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[German version] (Σατορνεῖλος/ Satorneîlos, Σατορνῖνος/ Satornînos, Latin Saturninus). Christian teacher at the time of the emperor Hadrian (first half of the 2nd century AD) in Antioch [1] (Euseb. Hist. eccl. 4,7,3; cf. also Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium 7,28), who was considered a heretic (Heresy; Gnosis). According to Eirenaeus [2] of Lyon, Adversus haereses 1,24,1-2, his doctrine presented as the supreme principle the unknown Father, creator of the angels. According to S., Man, as the 'ima…

(θεολογία/ theología). I. Greek-Roman [German version] A. Concept At first it is the poets who are described by Greek philosophers as 'theologians' ( theológos ); they engage in discourse (lógos) based on myths about the gods ( theoí), their acts and behaviour, their genealogical and dynastic evolution and the causal traits which they give to the world. In this sense Orpheus, Musaeus [1], Homerus [1] or Hesiodus are regarded as 'theologians' (Aristot. Metaph. 2,4,1000a). Yet where the nature of the gods is supposed to be accessible…

Epithet of many gentilicia [1]. Famous persons: the jurist Salvius I. [1]; the doctor I. [2]; the emperor I. [11], called ‘Apostata’; the bishops I. [16] of Aeclanum and I. [21] of Toledo. [German version] [1] L. Octavius Cornelius P. Salvius I. Aemilianus Roman jurist, 2nd cent. AD Jurist, born about AD 100 in North Africa, died about AD 170; he was a student of  Iavolenus [2] Priscus (Dig. 40,2,5) and the last head of the Sabinian law school (Dig. 1,2,2,53). I., whose succession of offices is preserved in the inscription from Pupput, provi…

Löhr, Winrich Alfried (Cambridge) [German version] A. Definition (CT) Portrait gallery (PG) indicates the display of a series of portraits that are related to each other not by their aesthetic value, but by a feature that the persons represented in them have in common. Within such a group, the portrayed persons can generally stand as representatives ( exempla) of a historicity oriented by personal virtue ( virtus) and stimulate the audience towards moral edification or emulation by means of their memory. Similar to an ancestors' gallery, a PG can originate from the membership in a certain family, office or corporation. By dismantling the history line into a succession of named single individuals, the PG declares continuity and makes it understandable; the serial character of the portraits illustrates it. As a result, a higher identity is created which defines the image of the family or institution and g…

Beinamen bei vielen Gentilicia [1]. Bekannte Personen: der Jurist Salvius I. [1], der Arzt I. [2], der Kaiser I. [11], gen. “Apostata”, die Bischöfe I. [16] von Aeclanum und I. [21] von Toledo. [English version] [1] L. Octavius Cornelius P. Salvius I. Aemilianus röm. Jurist, 2. Jh. Jurist, geb. um 100 n.Chr. in Nordafrika, gest. um 170 n.Chr., war ein Schüler des Iavolenus [2] Priscus (Dig. 40,2,5) und der letzte Vorsteher der sabinianischen Rechtsschule (Dig. 1,2,2,53). I., dessen Ämterfolge die Inschr. aus Pupput/Prov. Africa (CIL VIII 24…

(θεολογία). I. Griechisch-römisch [English version] A. Begriff Die griech. Philosophen bezeichnen als “Theologen” ( theológos ) zunächst die Dichter, die eine auf dem Mythos basierende Rede ( lógos) von den Göttern ( theoí) führen, von ihren Handlungen und Verhaltensweisen, ihren genealogischen und dynastischen Entwicklungen, den ursächlichen Prägungen, die sie der Welt geben. In diesem Sinne gelten etwa Orpheus, Musaios [1], Homeros [1] und Hesiodos als “Theologen” (Aristot. metaph. 2,4,1000a). Insofern die Beschaffenheit der Götter konsistent-vernünftigem Denken zugänglich sein soll, tritt aber die Philosophie selbst als Th. auf und weist die Dichter in die Schranken. Bei Platon [1] unterscheidet Sokrates [2] z…

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Modern scholarship has as yet reached no agreement whether or not there existed in Late Antiquity a distinct religious group or sect that took its name from Adam's son Seth (Gen 4:25; 5:3). Whereas some scholars express scepticism (e.g. Wisse), others feel confident in demarcating a body of Sethian literature and in reconstructing the doctrine of a distinct group of Sethians (e.g. Schenke, Turner). They claim that the Sethians were as much a distinct group as the Valentinians [→ Valentinus and V…

The Perates are a gnostic group whose name is first mentioned by → Clement of Alexandria ( Stromateis, VII, 108, 2). Hippolytus identifies two otherwise unknown persons as their founders ( Refutatio, V, 13, 9): Akembes (IV, 2, 1; Kelbes: V, 13, 9; Ademes: X, 10, 1), who is called ho Karystios (Karystos is a town in Euboia), and Euphrates, who is called ho Peratikos (also mentioned by Origen, Contra Celsum VI, 28 as a teacher of the → Ophites). Clement opines that the name Perates is derived from their place of origin. Different suggestions have been discussed: Euboia, the Euphrates region, the Asiatic coast of the Hellespont (cf. le Boulluec, 433, note 221). Hippolytus seems to quote the Perates with an allegorical exp…

The Carpocratians belong to the broad spectrum of Christian schools in the 2nd century that teach Christianity as a philosophy. Their founder, the Alexandrian Christian Carpocrates, was married to a lady called Alexandria who came from the island of Kephallenia in the Adriatic sea. They had a son called Epiphanes who received from his father an “encyclopaedic education”, wrote some treatises and died at the age of seventeen. Clement reports that the deceased Epiphanes was given divine honours: a temple and a mouseion were erected in Same on the island of Kephallenia and every new moon a celebration commemorated his divinization (Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, III, 5, 1-3). Clement does not assign a date to either Carpocrates or Epiphanes. Irenaeus of Lyons, however, who discusses the Carpocratians in Adversus Haereses ( AH), I, 25, provides some elements of chronology. He refers to a Roman group that was headed by a certain lady called Marcellina. According to Irenaeus, Marcellina came to Rome in the time of bishop Anicetus and ‘ex…

Basilides,, 2nd century Basilides was a free Christian teacher who presumably lived and taught in Alexandria during the reign of the emperor Hadrian (cf. Jerome, Chronicle, 201, 1f Helm). He had a son who became his disciple, Isidore. The ancient evidence about Basilides and his school can be divided into three groups: 1. the fragments and testimonies preserved by → Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea and Hegemonius ( Acta Archelai); 2. the rep…

Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226), baptized Giovanni Bernardone, was the founder of the Franciscan Order. The son of a wealthy cloth merchant, Peter Bernardone, and his French wife, Pica, Francis experienced the kind of wild youth appropriate for a later saint. After participating in a war between his hometown Assisi and Perugia in 1202 and being held captive for a year, and after a lengthy illness, he underwent a conversion (§1) during the years 1204–7, the details of which are difficult to unde…

[German Version] The Homoeans were a group of bishops in the Early Church who defined their faith in such a way that the relationship between Jesus Christ and his Father was to be described as ὅμοιος/ homoios (similar). Homoeanism refers to the first phase of the development of a confessional orthodoxy within the Roman Empire and the emergence of a multiconfessional “commonwealth” (Fowden) at its edges. I. Homoeanism arose in the conflicts of the 4th-century imperial church: from the time of the Synod of Serdica ¶ (342 or 343), there was a schism that was manifested in doctrinal …

[German Version] With his son and disciple Isidore, Basilides was active as a teacher of theology in the time of the emperors Hadrian (117-138) and Antoninus Pius (138-161). His Exegetica was a commentary on what was probably his own recension of Luke; two fragments have been preserved: Clement of Alexandria, Strom. IV, 81.1-83.1, and Acta Archelai 67.4-12. Fragments of the following works of Isidore have been preserved: Ethica (Clem. Alex. Strom. III, 1-3), On the Attached Soul ( Strom. II, 112.1-114.2), and An Explanation of the Prophet Parchor ( Strom. VI, 53.2-5). Additional dox…

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[German Version] (late 4th cent.), exegete. A member of the church of the Donatists (Donatism), he was condemned by the church’s head, Parmenianus of Carthage, because he taught that God’s promise of a universal church was not abrogated by the presence of sinners in the church. He made a fruitful contribution to Latin exegesis (V, 1) through his commentary on Revelation (possibly surviving in a frgm. on Rev 6:6–13) and his Liber regularum (surviving incomplete; “the first Christian exegetical textbook” [Alexander]), used intensively by Augustine of Hippo ( Doctr. chr. III 30–37); it sets forth seven rules showing how Scripture is to be interpreted as proving that the church is the body of Christ. Tyconius modified traditional chiliasm (Millenarianism). Winrich Löhr Bibliography CPL 709f. F.C. Burkitt, Tyconius Liber Regularum

[German Version] is the conventional term for a Christological conception that denies Christ's preexistence and generation before all time, maintaining instead that God adopted the human Jesus as Son.…

[German Version] Between 364 and 367, Optatus, an African bishop, wrote a treatise against the schismatic Donatists (Donatism), who had regained their strength as a result of the religious policies of Julian ¶ the Apostate. Initially his work comprised six books with an appended dossier of relevant documents, in response to a work by Parmenianus, the Donatist bishop of Carthage. During the pontificate of Siricius, Optatus added a seventh book. His argument was both historical and theological: in his polemical and apologetic rec…

[German Version] I. Christianity – II. Islam I. Christianity 1. Early Church Docetism (Gk δοκέω/ dokéō, “to seem”) can be defined as any type of Christology that (a) limits the true humanity of the Son of God Jesus Christ through the assumption of a body of special quality, that (b) teaches the suffering and death of Jesus Christ as merely apparent, or that (c) cha…

[German Version] (5th cent.), bishop of Antioch, spiritual student of Euthymius the Great, ¶ nephew and, after 442, successor of John of Antioch, was accused and deposed at the Council of Ephesus (449) led by Dioscorus of Alexand…

[German Version] was appointed bishop of Antioch after his predecessor Paul of Samosata was deposed by two Antiochene synods (264 and 268 ce…

[German Version] (died after 575 in Alexandria), important Christian philosopher and exegete in Alexandria. A student of the Neoplatonic philosopher Ammonius Hermeiou, …

[German Version] On Jul 3, 529, on the occasion of a church dedication, Caesarius of Arles convoked a synod in the southern French city of Orange to consider the controversial doctrine of grace (Grace, Doctrine of) espoused by Augustine of Hippo. Not long before, a synod in Valence, in the diocese of Vienne, then a rival see to Arles, had dealt with the same topic. The Synod of Orange approved a document, presumably edited by Caesarius, comprising 25 canons framed by an introduction and a credal s…

[German Version] (died after 431), a disciple of Pelagius, was born into an aristocratic family and became a public advocate. It was in Rome, c. 399, that he met the Syrian priest Rufinus, who denied the existence of original sin (Aug. Pecc. orig. III, 3). Pelagius and Celestius left ¶ Rome c. 410 in the face of the Gothic invasion (Goths). They fled to Carthage, where Celestius was condemned by synodal decree (c. 411/412), inter alia on account of his rejection of the doctrine o…

[German Version] Priscillian was of noble descent. From 370 ce, he led a devotional movement that spread rapidly in Spain and southern Gaul, advocating asceticism (stricter fasting, poverty, celibacy), charisma (Spirit/Holy Spirit), and intensive private study of the Bible and the Apocrypha as the true form of Christianity for clergy and laity. The Priscillianists were soon suspected of Gnostic/Manichaean heresy (Gnosis, Manichaeism), also of superstition and magic. At the Synod of Saragossa (380), sharp criti-¶ cism of Priscillian apparently led to no formal condemnation. In 381 Priscillian was consecrated as bishop of Avila. Metropolitan Hydatius of Emerita, under strong attack from the Priscillianists, obtained a rescript from the emperor Gratian with the help of Ambrose of Milan, declaring a total ban on the Priscillianists as heretics (Heresy). Thereupon, Priscillian asked in vain for an audience in Rome and Milan with Pope Damasus I and Bishop Ambrose. After Priscillian had obtained from the impe…

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[German Version] held office at the time of Roman bishop Soter (166?–175?). Eusebius of Caesarea discusses his correspondence ( Hist. eccl. IV 23) and mentions eight letters to the churches or bishops of Lacedaemonia, Athens (reference to …

[German Version] The first list of bishops is found in Irenaeus, Haer. III 3.3 (c. 185 ce) as a list of names of twelve Roman bishops who had handed down in the apostolic succession the teaching entrusted to them by the apostles Peter and Paul. This construction was used by Irenaeus to legitimize his own position of being in possession of the complete apostolic teaching against the claim of the Valentinian school (Valentinianism) to a secret tradition interpreting and transcending scripture. Examples of the succession of teachings are found in ancient Judaism (cf. m. Ab. 1.1–2.8) and in …

[German Version] In his Historia ecclesiastica (V 1), Eusebius of Caesarea includes fragments of a letter written by the churches of Lyon and Vienne in Gaul to the Christians in Asia and Phrygia during the episcopate of Bishop Eleutherus of Rome, with a hagiographically stylized account of a contemporary persecution of Christians. Clearly the Christians were initially detained on the basis of accusations; in conformity with the edict of Emperor Trajan, those who confessed their faith were imprisoned …

[German Version] I. Church History Pelagius was an ascetic and theological writer from Britain. Before 410 he taught in Rome, and in 411/412, following the capture of Rome by the Goths, went to Palestine after a short stay in North Africa. His teaching, according to which the possibility of sinlessness was an essential part of human nature, provoked the criticism of Augustine and Jerome. This teaching had its setting in the pastoral care of members of the Roman elite. Pelagius stated that when one re…

[German Version] (died before 450), early Christian writer who engaged in the conflict over the doctrine of grace and the debate over Christology. Around 418 ce in Rome he published works against the Pelagians (Pelagius), who had been condemned by the pope and emperor. In 429, now a monk in a Thracian monastery with ties to Constantinople, he addressed an attack on Pelagius's disciple Celestius to Emperor Theodosius II ( …

Basilides was …

The date of Alexander’s accession to the bishopric of the predecessor town of Constantinople, Byzantium, is as unclear as the date of his death. According to Socrates Scholasticus, Alexander died in 340 CE, after a tenure of office of 23 years, at age 98, his predecessor being a certain Metrophanes (Socr. H…

[English Version] . Priscillianus (P.), von vornehmer Herkunft, führte nach 370 eine sich rasch in Spanien und Südgallien ausbreitende F…

[English Version] I. Kirchengeschichtlich …

[English Version] . Am 3.7.529 versammelte Caesarius von Arles anläßlich einer Kirchweihe eine Synode in Orange (Südfrankreich), die sich mit der kontroversen GnadenlehreAugustins beschäftigte. Kurz zuvor hatte sich eine Synode in Valence in der Diözese des mit Arles rivalisierenden Bischofssitzes Vienne mit dem gleichen Thema befaßt. Die Synode von O. verabschiedete ein vermutlich von Caesarius redigiertes Dokument, bestehend aus 25 durch Einleitung und Glaubensdefinition gerahmten Kanones: cc.1–…

[English Version] (gegen Ende des 4.Jh.), Exeget, wurde als Mitglied der Kirche der Donatisten (Donatismus) von deren Oberhaupt Parmenianus von Karthago u.a. deshalb verdammt, weil er lehrte, daß die göttliche Verheißung einer universalen Kirche durch Sünder in der Kirche nicht aufgehoben werde. Er befruchtete…

[English Version] von Mileve. O. schrieb als afrikanischer Bischof zw. 364 und 367 einen Traktat gegen die schismatischen Donatisten (Donatismus), die infolge der Religionspolitik des Kaisers Julian Apostata wieder erstarkt waren. Dieses Werk umfaßte zunächst sechs Bücher samt einem angehängten Dossier von einschlägigen Dokumenten und war gegen eine Schrift des donatistischen Bf. Parmenianus von Karthago gerichtet. Z.Z. des Papstes Siricius wurde es um ein siebtes Buch erweitert. O. argumentiert so…