William. Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies

2266 Pages·2016·15.99 MB·English

by  Wace Henry

A Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature
to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Ac-
count of the Principal Sects and Heresies.
Author(s): Wace, Henry (1836-1924)
Publisher: Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Description: This reference book is a valuable resource for teachers,
students, pastors, and anyone interested in early Christian
history. A heralded religious academic, Henry Wace attended
King's College London and Oxford and served in many
churches in his time, even becoming the Dean of Canterbury
in 1903. His dictionary is a comprehensive compilation of
over 800 important Christian characters, challengers, and
literature. It features a complete overview of the major players
of Christianity from its beginnings to the sixth century.The
book also includes a profile of each of the major heresies
and sects of Christianity though the ages and an analysis of
the creeds and literature of the early church. Concise yet
detailed, this dictionary is a natural choice for any book col-
lection in need of a reliable review of Christian history.
Abby Zwart
CCEL Staff Writer
Subjects: Christianity
i
Contents
Title Page 1
Preface 3
List of Writers 7
A Dictionary of Christian Biography 13
A 14
B 213
C 296
D 522
E 602
F 764
G 797
H 915
I 1064
J 1156
K 1339
L 1341
M 1415
N 1564
O 1609
P 1667
Q 1832
R 1833
S 1850
T 1948
U 2087
V 2095
ii
W 2152
X 2153
Y 2154
Z 2155
Indexes 2164
Subject Index 2165
Index of Scripture References 2166
Index of Names 2170
Greek Words and Phrases 2171
Hebrew Words and Phrases 2214
Latin Words and Phrases 2215
French Words and Phrases 2258
Index of Pages of the Print Edition 2259
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iv
Title Page
Title Page
A DICTIONARY i
iiiii
of EARLY
CHRISTIAN
BIOGRAPHY
And Literature to the End of
the Sixth Century A.D., with an
Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies
EDITED BY
HENRY WACE, D.D. &
WILLIAM C. PIERCY, M.A.
HENDRICKSON
PUBLISHERS
iv
A DICTIONARY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHY
Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. edition
ISBN: 1-56563-460-8
1
Title Page
reprinted from the edition originally titled
A Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature,
published by John Murray, London, 1911
First printing - June 1999
Printed in the United States of America
2
Preface
Preface
PREFACE
Thisvolume is designed to render to a wider circle, alike of clergy and of laity, the service
which, as is generally admitted, has been rendered to the learned world by The Dictionary v
of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines, published under the editorship of
Dr. Wace and the late Dr. Wm. Smith, about twenty years ago, in four large volumes. That
work covered the whole of the first eight centuries of the Christian era, and was planned on
a very comprehensive scale. It aimed at giving an account, not merely of names of importance,
but of all names, however small, concerned in the Christian literature of those eight centuries;
and to illustrate its extent and minuteness, it may be enough to mention that no fewer than
596 Johns are recorded in due order in its columns. The surviving Editor may be pardoned
for expressing his satisfaction that the work is now recognized, abroad as well as at home,
as a valuable work of reference, being constantly quoted alike in the great Protestant Cyclo-
paedia of Herzog, in its third edition now happily complete, and in the Patrology of the
learned Roman Catholic Professor at Munich, Dr. Bardenhewer. To the generous band of
great English scholars to whose unstinted labours the chief excellences of that work are due,
and too many of whom have now passed away, it is, or it would have been, a welcome satis-
faction to find it described in the Patrologyof that scholar as "very useful, relatively complete
1
and generally reliable."
But that work was mainly adapted to the use of men of learning, and was unsuited, both
by its size and expense, and by the very wideness of its range, for the use of ordinary readers,
or even for the clergy in general. In the first place, the last two centuries of the period which
it covered, although of immense interest in the history of the Church, as including the origins
of the Teutonic civilization of Europe, have not an equal interest with the first six as exhib-
iting primitive Christianity in its purer forms. With the one important exception of John
of Damascus, the Fathers of the Church, so called, alike in East and West, fall within the
first six centuries, and in the West the series is closed by St. Gregory the Great, who died in
the year 604. English divines accordingly, since the days of Bp. Jewel, have, like Bp. Cosin,
appealed to the first six centuries of the Church as exhibiting, in doctrine as well as in
practice, subject to Holy Scripture, the standards of primitive Christianity. Those six centur-
ies, consequently, have a special interest for all Christian students, and particularly for those
of our own Church, and deserve accordingly some special treatment. It was thought,
therefore, that a Dictionary of Christian Biography which confined itself to this formative
vi
1 Edition of 1908, published in English at Freiburg im Breisgau, and at St. Louis, Mo., U.S.A., translated from
the second German edition by Dr. T. J. Shahan, Professor of Church History in the Catholic University of
America, p. 11.
3
Preface
and authoritative period of the Church's history would be of special interest and service,
not only to the clergy, but also to the Christian laity and to students for Holy Orders.
But the limitation of such a work to this period at once disembarrassed our pages of the
mass of Teutonic, and sometimes almost pagan, names with which, after the settlement of
the barbarians in Europe, we were overwhelmed; and thus of itself rendered it possible to
bring the work into much narrower compass. Moreover, a mass of insignificant names,
which the principles of scholarly completeness obliged us to introduce into the larger Dic-
tionary, were not needed for the wider circle now in contemplation. They were useful and
necessary for purposes of learned reference, but they cast no light on the course and meaning
of Church history for ordinary readers. We have had to exercise a discretion (which may
sometimes seem to have been arbitrary) in selecting, for instance, from the 596 Johns just
mentioned those which were the most valuable for such readers as we had in view; and for
the manner in which we have exercised that discretion we must trust ourselves to the indul-
gent judgment of our readers. The publisher gave us generous limits; but it seemed to him
and to ourselves indispensable for the general usefulness of the Dictionary that it should be
restricted to one volume; and we were thus, with respect to the minor names, obliged to
omit many which, though of some interest, seemed to be such as could be best dispensed
with.
By omissions of this nature we have secured an object which will, we are sure, be felt to
be of inestimable value. We have been able to retain, with no material abbreviation, the ad-
mirable articles on the great characters of early Church history and literature which were
contributed, with an unselfish devotion which can never be sufficiently acknowledged, by
the great scholars who have been the glory of the last generation or two of English Church
scholarship, and some of whom are happily still among us. To mention only some of the
great contributors who have passed away, such articles as those of Bp. Westcott on Clement
of Alexandria and Origen, Bp. Lightfoot on Eusebius, Archbp. Benson on St. Cyprian, Dr.
Bright on St. Athanasius and kindred subjects, Dr. Salmon on varied subjects of the first
importance, Bp. Stubbs on early English history, and some by the learned Professor Lipsius
of Jena, have a permanent value, as the appreciations of great characters and moments of
Church history and literature by scholars and divines who have never been surpassed, and
will hardly be equalled again, in English sacred learning. We deemed it one of the greatest
services which such a work as this could render that it should make accessible to the wide
circle in question these unique masterpieces of patristic and historical study. It has therefore
been one of our first objects to avoid, as far as possible, any abbreviation of the body of these
articles. We have occasionally ventured on slight verbal condensation in secondary passages,
and we have omitted some purely technical discussions of textual points, and of editions.
But in the main the reader is here placed in possession, within the compass of a moderate
volume, of what will probably be allowed to be at once the most valuable and the most in-
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Preface
teresting series of monographs, on the chief characters and incidents of early Church history,
ever contributed to a single undertaking by a band of Christian scholars. We feel it no more
than a duty to pay this tribute of gratitude and admiration to the great divines, to whose
devotion and learning all that is permanently valuable in these pages is due, and we are vii
confident that their monographs, thus rendered generally available, will prove a permanent
possession of the highest value to English students of Church history.
We must further offer the expression of our cordial gratitude to several living scholars,
who have contributed new articles of similar importance to the present volume, in place of
some in the original edition which the lapse of time or other circumstances had rendered
less valuable than the rest. In particular, our warmest thanks are due to Dr. Robertson, the
present Bp. of Exeter, who has substituted for the sketch of St. Augustine contributed to the
original edition by an eminent French scholar, M. de Pressensé, a study of that great Father,
similar in its thoroughness to the other great monographs just mentioned. We are also
deeply indebted to the generosity of Chancellor Lias for fresh studies of such important:
subjects as Arius and Monophysitism; and a valuable account of the Nestorian Church has
been very kindly contributed by the Rev. W. A. Wigram, who, as head of the Archbishop
of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission, possesses unique qualifications for dealing with the subject.
We have to thank also the eminent learning of Dr. A. J. Mason for an article on Gaudentius
of Brescia, who was unaccountably omitted from the larger work, and whose name has of
late acquired new interest. The gratitude of the Editors, is also specially due to Dr. Knowling
and Dr. Gee, of Durham University, for their assistance in some cases in which articles re-
quired to be supplemented or corrected by the most recent learning.
In all cases where the writers of the original articles are still living they were afforded
the opportunity, if they desired it, of revising their work and bringing it up to date, and of
checking the condensations: though the Editors and not the writers must take the respons-
ibility for the latter and also, in most cases, for bibliographical additions. The Editors desire
gratefully to record their appreciation of the assistance thus readily and kindly rendered by
most of the original writers who are still spared to us, and, as an example, we are glad to
thank the Rev. E. B. Birks for his very thorough revision of his article on the Epistle to
Diognetus.
Cross-references are inserted, where needed, on the principle adopted in Murray's Illus-
trated Bible Dictionary(to which this is intended to be a companion volume in size, appear-
ance, and price)—namely, the name of the article to which a cross-reference is intended is
printed in capitals within brackets, but without the brackets when it occurs in the ordinary
course of the text.
In the headings of articles the numbers in brackets after names which are common to
more than one person are retained as in the large edition, to facilitate reference to that edition
when desired, and also to indicate that there were other persons of the same name.
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