Anomoeans
4th-cent. exponents of a doctrine akin to Arianism, now often called ‘Neo-Arians’. They held that the Son, being begotten, was in essence unlike the Father, the Unbegotten. Their leaders were Aetius ...
Arianism
In Christian theology, the main heresy denying the divinity of Christ, originating with the Alexandrian priest Arius (c. 250–c. 336). Arianism maintained that the son of God was created by the Father ...
Basil, St, ‘the Great’
(c.330–79 [or possibly slightly earlier]), one of the three Cappadocian Fathers. The brother of St Gregory of Nyssa, he settled as a hermit near Neocaesarea in 358; he left his retirement only when ...
Clementine Literature
A number of apocryphal works circulated in the early Church under the name of St Clement of Rome, but by convention the term ‘Clementines’ is restricted to three of them.(1) The Clementine Homilies ...
eternity
The totality of time, conceived of as having no beginning and no end. The central philosophical dispute is whether eternity should be contrasted with time, not to be thought of as an especially long ...
Gregory of Nyssa
(c.330–395),bishop. Born at Caesarea (Cappadocia), the younger brother of Basil, he was given an excellent education at Athens, became a rhetorician, and married. After some disillusionment with his ...
Ignatius, Pseudo-
Conventional name for the author of the interpolations made perhaps ca.360–380 in the text of the letters of St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (died ca.107). The interpolations mainly concern the ...
John Chrysostom
(Ξρυσόστομος, “golden-mouth”), bishop of Constantinople (26 Feb. 398–20 June 404); saint; born Antioch between 340 and 350, died Komana 14 Sept. 407; feastday 13 Nov., translation of his relics 27 ...
Philostorgius
(c.368–c.439), Arian historian. His ‘History of the Church’ (c.300–430) survives only in fragments and in an epitome by Photius. It is inaccurate and biased, but is of value because of its use of ...
St Gregory of Nazianzus
(329/30–389/90), ‘Cappadocian Father’. The son of the Bp. of Nazianzus in Cappadocia, he studied at Athens. He then adopted the monastic life. About 372 he was consecrated Bp. of Sasima, a village in ...
Theodore of Mopsuestia
(c.350–428), Antiochene exegete and theologian. From 392 he was Bp. of Mopsuestia (in southern Turkey). In his biblical commentaries he used critical, philological, and historical methods, rejecting ...
Timothy
(6th or 7th cent.), priest of Hagia Sophia. He wrote a treatise on the reception of heretics into the Church, dividing them into categories requiring Baptism, Confirmation (Chrismation) only, and ...
Tritheism
The heretical teaching about the Trinity which denies the unity of substance in the Divine Persons. The name is used especially of the teaching of a group of 6th-cent. Monophysites, including John ...
