Related Research Articles
In church history, the term acephali has been applied to several sects that supposedly had no leader. E. Cobham Brewer wrote, in Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, that acephalites, "properly means men without a head." Jean Cooper wrote, in Dictionary of Christianity, that it characterizes "various schismatical Christian bodies". Among them were Nestorians who rejected the Council of Ephesus’ condemnation of Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople, which deposed Nestorius and declared him a heretic.
Nicolaism was an early Christian sect mentioned twice in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. The adherents were called Nicolaitans, Nicolaitanes, or Nicolaites. They were considered heretical by the mainstream early Christian church. According to Revelation 2:6 and 15, they were known in the cities of Ephesus and Pergamum. In this chapter, the church at Ephesus is endorsed for "[hating] the works of the Nicolaites, which I also hate"; and the church in Pergamos is rebuked: "So thou hast also some [worshiping in their midst] who hold the teaching of the Nicolaites".
Ebionites as a term refers to a Jewish Christian sect, which viewed poverty as a blessing, that existed during the early centuries of the Common Era. The Ebionites embraced an adoptionist Christology, thus understanding Jesus of Nazareth as a mere man who, by virtue of his righteousness in following the Law of Moses, was chosen by God to be the messianic "prophet like Moses". A majority of the Ebionites rejected as heresies the Orthodox Christian beliefs in Jesus' divinity, virgin birth and substitutionary atonement; and therefore maintained that Jesus was born the natural son of Joseph and Mary, sought to abolish animal sacrifices by prophetic proclamation, and died as a martyr in order to move all Israel to repentance.
The Euchites or Messalians were a Christian sect from Mesopotamia that spread to Asia Minor and Thrace. The name 'Messalian' comes from the Syriac ܡܨܠܝܢܐ, mṣallyānā, meaning 'one who prays'. The Greek translation is εὐχίτης, euchitēs, meaning the same.
Epiphanius of Salamis was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy. He is best known for composing the Panarion, a very large compendium of the heresies up to his own time, full of quotations that are often the only surviving fragments of suppressed texts. According to Ernst Kitzinger, he "seems to have been the first cleric to have taken up the matter of Christian religious images as a major issue", and there has been much controversy over how many of the quotations attributed to him by the Byzantine Iconoclasts were actually by him. Regardless of this he was clearly strongly against some contemporary uses of images in the church.
The Nazarenes were an early Jewish Christian sect in first-century Judaism. The first use of the term is found in the Acts of the Apostles of the New Testament, where Paul the Apostle is accused of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes before the Roman procurator Antonius Felix at Caesarea Maritima by Tertullus. At that time, the term simply designated followers of Jesus of Nazareth, as the Hebrew term נוֹצְרִי, and the Arabic term نَصَارَى, still do.
Cerinthus was an early Gnostic, who was prominent as a heresiarch in the view of the early Church Fathers. Contrary to the Church Fathers, he used the Gospel of Cerinthus, and denied that the Supreme God made the physical world. In Cerinthus' interpretation, the Christ descended upon Jesus at baptism and guided him in ministry and the performing of miracles, but left him at the crucifixion. Similarly to the Ebionites, he maintained that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but was a mere man, the biological son of Mary and Joseph.
The Cainites, or Cainians, were a Gnostic and antinomian sect known to venerate Cain as the first victim of the Demiurge, the deity of the Old Testament, who was identified by many groups of Gnostics as evil. The sect following was relatively small. They were mentioned by Tertullian and Irenaeus as existing in the eastern Roman Empire during the 2nd century. One of their purported religious texts was the Gospel of Judas.
The Alogi or Alogoi were a group of heterodox Christians in Asia Minor that flourished c. 200 CE, and taught that the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse of John were not the work of the Apostle, but his adversary Cerinthus. What we know of them is derived from their doctrinal opponents, whose literature is extant, particularly St. Epiphanius of Salamis. It was Epiphanius who coined the name "Alogi" as a word play suggesting that they were both illogical (anti-logikos) and they were against the Christian doctrine of the Logos. While Epiphanius does not specifically indicate the name of its founder, Dionysius Bar-Salibi, citing a lost work of Hippolytus, writes in his commentary on the Apocalypse,
Hippolytus the Roman says: A man appeared, named Caius, saying that the Gospel is not by John, nor the Apocalypse but that it is by Cerinthus the heretic.
Barbēlō refers to the first emanation of God in several forms of Gnostic cosmogony. Barbēlō is often depicted as a supreme female principle, the single passive antecedent of creation in its manifoldness. This figure is also variously referred to as 'Mother-Father', 'First Human Being', 'The Triple Androgynous Name', or 'Eternal Aeon'. So prominent was her place amongst some Gnostics that some schools were designated as Barbeliotae, Barbēlō worshippers or Barbēlō gnostics.
The Basilidians or Basilideans were a Gnostic sect founded by Basilides of Alexandria in the 2nd century. Basilides claimed to have been taught his doctrines by Glaucus, a disciple of St. Peter, though others stated he was a disciple of the Simonian Menander.
John Henry Blunt was an English divine.
The Antidicomarians or Antidicomarianites, also called Dimoerites, were a Christian sect active from the 3rd to the 5th century. Their name was invented by an opponent, Epiphanius of Salamis, who described them as heretical in his Panarion. The existence of the Antidicomarians as an organized sect may be doubted, as it is attested only in Epiphanius, but the doctrines he attributes to them were certainly matters of live debate in the late 4th century.
The Archontics, or Archontici, were a Gnostic sect that existed in Palestine, Syria and Armenia, who arose towards the mid 4th century CE. They were thus called from the Greek word ἄρχοντες, "principalities", or "rulers", by reason that they held the world to have been created and ruled by malevolent Archons.
The Arrhabonarii were a Polish Christian sect who held that the Eucharist was not a present gift of grace but was a pledge of a gift to be bestowed in heaven. The sect's name is derived from the Greek Ἀρραβων, Arrha, meaning "earnest". The position was first argued by Francesco Stancaro in 1543.
The Simonians were a Gnostic sect of the 2nd century which regarded Simon Magus as its founder and traced its doctrines, known as Simonianism, back to him. The sect flourished in Syria, in various districts of Asia Minor and at Rome. In the 3rd century remnants of it still existed, which survived until the 4th century.
The Elcesaites, Elkasaites, Elkesaites or Elchasaites were an ancient Jewish Christian sect in Lower Mesopotamia, then the province of Asoristan in the Sasanian Empire that was active between 100 and 400 CE. The members of this sect, which originated in the Transjordan, performed frequent baptisms for purification and had a Gnostic orientation.
The Apotactics or Apotactites were adherents of a Christian heresy which sprang up in the third century and spread through the western and southern parts of Asia Minor.
The Severians were a sect of gnostic Encratites. Epiphanius supposes their leader Severus to have preceded Tatian but Eusebius, Theodoret, and Jerome make him Tatian's successor. These latter authorities are followed by most ecclesiastical historians, and the silence of Irenaeus and Hippolytus regarding Severus renders the later date most probable.
References
Citations
- ↑ Blunt 1874, p. 27.
- ↑ Blunt 1874, pp. 43–44.
Books
- Blunt, John Henry (1874). Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, Ecclesiastical Parties, and Schools of Religious Thought. Rivingtons. ISBN 9781172832606.
