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According to Epiphanius of Salamis ( Haer. 75; see  Anc. 13.8) Aërius was an ascetic in the circle around Eustathius of Sebaste. He was still alive when Epiphanius wrote the Panarion at the end of the 370s CE ( Haer. 75.1.3); Filastrius, on the other hand ( Haer. 72), appears to take his death fo…

In 338 CE a short time after the death of Emperor Constantine, the new emperor of the West, Constantine II permitted Athanasius of Alexandria to return from his exile in Trier to Alexandria (DGAS no. 41.1 introduction).Having returned from exile, Athanasius assembled a synod (Councils/Synods) of 80 Egyptian bishops in Alexandria. This synod voted for Athanasius. This synod sent a circular to all bishops (Bishop [Episcopos]) with many documents (Athan. Apol. sec. 3–19).The eastern bishops around Eusebius of Constantinople, who had deposed and excommunicated Athana…

The heresiologists of the early church call “Continentes” (Gk ἐγκρατῖται; Lat. continentes/ encratitae; Eng. Encratites [continents]; Encratism/Encratites) some ascetics or groups living an ascetic life who are considered to be heretics because they demand from all Christians that they follow an ascetic way of life, particularly that they renounce marriage, the eating of certain foods (particularly meat), and the consuming of intoxicating drinks (whereby “continentes” in the Latin tradition can stan…

Firmilian (d. 268 CE), a well-known bishop of the Cappadocian metropolis Caesarea (from c. 230 CE), appears according to Eusebius of Caesarea ( Hist. eccl. 6.27) to have taken part in almost all of the significant debates in the formation of una sancta et catholica ecclesia (one holy and catholic church) and its standardized structures in the middle of the 3rd century CE as a representative of an episcopally organized church. The institution of synods and intensive epistolary communication between the churches appear to be for him a fundamental element in the structure of the …

In the literary tradition of late antiquity, there is only a single piece of evidence for the word Ἀρειανισμός, in Gregory of Nazianzus ( Or. 21.22). The derivative neo-Latin term “Arianism” was constructed during the early modern period and subsequently adopted in the modern European languages (Fr. Arianisme; Ital. Arianesimo; Ger. Arianismus).…

1. Begriff und antike-mittelalterliche Grundlegung …

Arianism is the teaching of the Alexandrian presbyter Arius (ca. 280–336) and his supporters. It arose originally in reaction to the Christology of the apologists. To preserve both monotheism and the deity of Christ, the apol…

The oldest MSS tradition offers contractions of the divine names, especially ĪC̄ for Jesus (= IHCOYC) and X̄C̄ or X̄P̄C̄ for Christ (= XPICTOC). These contractions, which might be understood as ciphers for the salvation achieved in Christ (Christology), are also found to some extent in monogrammatic form (…

1. Concept and medieval origins 1.1. Superstitio and DeisidaimoniaThe word “superstition,” which in English dates back to the 13th century, derives from the Latin  superstitio, the original meaning of which was “standing still over a thing.” It has yet to be satisfactorily explained why it came, in the 1st century bce, to be used to translate the Greek deisidaimonia. This essentially neutral or even positive Greek term, which denoted general religiosity and the relationship between humans and the gods (as it still did in the Christian sense in the New…

[German Version] (Aug 7, 317 – Nov 3, 361). The Roman emperor Constantius II was the second son of Constantine and Fausta. He was made Caesar in 324; upon Constantine's death in September of 337, he became Augustus over the eastern half of the empire. Because his primary military challenge was securing the eastern border, until 350 he spent most of his time in Antioch. After the death of Constantine II in 340, the rivalry between Constantius and his younger brot…

[German Version] Pope is the designation of the bishop of Rome as successor to Peter (the disciple), head of the (Roman) Catholic Church, and holder of a universal primacy of teaching and jurisdiction within the church (Papacy). In the Greek church, πάπας/ pápas ¶ was originally a title or term of address for abbots and bishops; later it was reserved exclusively to patriarchs. There is inscriptional evidence from the second half of the 4th century for its use by the Roman bishops; in the Latin church, it has been reserved exclusively to t…

[German Version] The Greek term ὁμοούσιος means “having the same ousia/substance/essence.” This compound adjective, which denotes the essential identity of origin and emanation, is found in Gnostic texts and also in philosophical usage after the time of Plotinus and was probably adopted from Manichaeism. It was on account of its Gnostic/Manichaeist connotation that the term homoousios was probably not employed by the exponents of a trinitarian theology of identification (Monarchianism) to describe the relationship of God and the Son/Logos. It is unclear whether, as Athanasius asserts, Dionysius of Rome describes the Logos as being …

[German Version] (c. 650, Damascus – before 754, Mar Saba). The legendary vitae of John hardly contain any factual information. John of Damascus was born into a Christian family of the Greek Damascene upper class, which initially collaborated with the caliphs. His family enjoyed close ties to the court of the caliph, in whose service he also stood. Before the year 700, probably because the Christians were increasingly ¶ being driven out of public offices from the late 7th century on, he retired to the Mar Saba Monastery near Jerusalem. There, he officiated as pri…

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[German Version] monastery in the Psamathia quarter of Constantinople, founded by Studios, who was patricius and consul in 454. Its church, a three-aisled basilica dedicated to John the Baptist, was begun in 450; it was converted into a mosque after 1453. Today it is the only pre-Justinian church ruin in Istanbul. It was among the largest and most important monasteries of the capital, with great wealth. During the iconoclastic controversy (Veneration of images: VI) in the 8th and 9th centuries, under its abbot ( hegoumenos) Theodore of Studios it became the most important intel…

[German Version] of Antioch (died 376) was a deacon and partisan of Arius in Alexandria. He was deposed and excommunicated by an Alexandrian synod. With Arius, he presented a creed to Constantine in 327 which subordinated the Logos but avoided extremely subordinationist statements (Christology: …

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[German Version] was a deacon of Cyril of Alexandria who became his successor as bishop of Alexandria following the latter's death in 444. In spite of the extant hagiographic vita (CPG 3, 5470) from the Monophysite milieu, hardly anything is known about his life. Unlike Cyril, whose theology was his absolute norm, Dioscorus cannot be regarded as an independent or prominent theolo…

[German Version] (c. 390 in Cilician Sis – Jul 24 [Sep 1], 459). Without education, Simeon entered a monastery early in the 5th century; he was forced to leave on account of his extreme asceticism. He lived as a hermit in Telanissus (some 60 km east of Antioch). From the early 420s, he lived on a hill atop a pillar that gradually reached a height of over 20 m (Stylite); visited by countless pilgrims, he gave political counsel to several emperors and appear…

[German Version] (or Wulfila; early 4th cent. – 383), Gothic descendant of Cappadocian Christians kidnapped in the 3rd century. According to his biographer Auxentius of Durostorum, he was a trilingual lector in the Gothic Christian community, probably consecrated to the episcopate by Eusebius of Nicomedia when a Gothic delegation was sent to Constantine the Great, to serve as bishop of the Christians in the region controlled by the Goths. In the 340s, he and a group of Gothic Christians entered the Empire as ref…

[German Version] (c. 316–397; feast day Nov 11). The writings of Sulpicius Severus about Martin are the only contemporary sources ( Epistulae et dialogae [CSEL 1]; Vita Martini [SC 133–135]). In the Vita, written c. 395/397, the various episodes are only loosely linked. They are continued after Martin's death in three letters and three (or two) Dialogues, in which Sulpicius depicts Martin according to his monastic ideals. Martin was born c. 316/317 (conflicting chronology) as the son of a tribune in Pannonian Sabaria. He grew up in Pavia, and at the …

[German Version] Maximinus the Arian (Saint), a Homoean. In 428/429, Maximinus belonged to the retinue of the Goth Sigisvult in Africa, where a disputation with Augustine of Hippo on the doctrine of the Trinity took place (Possidius, Vita Augustini, 17), the minutes of which are …

[German Version] Homoiousians, a term in use since the end of the 19th century to denote a theological group that arose from the Arian dispute while remaining particularly ¶ indebted to its Origenistic heritage. The name derives from the term ὁμοιούσιος/ homoiousios (= of similar substance, in contrast to ὁμοούσιος/ homoousios = of the same substance; Homoousios, Homoeans) as a description of the relation of God the Father to the Logos/Son in the Trinity. Today, the neutral “Homoiousian” has replaced such contemporary polemical terms as “Arians…

[German Version] Julius I, Pope (Saint), bishop of Rome from 337 to 352. With Athanasius's and Marcellus of Ancyra's flight to Rome in 339/340, the West became involved in the (church-)political controversies that followed upon the death of Constantine the Great. After the Eastern bishops failed to comply with a summons to attend a synod in Rome, a Ro…

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[German Version] According to our only source, the Commemoratorium vitae s. Severini (511) of Eugippius, Severinus was a high-born Roman living as an anchorite in the East. After the death of Attila in 453, he went to Rhaeto-Romania as a monastic ascetic, charismatic, and miracle-worker. There he organized the Rhaeto-Romanic population politically a…

[German Version] The Arabic name of Morocco is al-Mamlaka al-maġribīya (“The Western Kingdom”). The name …

[German Version] Stylitism was a special form of early Christian asceticism, in which the stylite stood for long periods, usually for life, on a platform atop a pillar (Gk στῦλος/ stýlos, hence “stylite”), which often was raised in stages, sometimes to a height of more than 20 m, as a visible expression of the ascetic ideal of extreme homelessness and immobility. It was the duty of monks to provide the stylite with sustenance and communion. As motivation the sources speak of total separation from the world and proximity to heaven. Proposed non-Christian models have been ruled out. ¶ This rad…

[German Version] (Eukratas; c. 540/550, Aigai in Cilicia? – 634, Rome?), monk of the monastery of St. Theodosius in Jerusalem and of the laura of Pharan; after 578, he set off with his disciple Sophronius to visit monasteries and ascetic communities in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. A journey to Rome in 614 in the face of the impending threat of Persian invasion remains unclear. In the tradition of the …

[German Version] was a Roman presbyter who became bishop of Rome after the execution of Sixtus II in 259. He was able to reorganize the church, which had suffered greatly from the persecution by Licinius Valerianus. He died in 267/268. Almost nothing of him is recorded in the …

[German Version] (521 Antioch – May 24 [or Sep 3?], 592), son of St. Martha and a father from Edessa, became a stylite and miracle worker (Simeon Thaumaturgus) at the age of six. Located after c. 540/541 on the mons mirabilis near Antioch, he was ordained to the diaconate and later to the priesthood as a stylite; he was sought out by pilgrims as a thaumaturge. He wrote works on asceticism, hymn…

[German Version] 523–526. At the command of Theodoric the Great, John I, of whom almost nothing is known, had to travel in 525 to Constantinople with a delegation of Roman senators and bishops and intervene there for the religious freedom of the homoean Goths, who were affecte…

[German Version] The so-called Eutychian Controversy was an episode in the christological controversy (Christology: II, 1), that forced the Roman and Latin West to take a dogmatic position and led directly to the christological formula of Chalcedon (Monophysites/Monophysitism). The unstable equilibrium of the Union of 433 between moderate Antiochenes and Alexandrians ( DH 272) was always in danger. Dioscorus of Alexandria, the successor of Cyril of Alexandria, was not prepared to accept a signif…

[German Version] (died 370) first appears as bishop of Germanicia at the Council of Antioch in 341. He was one of the leading supporters of the ecclesiastical policies of Constantius II and participated in almost all the important councils of the Eastern church as an opponent of Athanasius; he nevertheless played a role in the unsuccessful attempts to frame a theological compromise with the West ( formula macrostichus, Hahn, BSGR, §159). After he became bishop of Antioch in 357, his support of Aetius and Eunomius led to a breach with the emperor and Eudoxius's deposition. Following the councils of Seleucia/Constantinople (359/360) and a reconciliation with Constantius, he became bishop of Constantinople. He played a central role in formulating the ecclesiastical policies of the emperor Vale…

[German Version] (“Stammerer,” or “hoarse”; died 490). In 477 Peter was elected bishop (patriarch) of Alexandria by opponents of the decrees of Chalcedon, as successor to Timotheus Aelurus, but he was able to take office only after the death of Timothy Salophaciolus and the recognition of the Henotikon in 482; because of the intervention of John Talaia (Acacius of Constantinople), he was not recognized by the West. He was also opposed in Egypt by Monophysites because he had signed the …

[German Version] I. Definition – II. Early Christianity and Military Service – III. The Militia Christi in Primitive Christianity and the Early Church – IV. Middle Ages – V. Modern Period I. Definition Latin militia Christi (“military service for Christ”; cf. the more common miles Christi/ dei, “soldier/warrior of Christ/God”) is a metaphorical description of the life and service of Christians in the world (cf. “the church militant”). Borrowing the language of apocalypticism and imagery common to antique philosophy, it interprets the C…

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[German Version] (c. 1050 – c. 1126), student of Michael (actually Constantine) Psellus, deacon of the Hagia Sophia and royal tutor at the court of Michael VII. Around 1090 he was made archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria, de facto the Byzantine metropolitan even though Bulgaria remained autocephalous de iure under Byzantine rule. The majority of his literary output consists of biblical commentaries in a traditional vein; in the conflict with the Latins, he took a moderate position. Other surviving works include homilies, encomia of martyrs,…

[German Version] Leo of Ochrid, 11th-century Byzantine theologian, chartophylax of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, after 1025 in Achrida/Ochrid as autocephalous archbishop of Bulgaria under Byzantine rule. To support the anti-Western campaigns of the patriarch Michael C…

[German Version] ( Jan 31, 314 – Dec 31, 335). According to the Liber pontificalis and hagiographic tradition, Silv…

[German Version] I. History – II. Theological Faculty I. History In the early modern period, as territorial states were being formed on the soil of the Holy Roman Empire, Brandenburg-Ansbach/Bayreuth took the side of the Reformation in 1526. In 1529, at Luther's suggestion, it set out to establish a territorial university, but this hope was never realized, not least because …

[German Version] (pontificate Mar 1, 492 – Nov 21, 496). According to the Liber pontificalis , Gelasius was an African. Entrusted with the papal correspondence under Simplicius and especially Felix III, in the context of the Acacian Schism, Gelasius maintained the schism with the East even after the death of Acacius of Constantinople. In a dispute with the emperor Anastasius, Gelasius developed the “two powers” doctrine, building on the doctrine of papal primacy stated by Leo I, in a situati…

[German Version] (died c. 360), a presbyter in Alexandria, was deposed and expelled because of his support for Arius. In the context of the reversal of church policy after the Council of Nicea (325), he was bishop of Syrian Laodicea after around 335. As one of the leading Eusebians, he was deposed and excommunicated in absentia…

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[German Version] Servatius, Saint, the first verifiable bishop of Tongeren ( civitas Tungrorum) in the Roman province of Germania II; by the 6th century, nothing more was known of him. According to Athanasius ( Ap…

[German Version] I. Definition The expression papal primacy denotes the juridical supremacy in the universal church of the pope as bishop of Rome, i.e. his supreme and immediate administrative authority as head of the College of Bishops, pastor of the universal church, and vicar of Christ on earth ( CIC/1983, c. 331: “The Bishop of the Church of Rome . . . is the head of the College of Bishops, the Vicar of Christ, and the Pastor of the universal Church here on earth; consequently, by virtue of his office, he has supreme, full, immediate, and…

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[German Version] I. Concept, Presuppositions – II. Development – III. Middle Eastern Church History and Historiography – IV. Religious Education I. Concept, Presuppositions 1. Concept The concept of church history has not yet been studied sufficiently, but it is already clear that since antiquity extraordinarily different conceptions of Christian historiography have been in simultaneous competition over the interpretation of past, present, and future. Often the different methodological options have been and are expressed through differing conceptualities. “Church history” is only one of the possible terms for a structured Christian inte…

[German Version] I. Church History – II. Church Law – III. Dogmatics I. Church History 1. Early Church Council (Lat. concilium…

[German Version] I. Early Church – II. Middle Ages and Reformation – III. Modern Period and Today – IV. Chronological List of the Popes I. Early Church 1. Definition. If papacy is defined as the claim (based on Matt 16:16–19; 28:20; Luke 22:31f.; John 21:15–19) of the bishops of Rome as successors and heirs to Peter to leadership along with jurisdictional and magisterial primacy (I) within the universal church, papacy in the strict sense dates only from the Middle Ages in the Latin West. In the Early Church, the point at issue is the history of the Roman see and the Christian community in the city of Rome, with occasional attempts to assert primacy within the universal church and claims to jurisdictional and magisteri