Adamantius
The name of the orthodox protagonist in the 4th-cent. dialogue De recta in Deum fidei, and commonly supposed to be its author. It is a disputation first with two disciples of Marcion and then with ...
Basil, Rule of St
The monastic Rule put forward by St Basil the Great, which is the basis of the usual Rule followed by religious in the E. Church. The most widespread form of the Rule consists of various Basilian ...
Benedicite
(Lat., ‘bless ye’).The song of praise beginning ‘O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord’. It forms part of the Song of the Three Children.
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.) ...
Church of Georgia
The conversion of the Iberian king, Mirian III, probably in 334, was due to St Nino. According to Rufinus, she was a Christian captive; in Georgian tradition she is associated with Jerusalem. In the ...
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 ...
Descent of Christ into Hell
Most Christians believe that this article in the Creed refers to the Lord's visit after His death to the realm of existence in which the souls of pre-Christian people waited for the message of the ...
Didymus the Blind
(c.313–98), Alexandrian theologian. He was a staunch Nicene in trinitarian theology, but he was condemned as an Origenist at the Council of Constantinople in 553, and much of his vast literary output ...
Ecclesiasticus
A book of the Apocrypha containing moral and practical maxims, probably composed or compiled in the early 2nd century bc.
Epi Ton Deeseon
(ὁ ἐπὶ τω̑ν δεήσεων), official whose duty was to receive petitions addressed to the emperor and to answer them. He is usually considered the successor of the late Roman magister ...
Gelasius
(d. 395), Bp. of Caesarea in Palestine from c.367. As a convinced Nicene, he was ousted from his see for a time in the reign of Valens. He wrote a continuation of the ‘Ecclesiastical History’ of ...
Helena
(c. 255–c. 330 ad)Roman empress and mother of Constantine the Great. She was a convert to Christianity and in 326 visited the Holy Land, where she founded basilicas on the Mount of Olives and at ...
Jacques Sirmond
(1559–1651),French Jesuit educator and patristic scholar who entered the Jesuit Order in 1576. He served as professor of rhetoric at the Collège de Clermont in Paris (1581–90), where his ...
Jerome
(c.341–420),monk and Doctor of the Church. Born at Strido, near Aquileia, in Dalmatia, Jerome was well educated, first by his father, then by the grammarian Donatus at Rome. After this he studied ...
Melania
1 ‘The Elder’ (c.342–c.410), a wealthy Roman lady. On the death of her husband, she adopted an ascetic life, left Rome, and founded a double monastery with Rufinus of Aquileia on the Mount of ...
Origen
(c. 185–c. 254),Christian scholar and theologian, probably born in Alexandria. His most famous work was the Hexapla, an edition of the Old Testament with six or more parallel versions. His ...
Origenism
The group of theories enunciated by, or attributed to, Origen. Among his earliest opponents was Methodius of Olympus, who rejected his teaching on the pre-existence of souls and his denial of the ...
Palladius
(c.365–425).Historian of Christian monasticism. His Lausiac History (c.419) is of great importance for the history of early monasticism in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor.
Pelagianism
Theologically, Pelagianism is the heresy that people can take the initial steps towards salvation by their own efforts, apart from Divine grace. Historically, it was an ascetic movement composed of ...
Pelagius
Early 5th‐cent. Christian theologian of British or Irish extraction. Pelagius travelled to Rome as a monk c.ad 400 and was deeply disappointed by the lax moral standards there. He preached that ...
