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Baetylus
A baetyl (; also betyl), literally "house of god", is a sacred stone (sometimes believed to be a meteorite) that was venerated and thought to house a god or deity. The most famous example is the Omphalos stored in the Temple of Apollo at the Greek town of Delphi. The term baetyl was used in ancient Near Eastern sources, in the form of "beth-el", as well as in Greek and Roman sources, as a ''baitylos''. In the former, the term was used to refer to the names of gods or places. Examples include Bethel, a location described in the Hebrew Bible, and the deity Bethel, who was mentioned in texts like Esarhaddon's Treaty with Ba'al of Tyre and the Elephantine papyri. In the latter, the word was used to describe a round stone that had fallen from the sky (i.e. a meteorite). The word ''baetyl'' has taken on a vague use in modern writing. It has been debated both how ancient and modern usage of this word compare with one another. And, among modern historians, concerns have risen over th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stele
A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stelas ( ). is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted. Stelae were created for many reasons. Grave stelae were used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. Stelae were occasionally erected as memorials to battles. For example, along with other memorials, there are more than half-a-dozen steles erected on the battlefield of Waterloo at the locations of notable actions by participants in battle. A traditional Wester ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Photios I Of Constantinople
Photius I of Constantinople (, ''Phōtios''; 815 – 6 February 893), also spelled ''Photius''Fr. Justin Taylor, essay "Canon Law in the Age of the Fathers" (published in Jordan Hite, T.O.R., and Daniel J. Ward, O.S.B., "Readings, Cases, Materials in Canon Law - A Textbook for Ministerial Students, Revised Edition" ollegeville, Minn., The Liturgical Press, 1990, p. 61 (), was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 858 to 867 and from 877 to 886. He is recognized in the Eastern Orthodox Church as Saint Photius the Great. Photius I is widely regarded as the most powerful and influential church leader of Constantinople subsequent to John Chrysostom's archbishopric around the turn of the fifth century. He is also viewed as the most important intellectual of his time – "the leading light of the ninth-century renaissance". He was a central figure in both the conversion of the Slavs to Christianity and the Photian schism, and is considered " e great systematic compiler ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common ideas it maintains is monism, the doctrine that all of reality can be derived from a single principle, "the One". Neoplatonism began with Ammonius Saccas and his student Plotinus (c. 204/5 – 271 AD) and stretched to the sixth century. After Plotinus there were three distinct periods in the history of neoplatonism: the work of his student Porphyry (third to early fourth century); that of Iamblichus (third to fourth century); and the period in the fifth and sixth centuries, when the academies in Alexandria and Athens flourished. Neoplatonism had an enduring influence on the subsequent history of Western philosophy and religion. In the Middle Ages, Neoplatonic ideas were studied and discussed by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damascius
Damascius (; ; 462 – after 538), known as "the last of the Athenian Neoplatonists", was the last scholarch of the neoplatonic Athenian school. He was one of the neoplatonic philosophers who left Athens after laws confirmed by emperor Justinian I forced the closure of the Athenian school in c. 529 AD. After he left Athens, he may have sought refuge in the court of the Persian King Chrosroes, before being allowed back into the Byzantine Empire. His surviving works consist of three commentaries on the works of Plato, and a metaphysical text entitled ''Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles''. Life Much of what is known about Damascius' life comes from his semi-autobiographical work called ''The Philosophical History'', or ''Life of Isidore'', and from a work called ''Vita Severi'' written by the 6th-century bishop and historian Zacharias Scholasticus. Damascius, as his name suggests, was born in Damascus in c. 462 AD, and travelled to Alexandria in the 480s AD to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic (''Natural History''), a comprehensive thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is Lost literary work, no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Tacitus may have used ''Bella Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. Together with Pamphilus, Eusebius was a scholar of the biblical canon and is regarded as one of the most learned Christians during late antiquity. He wrote the ''Demonstrations of the Gospel'', '' Preparations for the Gospel'' and ''On Discrepancies between the Gospels'', studies of the biblical text. His work '' Onomasticon'' is an early geographical lexicon of places in the Holy Land mentioned in the Bible. As "Father of Church History" (not to be confused with the title of Church Father), he produced the ''Ecclesiastical History'', ''On the Life of Pamphilus'', the ''Chronicle'' and ''On the Martyrs''. He also produced a biographical work on Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, who was ''Augustus'' between A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaia
In Greek mythology, Gaia (; , a poetic form of ('), meaning 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea (), is the personification of Earth. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life. She is the mother of Uranus (Sky), with whom she conceived the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods), the Cyclopes, and the Giants, as well as of Pontus (Sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. Etymology The Greek name (''Gaia'' or ) is a mostly epic, collateral form of Attic (''Gē'' ), and Doric (''Ga'' ), perhaps identical to (''Da'' ), both meaning "Earth". Some scholars believe that the word is of uncertain origin. Beekes suggested a probable Pre-Greek origin. Robert S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, pp. 269–270 (''s.v.'' "γῆ"). M.L. West derives the na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ouranos
In Greek mythology, Uranus ( , also ), sometimes written Ouranos (, ), is the personification of the sky and one of the Greek primordial deities. According to Hesiod, Uranus was the son and husband of Gaia (Earth), with whom he fathered the first generation of Titans. However, no cult addressed directly to Uranus survived into classical times, and Uranus does not appear among the usual themes of Greek painted pottery. Elemental Earth, Sky, and Styx might be joined, however, in solemn invocation in Homeric epic. The translation of his name in Latin is Caelus. Etymology Most linguists trace the etymology of the name to a Proto-Greek form ''*Worsanós'' (), enlarged from *''ṷorsó-'' (also found in Greek ''()'' 'to urinate', Sanskrit ''varṣá'' 'rain', Hittite ''ṷarša-'' 'fog, mist'). Robert S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 1128–1129. The basic Indo-European root is ''*ṷérs-'' 'to rain, moisten' (also found ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philo Of Byblos
Philo of Byblos (, ''Phílōn Býblios''; ; – 141), also known as Herennius Philon, was an antiquarian writer of grammatical, lexicon, lexical and historical works in Greek language, Greek. He is chiefly known for his Phoenician history assembled from the writings of Sanchuniathon. Life Philo was born in the 1st century in Byblos in what is now Lebanon. "He lived into the reign of Hadrian, of which he wrote a history, now lost." His name "Herennius" suggests that he was a client of the ''consul suffectus'' Herennius Severus through whom Philo may have achieved the status of a Roman citizen. Works Philo wrote a dictionary of synonyms, a collection of scientific writers and their works organized by category, a catalogue of cities with their famous citizens, and a ''Vita'' of the Emperor Hadrian. Some of his work is known to us by titles only; others have survived in fragmentary quotes in Christian authors. Among his works were: *''On the Acquisition and Choice of Books'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Septuagint
The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into Koine Greek, the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BC) by seventy-two Hebrew sofer, translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.Megillah (Talmud), Tractate Megillah 9](9a)/ref>Soferim (Talmud), Tractate Soferim 1](1:7-8)/ref> Textual criticism, Biblical scholars agree that the Torah, first five books of the Hebrew Bible were translated from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek by Jews living in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, centred on the History of the Jews in Alexandria, large community in Alexandria, probably in the early or middle part of the 3rd century BC. The remainin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacob's Ladder
Jacob's Ladder () is a ladder or staircase leading to Heaven that was featured in a dream the Biblical Patriarch Jacob had during his flight from his brother Esau in the Book of Genesis (chapter 28). The significance of the dream has been debated, but most interpretations agree that it identified Jacob with the obligations and inheritance of the people chosen by God, as understood in Abrahamic religions. Biblical narrative The description of Jacob's Ladder appears in Genesis 28:10–19: Judaism The classic Torah commentaries offer several interpretations of Jacob's Ladder. In '' Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer'' 35:6-10, the ladder signified the four exiles the Jewish people would suffer before the coming of the messiah. First, the angel representing the Neo-Babylonian Empire climbed "up" 70 rungs and then fell "down": a reference to the 70-year Babylonian exile. Then, the angel representing the exile of the Achaemenid Empire went up several steps and fell, as did the ange ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
