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Kenoma
Valentinius, a mid-2nd century Gnostic thinker and preacher, was among the early Christians who attempted to align Christianity with middle Platonism. Valentinius pooled dual concepts from the Platonic world of ideal forms, or fullness (pleroma), and the lower world of phenomena, or emptiness (''kenoma'', κένωμα). Employing a third concept of cosmos, what is manifest, Valentinian initiates could exegete scripture in light of these three aspects of correlated existence. The void The ancient Greek term for emptiness or void (''kenoma''), as pertaining to Theodotus's exegesis of Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 3, is described in ''The Excerpta ex Theodoto of Clement of Alexandria'' (Casey, 1934). Hysterema Elsewhere, the usual antithesis to Pleroma is not Kenoma, but ''Hysterema'' (ὑστέρημα). As the system is reported by Hippolytus (vi. 31, p. 180) this word is used as the complement of the word Pleroma, denoting all that is not included in the meaning of the lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleroma
Pleroma ( grc-koi, πλήρωμα, literally "fullness") generally refers to the totality of divine powers. It is used in Christian theological contexts, especially in Gnosticism. The term also appears in the Epistle to the Colossians, which is traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle. The word is used 17 times in the New Testament. The word literally means "fullness", from the verb (, "to fill"), from ( πλήρης, "full").Svenska Akademiens ordbok, search on the word ''Pleroma'/ref> Christianity New Testament The word itself is a relative term, capable of many shades of meaning, according to the subject with which it is joined and the antithesis to which it is contrasted. It denotes the result of the action of the verb ''pleroun;'' but ''pleroun'' is either *to fill up an empty thing (''e.g.'' ), or *to complete an incomplete thing (''e.g.'' ); and the verbal substantive in -''ma'' may express either #the objective accusative after the verb, 'the thing filled or com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valentinius
Valentinus (also spelled Valentinius; – ) was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome. According to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but started his own group when another was chosen. Valentinus produced a variety of writings, but only fragments survive, largely those quoted in rebuttal arguments in the works of his opponents, not enough to reconstruct his system except in broad outline. His doctrine is known only in the developed and modified form given to it by his disciples, the Valentinians. He taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature received the ''gnosis'' (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine Pleroma, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser or uncertain form of salvation, and that those of a material nature were doomed to perish. Valentinu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panarion
In early Christian heresiology, the ''Panarion'' ( grc-koi, Πανάριον, derived from Latin ''panarium'', meaning "bread basket"), to which 16th-century Latin translations gave the name ''Adversus Haereses'' (Latin: "Against Heresies"), is the most important of the works of Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403). It was written in Koine Greek beginning in 374 or 375, and issued about three years later,Williams, Frank; translator. "Introduction". The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Book I (Sects 1-46)'. 1987. (E.J. Brill, Leiden) . as a treatise on heresies, with its title referring to the text as a "stock of remedies to offset the poisons of heresy." It treats 80 religious sects, either organized groups or philosophies, from the time of Adam to the latter part of the fourth century, detailing their histories, and rebutting their beliefs.Long, G. ed. ''The penny cyclopædia''. Society for the diffusion of useful knowledge. 1833. p 477. The ''Panarion'' is an important source of info ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dyad (Greek Philosophy)
The Dyad is a title used by the Pythagoreans for the number two, representing the principle of "twoness" or "otherness". Numenius of Apamea, a Neopythagorean philosopher in the latter 2nd century CE, said that Pythagoras gave the name of Monad to God, and the name of Dyad to matter.Chalcidius r.52, 5–24, as cited in Aristotle equated matter as the formation of the elements (energies) into the material world as the static material was formed by the energies being acted upon by force or motion. Later Neoplatonic Philosophers and idealists like Plotinus treated the dyad as a second cause (demiurge), which was the divine mind (nous) that via a reflective nature ( finiteness) causes matter to "appear" or become perceivable. See also *Monad *Tetrad Tetrad ('group of 4') or tetrade may refer to: * Tetrad (area), an area 2 km x 2 km square * Tetrad (astronomy), four total lunar eclipses within two years * Tetrad (chromosomal formation) * Tetrad (general relativity), or frame fiel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basilides
Basilides (Greek: Βασιλείδης) was an early Christian Gnostic religious teacher in Alexandria, Egypt who taught from 117 to 138 AD, notes that to prove that the heretical sects were "later than the catholic Church," Clement of Alexandria''Stromata'', vii. 17 assigns Christ's own teaching to the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius; that of the apostles, of St. Paul at least, ends, he says, in the time of Nero; whereas "the authors of the sects arose later, about the times of the emperor Hadrian, and continued quite as late as the age of the elder Antoninus." He gives as examples Basilides, Valentinus, and (if the text is sound) Marcion. Yet his language about Carpocrates a few lines further on suggests a doubt whether he had any better evidence than a fallacious inference from their order in Irenaeus. He was acquainted with the refutation of Basilides by Agrippa Castor; but it is not clear, as is sometimes assumed, that he meant to assign both writers to the same reign. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus (Marcosian)
Marcus was the founder of the Marcosian Gnostic sect in the 2nd century AD. He was a disciple of Valentinus, with whom his system mainly agrees. His doctrines are almost exclusively known to us through a long polemic (i. 13–21) in ''Adversus Haereses'', in which Irenaeus gives an account of his teaching and his school. Clement of Alexandria clearly knew of Marcus and actually used his system of mystical numbers (four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirty), though without acknowledgement. Life Marcus appears to have been an elder contemporary of Irenaeus, who speaks of him as though still living and teaching. Though we learn from Irenaeus that the Rhone district was a home to the followers of Marcus, it does not appear that Marcus was there himself, and the impression left is that Irenaeus knew the followers of Marcus by personal intercourse, Marcus only by his writings. We are told also of Marcus having seduced the wife of one of the deacons in Asia (διάκονον τινα τῶ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epiphanius Of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis ( grc-gre, Ἐπιφάνιος; c. 310–320 – 403) 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. Life Epiphanius was either born into a Romaniote Christian family or became a Christian in his youth. Either way, he w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnostic
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 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 lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the Yahweh of the Old Testament) who is responsible for creating the material universe. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil, and held the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the hidden divinity, attained via mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment. Gnostic writings flourished among certain Christian groups in the Mediterranean world aro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sophia (Gnosticism)
Sophia ( grc-koi, Σοφíα "Wisdom", cop, ⲧⲥⲟⲫⲓⲁ "the Sophia") is a major theme, along with Knowledge ( ''gnosis'', Coptic ), among many of the early Christian knowledge-theologies grouped by the heresiologist Irenaeus as (), ‘knowing’ or ‘men that claimed to have deeper wisdom’. Gnosticism is a 17th-century term expanding the definition of Irenaeus' groups to include other syncretic and mystery religions. In Gnosticism, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God. Gnostics held that she was the ''syzygy'' (female twin Aeon (Gnosticism), divine Aeon) of Jesus (i.e. the Bride of Christ), and Holy Spirit of the Trinity. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew language, Hebrew equivalent of (, he, חכמה ) and as (). In the Nag Hammadi library, Nag Hammadi texts, Sophia is the lowest Aeon, or anthropic expression of the emanation of the light of God. She is considered to have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
