages, and has scores ...
Hypatios
Bishop of Ephesus (from 531); died ca.541. Early in his bishopric he presided at the conference convoked at Constantinople by Justinian I to reconcile Severos of Antioch and the Monophysites ...
intellect
"Intellect", intellectus, means firstly the content of the operation of knowledge and then the supreme faculty or power of knowledge in man. The meaning of faculty and that of object ...
John Colet
(1467–1519).Colet, a cleric and educator, was born in London and probably attended Cambridge University before travelling to Paris and Orléans, and to Italy. About 1496 Colet began to teach in ...
John Scholastikos
Neo-Chalcedonian theologian, bishop of Skythopolis (ca.536–50).John tried to reconcile the statements of the Council of Chalcedon with the teaching of Cyril of Alexandria but was attacked by a ...
John Scotus Erigena
(c.810–77),of Irish origin, was employed as teacher at the court of Charles the Bald, afterwards emperor, c.847. The leading principle of his philosophy, as expounded in his great work De Divisione ...
John VIII Palaiologos
(1392–1448),Emperor of Byzantium. He was made co-emperor before 1408, regent and emperor-designate (αὐ̑τοκράτωρ) on 19 January 1421, and emperor in mid-1425, in succession to his father Manuel II. In ...
Kiprian
(Cyprian), metropolitan of “Rhosia” (1375–1406); born ca.1330, died 16 Sept. 1406.Kiprian was one of the leading figures in the cultural movement generally associated with hesychasm. Bulgarian by ...
Light
Medieval theories concerning light were long influenced by the neoplatonist system of thought. Light (lumen) had its origin in the stars and heavenly bodies, whose rays reached the sublunary world ...
Maximos the Confessor
Theologian and saint; baptismal name Moschion; born 580. According to the 10th-C. enkomion by a Stoudite monk, Michael Exaboulites (W. Lackner, AB 85 [1967] 312), Maximos was born in Constantinople ...
Mysterion
(μυστήριον), term used to designate any of a number of secret cults of Greco-Roman antiquity, such as the Eleusinian mysteries, Mithraism, and veneration of Isis. Enormously varied, mysteria included ...
mysticism
Belief in union with the divine nature by means of ecstatic contemplation, and belief in the power of spiritual access to ultimate reality, or to domains of knowledge closed off to ordinary thought. ...
Niketas David Paphlagon
Writer of the late 9th to early 10th C.Despite attempts to distinguish several writers of this name (J. Darrouzès, REB 18 [1960] 126f), it now seems established that he ...
Niketas Stethatos
Theologian, monk, and probably, at the end of his life, hegoumenos of Stoudios; born 1005?, died Constantinople ca.1090.A disciple of Symeon the Theologian, Stethatos (Στηθα̑τος) wrote his vita and ...
