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Apotactics
The Apotactics or Apotactites (from the Greek , to renounce, because of their renunciation of private property) were a Christian sect in the western and southern parts of Asia Minor starting in about the third century. They were also known as Apostolics, because they attempted to follow the manner of life of the Twelve Apostles. Epiphanius of Salamis, writing in the fourth century, considered the Apotactics to be related to the Tatians, Encratites, and Cathari;''The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Books II and III'', trans. Frank Williams (Leiden: Brill, 1993)p. 114/ref> the fifth-century Codex Theodosianus considered them a branch of the Manichaeans. In addition to a strict renunciation of private property, the Apotactics abstained from marriage, wine, and meat. They included the Acts of Andrew and Acts of Thomas in their Biblical canon.''Panarion''p. 115/ref> By the time when Epiphanius was writing, in the fourth century, the Apotactics had become less prominent, found onl ...
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Encratites
The Encratites ("self-controlled") were an ascetic 2nd-century sect of Christians who forbade marriage and counselled abstinence from meat. Eusebius says that Tatian was the author of this heresy. It has been supposed that it was these Gnostic Encratites who were chastised in the epistle of 1 Timothy (4:1–4). Early history The first mention of a Christian sect of this name occurs in Irenaeus. They are mentioned more than once by Clement of Alexandria, who says that they are named from "Temperance". Hippolytus of Rome refers to them as "acknowledging what concerns God and Christ in like manner with the Church; in respect, however, of their mode of life, passing their days inflated with pride"; "abstaining from animal food, being water-drinkers and forbidding to marry"; "estimated Cynics rather than Christians". The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia interprets this passage as implying that some Encratites were perfectly orthodox in doctrine. Origen says they did not acknowledge St. P ...
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Sect
A sect is a subgroup of a religion, religious, politics, political, or philosophy, philosophical belief system, typically emerging as an offshoot of a larger organization. Originally, the term referred specifically to religious groups that had separated from a main body, but it can now apply to any group that diverges from a larger organization to follow a distinct set of beliefs and practices. Sects often form when there is a perception of heresy either within the subgroup or from the larger group. In an Indian context, sect refers to an organized tradition. Etymology The word ''sect'' originates from the Latin noun ''secta'' (a feminine form of a variant past participle of the verb ''Wikt:sequi, sequi'', to follow) which translates to "a way, road". Figuratively, it signifies a (prescribed) way, mode, or manner. Metonymously, sect refers to a discipline or school of thought as defined by a set of methods and doctrines. The various modern usages of the term stem largely from ...
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Acts Of Thomas
''Acts of Thomas'' is an early 3rd-century text, one of the New Testament apocrypha within the Acts of the Apostles subgenre. The complete versions that survive are Syriac and Greek. There are many surviving fragments of the text. Scholars detect from the Greek that its original was written in Syriac, which places the ''Acts of Thomas'' in Edessa, likely authored before 240 AD. The surviving Syriac manuscripts, however, have been edited to purge them of the most unorthodox overtly Encratite passages, so that the Greek versions reflect the earlier tradition. The earliest external reference to the ''Acts of Thomas'' dates to c.225 in Origen's ''Exegesis on Genesis'', although this text is now lost and its citation survives via later texts, e.g. Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History (3.1.1–3). Fragments of four other cycles of romances around the figure of the apostle Thomas survive, but this is the only complete one. It should not be confused with the early "sayi ...
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Augustine Of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include '' The City of God'', '' On Christian Doctrine'', and '' Confessions''. According to his contemporary, Jerome of Stridon, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith". In his youth he was drawn to the Manichaean faith, and later to the Hellenistic philosophy of Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and m ...
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Basil Of Caesarea
Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great (330 – 1 or 2 January 379) was an early Roman Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370 until his death in 379. He was an influential theologian who supported the Nicene Creed and opposed the heresies of the early Christian church such as Arianism and Apollinarianism. In addition to his work as a theologian, Basil was known for his care of the poor and underprivileged. Basil established guidelines for monastic life which focus on community life, liturgical prayer, and manual labor. Together with Pachomius, he is remembered as a father of communal monasticism in Eastern Christianity. He is considered a saint by the traditions of both Eastern and Western Christianity. Basil, together with his brother Gregory of Nyssa and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus, are collectively referred to as the Cappadocian Fathers. The Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches have given him, tog ...
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Pamphylia
Pamphylia (; , ''Pamphylía'' ) was a region in the south of Anatolia, Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean to Mount Taurus (all in modern-day Antalya province, Turkey). It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 120 km (75 miles) with a breadth of about 50 km (30 miles). Under the Roman administration the term Pamphylia was extended so as to include Pisidia and the whole tract up to the frontiers of Phrygia and Lycaonia, and in this wider sense it is employed by Ptolemy. Name The name ''Pamphylia'' comes from the Greek language, Greek Παμφυλία, itself from (''pamphylos''), literally "of mingled tribes or races", a compound of πᾶν (''pan''), neuter of πᾶς (''pas'') "all" + φυλή (''phylē''), "race, tribe". Herodotus derived its etymology from a Dorians, Dorian tribe, the Pamphyloi (Πάμφυλοι), who were said to hav ...
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Cilicia
Cilicia () is a geographical region in southern Anatolia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (). The region includes the provinces of Mersin, Adana, Osmaniye and Hatay. Name The name of Cilicia () was derived from (), which was the name used by the Neo-Assyrian Empire to designate the western part of what would become Cilicia. The English spelling is the same as the Latin, as it was transliterated directly from the Greek form Κιλικία. The palatalization of c occurring in Western Europe in later Vulgar Latin () accounts for its modern pronunciation in English. Geography Cilicia extends along the Mediterranean coast east from Pamphylia to the Nur Mountains, which separate it from Syria. North and east of Cilicia stand the rugged Taurus Mountains, which separate it from the high central plateau of Anatolia, and which are pierced by a ...
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Phrygia
In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; , ''Phrygía'') was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Phrygian kings: * Gordias, whose Gordian Knot would later be cut by Alexander the Great * Midas, who turned whatever he touched to gold * Mygdon, who warred with the Amazons According to Homer's ''Iliad'', the Phrygians participated in the Trojan War as close allies of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans. Phrygian power reached its peak in the late 8th century BC under another historical king, Midas, who dominated most of western and central Anatolia and rivaled Assyria and Urartu for power in eastern Anatolia. This later Midas was, however, also the last independent king of Phrygia before Cimmerians sacked the Phrygian capital, Gordium, around 695 BC. Phrygia then became subject to Lydia, and then successivel ...
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Biblical Canon
A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Ancient Greek, Greek , meaning 'ruler, rule' or 'measuring stick'. The use of ''canon'' to refer to a set of religious scriptures was first used by David Ruhnken, in the 18th century. Various biblical canons have developed through debate and agreement on the part of the religious authorities of their respective faiths and denominations. Some books, such as the Jewish–Christian gospels, have been excluded from various canons altogether, but many Antilegomena, disputed books are considered to be biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical by many, while some denominations may consider them fully canonical. Differences exist between the Hebrew Bible and Christian biblical canons, although the majority of manuscripts are shared in common. Different religious groups include different books in t ...
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Acts Of Andrew
The ''Acts of Andrew'' () is a Christian apocryphal work describing acts and miracles of Andrew the Apostle. It is alluded to in a Coptic 3rd-century work titled the '' Manichaean Psalm Book'', so it must have been composed prior to that century. By the 4th century, the stories told in the book were considered apocryphal, and the book was relegated to the New Testament apocrypha. Historically, it was often classed as Gnostic in origin before the works discovered at Nag Hammadi clarified modern understanding of Gnosticism. It is now considered encratite—a product of an ascetical sect of Christians that forbade marriage. Prior to the twentieth century, ''Acts of Andrew'' was known chiefly through a book about Andrew by the medieval bishop Gregory of Tours. At that time, Gregory's book was considered to be a reliable epitome of the ''Acts of Andrew''. The first modern edition of the work was a reconstruction published in 1924 by M. R. James that was based on Gregory's book. ...
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Asia Minor
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Turkish Straits to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the north. The eastern and southeastern limits have been expanded either to the entirety of Asiatic Turkey or to an imprecise line from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Alexandretta. Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and separates Anatolia from Thrace in Southeast Europe. During the Neolithic, Anatolia was an early centre for the development of farming after it originated in the adjacent Fertile Crescent. Beginning around 9,000 years ago, there was a major migration of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers into Neolithic Europe, Europe, with their descendants coming to dominate the continent a ...
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Manichaeans
Manichaeism (; in ; ) is an endangered former major world religion currently only practiced in China around Cao'an,R. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''. SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century CE by the Parthian prophet Mani (216–274 CE), in the Sasanian Empire. Manichaeism teaches an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process that takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light, whence it came. Mani's teaching was intended to "combine", succeed, and surpass the teachings of Platonism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Marcionism, Hellenistic and Rabbinic Judaism, Gnostic movements, Ancient Greek religion, Babylonian and other Mesopotamian religions, and mystery cults.Arendzen, John (1 October 1910).Manich� ...
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