Religion: History: Early Christianity & Late Antiquity

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Jewish prophet, considered by Christians to be the forerunner of Jesus. He was the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, who was also a kinswoman of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his birth was miraculously foretold.

From Encyclopedia of Global Religions
He was brought up to be a rabbi by Gamaliel at Jerusalem; he also acquired the trade of tentmaker. A strenuous Pharisee, he took an active part in the persecution of Christians, including St Stephen. He was on his way to Damascus on this mission when a vision of Jesus Christ converted him into a fervent adherent of the new faith.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Most prominent of the Twelve Apostles, listed first in the Gospels, and traditionally the first bishop of Rome.

In the New Testament, the mother of Jesus through divine intervention (see Annunciation and Virgin Birth), wife of Joseph. The Roman Catholic Church maintains belief in her Immaculate Conception (birth without original sin) and bodily assumption into heaven, and venerates her as a mediator.

Full name Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus. 10 BC-54 AD, Roman emperor (41-54); invaded Britain (43); poisoned by his fourth wife, Agrippina.

Dynasty reigning in Palestine at the time of Jesus. As a dynasty the Herods depended largely on the power of Rome. They are usually blamed for the state of virtual anarchy in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era.

Full name Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus; original name Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. 37-68 AD, Roman emperor (54-68). He became notorious for his despotism and cruelty, and was alleged to have started the fire (64) that destroyed a large part of Rome.

From Who's Who in the New Testament
Pontius Pilate was the fifth Roman procurator of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea, governing from the year 26 to 36, during which time he was officially responsible for the condemnation of Jesus on a charge of sedition, to be crucified in about the year 30.

The Roman emperor whose years of rule ( AD 14–37) include the ministry and crucifixion of Jesus.

Latin name Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus. 9-79 AD, Roman emperor (69-79), who consolidated Roman rule, especially in Britain and Germany. He began the building of the Colosseum.

The doctrine of Arius, pronounced heretical at the Council of Nicaea, which asserted that Christ was not of one substance with the Father, but a creature raised by the Father to the dignity of Son of God.

Schismatic movement among Christians of N Africa (fl. 4th cent.), led by Donatus, bishop of Casae Nigrae (fl. 313), and the theologian Donatus the Great or Donatus Magnus (d. 355). The schism arose when certain Christians protested the election of the bishop of Carthage, charging that his consecration by Felix, bishop of Aptunga, was invalid because Felix was considered a traitor.

Opposition to the religious use of images. Veneration of pictures and statues symbolizing sacred figures, Christian doctrine, and biblical events was an early feature of Christian worship.

From Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology
7th-century opinion condemned as heretical by the Third Council of Constantinople in 680 (see Constantinople, Third Council of). This doctrine, by declaring that Christ operated with but one will, although he had two natures, opposed the intent of the Council of Chalcedon.

The doctrine that Christ was two distinct persons, divine and human, implying a denial that the Virgin Mary was the mother of God. It is attributed to Nestorius and survives in the Iraqi Church.

A heretical doctrine, first formulated by Pelagius, that rejected the concept of original sin and maintained that the individual takes the initial steps towards salvation by his own efforts and not by the help of divine grace.

From Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World
Theotokos, a title given to the Virgin Mary, literally means in Greek “the one who bore God” but is commonly translated as “Mother of God.”

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
1st ecumenical council, convened by Roman Emperor Constantine the Great to solve the problems raised by Arianism.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Second ecumenical council. It was convened by Theodosius I, then emperor of the East and a recent convert, to confirm the victory over Arianism.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
3d ecumenical council, convened by Theodosius II, emperor of the East, and Valentinian III, emperor of the West, to deal with the controversy over Nestorianism.

From Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
The Fourth Ecumenical Council was held in October 451 at the martyrium of St. Euphemia in Chalcedon. About 520 bishops were present. The council produced the Chalcedonian Creed in response to the Christological controversies of the 5th century.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Regarded generally as the fifth ecumenical council. It was convened by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I to settle the dispute known as the Three Chapters.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Regarded by Roman Catholic and Orthodox Eastern churches as the sixth ecumenical council. It was convoked by Byzantine Emperor Constantine IV to deal with Monotheletism. The council was attended by more than 150 bishops from all over the world, and it was presided over by the papal legates.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
7th ecumenical council, convened by Byzantine Empress Irene. Called to refute iconoclasm, the council declared that images ought to be venerated (but not worshiped) and ordered them restored in churches.

From The Macmillan Encyclopedia
The breach between the Eastern (Byzantine) and Western (Roman) branches of the Christian Church, which became formal in 1054.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
An argument concerning the Procession of the Holy Spirit, which long disturbed the Eastern and Western churches and which still forms one of the principal barriers between them.

One of the fundamental creeds of Christianity, drawn up by the Council of Nicaea, a meeting of bishops in AD 325. The Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical (worldwide) council. The church leaders met to discuss teachings about Jesus.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Federation of national and regional self-governing Christian churches, mainly found in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. The final schism between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church occurred in 1054.

Greek katholikos ‘universal’ [article] One of the main divisions of the Christian religion, separate from the Eastern Orthodox Church.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Formal split over a doctrinal difference between religious believers, as in the final schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054; the Great Schism (1378-1417) in the Roman Catholic Church; the separation of the Old Catholics who rejected the doctrine of papal infallibility in 1879; and the schism over the use of the Latin Tridentine mass in 1988.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Or Schism of the West, division in the Roman Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417. There was no question of faith or practice involved; the schism was a matter of persons and politics.

From The Reader's Companion to Military History
In 1208 Pope Innocent III issued a call for a “holy war” against the Albigensian heretics (Cathars) in southern France. The Albigensians preached that an inseparable gulf existed between the material world, which was evil, and the spiritual world, which was good.

Series of wars undertaken by European Christians between the 11th and 14th cent. to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims.

From Hargrave's Communications Dictionary, Wiley
The notion that war is imbued with religious purpose is a persistent approach to armed conflict in many eras and societies. In such an approach, one’s own cause is seen as perfectly just and oneself as entirely moral, whereas the enemy is perceived, or at least portrayed to the home front, as the personification of evil.

The capital of Israel, Jerusalem is an administrative, religious, educational, cultural, and market center.

From Collins Spanish Dictionary
The term Reconquista refers to the eight centuries during which the Christian kings of the Spanish kingdoms gradually reclaimed their country from the Moors, who had invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711.

Nicknamed Coeur de Lion or the Lion-Heart. 1157-99, king of England (1189-99); a leader of the third crusade (joining it in 1191). On his way home, he was captured in Austria (1192) and held to ransom.

Arabic Salah ad-Din, 1137?–1193, Muslim warrior and Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, the great opponent of the Crusaders, b. Mesopotamia, of Kurdish descent.

Historical in the RC Church between the 13th century and the 19th century: a papal tribunal responsible for discovering, suppressing and punishing heresy and unbelief, etc.