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Melitius Of Lycopolis
Melitius or Meletius (died 327) was bishop of Lycopolis in Egypt. He is known mainly as the founder and namesake of the Melitians (c. 305), one of several schismatic sects in early church history which were concerned about the ease with which lapsed Christians re-entered the Church. The details of his life are not clear, as there are conflicting accounts of it. According to one version, he was imprisoned for his Christianity during the persecution under Diocletian, along with Peter of Alexandria. Another source has Peter fleeing the scene, and a third one has Melitius himself avoiding prison. Apparently, as early as during the persecution itself, Melitius began to refuse to accept in communion those Christians who had renounced their faith during the persecution and later repented of that choice. Melitius' rigorous stance on that point stood in contrast to the earlier willingness of bishops to accept back into communion those who seemed to have truly repented (a pattern that ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arian Controversy
The Arian controversy was a series of Christian disputes about the nature of Christ that began with a dispute between Arius and Athanasius of Alexandria, two Christian theologians from Alexandria, Egypt. The most important of these controversies concerned the relationship between the substance of God the Father and the substance of His Son. The position advanced initially by Arius argued that the Son of God came after God the Father in both time and substance. This conflicted with the Trinitarian faction initially advanced by Athanasius which argued that the Christ was coeternal and consubstantial with God the Father. Emperor Constantine, through the Council of Nicaea in 325, attempted to unite Christianity and establish a single, imperially approved version of the faith. Ironically, his efforts were the cause of the deep divisions created by the disputes after Nicaea. While there was no formal schism, these disagreements divided the Church into various factions for over 55 y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Christians Involved In Controversies
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BCAD 500, ending with the expansion of Islam in late antiquity. The three-age system periodises ancient history into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, with recorded history generally considered to begin with the Bronze Age. The start and end of the three ages vary between world regions. In many regions the Bronze Age is generally considered to begin a few centuries prior to 3000 BC, while the end of the Iron Age varies from the early first millennium BC in some regions to the late first millennium AD in others. During the time period of ancient history, the world population was exponentially increasing due to the Neolithic Revolution, which was in full prog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
4th-century Egyptian Bishops
The 4th century was the time period from 301 CE (represented by the Roman numerals CCCI) to 400 CE (CD) in accordance with the Julian calendar. In the West, the early part of the century was shaped by Constantine the Great, who became the first Roman emperor to adopt Christianity. Gaining sole reign of the empire, he is also noted for re-establishing a single imperial capital, choosing the site of ancient Byzantium in 330 (over the current capitals, which had effectively been changed by Diocletian's reforms to Milan in the West, and Nicomedeia in the East) to build the city soon called Nova Roma (New Rome); it was later renamed Constantinople in his honor. The last emperor to control both the eastern and western halves of the empire was Theodosius I. As the century progressed after his death, it became increasingly apparent that the empire had changed in many ways since the time of Augustus. The two-emperor system originally established by Diocletian in the previous century fel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arianism
Arianism (, ) is a Christology, Christological doctrine which rejects the traditional notion of the Trinity and considers Jesus to be a creation of God, and therefore distinct from God. It is named after its major proponent, Arius (). It is considered Heresy in Christianity, heretical by most modern mainstream branches of Christianity. It is held by a minority of modern denominations, although some of these denominations hold related doctrines such as Socinianism, and some shy away from use of the term Arian due to the term's historically negative connotations. Modern denominations sometimes connected to the teaching include Jehovah's Witnesses, some individual churches within the Churches of Christ (including the movement's founder Barton W. Stone), as well as some Hebrew Roots Christians and Messianic Judaism, Messianic Jews (although many Messianic Jews also follow Nicene Christianity). It is first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter who preached and studied in Ale ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Arkhaph
John Arkhaph (also spelled Arkaph or Archaph) was the bishop of Memphis in Egypt in the 320s and 330s. He was a disciple of Bishop Melitios of Lykopolis, whom he succeeded in 327 as leader of the Church of the Martyrs.Scott T. Carroll (1989), ''The Melitian Schism: Coptic Christianity and the Egyptian Church'' (PhD diss., Miami University), p. 115. The origin and meaning of "Arkhaph" are uncertain. Athanasius treats it as a Coptic name and calls him "Archaph who is also called John". Socrates Scholasticus transforms it into the Biblical name Achab. Possibly it is formed from ''arch'' (supreme) and '' apa'' (father) as an alternate to the title archiereus (high priest), which was used of the bishop of Alexandria in some Coptic documents.W. Telfer (1955), "Meletius of Lycopolis and Episcopal Succession in Egypt", ''Harvard Theological Review'' 48(4): 227–237. Besides Athanasius and Socrates, the historian Sozomen is an important source for John's career. John is first menti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sozomenus
Salamanes Hermias Sozomenos (; ; c. 400 – c. 450 AD), also known as Sozomen, was a Roman lawyer and historian of the Christian Church. Family and home Sozoman was born around 400 in Bethelia, a small town near Gaza, into a wealthy Christian family of Palestine. He told the history of Southern Palestine derived from oral tradition. He appeared to be familiar with the region around Gaza, and mentioned having seen Bishop Zeno of Majuma, at the seaport of Gaza. Sozomen wrote that his grandfather lived at Bethelia, near Gaza, and became a Christian together with his household, probably under Constantius II. A neighbor named Alaphrion was miraculously healed by Saint Hilarion, who cast out a demon from Alaphrion, and, as eyewitnesses to the miracle, his family converted, along with Alaphrion's. The conversion marked a turning-point in the Christianization of southern Palestine, according to his account. The grandfather became within his own circle a highly esteemed interpreter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socrates Scholasticus
Socrates of Constantinople ( 380 – after 439), also known as Socrates Scholasticus (), was a 5th-century Greek Christian church historian, a contemporary of Sozomen and Theodoret. He is the author of a ''Historia Ecclesiastica'' ("Church History", Ἐκκλησιαστική Ἱστορία) which covers the history of late ancient Christianity during the years 305 to 439. Life He was born in Constantinople. Even in ancient times, nothing seems to have been known of his life except what can be gathered from notices in his ''Historia Ecclesiastica'', which departed from its ostensible model, Eusebius of Caesarea, in emphasizing the place of the emperor in church affairs and in giving secular as well as church history. Socrates' teachers, noted in his prefaces, were the grammarians Helladius and Ammonius, who came to Constantinople from Alexandria, where in 391 they had been involved in a violent revolt that culminated in the destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Council Of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea ( ; ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I. The Council of Nicaea met from May until the end of July 325. This ecumenical council was the first of many efforts to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all Christendom. Hosius of Corduba may have presided over its deliberations. Attended by at least 200 bishops, its main accomplishments were the settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of God the Son and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, the mandating of uniform observance of the date of Easter, and the promulgation of early canon law. Background Alexandrian controversies The major impetus for the calling of the Council of Nicaea arose in a theological dispute among the Christian clergy of Alexandria concerning the nature of Jesus, hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arius
Arius (; ; 250 or 256 – 336) was a Cyrenaica, Cyrenaic presbyter and asceticism, ascetic. He has been regarded as the founder of Arianism, which holds that Jesus Christ was not Eternity, coeternal with God the Father, but was rather created by God the Father. Arian theology and its doctrine regarding the nature of the Godhead in Christianity, Godhead showed a belief in radical subordinationism, a view notably disputed by 4th century figures such as Athanasius of Alexandria. Constantine the Great's formal decriminalization of Christianity into the Roman Empire entailed the convention of ecumenical councils to remove theological divisions between opposing sects within the Church. Arius's theology was a prominent topic at the First Council of Nicaea, where Arianism was condemned in favor of Homoousion, Homoousian conceptions of God and Jesus. Opposition to Arianism remains embodied in the Nicene Creed, described as "a deliberately anti-Arian document." Nevertheless, despite conc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melitians
The Melitians, sometimes called the Church of the Martyrs, were an early Christian sect in Egypt. They were founded about 306 by Bishop Melitius of Lycopolis and survived as a small group into the eighth century. The point on which they broke with the larger catholic church was the same as that of the contemporary Donatists in the province of Africa: the ease with which lapsed Christians were received back into communion. The resultant division in the church of Egypt is known as the Melitian schism. Start of the schism, 306–311 Melitius advocated the open practice of Christianity in the face of official persecution, including the celebration of the liturgy, and urged Christians not to go into hiding. During the Diocletianic Persecution, he was imprisoned, alongside Patriarch Peter I of Alexandria in 305/306. Both of them were released during a lull in the persecutions, and Peter laid down terms for the readmission of "lapsed" Christians: those who had abjured the faith un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palestine (region)
The region of Palestine, also known as historic Palestine, is a geographical area in West Asia. It includes the modern states of Israel and Palestine, as well as parts of northwestern Jordan in some definitions. Other names for the region include Canaan, the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, or the Holy Land. The earliest written record Timeline of the name Palestine, referring to Palestine as a geographical region is in the ''Histories (Herodotus), Histories'' of Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, which calls the area ''Palaistine'', referring to the territory previously held by Philistia, a state that existed in that area from the 12th to the 7th century BCE. The Roman Empire conquered the region and in 6 CE established the province known as Judaea (Roman province), Judaea. In the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), the province was renamed Syria Palaestina. In 390, during the Byzantine period, the region was split into the provinces of Palaestina Prima, Pal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
