Listed 18 sub titles with search on: Religious figures biography for wider area of: "SYRIA Ancient country SYRIA" .
KILI SYRIA (Ancient province) SYRIA
Aetius (Aetios), surnamed the Atheist, from his denial of the God of Revelation,
was born in Coele Syria at Antioch, and became the founder of the Anomnoean (anomoion)
form of the Arian heresy. He was left fatherless and in poverty when a child,
and became the slave of a vine-dresser's wife, then a travelling tinke or a goldsmith.
Conviction in a fraud or hambition led him to abandon this life, and he applied
himself to medicine under a quack, and soon set up for himself at Antioch. From
the schools of medicine being Arian, he acquired a leaning towards heresy. He
frequented the disputatious meetings of the physicians and made such progress
in Eristicism, that he became a paid advocate for such as wished their own theories
exhibited most advantageously. On his mother's death he studied under Paulinus
H., Arian Bishop of Antioch, A. D. 331; but his powers of disputation having exasperated
some influential persons about Eulalius, the successor of Paulinus, he was obliged
to quit Antioch for Anazarbus, where he resumed the trade of a goldsmith, A. D.
331. Here a professor of grammar noticed him, employed him as a servant, and instructed
him; but he was dismissed in disgrace on publicly disputing against his master's
interpretation of the Scripture. The Arian Bishop of the city, named Athanasius,
received him and read with him the Gospels. Afterwards he read the Epistles with
Antonius, a priest of Tarsus till the promotion of the latter to the Episcopate,
when he returned to Antioch and studied the Prophets with the priest Leontius.
His obtrusive irreligion obliged him again to quit Antioch, and he took refuge
in Cilicia (before A. D. 348), where he was defeated in argument by some of the
grossest (Borborian) Gnostics. He returned to Antioch, but soon left it for Alexandria,
being led thither by the fame of the Manichee Aphthonius, against whom he recovered
the fame disputation which he had lately lost. He now rezsumed the study of medicine
under Sopolis and practised gratuitously, earning money by following his former
trade by night or living upon others. His chief employment, however, was an irreverent
application of logical figures and geometrical diagrams to the Nature of the Word
of God. He returned to Antioch on the elevation of his former master Leontius
to that See, A. D. 348, and was by him ordained Deacon, though he declined the
ordinary duties of the Diaconate and accepted that of teaching, A. D. 350. The
Catholic laymen, Diodorus and Flavian, protested against this ordination, and
Leontius was obliged to depose him. His dispute with Basil of Ancyra, A. D. 351,
is the first indication of the future schism in the Arian heresy. Basil incensed
Gallus against Aetius, and Leontius' intercession only saved the latter from death.
Soon Theophilus Blemmys introduced him to Gallus, who made him his friend, and
often sent him to his brother Julian when in danger of apostacy. There is a letter
from Gallus extant, congratulating Julian on his adesion to Christianity, as he
had heard from Aetius. Aetius was implicated in the murder of Domitian and Montius,
but his insignificance saved him from the vengeance of Constantius. However, he
quitted Antioch for Alexandria, where St. Athanasius was maintaining Christianity
against Arianism, and in A. D. 355 acted as Deacon under George of Cappadocia,
the violent interloper into the See of St. Athanasius. Here Eunomius became his
pupil and amanuensis. He is said by Philostorgius to have refused ordination to
the Episcopate, because Serras and Secundus, who made the offer, had mixed with
the Catholics; in A. D. 358, when Eudoxius became bishop of Antioch, he returned
to that city, but popular feeling prevented Eudoxius from allowing him to act
as Deacon.
The Aetian (Eunomian, see Arius)
schism now begins to develop itself. The bold irreligion of Aetius leads a section
of Arians (whom we may call here Anti-Aetians) to accuse his to Constantius; they
allege also his connexion with (Gallus, and press the emperor to summon a general
Council for the settlement of the Theological question. The Aetian interest with
Eusebius, the powerful Eunuch, divides the intended council, but notwithstanding,
the Aetians are defeated at Seleucia, A. D. 359, and, dissolving the council,
hasten to Constantius, at Constantinople, to secure his protection against their
opponents. The Anti-Aetians (who are in fact the more respectable Semi-Arians,
see Arius)
follow, and charge their opponents with maintaining a Difference in Substance
(heteroousion) in the Trinity, producing a paper to that effect. A new schism
ensues among the Aetians, and Aetius is abandoned by his friends (called Eusebians
or Acacians, see Arius)
and banished, after protesting against his companions, who, holding the same principle
with himself (viz. that the Son was a creature, ktisma), refused to acknowledge
the necessary inference (viz. that He is of unlike substance to the Father, anomoion).
His late friends would not let him remain at Mopsuuestia, where he was kindly
received by Auxentius, the Bishop there : Acacins procures his banishment to Amblada
in Pisidia, where he composed his 300 blasphemies, captious inferences from the
symbol of his irreligion, viz. that Ingenerateness (agennesia) is the essence
(ousia) of Deity; which are refuted (those at least which St. Epiphanius had seen)
in S. Ep. adv. Haer. 76. He there calls his opponents Chronites, i.e. Temporals,
with an apparent allusion to their courtly obsequiousness.
On Constantius's death, Julian recalled the various exiled bishops,
as well as Aetius, whom he invited to his court, giving him, too, a farm in Lesbos.
Euzoius, heretical Bishop of Antioch, took off the ecclesiastical condemnation
front Aetius, and he was made Bishop at Constantinople. He spreads his heresy
by fixing a bishop of his own irreligion at Constantinople and by missionaries,
till the death of Jovin, A. D. 364. Valens, however, took part with Eudoxius,
the Acacian Bishop of Constantinople, and Aetius retired to Lesbos, where he narrowly
escaped death at the hands of the governor, placed there by Procopius in his revolt
against Valens, A. D. 365, 366. Again he took refuge in Constantinople, but was
driven thence by his former friends. In vain he applied for protection to Eudoxius,
now at Marcianople with Valens; and in A. D. 367 he died, it seems, at Constantinople,
unpitied by any but the equally irreligious Eunomius, who buried him. (Phil. ix.
6.) The doctrinal errors of Aetius are stated historically in the article on Arius.
From the Manichees he seems to have learned his licentious morals, which appeared
in the most shocking Solifianism, and which he grounded on a Gnostic interpretation
of St. John, xvii. 3. He denied, like most other heretics, the necessity of fasting
and self-mortification. At some time or other he was a disciple of Eusebius of
Sebaste. Socrates speaks of several letters from him to Constantine and others.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Sep 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
d.c. 100, feastday: March 1
d. 4th century, feastday: September 2
d.c. 550, feastday: April 11
b. 340, d. 430, feastday: January 24
d.c. 390, feastday: October 21
d.c. 415, feastday: December 4
d. 473, feastday: February 14
Isaacus. Surnamed SYRUS, lived in the middle of the sixth century, and was bishop of Niniveh, but abdicated and retired to a convent, of which he was afterwards chosen abbot. After having lived several years in that convent he went to Italy and died near Spoleto. It is probable that he is the author of the work De Contemtu Mundi, which is mentioned in the preceding article. He also wrote 87 Sermones Ascetici, which some attribute to the preceding Isaac, and which are extant in MS. in Greek, in the imperial library at Vienna. Some Homilies of this Isaac are extant in MS. in the Bodleian and other libraries. It is probable that Isaac wrote originally in Syriac. (Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. i. p. 519-520; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. xi. p. 215, &c.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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