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Abraxas
Abraxas ( grc-x-biblical, ἀβραξάς, abraxas, variant form romanized: ) is a word of mystic meaning in the system of the Gnostic Basilides, being there applied to the "Great Archon" (), the princeps of the 365 spheres (). The word is found in Gnostic texts such as the '' Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit'', and also appears in the Greek Magical Papyri. It was engraved on certain antique gemstones, called on that account Abraxas stones, which were used as amulets or charms. As the initial spelling on stones was (), the spelling of seen today probably originates in the confusion made between the Greek letters sigma (Σ) and xi (Ξ) in the Latin transliteration. The seven letters spelling its name may represent each of the seven classic planets. The word may be related to ''Abracadabra'', although other explanations exist. There are similarities and differences between such figures in reports about Basilides's teaching, ancient Gnostic texts, the larger Greco-Roma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abracadabra
''Abracadabra'' is a magic word, historically used as an incantation on amulets and common today in stage magic. Etymology ''Abracadabra'' is of unknown origin, but according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', its first known occurrence is in the second-century works of Serenus Sammonicus. Several folk etymologies are associated with the word: from phrases in Hebrew that mean "I will create as I speak", or Aramaic "I create like the word" (אברא כדברא), to folk etymologies that point to similar words in Latin and Greek such as abraxas or to its similarity to the first four letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha-beta-gamma-delta or ΑΒΓΔ). According to the ''OED Online'', "no documentation has been found to support any of the various conjectures." History The first known mention of the word was in the second century AD in a book called ''Liber Medicinalis'' (sometimes known as ''De Medicina Praecepta Saluberrima'') by Serenus Sammonicus, physician to the Roman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archon (Gnosticism)
Archons are, in Gnosticism and religions closely related to it, the builders of the physical universe. Among the Archontics, Ophites, Sethians and in the writings of Nag Hammadi library, the archons are rulers, each related to one of seven planets; they prevent souls from leaving the material realm. The political connotation of their name reflects rejection of the governmental system, as flawed without chance of true salvation. In Manichaeism, the archons are the rulers of a realm within the "Kingdom of Darkness", who together make up the Prince of Darkness. In ''The Reality of the Rulers'', the physical appearance of Archons is described as hermaphroditic, with their faces being those of beasts. Hebdomad A characteristic feature of the Gnostic concept of the universe is the role played in almost all Gnostic systems by the seven world-creating archons, known as the (ἑβδομάς). These Seven are in most systems semi-hostile powers, and are reckoned as the last and lowest eman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ... and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (''gnosis'') above the orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions. Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent demiurge, lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the Yahweh of the Old Testament) who is responsible for creating the nature, material universe. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil, and held the principal element of salvation to be direct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berbers, Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia (Roman province), Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Latin Church Fathers, Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include ''The City of God'', ''De Doctrina Christiana, On Christian Doctrine'', and ''Confessions (Augustine), Confessions''. According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith". In his youth he was drawn to the eclectic Manichaeism, Manichaean faith, and later to the Hellenistic philosophy of Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of , making it the 17th-largest country. Iran has a population of 86 million, making it the 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz. The country is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC. It was first unified by the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, in the seventh century BC, and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porphyry (philosopher)
Porphyry of Tyre (; grc-gre, Πορφύριος, ''Porphýrios''; ar, فُرْفُورِيُوس, ''Furfūriyūs''; – ) was a Neoplatonic philosopher born in Tyre, Roman Phoenicia during Roman rule. He edited and published ''The Enneads'', the only collection of the work of Plotinus, his teacher. His commentary on Euclid's ''Elements'' was used as a source by Pappus of Alexandria. He wrote original works in the Greek language on a wide variety of topics, ranging from music theory to Homer to vegetarianism. His ''Isagoge'', or ''Introduction'', an introduction to logic and philosophy, was the standard textbook on logic throughout the Middle Ages in its Latin and Arabic translations. Porphyry was, and still is, also well-known for his anti-Christian polemics. Through works such as ''Philosophy from Oracles'' and ''Against the Christians'' (which was banned by Constantine the Great), he was involved in a controversy with early Christians. Biography The ''Suda'' (a 10th- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum
''On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians'' ( grc-gre, Περὶ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων μυστηρίων), also known as the ''Theurgia'' and under its abbreviated Latin title ''De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum'' (''The Egyptian Mysteries''; or often simply ''De Mysteriis''), is a work of Neoplatonic philosophy primarily concerned with ritual and theurgy and attributed to Iamblichus. Porphyry is known to have had a disagreement with Iamblichus over the practice of theurgy, and the ''Mysteries'' consists mainly of Iamblichus' responses to the criticisms of his teacher. Authorship Proclus, writing 100 years after Iamblichus, seems to have ascribed to him the authorship of the ''Mysteries''. However, the differences between this book and Iamblichus' other works in style and in some points of doctrine have led some to question whether Iamblichus was the actual author. Still, the treatise certainly originated from his school, and in its systematic attempt to give a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolf Von Harnack
Carl Gustav Adolf von Harnack (born Harnack; 7 May 1851 – 10 June 1930) was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and prominent Church historian. He produced many religious publications from 1873 to 1912 (in which he is sometimes credited as Adolf Harnack). He was ennobled (with the addition of von to his name) in 1914. Harnack traced the influence of Hellenistic philosophy on early Christian writings and called on Christians to question the authenticity of doctrines that arose in the early Christian church. He rejected the historicity of the Gospel of John in favor of the Synoptic Gospels, criticized the Apostles' Creed, and promoted the Social Gospel. In the 19th century, higher criticism flourished in Germany, establishing the historical-critical method as an academic standard for interpreting the Bible and understanding the historical Jesus . Harnack's work is part of a reaction to Tübingen, and represents a reappraisal of tradition. Besides his theological acti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac De Beausobre
Isaac de Beausobre (8 March 1659 – 5 June 1738) was a French Protestant churchman, now best known for his two-volume history of Manichaeism, ''Histoire Critique de Manichée et du Manichéisme'' . Life Beausobre was born at Niort, Deux-Sèvres. After studying theology at the Protestant Academy of Saumur, he was ordained at the age of twenty-two, becoming pastor at Châtillon-sur-Indre. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes he fled to Rotterdam (November 1685), and in 1686 was appointed chaplain in Oranienbaum to the princess of Anhalt-Dessau, Henrietta Catherine of Orange-Nassau. In 1693, on the death of John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, he went to Berlin and became a court preacher, and in 1695 pastor for the French church at Friedrichswerder Church. He became court preacher, counsellor of the French Reformed Consistory, director of the Maison française, a hospice for French people, inspector of the French gymnasium and superintendent of all the French churches ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Hardouin
Jean Hardouin ( en, John Hardwin; la, Johannes Harduinus; 1646 – 3 September 1729), was a French classical scholar. He is most known for his theory that most texts from Antiquity were forgeries. Biography He was born at Quimper in Brittany. Having acquired a taste for literature in his father's book-shop, he sought and obtained admission into the order of the Jesuits in around 1662 (when he was 16). In Paris, where he went to study theology. He ultimately became librarian of the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in 1683, and he died there. His first published work was an edition of Themistius (1684), which included no fewer than thirteen new orations. On the advice of Jean Garnier (1612–1681) he undertook to edit the ''Natural History'' of Pliny for the Dauphin series, a task which he completed in five years. Aside from editorial work, he became interested in numismatics, and published several learned works on this subject, all marked by a determination to be different from other in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nehunya Ben HaKanah
Nehunya ben HaKanah ( he, נחוניה בן הקנה) was a tanna of the 1st and 2nd centuries. It appears from Bava Batra 10b that Nehunya was a contemporary, but not a pupil, of Johanan ben Zakai. He was the teacher of Ishmael ben Elisha. Nehunya was rich and had a large retinue of servants; but he was distinguished for his meekness and forgiving nature, to which he attributed his attainment of great age; two short prayers composed by him exhibit the same qualities. According to Rabbi Yochanan, Nehunya interpreted the entire Torah by the hermeneutic rule known as the "general and particular" ("kelal ufrat"), a rule which his pupil Rabbi Ishmael made the eighth of his 13 hermeneutic rules. Nehunya is frequently mentioned in the Talmud; in Hullin 129b he is referred to disagreeing with Eliezer and Joshua in regard to a halakhah. In a post-Talmudic text, he said that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was rescued from the Red Sea, that he repented, that he afterward reigned in Nineveh, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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