Albigenses
Anagni
Apocrypha
Apostasy
Arianism
Asceticism
Bernard de Clairvaux
Bogomils
Buddha
Carolingians
Cathars
Church
Cynics
Docetism
Dominicans
Dualism
Ecumenical Movement
Epistle
Escatology
Essenes
Eucharisty
Franciscans
Franconia
Franks
Gnosticism
Godfrey de Bouillon
Goths
Heresy
Holy Spirit
Idolatry
Inquisition
Ismailis
Jesuits
Josephus, Flavius
Judaism
Knights of Jerusalem
Knights Templars
Lateran Council
Manicheism
Magic (Sorcery)
Mendicant Friars
Merovingians
Metaphysics
Mithraism
Monarchianism
Mysticism
Mythology
Nag Hamadi
Nazarenes
Nicaea, Council of
Novatian
Occultism
Papacy
Paulicians
Pharisees
Protestantism
Rosicrucians
Semites
Septuagint
Teutonic Knights
Theism
Transmigration (Reincarnation)
Trent (Councils of)
Trinity (Holy)
Waldenses
Zealots
Zoroastrianism

Albigenses

Albigenses, followers of the single most important heresy within the Christian church during the Middle Ages. They were named after the town of Albi, in southern France, a major centre of the movement.
The Albigenses were believers in the Manichaean dualistic system that flourished in the Mediterranean area for centuries. The dualists believed in the separate and independent existence of a god of good and a god of evil. Within western Europe, the adherents of dualism, called Cathari (from the Greek katharos, meaning "purified"), first appeared in northern France and the Low Countries toward the late 11th or early 12th century. Persecuted and expelled from the North, the Catharist preachers travelled south and found far greater success in the semi-independent province of Languedoc and the surrounding areas. There they became known as Albigenses.
The Albigenses believed that the whole of existence was a struggle between two gods: the god of light, goodness, and spirit, usually associated with Jesus ; and the god of evil, darkness, and matter, identified with Satan. Whether the two deities wielded equal power or whether the forces of evil were subordinate to the forces of good was a question subject to considerable debate; but, by definition, anything material, including wealth, food, and the human body itself, was evil and abhorrent. The soul had been imprisoned by Satan in the human body, and the only hope of human salvation was to live a good and spiritual life. By living a good life, a person could win freedom after death from material existence. Failure to achieve righteousness during one's lifetime would result in the soul's being born again as another human being or even as an animal. The Albigenses believed that Christ was God, but that during his time on earth he was a kind of angel with a phantom body taking the appearance of a man. They held that the traditional Christian church, with its corrupt clergy and its immense material wealth, was the agent of Satan and was to be avoided.
Adherents of the Albigensian doctrine were divided into the simple believers and the "perfects." The perfects vowed themselves to lives of extreme asceticism. Renouncing all possessions, they survived entirely from donations given by the other members as well as their work. They were forbidden to take oaths, to have sexual relations, or to eat meat, eggs, or cheese. Only the perfects could communicate with God through prayer. The simple believers might hope to become perfects through a long initiation period followed by the rite called consolamentum, or baptism of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. Some would receive this rite only when they were near death.
The Christian church initially attempted to reconvert the Albigenses through peaceful means. When every attempt failed, Pope Innocent III launched the armed Albigensian Crusade (circa 1209-29) that brutally repressed the Albigenses and desolated much of southern France. Small groups of Albigenses survived in isolated areas and were pursued by the Inquisition as late as the 14th century.

Anagni

Boniface VIII (circa 1235-1303), pope (1294-1303), upheld the absolute power of the papacy. He was born Benedetto Gaetani (Caetani) in Anagni, Italy. He was appointed (1281) a cardinal. He succeeded in persuading the incompetent pope Celestine V to resign his office and succeeded him as Boniface VIII.
A major part of Boniface's pontificate was carried on in confrontation with Philip IV of France. It began when Philip and Edward I of England imposed illegal levies on the church to finance their armies. Boniface replied with the bull Clericis Laicos (1296), in which he forbade the collection of taxes from the clergy without express papal consent. He wrote the bull Unam Sanctam (1302), in which he asserted the supremacy of the pope over all rulers in temporal as well as in spiritual affairs. Declaring Boniface guilty of heresy, Philip ignored the bulls and soon declared his intention of deposing Boniface. In 1303 Boniface was about to excommunicate Philip for his disobedience when supporters of the king, together with Italian enemies of Boniface, made the pope prisoner at Anagni. Although liberated shortly thereafter, Boniface, probably mistreated, died three weeks later on October 11, 1303.

Apocrypha

Apocrypha (Greek apokryphos, "hidden"), word coined by the 5th-century biblical scholar Saint Jerome for the biblical books received by the church of his time as part of the Greek version of the Old Testament, but that were not included in the Hebrew Bible. In the Authorized, or King James, Version, the books are either printed as an appendix or are omitted altogether; they are not considered canonical by Protestants.

Apostasy

Apostasy, the total abandonment of Christianity by a baptized person. In the early church it was considered one of the unpardonable sins, the other two being murder and fornication. Apostasy is to be distinguished from laxity in the practice of religion and from heresy, the formal denial of one or more doctrines of the Christian faith. In Roman Catholic canon law, the term also refers to the abandonment of the religious state by a monk or nun who has taken perpetual vows and leaves the religious life without the appropriate dispensation.

Arianism

Arianism, a Christian heresy of the 4th century that denied the full divinity of Jesus Christ. It was named for its author, Arius. A native of Libya, Arius studied at the theological school of Lucian of Antioch, where other supporters of the Arian heresy were also trained. After he was ordained a priest in Alexandria, Arius became involved (319) in a controversy with his bishop concerning the divinity of Christ. Arius was finally exiled (325) to Illyria because of his beliefs, but debate over his doctrine soon engulfed the whole church and agitated it for more than half a century. Although his doctrine was eventually outlawed (379) throughout the Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius I, it survived for two centuries longer among the barbarian tribes that had been converted to Christianity by Arian bishops.

The teaching of Arius was condemned in 325 at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea. The 318 bishops assembled there drafted a creed that stated that the Son of God was "begotten not made," and consubstantial with the Father; that is, the Son was part of the Trinity, not of creation. Previously, no creed had been universally accepted by all churches. The status of the new creed as dogma was confirmed by bans against the teaching of Arius.
Despite its condemnation, the teaching of Arius did not die. Under the influence of the Greek church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, whose orthodoxy had also been questioned, Emperor Constantine I recalled Arius from exile about 334. Soon after, two influential people came to the support of Arianism: The next emperor, Constantius II, was attracted to the Arian doctrine; the bishop and theologian Eusebius of Nicomedia, later patriarch of Constantinople, become an Arian leader.
By 359 Arianism had prevailed and was the official faith of the empire. Quarreling among themselves, however, the Arians divided into two parties. The semi-Arians consisted mostly of conservative eastern bishops, who basically agreed with the Nicene Creed. The neo-Arians said that the Son was of a different essence  from, or unlike, the Father. With the death of Constantius II in 361, and the reign of Valens, who persecuted the semi-Arians, the way was opened for the final victory of Nicene orthodoxy, recognised by Emperor Theodosius in 379 and reaffirmed at the second ecumenical council (Constantinople I) held in 381.

Asceticism

Asceticism (Greek askesis, "exercise"), practice of self-denial and renunciation of worldly pleasure in order to attain a higher degree of spirituality, intellectuality, or self-awareness. Among the ancient Greeks, the term originally denoted the training practiced by athletes and soldiers. In Greek philosophy, the adherents of Cynicism and Stoicism adopted the practice of mastering desire and passion. Asceticism is practiced to some extent by the adherents of every religion. It often requires abstinence from food, drink, or sexual activity, as in fasting or celibacy. It may also require physical pain or discomfort, such as endurance of extreme heat or cold or self-punishment (FLAGELLANTS) SUFISM. It may require withdrawal from the material world to a life of meditation, as in the practice of Yoga.

Bernard de Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint (1090-1153), French ecclesiastic, born near Dijon. In 1113 he became a monk in the Cistercian monastery of Cîteaux, a small village south of Dijon, and in 1115 he became abbot of a monastery at Clairvaux, north of Dijon. Under his rule the monastery at Clairvaux became the most prominent of the Cistercian order. Reputed miracles and the eloquent preaching of Bernard attracted numerous pilgrims. Between 1130 and 1145, more than 90 monasteries were founded under the auspices of the one at Clairvaux, and Bernard's influence in the Roman Catholic church spread throughout the world. He is reputed to have established the rule of the Order of Knights Templars, and in 1128 he obtained recognition of the order from the church. In the contest between Pope Innocent II and Antipope Anacletus II for the papacy, Bernard was instrumental in the victory of Innocent. In 1146, at the command of the pope, Bernard began his preaching of the Second Crusade. His sermon, delivered at Vézelay, aroused enthusiasm throughout France; Louis VII, king of France, was persuaded to join the Crusade, and subsequently Bernard gained recruits from northern France, Flanders, and Germany. The failure of the Crusade was a great blow to him. He was canonised in 1174 and named Doctor of the Church in 1830. His feast day is August 20.
Bernard was an uncompromising opponent of heresies.  

Bogomils

Bogomils, members of a religious sect that arose in the 10th century in the Balkans. The chief centre was in Bulgaria, and the cult spread among other Slavic peoples. The movement resulted from a blending of Eastern dualism and an evangelical attempt to reform the Bulgarian Orthodox church. The Bogomils, whose fundamental doctrines are attributed to a Bulgarian priest called Bogomil, held that the first-born son of God was Satanael. Satanael rebelled and created, in opposition to the original spiritual universe, a world of matter and human beings. The Supreme Father gave these human beings a life spirit. This life spirit, however, was kept in slavery by Satanael until a second son of God, the Logos, or Christ, came down from heaven and, assuming a phantom body, broke the power of the evil spirit, who was henceforth called only Satan, the divine name, El, being dropped. The Bogomils practised a severe asceticism, despised images, and rejected the sacraments. They accepted the whole of the New Testament, but of the Old Testament only the Psalms and Prophets, which they interpreted allegorically. The morals and ideals of the Bogomils seem to have been much above the average of their time.
In 1118 the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus executed the leader of the sect for heresy. At the time of the Muslim conquest of Bosnia in the 15th century, the majority of the Christians who embraced Islam, the religion of the conquerors, were Bogomils. Before the Bogomils were suppressed, they influenced the development of the Albigensian and Cathari groups of France and Italy in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Buddha

Buddha (563?-483? BC), Indian philosopher and the founder of Buddhism, born in Kapilavastu, India, just inside present-day Nepal. He was the son of the head of the Sakya warrior caste, with the private name of Siddhartha; in later life he was known also as Sakyamuni (Sage of the Sakyas). The name Gautama Buddha is a combination of the family name Gautama and the appellation Buddha, meaning "Enlightened One."
All the surviving accounts of Buddha's life were written many years after his death by idealizing followers rather than by objective historians. Consequently, it is difficult to separate facts from the great mass of myth and legend in which they are embedded. From the available evidence, Buddha apparently showed an early inclination to meditation and reflection, displeasing his father, who wanted him to be a warrior and ruler rather than a religious philosopher. Yielding to his father's wishes, he married at an early age and participated in the worldly life of the court. Buddha found his carefree, self-indulgent existence dull, and after a while he left home and began wandering in search of enlightenment. One day in 533, according to tradition, he encountered an aged man, a sick man, and a corpse, and he suddenly and deeply realized that suffering is the common lot of humankind. He then came upon a mendicant monk, calm and serene, whereupon he determined to adopt his way of life and forsake family, wealth, and power in the quest for truth. This decision, known in Buddhism as the Great Renunciation, is celebrated by Buddhists as a turning point in history. Gautama was then 29 years old, according to tradition.
Wandering as a mendicant over northern India, Buddha first investigated Hinduism. He took instruction from some famous Brahman teachers, but he found the Hindu caste system repellent and Hindu asceticism futile. He continued his search, attracting but later losing five followers. About 528, while sitting under a bo tree in Buddh Gaya, in what is now the state of Bihar, he experienced the Great Enlightenment, which revealed the way of salvation from suffering. Shortly afterward he preached his first sermon in the Deer Park near Benares (Varanasi). This sermon, the text of which is preserved, contains the gist of Buddhism. Many scholars regard it as comparable, in its tone of moral elevation and historical importance, to Jesus Christ's Sermon on the Mount.
The five disciples rejoined Buddha at Benares. Accompanied by them, he traveled through the valley of the Ganges River, teaching his doctrines, gathering followers, and establishing monastic communities that admitted anyone regardless of caste. He returned briefly to his native town and converted his father, his wife, and other members of his family to his beliefs. After 45 years of missionary activity Buddha died in Kusinagara, Nepal, as a result of eating contaminated pork. He was about 80 years old.
Buddha was one of the greatest human beings, a man of noble character, penetrating vision, warm compassion, and profound thought. Not only did he establish a great new religion, but his revolt against Hindu hedonism, asceticism, extreme spiritualism, and the caste system deeply influenced Hinduism itself. His rejection of metaphysical speculation and his logical thinking introduced an important scientific strain heretofore lacking in Oriental thought. Buddha's teachings have influenced the lives of millions of people for nearly 2500 years.

Carolingians

Carolingian, sometimes called Carlovingian, second dynasty of Frankish kings who ruled parts of Western Europe from the 7th to the 10th centuries. The family was descended from Pepin the Elder of Landen, a powerful landowner who served Clotaire II, the Merovingian king of the Franks, as mayor of the palace of Austrasia from around 584 to 629. Pepin's grandson, Pepin of Herstal, eventually succeeded to the mayor's position, and by AD 687 he had become the effective ruler of the entire Frankish kingdom, although the Merovingians nominally wielded the royal power. Pepin of Herstal was in turn succeeded by his illegitimate son, Charles Martel, and by two grandsons, Carloman and Pepin the Short. Carloman later abdicated, and in 751 Pepin the Short was crowned as the first Carolingian king of the Franks. This date is generally regarded as the beginning of the Carolingian dynasty. It is historically significant that Pepin was the first Frankish king whose coronation was sanctified by the Roman Catholic church.
Pepin the Short was succeeded by his two sons, Carloman and Charlemagne, who at first ruled the kingdom jointly. After 771 Charlemagne was sole ruler and vastly increased the kingdom. At its greatest extent, it included what is now France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Low Countries, and northern Italy. On December 25, 800, Charlemagne was crowned the first emperor of the revived Western Roman Empire. As emperor, Charlemagne established his court as a center of learning, thus beginning the Carolingian Renaissance. Charlemagne achieved fame in many parts of the world for his promotion of education and the arts. When he died, his son Louis I inherited the kingdom. Upon his death, the kingdom was divided among his three surviving sons, who fought each other for the title of emperor. In 843 the kingdom was formally divided by the Treaty of Verdun. Thereafter the power of the dynasty further declined. The German line, which also ruled the Holy Roman Empire, became extinct in 911 and was replaced by the Saxons; the French line held power until 987, when it was succeeded by the Capetians.

Cathars

Cathari (Greek katharos, "pure"), name assumed by many widely diffused heretical Christian sects of the Middle Ages. The Cathari were characterised by a rigid asceticism and by a dualistic theology based on the belief that the universe comprised two conflicting worlds, the spiritual world created by God and the material world created by Satan. Their views were based on the religious doctrine of Manichaeism.
Included under the general name of Cathari were the Novatians, a sect originating in the 3rd century that advocated the denial of church membership to "fallen" Christians. The Paulicians were a kindred sect; they had been transported to the region of Thrace in south-eastern Europe in the 9th century and united with the Bogomils. In the second half of the 12th century the Cathari were in great strength in Bulgaria, Albania, and Slavonia. They divided into two branches, distinguished as the Albanenses (absolute dualists) and the Garatenses (moderate dualists). In Italy the heresy appeared in the 11th and 12th centuries. The Milanese adherents of the heresy were known as Patarini (or Patarines), from Pataria, a street in Milan frequented by rag gatherers. The Patarine movement assumed some importance in the 11th century as a reform movement, emphasising action by lay people against a corrupt clergy.
The Cathari reached their greatest numbers in southern France; here they were called Albigenses or Poblicants, the latter term being a corruption of Paulicians, with whom they were confused. By the late 14th century, however, the Cathari had all but disappeared. Their decline was caused, for the most part, by a rise in the popularity of mendicant orders. The only extant Catharist writing is a short ritual in the Romance language of the 13th-century troubadours.

( French Cathars, see Albigenses)

Church

Church (movement), the historical movement that arose from the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe that God founded the church through the work of Jesus and that it is sustained by the continual presence of the Holy Spirit.
In New Testament Greek, the word for church is ekklesia, meaning "those called out," those called by God away from their natural communities to form a new and deeper one. The word church itself is a corruption of the Greek adjective kyriakon, meaning "the Lord's." Invading barbarian tribes in the 4th and 5th centuries understood the word to refer to the church building-the "Lord's house"-in the towns they occupied. They later applied it to the Christian people.

Descriptions of the Church
The New Testament offers many metaphors for the church, four of which follow. One, it is the body of Christ. Christ is the head, Christians the many members. Two, the church is related to Christ as branches to a vine. A more intricate and pervasive relationship is implied by this image than by the image of the body. Three, the church is the bride of Christ, an image that stresses the personal, intimate quality of the relationship and the depth of mutual commitment. Four, the church is the people of God, a description that stresses, on one hand, the continuity of the church with Israel and, on the other, its potential universality.

Marks of the Church
Traditionally, the church is said to have four marks, or notes: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The church is affirmed as one because it confesses one Lord and is animated by one Spirit; as holy because God claims it, not because of its moral perfection; as catholic because it transcends all the divisions of humanity; and as apostolic because it maintains continuity with the apostolic teaching and mission. These marks are attributed to the church in faith and hope, and in the recognition that the visible condition of the church often does not correspond to them.

Theories of Organization
Three theories of church structure may be identified. In the first, organic structure, authority is understood to reside in the whole body of Christians, clergy and laity together, whose leaders are empowered by the Spirit acting through the whole body (sobornost). In the second, hierarchical structure, authority originates in the clerical hierarchy, whose ministry to the laity makes laypeople members and so forms the church. In the third, sectarian structure, authority resides in individual Christians, who band together as a congregation. No actual church perfectly embodies any of these structures, but, theoretically, Orthodox churches best typify the first, Roman Catholic churches the second, and Protestant churches the third.

Cynics

Cynics, members of a school of Greek philosophers founded during the second half of the 4th century BC. Diogenes of Sinope is generally regarded as the founder, but Antisthenes, a pupil of Socrates, has also been proposed. According to Aristotle, Diogenes was a well-known figure, nicknamed Kyon, the Greek word for "dog." The word Cynic may have been derived from Kyon and applied to the members of this school because of their unconventional mode of life, or from Cynosarges, a gymnasium where Antisthenes taught.
The Cynics contended that civilization, with its attendant ills, was an artificial, unnatural condition and that it should be held in contempt. Hence, they advocated returning to a natural life, which they equated with a simple life, maintaining that complete happiness can be attained only through self-sufficiency. Independence is the true good, not riches or luxuries. It follows that the Cynics were exceedingly ascetic, regarding abstemiousness as the means to human liberation. They did not propose the gratification of natural appetites so much as the nongratification of artificial ones.

Docetism

Docetism, an early Christian heresy affirming that Jesus Christ had only an apparent body. The doctrine took various forms: Some proponents flatly denied any true humanity in Christ; some admitted his incarnation but not his sufferings, suggesting that he persuaded one of his followers-possibly Judas Iscariot or Simon of Cyrene-to take his place on the cross; others ascribed to him a celestial body that was incapable of experiencing human miseries.
This denial of the human reality of Christ stemmed from dualism, a philosophical doctrine that viewed matter as evil. The docetists, acknowledging that doctrine, concluded that God could not be associated with matter. They could not accept a literal interpretation of John 1:14 that the "Word became flesh."
Although docetism is alluded to in the New Testament, it was not fully developed until the 2nd and 3rd centuries, when it found an ally in Gnosticism. It occasioned vigorous opposition by early Christian writers, beginning with Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus early in the 2nd century. Docetism was officially condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

Dominicans

Dominicans or Friars Preachers, members of the Order of Preachers, a Roman Catholic religious order founded in 1214 by Saint Dominic. With 16 disciples he founded the order at Toulouse, France, for the purpose of counteracting, by means of preaching, teaching, and the example of austerity, the heresies prevalent at the time. The order was formally recognised in 1216, when Pope Honorius III granted the Dominicans the necessary papal confirmation. He also granted them a number of special privileges, including the right to preach and hear confessions anywhere without obtaining local authorisation. The necessity for such an order had become apparent to Dominic during his early attempts, about 1205, to convert the Albigenses; it was at that time that he resolved to devote his life to the evangelization of the heretical and the uneducated.

Preachers and Upholders of Orthodoxy
The Dominicans insisted on absolute poverty, rejecting the possession of community property and becoming, like the Franciscans, a mendicant order. It was not until 1425 that permission to hold property was granted to certain houses by Pope Martin V; it was extended to the entire order by Pope Sixtus IV in 1477. The first Dominican house was founded at the Church of Saint Romain in Toulouse, from which, in 1217, Dominic sent some of his disciples to spread the movement elsewhere in France as well as to Spain. Within six years the order was also introduced into England, with the founding of a house in Oxford. In England the Dominicans acquired the name of Black Friars from the habit they wore outside the friary when preaching and hearing confessions, a black coat and hood over a white woollen tunic. By the end of the century 50 friaries were functioning in England, and the order had houses in Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Bohemia, Russia, Greece, and Greenland.
In accordance with the declared purpose of their foundation, the Dominicans have always been known as dedicated preachers and as combatants against any departure from the teaching of the Roman Catholic church. In the latter capacity they were entrusted with the supervision of the Inquisition as an ecclesiastical enterprise, and even in Spain, after the Inquisition became virtually a department of civil government, a Dominican was usually at its head. The office of master of the sacred palace, the pope's personal theologian, created for St. Dominic in 1218 and subsequently endowed with great privileges by Pope Leo X, has always been held by a member of the order. After 1620, one of the duties of the position was to allow or forbid the printing of all religious books.

Auxiliary Orders
An order of Dominican nuns was founded by Dominic in 1205, before the male branch of the order was established. They nevertheless called themselves the Second Order of St. Dominic. In 1220, to provide a constant supply of lay defenders of the church against the assaults of the Albigenses and other militant innovators, Dominic established the Militia of Jesus Christ and pledged its members to defend the church with arms and their possessions. In the late 13th century it joined with the Brothers and Sisters of the Penance of St. Dominic, another lay group vowed to piety, which was under the direction of the First Order. The new body was called the Third Order of St. Dominic.
Today the head of the entire order is the master general, whose term of office is 12 years; his residence is at Santa Sabina, in Rome. The order is organised into geographic provinces, each with a provincial at its head. The chief apostolate of the order is educational. The Dominicans therefore retain their original characteristics as teachers and upholders of orthodoxy.

Dualism

Dualism also has an ethical aspect, namely, in the recognition of the independent and opposing principles of good and evil. This dualism is exemplified in Zoroastrianism and in the Manichaean religion (see MANICHAEISM).

Ecumenical Movement

Ecumenical Movement, movement for worldwide cooperation and unity among Christian churches. The term ecumenical is derived from the Greek oikoumene ("inhabited"); thus, ecumenical councils of the church, the first of which was held at Nicaea in 325, were so designated because representatives attended from churches throughout the known world. In the 19th century, the term ecumenical came to denote to the Roman Catholic church a concern for Christian unity and for a renewal of the church. To Protestants who have pioneered in and advanced the modern ecumenical movement since the early 20th century, the term has applied not only to Christian unity but, more broadly, to the worldwide mission of Christianity.
Until the 20th century, only sporadic efforts were made to reunite a Christendom shattered through the centuries by schisms, the Reformation, and other disputes. Pressure toward unity was aided in the 19th century by the development of such organizations as the missionary and Bible societies and the Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's Christian Association, in all of which Protestants of varying denominations joined in support of common causes. In the early 20th century, the unity movement was almost exclusively Protestant.

Purposes of Ecumenism
The World Missionary Conference of 1910, held in Edinburgh, marked the beginning of modern ecumenism. From it flowed three streams of ecumenical endeavor: evangelistic, service, and doctrinal. Today, these three aspects are furthered through the World Council of Churches, constituted in 1948; in the early 1980s it included more than 295 churches in more than 90 countries.

The Second Vatican Council
Change came in 1959, when Pope John XXIII proposed the calling of a second Vatican Council to complete the work of the first Vatican Council of 1870. The pontiff created a Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Breaking precedent, in 1961 he permitted Roman Catholic observers officially to attend the third assembly of the World Council of Churches.
Also through his influence, when Vatican II opened in Saint Peter's Basilica in 1962, Protestant and Orthodox observers were accorded places of honor and included in all working sessions. The 2500 Roman Catholic bishops who attended the four council sessions (1962-65) dealt with Christian unity. Their decree on ecumenism, promulgated in 1964, spoke not of "schismatics" but of "separated brethren," and it deplored sins against unity committed over the years by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike.
On the death of Pope John, in 1963, his successor, Pope Paul VI, made known his intention to continue ecumenical advances, describing unity as "the object of permanent interest, systematic study, and constant charity." At the close of Vatican II, a Joint Working Group was established between the Vatican and the World Council of Churches. Numerous official dialogues were started in many countries between Roman Catholics and Protestants.

An Era of Change
Ecumenism is changing. Consolidation of Protestant churches has progressed rapidly. During the 1980s, the ecumenical movement was characterized by increasing consensus on doctrinal questions that had once been highly disputed, and by growing cooperation at all levels. This was due largely to the bilateral dialogues that took place between the various Christian churches-Anglican, Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic-during the 1970s.

Epistle

Epistle (Greek epistellein, "to send to"), formal and instructive letter, often intended for publication. The epistolary form was familiar among the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The Greek philosophers Aristotle and Epicurus made notable use of it. Twenty-one books of the New Testament are epistles written by the apostles to members of the early church. Since the Renaissance the epistle, in verse and prose, has held a prominent place in literature. Examples of the literary epistle are Lettres provinciales (1656-57), by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal; the Drapier's Letters (1724-25), by the English satirist Jonathan Swift; and An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735), in verse, by the English poet Alexander Pope.

Escatology

Eschatology, literally "discourse about the last things," doctrine concerning life after death and the final stage of the world. The origin of this doctrine is almost as old as humanity; archaeological evidence of customs in the Old Stone Age indicates a rudimentary concept of immortality. Even in early stages of religious development, speculation about things to come is not wholly limited to the fate of the individual. Such devastating natural phenomena as floods, conflagrations, cyclones, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions have always suggested the possibility of the end of the world. Higher forms of eschatological thought are the product of a complex social organism and an increased knowledge of natural science. Often myths of astrological origin, the concept of retribution, or the hope of deliverance from present oppressions provided the material or motive for highly developed eschatologies. Prolonged observation of planetary and solar movement made possible the conception of a recurrence, at the end of the present cycle, of the events connected with the origin of the world and a renovation of the world after its destruction.
The development of eschatological speculation, therefore, generally reflects the growth of human intellectual and moral perceptions, the larger social experience of men and women, and their expanding knowledge of nature. The outward forms of the doctrine of eschatology vary, however, according to the characteristics of the environment and of the peoples.

Essenes

Essenes, members of a Jewish religious brotherhood, organised on a communal basis and practising strict asceticism. The order, with about 4000 members, existed in Palestine and Syria from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD. Its chief settlements were on the shores of the Dead Sea. The Essenes are not mentioned in the Bible or in rabbinical literature, and information regarding them is largely confined to the writings of Philo Judaeus, a Hellenistic Jewish scholar and philosopher of Alexandria; the Roman historian Pliny the Elder; and the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.
Important features of the organisation were community of property, distributed according to need; strict observance of the Sabbath; and scrupulous cleanliness, which involved washing in cold water and wearing white garments. Prohibited were swearing, taking oaths (other than oaths of membership in the Essenian order), animal sacrifice, the making of weapons, and participation in trade or commerce. The order drew its recruits either from children it had adopted or from the ranks of those who had renounced material things. A probation of three years was required before the novice could take the oath of full membership, which demanded complete obedience and secrecy. Breaking the oath was punishable by expulsion. Because of the continuance of the binding requirement that no food should be eaten that was ceremonially unclean, this penalty was often equivalent to death by starvation. As a society, the Essenes were the first to condemn slavery as a violation of human fellowship. It is reported that they bought and freed slaves owned by others. The Essenes lived in small communities of their own. Their industries were farming and handicrafts.
After 1947 new light was thrown on the Essenes by certain ancient Hebrew scrolls discovered near the Dead Sea at Khirbet Qumran, which may have been the site of an Essene community of the 1st century AD. Among the scrolls is a Manual of Discipline, which can be associated with the Essene pattern of life as known from Greek and Latin sources.

Eucharisty

Eucharist or Lord's Supper central rite of the Christian religion, in which bread and wine are consecrated by an ordained minister and consumed by the minister and members of the congregation in obedience to Jesus' command at the Last Supper, "Do this in remembrance of me." In the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, and in the Anglican, Lutheran, and many other Protestant churches, it is regarded as a sacrament, which both symbolizes and effects the union of Christ with the faithful. Baptists and others refer to Holy Communion as an "institution," rather than a sacrament, emphasizing obedience to a commandment.

The Institution of the Eucharist
Traditionally, Jesus' command to his disciples at the Last Supper to eat the bread and drink the wine "in remembrance of me" constitutes the institution of the Eucharist. This specific command occurs in two New Testament accounts of the Last Supper, Luke 22:17-20 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-25.

Franciscans

Franciscans or Order of Friars Minor, religious order founded, probably in 1208, by Saint Francis of Assisi and approved by Pope Innocent III in 1209. After devoting himself to a life of preaching, service, and poverty, Francis gathered around him a band of 12 disciples. He led them from Assisi to Rome to ask for the blessing of the pope, who expressed doubt about the practicability of the way of life that the group proposed to adopt. Pope Innocent gave them his blessing, however, on condition that they become clerics and elect a superior. Francis was elected superior and the group returned to Assisi, where they obtained from the Benedictine abbey on Mount Subasio the use of the little chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli, around which they constructed huts of branches. Then, in imitation of Christ, they began a life of itinerant preaching and voluntary poverty.
At this time the brotherhood lacked formal organisation and a noviciate, but as the disciples increased and their teaching spread, it became obvious that the example of Francis would not suffice to enforce discipline among the friars. In 1223 Pope Honorius III issued a bull that constituted the Friars Minor a formal order and instituted a one-year noviciate.
Following the death of Francis in 1226, the convent and basilica at Assisi were built. Their magnificence disturbed some, who believed it inconsistent with Francis's ideals of poverty. After much dissension, Pope Gregory IX decreed that moneys could be held by elected trustees of the order and that the building of convents was not contrary to the intentions of the founder.
As time passed, the order grew, the only body of equal power being the Dominicans. The Franciscans, however, became fractionalized, and in 1517 Pope Leo X divided the order into two bodies, the Conventuals, who were allowed corporate property, as were other monastic orders, and the Observants, who sought to follow the precepts of Francis as closely as possible. The Observants have ever since been the larger branch, and early in the 16th century a third body, the Capuchins, was organised out of it and made independent. At the end of the 19th century Leo XIII grouped these three bodies together as the First Order of Friars Minor, designating the nuns known as Poor Clares as the Second Order, and the tertiaries, men and women living in secular society without celibacy, as the Third Order.
In addition to their preaching and charitable work, the Franciscans have been noted for their devotion to learning. Before the Reformation in England they held many positions in the universities.
On his first voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus was accompanied by a group of Franciscans. The first convents in America were established by Franciscans, at Santo Domingo and La Vega in what is now the Dominican Republic.

Franconia

Franconia (German Franken), duchy of medieval Germany, extending along both sides of the Main River, from the Rhine River on the west to the Fichtelgebirge range on the east. It also included the territory containing the cities of Mainz, Speyer, and Worms, on the western bank of the Rhine. Franconia was conquered by the Franks for whom the region was named in the late 5th century and soon afterward became part of the kingdom of Austrasia. The Treaty of Verdun (843) made Franconia the center of the newly formed East Frankish, later German, kingdom consisting of the duchies of Saxony, Swabia, Bavaria, Lorraine, and Franconia. Lacking political unity, however, the duchy declined in importance, and it was soon divided into Rhenish Franconia and Eastern Franconia. In the 10th century Conrad the Red, duke of Lorraine, the son-in-law of Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, established the Salian family as dominant in the area. The political power of this family was first felt in 1024, when Conrad, duke of Franconia, was elected Emperor Conrad II, thus founding an imperial house, which by its direct and collateral branches gave rulers to the Holy Roman Empire for more than two centuries. During this period, Eastern Franconia increased in political influence. Rhenish Franconia, however, lost its identity, and a large portion was divided among the count palatine of the Rhine, the archbishop of Mainz, and the bishops of Speyer and Worms. The remainder gradually became a land of lesser nobles and free towns. By the 13th century the name Franconia fell into disuse. It was revived in 1512, however, when Emperor Maximilian I established the province of Franconia. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the name Franconia disappeared from the political divisions of Germany. In 1837 King Louis I of Bavaria revived the name of the old duchy, naming the three northern portions of his kingdom Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia, and Lower Franconia. The territory comprising the old duchy of Franconia is now included in the German states of Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, and Bavaria.

Franks

Franks, group of Germanic tribes that, about the middle of the 3rd century AD, dwelt along the middle and lower Rhine River. The Franks appeared in the Roman provinces around 253 and soon thereafter established themselves in two principal groups, the Salian and the Ripuarian. The Salian Franks inhabited the territory along the lower stretches of the Rhine, and the Ripuarian Franks lived along the middle course of the river. The Salians were conquered by the Roman emperor Julian in 358 and became allies of Rome. During the early 5th century, when the Romans retired from the Rhine, the Salians established themselves in most of the territory north of the Loire River.
Under the Salian king Clovis I, founder of the Merovingian dynasty, the power and extent of the Frankish kingdom grew considerably. In 486 Clovis overthrew Syagrius, the last Roman governor in Gaul, and then successively subjugated the Alamanni, the Burgundians, the Visigoths of Aquitania, and the Ripuarian Franks. Ultimately, the borders of his kingdom extended from the Pyrenees Mountains to Friesland and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Main River. Clovis was converted to Christianity in 496, and thus began the close connection between the Frankish monarchy and the papacy.
After the death of Clovis, the kingdom was divided among his four sons, and for the following century it went through several divisions and reunifications until finally consolidated by Clotaire II in 613. Shortly after his death, however, the kings ceased to exercise any influence, and authority passed into the hands of the great officers of state, most notably, the major of the palace (major domus). The office of major domus existed in all of the Frankish kingdoms. In the eastern part, Austrasia, however, arose a powerful family, the Carolingian, which retained exclusive possession of the palace mayoralty for more than 100 years, ruling as monarchs in fact if not in name. In 687 Pepin of Herstal, the Austrasian mayor of the palace, overthrew the forces of Neustria (the western part) and Burgundy, setting himself up as major domus of a united Frankish kingdom. His son, Charles Martel, extended the frontiers of the kingdom in the east and in 732 repelled the Moors in a decisive battle fought at a site between Tours and Poitiers. Frankish power attained its greatest development under Charles Martel's grandson, Charlemagne, who in his time was the most powerful monarch in Europe. On December 25, 800, he was crowned Carolus Augustus, emperor of the Romans, by Pope Leo III. Charlemagne's imperial title was later borne by the Holy Roman emperors until the early 19th century. His Frankish lands, more specifically, developed into the kingdom of France, which is named for the Franks.

Gnosticism

Gnosticism, esoteric religious movement that flourished during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD and presented a major challenge to orthodox Christianity. Most Gnostic sects professed Christianity, but their beliefs sharply diverged from those of the majority of Christians in the early church. The term Gnosticism is derived from the Greek word gnosis ("revealed knowledge"). To its adherents, Gnosticism promised a secret knowledge of the divine realm.

Mythology
To explain the origin of the material universe, the Gnostics developed a complicated mythology. From the original unknowable God, a series of lesser divinities was generated by emanation. The last of these, Sophia ("wisdom"), conceived a desire to know the unknowable Supreme Being. Out of this illegitimate desire was produced a deformed, evil god, or demiurge, who created the universe. The Gnostics identified the evil god with the God of the Old Testament, which they interpreted as an account of this god's efforts to keep humanity immersed in ignorance and the material world and to punish their attempts to acquire knowledge. It was in this light that they understood the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, the flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Gnosticism and Christianity
Although most Gnostics considered themselves Christians, some sects assimilated only minor Christian elements into a body of non-Christian Gnostic texts. The Christian Gnostics refused to identify the God of the New Testament, the father of Jesus, with the God of the Old Testament, and they developed an unorthodox interpretation of Jesus' ministry. The Gnostics wrote apocryphal Gospels (such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary) to substantiate their claim that the risen Jesus told his disciples the true, Gnostic interpretation of his teachings: Christ, the divine spirit, inhabited the body of the man Jesus and did not die on the cross but ascended to the divine realm from which he had come. The Gnostics thus rejected the atoning suffering and death of Christ and the resurrection of the body.

Rites
Some Gnostic sects rejected all sacraments; others observed baptism and the Eucharist, interpreting them as signs of the awakening of gnosis. Other Gnostic rites were intended to facilitate the ascent of the divine element of the human soul to the spiritual realm. Hymns and magic formulas were recited to help achieve a vision of God; other formulas were recited at death to ward off the demons who might capture the ascending spirit and imprison it again in a body.

Ethics
The ethical teachings of the Gnostics ranged from asceticism to libertinism. The doctrine that the body and the material world are evil led some sects to renounce even marriage and procreation. Other Gnostics held that because their souls were completely alien to this world, it did not matter what they did in it. Gnostics generally rejected the moral commandments of the Old Testament, regarding them as part of the evil god's effort to entrap humanity.

Sources
Much scholarly knowledge of Gnosticism comes from anti-Gnostic Christian texts of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which provide the only extensive quotations in the Greek of the original Gnostic texts. Most surviving Gnostic texts are in Coptic, into which they had been translated when Gnosticism spread to Egypt in the late 2nd and the 3rd centuries. In 1945 an Egyptian peasant found 12 codices containing more than 50 Coptic Gnostic writings near Naj Hammadi. It has been determined that these codices were copied in the 4th century in the monasteries of the region. It is not known whether the monks were Gnostics, or were attracted by the ascetic nature of the writings, or had assembled the writings as a study in heresy.

History
Gnostic texts reveal nothing about the history of the various sects or about the lives of their most prominent teachers. Consequently, the history of the movement must be inferred from the traditions reflected in the texts and from anti-Gnostic writings. The question of whether Gnosticism first developed as a distinct non-Christian doctrine has not been resolved, but pagan Gnostic sects did exist. Gnostic mythology may have been derived from Jewish sectarian speculation centred in Syria and Palestine during the late 1st century AD, which in turn was probably influenced by Persian dualistic religions. By the 2nd century, Christian Gnostic teachers had synthesised this mythology with Platonic metaphysical speculation and with certain heretical Christian traditions. The most prominent Christian Gnostics were Valentinus and his disciple Ptolemaeus, who during the 2nd century were influential in the Roman church. Christian Gnostics, while continuing to participate in the larger Christian community, apparently also gathered in small groups to follow their secret teachings and rituals.

By the 3rd century Gnosticism began to succumb to orthodox Christian opposition and persecution. Partly in reaction to the Gnostic heresy, the church strengthened its organisation by centralising authority in the office of bishop, which made its effort to suppress the poorly organised Gnostics more effective. Christian theologians attacked the Gnostic view that the material world is essentially evil. Christians defended their identification of the God of the New Testament with the God of Judaism and their belief that the New Testament is the only true revealed knowledge. By the end of the 3rd century Gnosticism as a distinct movement seems to have largely disappeared.

Survivals
One small non-Christian Gnostic sect, the Mandaeans, still exists in Iraq and Iran, although it is not certain that it began as part of the original Gnostic movement. Although the ancient sects did not survive, aspects of the Gnostic world view have periodically reappeared in many forms: the ancient dualistic religion called Manichaeism and the related medieval heresies of the Albigenses, Bogomils, and Paulicians; the medieval Jewish mystical philosophy known as Cabala; the metaphysical speculation surrounding the alchemy of the Renaissance; 19th-century theosophy; 20th-century existentialism and nihilism; and the writings of the 20th-century Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. The essence of Gnosticism has proved very durable: the view that the inner spirit of humanity must be liberated from a world that is basically deceptive, oppressive, and evil.

Godfrey de Bouillon

Godfrey of Bouillon (1061-1100), French nobleman, soldier, and leader of the First Crusade. In 1082 Godfrey was created duke of Lower Lorraine by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and had his capital at Bouillon in the Ardennes region of France. Godfrey and his brother Baldwin I, later king of Jerusalem, led an army from the Low Countries in the First Crusade. Arriving in Constantinople in December 1096, he succeeded in establishing relations with the Eastern Roman Emperor Alexius I Comnenus. In 1099 Godfrey participated in the siege and capture of Jerusalem. He was offered the title of king of Jerusalem, but refused it for religious reasons and was instead named Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. In August 1099, when Egyptian forces moved to attack Jerusalem, Godfrey defeated them at Ascalon (now Ashquelon, Israel).

Goths

Goths, ancient Teutonic people, who in the 3rd to the 6th century AD were an important power in the Roman world. The Goths were the first Germanic peoples to become Christians. According to the 6th-century Gothic historian Jordanes, the Goths came from Sweden across the Baltic Sea to the basin of the Vistula River. By the 3rd century AD they had migrated as far south as the lower Danube, around the Black Sea. During that century Gothic armies and fleets ravaged Thrace, Dacia, and cities in Asia Minor and along the Aegean coast. They captured and plundered Athens in 267 to 268, and threatened Italy. For about a century, wars between the Roman emperors and Gothic rulers devastated the Balkan territory and the northeastern Mediterranean region. Other tribes joined the Goths, and under the great king Ermanaric in the 4th century, a kingdom was established that extended from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
About 370 the Goths divided into two separate groups. The Ostrogoths (Low Latin Ostrogothae, "the eastern Goths") inhabited a large kingdom east of the Dnestr River on the shores of the Black Sea (part of modern Ukraine and Belarus). The Visigoths (Low Latin Visigothi, "the good Goths" or "the noble Goths") were the western Goths, with a domain extending from the Dnestr to the Danube rivers.

Visigoths
In 376 the Visigoths, threatened by the Huns, sought the protection of the Roman emperor Valens, and they were given permission to settle into the empire's province of Moesia, which was south of the Danube. When Gothic soldiers were maltreated by Roman officers, the Goths revolted, and the resulting war climaxed in a decisive battle in 378 near Adrianople (now Edirne, Turkey), in which Valens was killed. The victorious Goths then threatened Constantinople. Theodosius I, who succeeded Valens as emperor in the East, made peace with the Goths and incorporated their army into the Roman forces. From that time on, the Visigoths were an important influence in the Roman Empire. Many who had settled in Moesia became farmers and were known as Moeso-Goths. Ulfilas, bishop of the Goths, translated the Bible into Gothic and was largely responsible for the conversion of the Goths to a form of Christianity called Arianism.
On the death of Theodosius in 395, the Visigoths renounced their allegiance to Rome and chose Alaric I as their ruler. Alaric invaded Greece and then Italy, and in 410 he captured and pillaged the city of Rome. In that same year he was succeeded by Ataulf, who led the Visigoths across the Pyrenees mountain range into Spain.
>From 415 to 418, under the next ruler, Wallia, the Visigoths extended their realm over a great part of Spain and southern Gaul, with Toulouse as their capital. Wallia was succeeded by the reputed son of Alaric, Theodoric I, who died fighting as an ally of Rome against the Huns at the Battle of Châlons. The most notable of the Spanish Visigothic kings was Euric, who reigned from about 420 to 484. He was a son of Theodoric I. Under Euric, who declared his rule to be independent of any federation with Rome, the kingdom of Toulouse included almost all of Spain and most of Gaul west of the Rhone River and south of the Loire River. Euric introduced many aspects of Roman civilization and drew up a code of law combining Roman and German elements. The kingdom was, however, continually beset by both internal and external difficulties. The kingship was nominally elective, and the powerful Visigothic nobles stood against attempts to found a hereditary royal house. Externally, the Byzantine Empire and the Franks menaced the Visigothic lands. In order to instill greater loyalty in his rebellious Roman and Christian subjects, Alaric II in 506 introduced the collection of laws known as the Breviary of Alaric. A year later, Clovis I, king of the Franks, defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Vouillé, in which Alaric II was killed. Most of Provence was separated from the Gothic lands, and the Visigothic kingdom was confined almost entirely to Spain. Despite the attempts of a long line of Gothic kings to hold the kingdom together, the power of the Visigoths steadily declined. The last king, Roderick, was defeated and probably killed by the Muslims in the Battle of Río Barbate in 711. By 713 Spain was partially conquered by the Moors, and the Visigothic power survived in the independent Christian kingdom of Asturias.

Ostrogoths
When the Huns swept into Europe about 370, many of the Ostrogoths were conquered and compelled to aid their conquerors. They joined the king of the Huns, Attila, in his expedition against Gaul in 451 and many Ostrogoths were killed by the Visigoths at the Battle of Châlons. When the Huns were finally forced back, the Ostrogoths again became independent. With the permission of Rome, they settled in Pannonia, an area now including western Hungary, northern Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia, and eastern Austria. They were joined by other Ostrogoths who had taken refuge within the Roman Empire at the coming of the Asians. In 474 Theodoric, the greatest of the Ostrogothic kings, was elected to the throne. After various periods of warfare and alliance with Zeno, the Byzantine emperor, Theodoric invaded Italy in 488 (with the consent and advice of the emperor), slew Odoacer, the first barbarian ruler of Italy, and became ruler himself. He held the power although not the title of the Western Roman emperors. A Roman consul was given nominal authority, and the two peoples lived together amicably, with Roman culture greatly influencing the Teutons.
The unity of Romans and Goths could be preserved only by a ruler of the stature of Theodoric. After his death in 526, disruption in Italy became so violent that in 535 the Byzantine emperor Justinian I sent his general Belisarius to conquer the peninsula. The Byzantines broke the Gothic power in 555, and the throne of Italy was filled by the exarchs (Byzantine governors) of Ravenna.
The Ostrogoths themselves gradually became absorbed into other tribes, such as the Alani, Vandals, Franks, and Burgundians, who had established themselves in the dominions of the old Roman Empire.

Heresy

Heresy, any religious doctrine opposed to the dogma of a particular church, especially a doctrine held by a person professing faith in the teachings of that church. The term originally meant a belief that one arrived at by oneself (Greek hairesis, "choosing for oneself") and is used to denote sectarianism in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of St. Paul. In later Christian writings, the term is used in the opprobrious sense of a belief held in opposition to the teaching of the church.
With the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire, heresy came to be considered a crime against the state, punishable by civil law. Heresy was also generally outlawed in countries with an established or state-supported church. After the Reformation, however, the principles of private interpretation of the Scriptures and denial of ecclesiastical authority in all matters of belief were eventually adopted in Protestant countries, and during the 19th and 20th centuries Roman Catholic countries have also adopted the principle of religious toleration.

Holy spirit

Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost, in Christian belief, the third person of the Trinity, the other persons being God the Father and God the Son. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ refers to the Holy Spirit as "the Counselor . . . whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:26).
A theology of the Holy Spirit developed slowly, largely in response to controversies over the relation of Jesus Christ to God the Father. In 325, the Council of Nicaea condemned as heresy the Arian teaching that the Son was a creature, neither equal to, nor coeternal with, the Father. In 381, the Council of Constantinople condemned the logical extension of that view, that the Holy Spirit was created by the Son. The council stated: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father. Together with the Father and the Son he is adored and glorified." Later pronouncements brought only one important doctrinal change, the 9th-century addition of filioque to the creed of Constantinople. That addition, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the son, has been a source of discord between Eastern and Western Christianity ever since.
The Holy Spirit is frequently presented in Scripture through symbols: the dove (see Mark 1:10), symbolizing peace and reconciliation; a whirlwind (see Acts 2), symbolizing strength; and as tongues of fire (see Acts 2), symbolizing the ecstasy of believers. The Holy Spirit is considered the sanctifier, who leads and guides the church and its members.

Idolatry

Idolatry, worship of a material image that is held to be the abode of a superhuman personality. The practice is common among primitive peoples and was also a characteristic of such great ancient civilizations as the Chaldean (Babylonian), Egyptian, Greek, Indian, and Roman. Worship of idols appears to be one phase or aspect of religious evolution, akin to nature worship; the adoration of personified objects; and animism, or belief in spirits embodied in material things. Associated with idols, which are the object of public worship, are personal or domestic fetishes for private veneration. Worship of the dead is also related to idolatry, and the idea that after death the spirit continues in the body or in some relic gave rise to the practice of placing a statue of the dead person in or beside his or her grave.

Inquisition

Inquisition, judicial institution, established by the papacy in the Middle Ages, charged with seeking out, trying, and sentencing persons guilty of heresy. In the early church the usual penalty for heresy was excommunication. With the establishment of Christianity as the state religion by the Roman emperors in the 4th century, heretics came to be considered enemies of the state, especially when violence and the disturbance of public order were involved. St. Augustine gave a somewhat reluctant approval to action by the state against heretics, but the church generally disapproved of coercion and physical penalties.

Origins
During the 12th century opinion began to change, in reaction to a resurgence of heresy in an organised form, especially the Albigensianism of southern France. Albigensian doctrine and practice seemed destructive of matrimony and other institutions of society, and after less vigorous efforts by his predecessors, Pope Innocent III organised a Crusade against the group. He issued punitive legislation against them and sent preachers to the area. The various efforts to control heresy were, however, still uncoordinated and relatively ineffective.
The Inquisition properly so called did not come into existence until 1231, with the constitution Excommunicamus of Pope Gregory IX. By his action the pope lessened the bishops' responsibility for orthodoxy, placed inquisitors under the special jurisdiction of the papacy, and established severe penalties. The office of inquisitor was entrusted almost exclusively to the Franciscans and, especially, the Dominicans, because of their superior training in theology and their supposed freedom from worldly ambition. Two inquisitors with equal authority-bestowed directly by the pope-were in charge of each tribunal, aided by assistants, notaries, police, and counsellors. Because they could excommunicate even princes, the inquisitors were formidable figures. Under these circumstances it is surprising that among their contemporaries the inquisitors generally had a reputation for justice and mercy. Some, nevertheless, were accused of excessive cruelty and other abuses.

Procedures
The inquisitors established themselves for a definite period of weeks or months at some central place, from which they issued orders demanding that all guilty of heresy present themselves. The inquisitors could themselves bring suit against any suspect person. Lesser penalties were imposed on those who came forward and confessed their heresy than on those who had to be tried and convicted. A period of grace of about a month was allowed for this spontaneous confession; after that, the actual trials began.
If the inquisitors decided to try a person suspected of heresy, the suspect's pastor delivered the summons. Inquisitorial police sought out those persons who refused to obey a summons, and the right of asylum did not apply to heretics. The accused were given a statement of charges against them. For some years the names of accusers were withheld from suspects, but Pope Boniface VIII abrogated that practice. The accused were compelled under oath, however, to answer all charges against them, thus becoming their own accusers. The testimony of two witnesses was generally considered proof of guilt.
The inquisitors usually had a kind of jury, composed of both clergy and laity, to assist them in arriving at a verdict. They were permitted to imprison suspects who were thought to be lying. In 1252 Pope Innocent IV, under the influence of the revival of Roman law, officially sanctioned the use of torture to extract the truth from suspects.
The penances and sentences for those who confessed or were found guilty were pronounced together in a public ceremony at the end of all the processes. This was the sermo generalis or auto-da-fe. Penances might consist of a pilgrimage, a public scourging, a fine, or the wearing of a cross. The wearing of two tongues of red cloth, sewn onto an outer garment, marked those who had made false accusations. The penalties in serious cases were confiscation of property or imprisonment. The most severe penalty the inquisitors could themselves impose was life imprisonment. Thus, when the inquisitors handed a guilty person over to civil authorities, it was tantamount to a demand for that person's execution.
Although the Inquisition in the beginning directed most attention to the Albigensians and, to a lesser degree, the Waldensians , it later extended its activities to other heterodox groups, such as the Fraticelli, and then to witches and diviners. Once the Albigensians were under control, however, the pace of the Inquisition decidedly slackened, and in the late 14th and 15th centuries relatively little was heard of it.

The Holy Office
Alarmed by the spread of Protestantism and especially by its penetration into Italy, Pope Paul III in 1542 heeded reformers such as Cardinal Gian Pietro Carafa and established in Rome the Congregation of the Inquisition, also known as the Roman Inquisition and the Holy Office. Six cardinals, including Carafa, constituted the original commission, whose powers extended to the whole church. The Holy Office was really a new institution. Whereas the medieval Inquisition focused on popular misbeliefs the Holy Office was generally concerned with orthodoxy of a more academic nature, especially as it appeared in the writings of theologians and high churchmen.
In the first dozen years or so, the activities of the Roman Inquisition were relatively modest, restricted almost exclusively to Italy. When Carafa became Pope Paul IV in 1555, he urged a vigorous pursuit of suspects, not sparing bishops or even cardinals. He meanwhile charged the Congregation to draw up a list of books that offended faith or morals, and as a result he approved and published the first Index of Forbidden Books in 1559. Although later popes tempered the zeal of the Roman Inquisition, they began to see it as the customary instrument of papal government for regulating church order and doctrinal orthodoxy. In 1965 Pope Paul VI, responding to many complaints, reorganised the Holy Office and renamed it the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Ismailis

Ismailis, sect of Shiite Muslims , most important from the 10th to the 12th century. The Ismailis emerged from a dispute in 765 over the succession of Jafar al-Sadiq, whom Shiites acknowledged as the sixth imam, or spiritual successor to Muhammad. The Ismailis recognized Ismail, the eldest son of Jafar, as his legitimate successor. On Ismail's death they acknowledged his son Muhammad as the seventh and last imam, whose return on Judgment Day they await. The Ismailis are also known as Seveners, because they accept only 7 imams, rather than the 12 who are recognized by other Shiites.
Although Ismailis subscribe to basic orthodox Islamic doctrines, they also maintain esoteric teachings and corresponding interpretations of the Koran. Developed in the 9th and 10th centuries under the influence of Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, these posit the creation of the universe by a process of emanation from God.
In the late 9th century an Ismaili state was organized on communistic principles in Iraq by Hamdan Qarmat; his followers became known as Qarmatians. His state soon disintegrated, but some of his followers combined with other Ismaili groups to form the Fatimid dynasty of North Africa in the 10th century. The Fatimids conquered Egypt in 969 and developed a strong and culturally brilliant state that flourished until the 12th century. During the reign of the Fatimid dynasty the Ismailis gradually lost their original revolutionary fervor. A splinter group of Ismailis, known to Westerners as Assassins, established a stronghold in the mountains of northern Iran in the 12th century and carried out terrorist acts of assassination against important religious and political leaders of Sunni Islam.
The two main branches of Ismailis today are the Bohras, with headquarters in Bombay, India, and the Khojas, concentrated in Gujarat State, India. Another subsect, headed by the Aga Khan, has followers in Pakistan, India, Iran, Yemen, and East Africa.

Jesuits

Jesuits or Society of Jesus (Jesuits), religious order of men in the Roman Catholic church, founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1534 and confirmed by Pope Paul III in 1540. The motto of the order is Ad majorem Dei gloriam (Latin, "to the greater glory of God"), and its object is the spread of the church by preaching and teaching or the fulfilment of whatever else is judged the most urgent need of the church at the time. Education has been its chief activity almost from the outset, and it has made notable contributions to scholarship in both theology and the secular disciplines.

Preparation for Membership
The preparation required of a candidate, especially for membership as a priest rather than as a brother (temporal coadjutor), is considerably longer than that required for the secular priesthood or for membership in other religious orders. After two years in seclusion and prayer as a novice, the candidate takes simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and becomes a scholastic. He then typically spends two years of study in review of classical subjects and three years studying philosophy, mathematics, and the physical sciences. Several years of teaching follow, succeeded by three years' study of theology, after which ordination to the priesthood takes place. Following a fourth year of theological study and a year of retirement and prayer, the candidate is awarded his final grade, becoming either a coadjutor or a professed. The coadjutors take final simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but the professed take these vows as solemn vows and add an additional solemn vow to go wherever the pope may send them; furthermore, the professed take five simple vows, among them the renunciation of ecclesiastical office beyond their order unless by directive of the order. The order is governed by a superior general, residing in Rome, who is elected for life by the general congregation of the order, consisting of representatives of the various provinces; there are now some 65 regional provinces in the world, each under its own father provincial.

History
The aim of Ignatius of Loyola in forming his band was to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to convert the Muslims; all access to the Holy Land was barred, however, by the outbreak of war with the Ottoman Turks, and the members of the order submitted to the pope a constitution that bound them to go as missionaries to any place the pope might direct. After the constitution was approved, Loyola was elected the first superior general of the order.
The development of the order was rapid. Its members took leading parts in the Counter Reformation, establishing schools and colleges throughout Europe. For 150 years they were the leaders in European education; by 1640 they had more than 500 colleges throughout Europe; by about a century later the number of colleges had increased to more than 650 and, in addition, the order had total or partial charge of two dozen universities. More than 200 seminaries and houses of study for Jesuits had also been established. The education of Jesuits in the period of the Counter Reformation was designed to strengthen Roman Catholicism against Protestant expansion. Among the laity the Jesuits were concerned chiefly with the education of the nobility and those of wealth, although they did conduct trade schools and, in mission countries, schools for the poor.
In the mission field the expansion of the order was equally great. Missions were established by St. Francis Xavier in India and Japan, and the order spread to the interior of China and the coast of Africa. Letters from the Jesuit missionaries in Canada, containing ethnological, historical, and scientific information, were published as the Jesuit Relations and form a unique and valuable source of information about the native tribes of that country. The most famous work of the Jesuit missionaries in the New World, however, was the establishment in the order's South American provinces of reductions, or village communities of native peoples under the spiritual and temporal direction of the priests. The most successful were the reductions of Paraguay. In that country for almost 200 years the Jesuits governed a communal nation of Native Americans, founding 32 villages with a total population of about 160,000; they taught the Native Americans agriculture, mechanical arts, and commerce and trained a small army for defence of the settlements.
The history of the Jesuit order has been marked by a steadily increasing prejudice against it, especially in Roman Catholic countries. Their devotion to the papacy called forth opposition from nationalistic rulers and leaders, and their zeal for ecclesiastical reform antagonised the clergy. At one time or another the order has been expelled from every country in Europe, and in 1773 a coalition of powers under Bourbon influence induced Pope Clement XIV to issue a brief suppressing the order. Frederick II, king of Prussia, and Catherine II, empress of Russia, both admirers of Jesuit education and scholarship, refused, however, to give the brief the publication necessary to make it effective, and in those countries the order survived in local organisations until 1814, when Pope Pius VII re-established the Jesuits on a world-wide basis. Political and religious opposition also revived; since the re-establishment of the order, it has been free from attack only in Denmark, Sweden, Great Britain, and the United States.

Josephus, Flavius

Josephus, Flavius (AD 37 or 38-circa 101), Jewish historian, born in Jerusalem of both royal and priestly lineage. His original name was Joseph Ben Matthias. A man both learned and worldly, he was a member of the Pharisees, and also a public figure who, before the Jewish revolt against Rome (66), had made friends at the court of Emperor Nero.
The parts played in the revolt by the Zealots, and their opponents the Pharisees, who considered it futile, led to ambiguity in the historical record of the role of Josephus, a Pharisee, in the conflict. His own writings present two conflicting accounts of his mission in the province of Galilee (in what is now Israel). According to one account, he took command of the Jewish forces there to lead the Galilean phase of the revolt, but the other, later, account contends that he sought to subdue the revolt rather than lead it. Whichever story may be true, apparently he prepared Galilee for the coming onslaught and in 67 valorously repulsed the advance of Vespasian, the Roman general who was soon to become emperor, defending the fortress of Jotapata for 47 days before surrendering. Josephus would have been sent as a prisoner to Nero had he not had the wit to prophesy that his captor, Vespasian, would himself one day be emperor. This prophecy accorded with Vespasian's ambitions, and the general kept Josephus with him, thus probably saving his life. While Vespasian's prisoner, Josephus saw the subjugation of Galilee and Judea. Subsequently freed, he adopted Vespasian's family name, Flavius. Accompanying another future emperor, Vespasian's son Titus, he witnessed Titus's siege of Jerusalem in 70. Thereafter, enjoying imperial patronage under Titus and his brother's successor, Domitian, Josephus lived until his death in Rome and devoted himself to his writing.
His works include The Jewish War (in 7 books), which he wrote to dissuade his people and other nations from courting annihilation by further revolt against an all-powerful Rome; Jewish Antiquities (in 20 books), a history of the Jews from the creation to AD 66 that eloquently demonstrates how his people had flourished under the law of God; an autobiography, Life; and Against Apion, a refutation of charges against the Jews made by the anti-Semitic Greek grammarian Apion (flourished 1st century) and other likeminded writers. The last named is invaluable, because Josephus recapitulates writings on Jewish history that are no longer extant.

Judaism

Judaism, religious culture of the Jews (also known as the people Israel); one of the world's oldest continuing religious traditions.
The terms Judaism and religion do not exist in premodern Hebrew. The Jews Spoke of Torah, God's revealed instruction to Israel, which mandated both a world view and a way of life (Halakah); the "way" by which to walk-Jewish law, custom, and practice. Premodern Judaism, in all its historical forms, thus constituted (and traditional Judaism today constitutes) an integrated cultural system encompassing the totality of individual and communal existence. It is a system of sanctification in which all is to be subsumed under God's rule, that is, under divinely revealed models of cosmic order and lawfulness. Christianity originated as one among several competing Jewish ideologies in 1st-century Palestine, and Islam drew in part on Jewish sources at the outset. Because most Jews, from the 7th century on, have lived in the cultural ambit of either Christianity or Islam, these religions have had an impact on the subsequent history of Judaism.
Judaism originated in the land of Israel (also known as Palestine) in the Middle East. Subsequently, Jewish communities have existed at one time or another in almost all parts of the world, a result of both voluntary migrations of Jews and forced exile or expulsions. In the late 1980s the total world Jewish population was some 13 million, of whom about 5.7 million lived in the U.S., more than 3.6 million in Israel, and more than 1.4 million in the Soviet Union, the three largest centers of Jewish settlement. About 1.2 million Jews lived in the rest of Europe, most of them in France and Great Britain. About 310,000 lived in the rest of North America, and 33,000 in the rest of Asia. Nearly 440,000 Jews lived in Central and South America, and about 142,000 in Africa.

Knights of Jerusalem

Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem (in full The Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta), historically, the protectors of a hospital built in Jerusalem before the first Crusade by Gerard. Known in short as Hospitalers or Knights Hospitalers, the order was founded after the formation of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem approved by Pope Paschal II in 1113 and again by Pope Eugene III in 1153. The brothers were sworn to poverty, obedience, and chastity and to assistance in the defence of Jerusalem. Gerard, their first leader, was called rector; later heads of the order were called grand masters. Of necessity, the order became a military one, and the armed knights were of noble birth. They formed a community under the Rule of St. Augustine. At first devoted to the care of pilgrims and Crusaders, the order left the Holy Land with the failure of the Crusades.

Knights of Rhodes
After 1309 the order had its headquarters on the island of Rhodes. It formed a territorial state, and its navy kept the eastern Mediterranean Sea free of Muslims. The properties of the Knights Templars were given to the order in 1312. The Knights of Rhodes, as they came to be called, formed national units of the order elsewhere; they were called Tongues (French Langues). Forced to leave Rhodes when it was seized by Suleiman I, ruler of the Ottoman Turks, in 1522, they had no home until 1530, when they were ceded the island of Malta.

Knights of Malta
The order figured in European history until well into the 19th century. As the Knights of Malta, it lost its English and German properties during the Reformation and its French holdings during the French Revolution. The Russians granted the order protection, but the French under Napoleon seized Malta. The convent was moved to Trieste in 1798 and to Rome in 1834. By this time the Russians had confiscated all properties held by them in Russian territories.
The Knights of Malta, as recognised by Pope John XXIII in 1961, form a religious community and an order of chivalry. Organised in five grand priories and a number of national associations, they carry on diplomatic relations with the Vatican and with individual countries. As a religious community, they maintain hospitals, first-aid centres, and facilities to care for war casualties and refugees. They wear a black cloak on which an eight-pointed Maltese cross is applied. The grand master is titled prince and holds a church rank equal to that of a cardinal.

Knights Templars

Knights Templars, members of a medieval religious and military order officially named the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ. They were popularly known as the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, or Knights Templars, because their first quarters in Jerusalem adjoined a building known at the time as Solomon's Temple. The order developed from a small military band formed in Jerusalem in 1119 by two French knights, Hugh des Payns and Godfrey of St. Omer; its aim was to protect pilgrims visiting Palestine after the First Crusade. Military in purpose from its beginning, the order thus differed from the other two great 12th-century religious societies, the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem and the Teutonic Knights, which began as charitable institutions.
The Knights Templars obtained papal sanction for their order, and in 1128 at the ecclesiastical Council of Troyes they were given an austere rule closely patterned on that of the monastic order of Cistercians. The Knights Templars were headed by a grand master, under who were three ranks: knights, chaplains, and sergeants. The knights were the dominant members, and they alone were allowed to wear the distinctive dress of the order, a white mantle with a large red Latin cross on the back. The headquarters of the Knights Templars remained at Jerusalem until the fall of the city to the Muslims in 1187; it was later located successively at Antioch, at Acre, at Caesarea, and in Cyprus.
Because the Knights Templars regularly transmitted money and supplies from Europe to Palestine, they developed an efficient banking system, on which the rulers and nobility of Europe came to rely. The knights gradually became bankers for a large part of Europe and amassed great wealth. After the last Crusades had failed and interest had waned in an aggressive policy against the Muslims, the Knights Templars were no longer needed to police Palestine. Their immense riches and power had aroused the envy of secular as well as ecclesiastical powers, and in 1307 the impoverished Philip IV, king of France, with the aid of Pope Clement V, arranged for the arrest of the French grand master Jacques de Molay on charges of sacrilege and Satanism. Molay and the leading officers of the order confessed under torture, and all of them were eventually burned at the stake. The order was suppressed in 1312 by Clement V and its property assigned to the rival Knights Hospitalers, although most of it was in fact seized by Philip and by King Edward II, who disbanded the order in England.
Knights Templars now are members of the York Rite of the Masonic system.

Lateran Councils

Lateran Councils, five ecumenical councils of the Roman Catholic church, held in the Lateran Palace, Rome.

First Lateran Council
The first of these councils was held in 1123 during the pontificate of Callistus II; it was the first general council held in the West. Its most important decision was the confirmation of the Concordat of Worms (1122), which ended the controversy between ecclesiastical and secular authorities over investiture. The council also adopted canons forbidding simony and the marriage of clergymen, and it annulled the ordinances of the antipope Gregory VIII (reigned 1118-21).

Second Lateran Council
The second council was held in 1139 under Pope Innocent II (r. 1130-43). It was called to heal the schism caused by the antipope Anacletus II (r. 1130-38) and decreed excommunication for his followers. The council renewed the canons against clerical