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Alexander of Lycopolis
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[2183] Translated from Gallandi, Vet. Patr. Biblioth. The reverend translator is styled in the Edinburgh edition, “Curate of Ilminster, Somerset.”
[2184] Cf. Combef., Auctar. Noviss., part ii. p. 2; Cav., Dissert. de. Script. Eccl., incert. ætat. p. 2; Fabricius, Bibl. Gr., tom. v. p. 287; Montfaucon, Bibl. Coisl., p. 349, seqq.
[2185] Photius, Epist. de Manich., Bibliotheca Coisliniana, p. 354.
[2186] Epiph., Hær., lxviii. n. 1, lxix. n. 2; Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, tom. ii. p. 597.
[2187] Meletius of Lycopolis, a schismatical bishop of the third and fourth centuries. Athanasius tells us that Meletius, who was Bishop of Lycopolis in Upper Egypt at the time of the persecution under Diocletian and his successors, yielded to fear and sacrificed to idols: and being subsequently deposed, on this and other charges, in a Synod over which Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, presided, determined to separate from the Church, and to constitute with his followers a separate community. Epiphanius, on the other hand, relates that both Peter and Meletius, being in confinement for the faith, differed concerning the treatment to be used toward those who, after renouncing their Christian profession, became penitent, and wished to be restored to the communion of the Church. The Meletians afterwards co-operated with the Arians in their hostility to Athanasius.—See Art. Meletius, in Smith’s Biograph. Dict.—Tr.
[2188] διοικήσεις.
[2189] ἐπαρχίαι.
[2190] παροικία.
[2191] [More simply, the Church’s system naturally kept to the lines of the civil divisions. A diœcese was, in fact, a patriarchate; a province was presided over by a metropolitan; a parish was what we call a diocese. Before Constantine’s time these arrangements existed for convenience, but were not invested with worldly consequence. Neale adopts this twofold spelling (diœcese and diocese) in his Alexandra, vol. i. p. xiv.
[2192] Cf. Alex., De Manich. placit., cap. 2.
[2193] This treatise of Alexander was first published by Combefis, with a Latin version, in the Auctarium novissimum, Bibl. S. S. Patrum, Ps. ii. p. 3. It is published also by Gallandi, Bibl. Patrum, vol. iv. p. 73.
[2194] A treatise on their tenets by Alexander of Lycopolis, who first turned from paganism to the Manichæan opinions.
Chapter I.—The Excellence of the Christian Philosophy; The Origin of Heresies Amongst Christians.
[2195] [Note the practical character of Christian ethics, which he so justly contrasts with the ethical philosophy of the heathen. This has been finely pointed out by the truly illustrious William Wilberforce in his Practical View, cap. ii. (Latin note), p. 25, ed. London, 1815.]
[2196] ἐν τοῖς ἐριστικοῖς. The philosophers of the Megarean school, who were devoted to dialectics, were nicknamed οἱ ᾽Εριστικοί. See Diog. Lærtius.
[2197] Manes, or Manichæus, lived about a.d. 240. He was a Persian by birth, and this accounts for the Parseeism which can be detected in his teaching. He was probably ordained a priest, but was afterwards expelled from the Christian community, and put to death by the Persian government. His tenets spread considerably, and were in early youth embraced by St. Augustine. [See Confess., iii. 6.]
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