This article incorporates text from the public domain Catholic Encyclopedia. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Catholic Encyclopedia (also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia today) is an English-language encyclopedia published in 1913 by the The Encyclopedia Press, designed to give authoritative information on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action and doctrine. // History The writing of the encyclopedia began on January 11...

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History of Christianity Jesus of Nazareth The Apostles Ecumenical councils Great Schism The Crusades Reformation Christianity is a monotheistic religion that recognizes Jesus Christ as its central figure, Lord and Messiah. ... image of a Latin cross. ... This article outlines the history of Christianity and provides links to relevant topics. ... Jesus, also known as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the Nazarene, is the central figure of Christianity, in which context he is known as Jesus Christ (from Greek Ιησούς Χριστός) with Christ being a title meaning Anointed One or Messiah. According to traditional Christian faith, Jesus is both the Son of God... For the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus, see Apostles See also London Arch (formerly London Bridge) Loch Ard Gorge The Gibson Steps The Grotto Categories: Australia geography stubs | Cliffs | Geography of Australia ... In Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, an ecumenical council or general council is a meeting of the bishops of the whole church convened to discuss and settle matters of Church doctrine and practice. ... The East-West Schism, known also as the Great Schism (though this latter term sometimes refers to the later Western Schism), was the event that divided Chalcedonian Christianity into Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. ... This article is about the medieval crusades. ... The Protestant Reformation was a movement which emerged in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe. ...

The Trinity God the Father Christ the Son The Holy Spirit Within Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is a single Being who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a communion of three persons (personae, prosoponoi): Father (the Source, the Eternal Majesty); the Son (the eternal Logos or Word, incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth); and the Holy Spirit. ... In many religions, the supreme God is given the title and attributions of Father. ... This page is about the title, for the Christian figure, see Jesus Christ is the English representation of the Greek word Χριστός (transliterated as Khristós), which means anointed. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

The Bible Old Testament New Testament Apocrypha Sermon on the Mount The Bible (From Greek βιβλια—biblia, meaning books, which in turn is derived from βυβλος—byblos meaning papyrus, from the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos which exported papyrus) is the sacred scripture of Christianity. ... Note: Judaism uses the term Tanakh instead of Old Testament, because it does not recognize the New Testament as being part of the Biblical canon. ... // What is the New Testament? The New Testament, sometimes called the Greek Testament or Greek Scriptures, is the name given to the part of the Christian Bible that was written after the birth of Jesus. ... Apocrypha is a Greek word (απόκρυφα, neuter plural of απόκρυφος), from αποκρυπτειν, to hide away. ... The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch. ...

Christian theology Salvation · Grace Christian worship Christian theology practices theology from a Christian viewpoint or studies Christianity theologically. ... Salvation refers to deliverance from an undesirable state or condition. ... Divine grace is believed by Christians to be the sovereign favour of God exercised in the bestowment of blessings upon those who have no merit in them. ... This article is in need of attention. ...

Christian Church Christian denominations Catholicism Orthodox Christianity Protestantism The term Christian Church expresses the idea that organised Christianity (the Christian religion) is seen as an institution. ... A denomination, in the Christian sense of the word, is an identifiable religious body, organization under a common name, structure, and/or doctrine. ... This article considers Catholicism in the broadest ecclesiastical sense. ... Orthodox Christianity is a generalized reference to the Eastern traditions of Christianity, as opposed to the Western traditions which descend from the Catholic Church. ... Protestantism is a movement within Christianity, representing a split from within the Roman Catholic Church during the mid-to-late Renaissance in Europe —a period known as the Protestant Reformation. ... Christian movements Christian ecumenism Christian movements are theological, political, or philosophical intepretations of Christianity that are not generally represented by a specific church, sect, or denomination. ... Christian ecumenism is the promotion of unity or cooperation between distinct religious groups or denominations of the Christian religion, more or less broadly defined. ...

The Apostolic Canons or Ecclesiastical Canons of the Same Holy Apostles[1] is a collection of ancient ecclesiastical decrees (eighty-five in the Eastern, fifty in the Western Church) concerning the government and discipline of the Christian Church, incorporated with the Apostolic Constitutions which are part of the Ante-Nicene Fathers collection. Orthodox Christianity is a generalized reference to the Eastern traditions of Christianity, as opposed to the Western traditions which descend from the Catholic Church. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... This article incorporates text from the Catholic Encyclopedia, which is in the public domain. ... The Ante-Nicene Fathers, subtitled , is a selected set of books containing English translations of the major early Christian writings. ...

They deal mostly with the office and duties of a Christian bishop, the qualifications and conduct of the clergy, the religious life of the Christian flock (abstinence, fasting), its external administration (excommunication, synods, relations with pagans and Jews), the sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Marriage); in a word, they are a handy summary of the statutory legislation of the primative Church. The last of these decrees contains a very important list or canon of the Holy Scriptures. In the original Koine Greek text they claim to be the very legislation of the Apostles themselves, at least as promulgated by their great disciple, Pope Clement I. Nevertheless, though a venerable mirror of ancient Christian life and blameless in doctrine, their claim to genuine Apostolic origin is quite false and untenable. Some, like Beveridge and Hefele, believe that they were originally drawn up about the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. Most modern critics agree that they could not have been composed before the Council of Antioch of 341, some twenty of whose canons they quote; nor even before the latter end of the fourth century, since they are certainly posterior to the Apostolic Constitutions. Von Funk, admittedly a foremost authority on the latter and all similar early canonical texts, locates the composition of the Apostolic Canons in the fifth century, near the year 400. Thereby he approaches the opinion of his scholarly predecessor, Drey, the first among modern writers to study profoundly these ancient canons; he distinguished two editions of them, a shorter one (fifty) about the middle of the fifth century, and a longer one (eighty-five) early in the sixth century. Von Funk admits but one edition. They were certainly current in the Eastern Church in the first quarter of the sixth century, for about 520 Severus of Antioch quotes canons 21-23 [E. W. Brooks, Select Letters of Severus of Antioch, London, 1904 (Syriac text), I, 463-64. For various opinions concerning the date of composition see F. Nau, in Dictionary de théology catholic, II, 1607-8, and the new French translation of Hefele's History of the Councils, Paris, 1907, 1206-11]. The home of the author seems to be Syria. He makes use of the Syro-Macedonian calendar (can. 26), borrows very largely from a Syrian council (Antioch, 341), and according to Von Funk is identical with the compiler or interpolator of the Apostolic Constitutions, who was certainly a Syrian (Die apostol. Konstitutionen, 204-5). A bishop is an ordained member of the Christian clergy who, in certain Christian churches, holds a position of authority. ... Abstinence is the act or habit of refraining from some tempting activity, usually sex, but also other activities such as alcohol or food consumption. ... Fasting is the act of willingly abstaining from all food and in some cases drink, for a period of time. ... Excommunication is a religious censure which is used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community. ... A synod (also known as a council) is a council of a church, usually a Christian church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine or administration. ... Pagans may mean: Paganism, a belief in natural religion. ... Baptism is any water purification ritual practiced in any of various religions including Christianity, Mandaeanism, and Sikhism, and has its origins with the Jewish ritual of mikvah. ... The Eucharist is the rite that Christians perform in fulfillment of Jesus instruction, recorded in the New Testament, to do in memory of him what he did at his Last Supper. ... Marriage is a relationship between individuals which has formed the foundation of the family for most societies. ... In Western culture, canon law is the law of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. ... This article outlines the history of Christianity and provides links to relevant topics. ... The Biblical canon is an exclusive list of books written during the formative period of the Jewish or Christian faiths; the leaders of these communities believed these books to be inspired by God or to express the authoritative history of the relationship between God and his people (although there may... Koine Greek () is an ancient Greek dialect which marks the 2nd stage in the history of the Greek language. ... For the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus, see Apostles See also London Arch (formerly London Bridge) Loch Ard Gorge The Gibson Steps The Grotto Categories: Australia geography stubs | Cliffs | Geography of Australia ... Saint Clement I, the bishop of Rome also called Clement of Rome and Clemens Romanus, was either the third or fourth pope, before or after Anacletus. ... Beginning with three synods convened between 264 and 269 in the matter of Paul of Samosata, more than thirty councils were held in Antioch in ancient times. ... Severus, patriarch of Antioch (AD 512 - 519), a native of Sozopolis in Pisidia, by birth and education a pagan, baptized in the martyry of Leontius at Tripolis (Evagr. ... Karl Josef von Hefele (March 15, 1809 - June 6, 1893), German theologian, was born at Unterkochen in Württemberg, and was educated at Tübingen, where in 1839 he became professor-ordinary of Church history and patristics in the [Roman Catholic] faculty of theology. ...

As just indicated the number of these canons has given rise to no little controversy. In the Apostolic Constitutions (loc. cit.) they are eighty-five (occasionally eighty-four, a variant in the Manuscripts that arises from the occasional counting of two canons as one). In the latter half of the sixth century, John of Antioch (Joannes Scholasticus), Patriarch of Constantinople from 565 to 577, published a collection of synodal decrees in which he included these eighty-five canons (see Justel-Voellus, Bibliotheca Juris Canonici veteris, Paris, 1661, II, 501), and this number was finally consecrated for the Greek Church by the Trullan or Quinisext Council of 692, which also confined the current Greek tradition of their Apostolic origin. On the other hand the Latin Church, throughout the Middle Ages, recognized but fifty canons of the Apostles. This was the number finally adopted by Dionysius Exiguus, who first translated these canons into Latin about 500. It is not very clear why he omitted canons 51-85; he seems to have been acquainted with them and to have used the Apostolic Constitutions. In reality Dionysius made three versions of the Apostolic Canons (the oldest of them first edited by C. H. Turner, Ecclesiæ Occidentalis monumenta juris antiquissima, Oxford, 1899, fasc. I, 1-32); it is the second of these versions which obtained general European currency by its incorporation as the opening text of his famous Latin collection of canons (both synodal decrees and papal decretals) known as the Dionysiana Collectio (P. L., LXVII, 9 sqq.), made public in the first decade of the sixth century. Later collections of canons (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, etc.) borrowed from him; the text passed into Pseudo-Isidore, and eventually Gratian included (c. 1140) some excerpts from these canons in his Decretum, whereby a universal recognition and use were gained for them in the law schools. At a much earlier date Justinian (in his Sixth Novel) had recognized them as the work of the Apostles and confirmed them as ecclesiastical law. (For the Western references in the early Middle Ages see Von Funk, Didascalia etc. quoted below, II, 40-50, and for their insertion in the early Western collections of canons, Maassen, Gesch. der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts im Abendlande, Gratz, 1872, 438-40.) Nevertheless, from their first appearance in the West they aroused suspicion. Canon 46 for example, that rejected all heretical baptism, was notoriously opposed to Roman and Western practice. In the so-called Decretum of Pope Gelasius (492-96) they are denounced as an apocryphal book, i. e. not recognized by the Church (Thiel, epistolæ Rom. pontificum genuinæ, 1867, I, 53-58, 454-71; Von Funk, op. cit., II, 40), though this note of censure was probably not in the original Decretum, but with others was added under Pope Hormisdas (514-23). Consequently in a second edition (lost, except preface) of his Collectio canonum, prepared under the latter pope, Dionysius Exiguus omitted them; even in the first edition he admitted that very many in the West were loath to acknowledge them (quamplurimi quidem assensum non prœbuere facilem). Hincmar of Reims (died 882) declared that they were not written by the Apostles, and as late as the middle of the eleventh century, Western theologians (Cardinal Humbert, 1054) distinguished between the eighty-five Greek canons that they declared apocryphal, and the fifty Latin canons recognized as orthodox rules by antiquity. John Scholasticus (died August 31, 577) was a patriarch of Constantinople from 565 to 577. ... The Patriarch of Constantinople is the Ecumenical Patriarch, the first among equals in the Eastern Orthodox communion. ... Both the Fifth Ecumenical Council and the Sixth Ecumenical Council failed to produce disciplinary norms, for which reason the emperor Justinian II convoked an assembly in 692 to meet in Constantinople in the same domed hall where the Sixth Council had been held, called in Trullo (= under the dome). ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little, meaning humble) (c. ... Pseudo-Isidore is the generic name for the most extensive and influential forgery found in medieval canon law. ... Franciscus Gratianus, or Johannes Gratianus, known most often simply as Gratian, was a 12th century canon lawyer from Bologna. ... The Decretum Gratiani is a collection of canon law written around 1140 by Gratian. ... Justinian may refer to: Justinian I, a Roman Emperor; Justinian II, a Byzantine Emperor; Justinian, a storeship sent to the convict settlement at New South Wales in 1790. ... The so-called Decretum Gelasianum or Gelasian Decree was traditionally attributed to the prolific Pope Gelasius I, bishop of Rome 492 – 496. ... Pope Gelasius can refer to: Pope Gelasius I Pope Gelasius II This is a disambiguation page — a list of articles associated with the same title. ... In Judeo-Christian theologies, apocrypha refers to religious Sacred text that have questionable authenticity or are otherwise disputed. ... Hormisdas was Pope from July 20, 514 to 523. ... Hincmar (c. ...

The influence of the Apostolic Canons was greatly increased by the various versions of them soon current in the Christian Church, East and West. We have already indicated the influence of the second Latin version of Dionysius Exiguus. They were also translated (more or less fully) into Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, and Armenian; in general they seem to have furnished during the fifth and sixth centuries a large element of the ecclesiastical legislation in the Eastern Church (see the detailed description of the so-called 127 Copto-Arabic canons, by F. Nau in Dict. de théol. cath., II, 1612-19; also Funk, Die apostolischen Konstitutionen, Rottenburg, 1891, and the articles APOSTOLIC CHURCH-ORDINANCE[2], EGYPTIAN CHURCH-ORDINANCE[3], Didache, DIDASCALIA APOSTOLORUM[4]). The manuscripts of the (Greek) Apostolic Canons are described by Pitra, Juris ecc. Græcorum historia et monumenta, Rome, 1864, I, 3-4; the manuscripts of the Latin versions of Dionysius Exiguus, by C. H. Turner, op. cit. supra, fasc. I. p. 1; cf. Von Funk, Didascalia et Constitutiones apostolorum, (Paderborn, 1906), I, xlviii-liv, also xxiv-xlviii. The fifty Latin canons were first printed in Jacques Merlin's edition of the Councils (Paris, 1524); the eighty-five Greek Canons by G. Holoander, in his edition of Justinian's Novels (Nuremberg, 1531), whence they made their way into the earlier editions of the Corpus Juris Civilis, the Corpus Juris Canonici, and the large collections of acts and decrees of the councils. Syriac is an Eastern Aramaic language that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. ... Arabic can mean: From or related to Arabia From or related to the Arabs The Arabic language; see also Arabic grammar The Arabic alphabet, used for expressing the languages of Arabic, Persian, Malay ( Jawi), Kurdish, Panjabi, Pashto, Sindhi and Urdu, among others. ... Coptic is an adjective referring to the original inhabitants of Egypt, the Copts. ... In Western culture, canon law is the law of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. ... This article incorporates text from the public domain Catholic Encyclopedia The Didache ( in Koine Greek) or Teaching— short for Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles ()— is a short treatise, considered by some of the Church Fathers as part of the New Testament but rejected as... Justinian I depicted on a mosaic in the church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy The Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) is a fundamental work in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Byzantine Emperor. ...

A few other ancient canonical texts that pretend to Apostolic origin are described by F. Nau, op. cit., 1620-26; the most interesting of them is a brief collection of nine canons that purport to date from an imaginary Apostolic Council of Antioch (see Council of Jerusalem). They may be read in Pitra, Hist. et monumenta Juris eccl. Græcorum (Rome, 1864), I, 88-91; also in Lagarde, Reliquiæ juris eccl. antiquissimæ græce, 18-20, and in Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung (Leipzig, 1902). They recommend the faithful not to practice circumcision, to admit the Gentiles, to avoid Jewish and pagan customs, the distinction of clean and unclean foods, the worship of idols, the vices of avarice and gluttony, frequentation of theatres, and taking of oaths. The earliest Christian literature offers numerous parallels to the content of these canons, which, in general, recall the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Didache. In the sixteenth century the Jesuit Turrianus (Torres) defended their authenticity, his chief argument being a reference of Pope Innocent I (401-17) to an Apostolic Council of Antioch (Mansi, III, 1055). A notable literary controversy followed that is not yet quite closed (see Nau, op. cit. , 1621-22). Interest centres chiefly in the first canon, which decrees that the Galileans shall henceforth be called Christians (see Acts 11:26), a holy people, a royal priesthood (see 1 Peter 2:9) according to the grace and title of baptism. Some critics see in this canon a defiant reply to the contemptuous use of Galileans by Julian the Apostate (Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, Leipzig, 1902; Paul Lejay, in Revue du clergé français, 15 Oct., 1903, 349-55, with a Fr. tr. of the nine canons). F. Nau is of opinion that they are much older than the latter quarter of the fourth century and calls attention (op. cit., 1624) to Origen, Contra Celsum, VIII, 29 (P. G., XI, 1560 - "it seemed good to the Apostles and the elders assembled at Antioch, and in their own words to the Holy Spirit to write a letter to the Gentiles who believed"). This statement contradicts Acts, xv, 6, 23, 28, according to which the Apostolic letter was written from Jerusalem. Nevertheless, it seems that this collection of canons was known to Origen, all the more as it claims (in the title) to come from the library of Origen at Cæsarea and to have been found there by the blessed martyr, Pamphilus (cf. Eusebius, H. E., VI, 32, 3). F. Nau thinks that they may represent a personal rule of conduct drawn up by some second-century Christian (on the basis of Apostolic precepts) who miscopied Acts, xi, 26, into the form of the afore-mentioned canon 1, and then added the other precepts — canon 9 reproduces the decree of Acts, xv, 29. At any rate Dallæus (Daillé) was wrong in charging Turrianus with downright forgery of all these canons (De pseudepigraphis apostolicis libri tres, 1653, III, cc. xxii-xxv, pp. 687-737), and deliberate corruption of the text of Ps. xvi, 14, "they are full of children" (hyion), making it read hyieon — i. e. "they are filled with pork". This reading of the fifth canon of Antioch is found not only in the oldest Latin Psalters, and in other reliable fourth to sixth century Latin witnesses to the Scripture-text, but also in the best Greek manuscripts (Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus). In other words the Scripture-text used by these canons antedates Origen, and is, in itself, an evidence of their great antiquity. (See ANTIOCH.) Council of Jerusalem is a name applied in retrospect to a meeting described in Acts of the Apostles chapter 15. ... It has been variously proposed that circumcision began as a religious sacrifice, as a rite of passage marking a boys entrance into adulthood, as a form of sympathetic magic to ensure virility, as a means of suppressing (or enhancing) sexual pleasure, as an aid to hygiene where regular bathing... A Gentile refers to a non-Israelite; the word is derived from the Latin term gens (meaning clan or a group of families) and is often employed in the plural. ... The circled U indicates that this product is certified as kosher by the Orthodox Union (OU). ... Greed is a desire to obtain more money or material possessions or bodily satisfaction than one is considered to need. ... Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. ... An oath (from Saxon eoth) is either a promise or a statement of fact calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually a god, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. ... The Acts of the Apostles (Greek Praxeis Apostolon) is a book of the Bible, which now stands fifth in the New Testament. ... The Epistle of Barnabas is a Greek treatise with some features of an epistle containing twenty-one chapters, preserved complete in the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus where it appears at the end of the New Testament. ... This article incorporates text from the public domain Catholic Encyclopedia The Didache ( in Koine Greek) or Teaching— short for Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles ()— is a short treatise, considered by some of the Church Fathers as part of the New Testament but rejected as... The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu), commonly known as the Jesuits, is a Roman Catholic religious order. ... Saint Innocent I, pope (402 - 417), was, according to his biographer in the Liber Pontificalis, the son of a man called Innocent of Albano; but according to his contemporary Jerome, his father was Pope Anastasius I, whom he was called by the unanimous voice of the clergy and laity to... Galileans (or Galilæans) were members of a fanatical sect (Zealots), followers of Judas of Galilee, who fiercely resented the taxation of the Romans, and whose violence contributed to induce the latter to vow the extermination of the whole race. ... This article is about the religous people known as Christians. ... Julian solidus, ca. ... Origen ( 182– 251) was a Christian scholar and theologian and one of the most distinguished of the Fathers of the early Christian Church. ... Jerusalem and the Old City. ... Pamphilus, presbyter of Caesarea (late 3rd century – martyred February 409), chief among Biblical scholars of his generation, was the friend and teacher of Eusebius, who recorded details of his career in a three-book Vita that has been lost. ... Eusebius is the name of several significant historical people: Pope Eusebius - Pope in AD 309 - 310. ... A section of the Codex Vaticanus, containing 1 Esdras 2:1-8 The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. ... Codex Sinaiticus (London, Brit. ...

External Links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Apostolic Canons