Adrianople
(᾽Αδριανούπολις, also Orestias, mod. Edirne), city in Thrace on the middle Hebros River (navigable from Adrianople to the sea) and on the major military road Belgrade-Sofia-Constantinople. It was an ...
Alexios Apokaukos
megas doux; born Bithynia late 13th C., died Constantinople 11/12 July 1345 (for date, see Kleinchroniken 2:263).Born to an obscure provincial family, Apokaukos amassed great wealth as a tax ...
Civil War of 1341–47
Following shortly after the conflict between Andronikos II and Andronikos III (1321–28), this war further divided and weakened the remnants of the Byz. Empire. When Andronikos III died in 1341 ...
Dead Sea Scrolls
A collection of Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts, the first of which were found in 1947 by shepherds in a cave near the north-western shore of the Dead Sea. They belonged to the library of the Jewish ...
Demetrios Kydones
Statesman, scholar, and translator; born Thessalonike ca.1324, died Crete ca.1398.Dispossessed of his family's wealth by the uprising of the Zealots in his native city, Kydones (Κυδώνης) entered the ...
Flavius Josephus
(ad 37–c. 98),a Jewish statesman and soldier. He came to Rome with Titus, was honoured with Roman citizenship, and devoted himself to study. He wrote in Greek a History of the Jewish War and Jewish ...
Galilee
1 Originally the term was applied only to part of the tribe of Naphtali, but in NT times it denoted all the district of N. Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. It was the scene of most of ...
Gregory Palamas
(c.1296–1359);Gregory Palamas entered the monastic life on Mount Athos in c.1314 and was ordained a priest in 1322 or shortly after. Between 1335 and 1341 he was engaged in ...
Hyakinthos of Cyprus
Metropolitan of Thessalonike (ca. late spring 1345–spring 1346); born Cyprus, died Thessalonike before 19 May 1346. Little is known of this anti-Palamite hieromonk; he lived at the monastery of the ...
Innovation
(καινοτομία), in the narrow sense, as used by theologians, primarily of the 6th–7th C., described the new doctrine of the miracle of Incarnation. Kainotomia is defined by Maximos the Confessor ...
Iscariot
Always applied in the gospels to Judas who betrayed Jesus to distinguish him from another Judas among the apostles. Iscariot may mean ‘man from Kerioth’; or there is a suggestion in one ancient MS ...
Jewish Revolt
A serious nationalist uprising led by the Zealots against Roman rule (66–70ad). In response Vespasian invaded Palestine with 60,000 troops and by 68 the rebels were confined to the Jerusalem area. ...
John VI Kantakouzenos
Emperor (8 Feb. 1347–3 Dec. 1354 [A. Failler, REB 29 (1971) 293–302]); born ca.1295, died Mistra 15 June 1383.The son, probably posthumous, of a Peloponnesian governor of the aristocratic ...
Kabasilas, Nicholas Chamaetos
Writer and theologian; born Thessalonike ca.1322/3 (Loenertz, infra 226), died Constantinople? after 1391. Born to a noble family, he adopted his mother's name of Kabasilas in preference to his ...
Masada
The site, on a steep rocky hill, of the ruins of a palace and fortification built by Herod the Great on the SW shore of the Dead Sea in the 1st century bc. It was a Jewish stronghold in the Zealots' ...
Platamon
(Πλαταμω̑ν), site of a fortress near the mouth of the Peneios River, overlooking the wide plain of Pieria to the north and commanding north-south communication at the entrance to the ...
Political Structure
Byz. never possessed a written constitution and the forces that did produce political decisions in Byz. present a difficult, shifting picture. Individual elements within the broader political ...
Sicarii
(Lat., ‘men armed with curved daggers’).Jewish resistance fighters against the Romans in the 1st cent. ce. According to Josephus, the Sicarii assassinated the high priest, Jonathan, and held the ...
Simon
(1st century),apostle. Called either the Canaanite or the Zealot by the Evangelists (the latter term may indicate former membership of a strict Jewish sect), Simon, like several other apostles, ...
theocracy
(literally ‘government by God’). The Greek term was coined by Josephus to denote the political organization of the Jewish people. Before the institution of kingship in Israel, God was regarded as the ...
