Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity Online

The notion of evil (Gk κακόν, κακία; Lat. malum; lit. “evilness”), along with its opposite, the idea of good (ἀγαθόν; καλόν), is in the focus of early Christian philosophical and theological reflection, largely based both on Greek philosophy and on Scripture. From the philosophical side, for Socrates, at an ethical-gnoseological level, evil was vice and ignorance, as opposed to the good, which was virtue and science. Plato elaborated a metaphysical doctrine of the good, as opposite to evil, which is mer…

The Excerpta Latina Barbari is a Latin translation, made in Merovingian Gaul, of a now lost illustrated Greek Christian chronicle. This Greek chronicle was most likely composed in Alexandria, probably in a number of stages from perhaps as early as the early 5th century until the first half of the 6th century CE. The Excerpta survives in a single manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 4884) dated to the last decades of the 8th century CE. The name Excerpta Latina Barbari (the Latin extracts of the barbarian), as much a judgment as a title, was given by the 16th…

Excommunication refers to the separation of an individual or a group of Christians from the main body of the church because of doctrinal error or serious sins he or she has committed. Influenced originally by Jewish cursing and synagogue bans, excommunication evolved throughout the early Christian period. It involved social, liturgical, and spiritual consequences for those who were excommunicated as well as for the shape of Christian communities as a whole.Defining CommunityExcommunication ( excommunicatio and the verb form, excommunicare) emerged in the 5th century CE as…

Ezana is considered the first Christian king of the Ethiopian reign of Aksum; he reigned, according to the more accepted theory, in the mid-4th century CE. Various inscriptions show the conversion of the king to the Christian faith. Ezana was baptized (Baptism) by Frumentius, who originally came from Tyrus but was captured in Aksum together with his brother Edesius and became, in a first moment, a servant of Ezana’s father, then Frumentius was chosen as educator for Ezana and ordered bishop of A…

Although Ezekiel does not receive as much attention from patristic authors as some other biblical books, such as the Psalms, Isaiah (the “fifth gospel”), and Genesis, it nonetheless holds a significant place in early Christian theology and spirituality. Moreover, a number of noteworthy iconographical motifs derive from Ezekiel and appear frequently in early Christian art.Two complete commentaries on Ezekiel have come down to us, from Jerome and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, both of which date to the first half of the 5th century CE. Eusebius of Caesarea reports that Origen’s Commentary on E…