OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Pope Sergius IV

From volume 13 of the work.
Date of birth unknown; consecrated about 31 July, 1009; d. 12 May, 1012. Peter Pig's Snout (Bucca Porci) was the son of Peter the shoemaker, of the ninth region of Rome (Pina), and before he became Sergius IV had been bishop of Albano (1004-9). He checked the power of the Patricius, John Crescentius, who dominated Rome by strengthening the party in favour of the Germans. Little is known of the doings of Sergius except that by grants of privilege, the papyrus originals of some of which still exist, he exempted several monasteries from episcopal jurisdiction. Though his own temporal power was small, various nobles placed their lands under his protection. He showed himself a great friend of the poor in a time of famine, and was buried in the Lateran Basilica.
Liber Pontificalis, II, 267; Letters, Privileges of Sergius, in P.L., CXXXIX; MANN, Lives of the Popes in the early Middle Ages, V (St. Louis, 1910), 142 sq.
    Horace Mann.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Pope Sisinnius

From volume 14 of the work.
Date of birth unknown; died 4 February, 708, Successor of John VII, he was consecrated probably 15 January, 708, and died after a brief pontificate of about three weeks; he was buried in St. Peter's. He was a Syrian by birth and the son of one John. Although he was so afflicted with gout that he was unable even to feed himself, he is nevertheless said to have been a man of strong character, and to have been able to take thought for the good of the city. He gave orders to prepare lime to repair the walls of Rome, and before he died consecrated a bishop for Corsica.
Liber Pontificalis, I, 338: MANN, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, I, pt. ii (St. Louis and London, 1902), 124.
Horace K. Mann.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Pope Severinus

From volume 13 of the work.
The date of his birth is not known. He was consecrated seemingly on 28 May, 640, and died 2 Aug., 640. Severinus, a Roman and the son of Abienus, was elected as usual on the third day after the death of his predecessor, and envoys were at once sent to Constantinople, to obtain the confirmation of his election (Oct., 638). But the emperor, instead of granting the confirmation, ordered Severinus to sign his Ecthesis, a Monothelite profession of faith. This the pope-elect refused to do, and the Exarch Isaac, in order to force him to compliance, plundered the Lateran Palace. All was in vain; Severinus stood firm. Meanwhile his envoys at Constantinople, though refusing to sign any heretical documents and deprecating violence in matters of faith, behaved with great tact, and finally secured the imperial confirmation. Hence, after a vacancy of over a year and seven months, the See of Peter was again filled, and its new occupant proceeded at once to declare that as in Christ there were two natures so also were there in Him two wills and two natural operations. During his brief reign he built the apse of old St. Peter's in which church he was buried.
Liber Pontificalis, ed. DUCHESNE, I (Paris, 1886), 328 sq.; the works of St. MAXIMUS, in P.G., XC, XCI; MANN, Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, I (London, 1906), 346 sqq.
Horace K. Mann.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Pope St. Adrian III

From volume 1 of the work.
​Adrian III, Saint, Pope, of Roman extraction, was elected in the beginning of the year 884, and died near Modena in the summer of the following year, while on his way to the diet summoned by Charles the Fat to determine the succession to the Empire. He was buried in the monastery of Nonantula, where his memory has ever since been held in local veneration. By decree of Pope Leo XIII the clergy of Rome and Modena celebrate his Mass and office ritu duplici on 7 September.
Liber Pontif. (ed. Duchesne), II, 225; Jaffé, Regesta RR. PP. (2d ed.), I. 426, 427, II, 705; Quattrini, Del cullo del papa Sant' Adriano III a Nonantola (Modena, 1889); Maini, Le più antiche memorie del culto a Sant' Adriano III papa (Modena, 1890); Civittà Cattolica (1890), VI. 575–577; Analecta Bolland., XIII, 61, 62; Watterich, Vitæ Rom. Pont., I. 650, 718; Artaud de Montor, Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs (tr. New York, 1867), I. 251.
James F. Loughlin.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Pope St. Adeodatus

From volume 1 of the work.
​Adeodatus (672–676), Saint, Pope, a monk of the Roman cloister of St. Erasmus on the Cœlian Hill. He was active in the perfection of monastic discipline and in the repression of the Monothelite heresy. Little else is known of him. Of his correspondence only the letters for the Abbeys of St. Peter of Canterbury and St. Martin of Tours have been preserved. He is sometimes called Adeodatus II, his predecessor, Deusdedit, being occasionally known as Adeodatus I.
Liber. Pont., ed. Duchesne, I, 346–347; Jaffe, Reg. RR. Pont., I. 237; Mansi, Coll. Conc., XI, 101.
Thomas J. Shahan.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Pope St. Agatho

From volume 1 of the work.
​Agatho, Saint, Pope, b. towards the end of the sixth century in Sicily; d. in Rome, 681. It is generally believed that Agatho was originally a Benedictine monk at St. Hermes in Palermo, and there is good authority that he was more than 100 years old when, in 678, he ascended the papal chair as successor to Pope Donus. Shortly after Agatho became Pope, St. Wilfred, Archbishop of York, who had been unjustly and uncanonically deposed from his see by Theodore of Canterbury, arrived at Rome to invoke the authority of the Holy See in his behalf. At a synod which Pope Agatho convoked in the Lateran to investigate the affair, Wilfred was restored to his see. The chief event of Agatho's pontificate is, however, the Sixth Œcumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 680, at which the papal legates presided and which practically ended the Monothelite heresy. Before the decrees of the council arrived in Rome for the approval of the pope, Agatho had died. He was buried in St. Peter's, 10 January, 681. Pope Agatho was remarkable for his affability and charity. On account of the many miracles he wrought he has been styled Thaumaturgus, or Wonderworker. His memory is celebrated by the Latin as well as the Greek church.
Mann, Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1902); Butler, Lives of the Saints (London, 1877); Montalembert, The Monks of the West (Boston), II, 383 sqq; Moberly in Dict. of Christ. Biogr. (London, 1877); Lobkowitz, Statistik der Pāpste (Freiburg and St. Louis, 1905).
Michael Ott.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agustín Quintana

From volume 12 of the work.
Missionary and Indian philologist, born at Antequera, the capital of Oaxaca, Mexico, about 1660; died at Oaxaca, 1734. He entered the Order of Preachers in that city in 1688, and was soon thereafter sent as missionary priest to the Mixe Indians of southern Oaxaca, among whom he laboured for twenty-eight years, mastering their difficult language to a degree never attained by any other white man. He was then appointed superior of the convent of Zacavila, but on account of broken health was soon afterward retired to the main convent at Antequera, where he devoted the rest of his life to writings in the Mixe language. This being the earliest publication in that language, in spite of age and infirmity, he made several journeys to Puebla, to supervise the making of several types. His most important work was a grammar and a series of articles on the principal articles of the Faith, under the title, "Institución cristiana, que contiene el Arte de la Lengua Mije etc." (Puebla, 1729). (See also MIXE INDIANS.)
JAMES MOONEY
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agostino Steffani

From volume 14 of the work.
A titular Bishop of Spiga, diplomatist and musician, born at Castelfranco in the Province of Treviso, in 1655; died at Frankfort in 1728 or 1730.
At the age of twelve he was brought to Munich by Count Tattenbach, who had heard him singing at St. Mark's in Venice. At the Court of the Elector of Bavaria, where he remained for twenty-one years, he soon obtained the position of court and chamber musician, and afterwards that of director and court organist. In 1673 he went for one year to Rome in order to perfect himself in his art. In 1688 he left Munich, and was attached as musician to the Court of Hanover, where resided the famous philosopher Leibniz with whom he was on intimate terms. Ten years later, in 1698, he took up his residence at the Court of the Elector Palatine, at Düsseldorf. His compositions may be ranged in three classes:
In later years, when his high position did not allow him to appear as composer of operas, his secretary and copyist Gregorio Piva signed these compositions for him. In 1695 he published a pamphlet, "Sui Principii della Musica", in which is shown how music is grounded on nature and science.
But this remarkable man is not only famous for his musical talents. Being ordained priest, probably about 1680, the Holy See made him Prothonotary Apostolic for North Germany, and in recognition of his services for the cause of Catholicism in Hanover, the Holy Father appointed him Bishop of Spiga (the ancient Cyzicus), in Asia Minor. When in 1712 a new church had been built at Brunswick by the Duke Anton Ulrich who had become a Catholic, the pope sent Bishop Steffani, "Vicario Apostolico delle Missioni Settentrionali," to perform the consecration and opening service of the new building. But if he was held in such esteem by the ecclesiastical authorities, he was also the confidant and ambassador of temporal princes. A delicate mission was entrusted to him at the various German courts in 1696, and in 1698 at the court in Brussels, for which office he was singularly fitted by his gentle and prudent manners. His merits as a musician were solemnly recognized in London by the Academy of Ancient Music electing him its honorary president for life (1724).
HAWKINS, Biography, as introduction to the Duets; PIEMANN, Musik-Lexikon (Leipzig); CUSINS in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (New York, 1908), s. v.
A. Walter.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agram

From volume 1 of the work.
​Agram (Zagrabia), also Zagrab, archiepiscopal see of the ancient kingdom of Croatia, in Austria, founded towards the end of the eleventh century as a suffragan of Kalocsa in Hungary, and made an archdiocese in 1852. Its Latin Catholic population is 1,319,367; there are 1,877 Greek Catholics, 118,304 Greek Schismatics, 9,573 Protestants, and 11,929 Jews, besides a few Mohommedans. Agram has 348 parishes, served by 615 secular and 66 regular priests. The episcopal city (20,000) is pleasantly located in a broad plain, near the Save, and is surrounded to the north and west by vine-clad hills. The castle-like residence of the archbishop and the medieval Gothic cathedral, with its sacristy (itself a church), are remarkable monuments. There are three suffragan sees: Bosnia-Syrmia (with residence at Djakovár), Senj (Zengg, Segnia), and Kriźevac (Koros, Kriz, Kreutz). The vernacular of the people is the Croatian tongue. Agram possesses a university for the southern Slavs, opened in 1874, owing chiefly to the endeavours and sacrifices of Bishop Strossmayer of Djakovár. There are also an archiepiscopal seminary and a college for boys, besides a Greek Catholic seminary and gymnasium. Among the ecclesiastical institutes of Agram is the "Piarum summarum præfectura", a fund of about one million dollars (1882), the interest of which is devoted to the support of establishments of charity and beneficence.
Nehfe, in Kirchenlex., I, 347; Battandier, Ana. Pont. Cath. (Paris, 1905), 300; Werner, Orbis Terr. Cath. (Freiburg, 1800), 90; Kerselich, Hist. Eccl. Zagrab (ibid., 1773); Farlati Illyricum Sacrum, V, 330.
Thomas J. Shahan.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agrippinus

From volume 1 of the work.
​Agrippinus, Bishop of Carthage at the close of the second and beginning of the third century. During his episcopacy the question arose in the African Church as to what should be done with regard to converts from schism or heresy. If they had previously been Catholics, ecclesiastical discipline held them subject to penance. But if it were a question of receiving those who had been baptized outside the Church, was their baptism to be regarded as valid? Agrippinus convoked the bishops of Numidia and Africa for the First Council of Africa (probably 215–217); which resolved the question negatively. He consequently decided that such persons should be baptized, not conditionally but absolutely. Heretics, it was argued, have not the true faith; they cannot absolve from sin; the water in their baptism cannot cleanse from sin. These reasons seemed to him to warrant the conclusion arrived at, but it was not the Roman usage. The point, however, had not yet been raised and definitely settled. But assuming their good faith, Agrippinus and the others were not excluded from the unity of the Church. Half a century later, St. Cyprian speaks of the continuous good repute of Agrippinus (bonæ memoriæ vir); and St. Augustine in writing against the Donatists defends Agrippinus and Cyprian by showing that, although they were mistaken, they had not broken the unity of the Church.
Bareille in Dict. de théol cath., I, 637, 638; Benson in Dict. Christ. Biog., I, 65; Hefele, Conciliengesch., 2d ed., I, 104–125.
John J. a'Becket.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agostino Steuco

From volume 14 of the work.
(STEUCHUS)
Steuco, Agostino, exegete, born at Gubbio, Umbria, 1496; died at Venice, 1549. At the age of seventeen he entered the order of the Canons Regular of the Lateran at Gubbio, and in 1525 he was made director of the library of Cardinal Grimani at Venice. In 1530 he became prior of the canons of Reggio and shortly after at Gubbio. Early in 1538 he was appointed Bishop of Kisamos in Crete by Paul III, who also made him director of the Vatican Library on 27 Oct. of the same year, but in the latter capacity Steuco did not accomplish much (Pastor, "Geschichte Pauls III," Freiburg, 1909, p. 738). In 1547 Paul III sent him as legate to the Tridentine Council,, which had been transferred to Bologna, and he died on his way back to Rome. He was a man of varied talents, well versed in history, philosophy, and theology, and had a fair mastery of Greek and Hebrew. His works, chiefly exegetical, were edited in three volumes by Ambrogio Morando (Paris, 1578; Venice, 1591 and 1601).
TIRABOSCHI, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, VII, I, 396-400; WILLMANN, Gesch. des Idealismus, III (Brunswick, 1897), 170-77; HURTER, Nomenclator.
MICHAEL OTT
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agria

From volume 1 of the work.
​Agria (Erlau, Eger, Jager), an archiepiseopal see of Hungary, founded in 1009, and made an archdiocese in 1804, by Pius VII. It has 633,804 Latin Catholics; 81,217 Greek Catholics, and 503,107 partly Greek Schismatics and partly Protestants, with a sprinkling of Jews. The parishes number 200, and there are 342 secular clergy, and 51 religious. The vernacular tongue is largely Hungarian and German, but Croat, Slavonic, and Armenian are also spoken. The suffragan dioceses are Kosice (Kassa, Kaschau), Rozsnyò (Rosenau), Szathmàr, and Szepes (Zipo, Zipsen).
Battandier, Ann. pont. cath. (Paris, 1905), 240; Werner Orbis Terr. Cath. (Freiburg, 1890), 95.
Thomas J. Shahan.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Ahicam

From volume 1 of the work.
​Ahicam (אחיכם: "My brother has risen"), a high court official under Josias and his two sons, who protected Jeremias from the fury of the populace. He was the son of Saphan, "the scribe", and father of Godolias, later governor of the country ​under Nabuchodonosor (see IV Kings, xxii, 12; Jer., xxvi, 24; xl, 5).
F. Bechtel.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/John of Genoa

From volume 8 of the work.
(Often called Balbi, or de Balbis.)
Grammarian; born at Genoa, date unknown; died there about 1298. Of his early life and education nothing is known. He distributed his wealth among the poor of the city, and entered the Order of St. Dominic, apparently at a somewhat advanced age. His noted work, the "Summa Grammaticalis", more commonly known as the "Catholicon", has made his name widely celebrated. The work comprises treatises on orthography, etymology, grammar, prosody, rhetoric, and an etymological dictionary of the Latin language (primae, mediae et infimae Latinitatis). The great number of manuscripts in which the "Catholicon" still exists, and the numerous editions through which it passed during the first seventy-five years after the invention of printing, attest the wide acceptance accorded it and the popularity it long enjoyed. For more than a century it was highly esteemed as a textbook. It has been the subject at once of excessive criticism and excessive praise. Erasmus, the most conspicuous of its critics, speaks of it in caustic terms in his "De Ratione Studiorum" and "Colloquia". Leander Alberti ("Viri Illustres Ord. Praed." and "Discrittione di tutta Italia") defends it against the aspersions of the humanist. If we bear in mind the materials the author had at his disposal, the purpose of the work, and the needs of the time, it must be conceded that the "Catholicon" possessed considerable merit. That it met the demands of the age is attested by its popularity. The author by his own assertion refuted those who would have made him an adept in Greek. Besides the "Catholicon", he wrote "Liber Theologiae qui vocatur Dialogus de Quaestionibus Animae ad Spiritum" and "Quoddam opus ad inveniendum festa mobilia". A "Postilla super Joannem" and a "Tractatus de Omnipotentia Dei" are also attributed to John of Genoa.
Quétif-Echard, SS. Ord. Praed., I (Paris, 1719), 462; Nouvelle bibliographie générale, s. v.
Victor F. O'Daniel.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/John of Paris

From volume 8 of the work.
(Called also Quidort and de Soardis).
Theologian and controversialist; born at Paris, date unknown; died at Bordeaux, 22 September, 1306. Having obtained the degree of Master of Arts with distinction, he joined the Dominican Order, when about twenty years of age, at the convent of St. James in his native city. There he taught philosophy and theology, and obtained the degree of Master of Theology. He was endowed with great ability, was the most subtle dialectician of the age, possessed great literary and linguistic attainments, and was considered one of the best theologians of the university. Some ten of his works on theology, physics, and metaphysics, still exist in manuscript; two others, "De Antichristo" and "De modo existendi corporis Christi in sacramento altaris", appeared in print centuries after his death. A treatise, "Contra corruptorem Sancti Thomae", published in 1516 under the name of Aegidius Romanus, is commonly attributed to John of Paris; it was certainly not written by Aegidius. All these show vast erudition. In his work on the temporal and spiritual power, "De potestate regia et papali", written during the controversy between Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair, he favours the king, and advances some untenable propositions. He holds, for instance, that the pope, for grave crimes, e.g. heresy, may be deposed. The treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, in which he maintained that the Body of Christ is, or might be, present by assumption (I. e. by the body of Christ assuming the bread and wine), and that the doctrine of transubstantiation was not of faith, brought him into trouble. The faculty of the university reported the error to William of Baufet, Bishop of Paris, who forbade him under penalty of excommunication to defend such a doctrine, and deprived him of the offices of lecturing, preaching, and hearing confessions. John appealed to the Holy See, but died soon after, and the case was dropped. In justice to him, it must be said that he advanced these propositions tentatively; for in the beginning of the treatise he writes that he believes in the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, and if it is shown that transubstantiation is of faith, or should it be defined, he will willingly retract.
Quétif and Echard, Scriptures Ord. Præd., I (Paris, 1719), 500; Natalis Alexander, Hist. Eccl., VII (Paris, 1714), 149; Hurter, Nomenclator, II (3rd ed.), 477-9.
Victor F. O'Daniel.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/John of Nikiû

From volume 8 of the work.
An Egyptian chronicler who flourished in the latter part of the seventh century. The little we know of his life is gathered from the "History of the Patriarchs" by Severus of Ashmunein. He lived under John of Semnud, Isaac, and Simeon, respectively fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second patriarchs, and seems to have played an important part in the affairs of the Egyptian Church both as Bishop of Nikiû (Coptic, Pshati in the Delta) and as general administrator of the monasteries of Egypt. But having disciplined a monk guilty of a grave offense against morals so severely that he died ten days later, he was deposed from both offices by the patriarch Simeon, and reduced to the rank of a simple monk. His "Chronicle", composed very likely before his deposition, is a work of no mean value, extending from Adam to the end of the Arabic conquest. In many respects it does not materially differ from the Byzantine chronicles, which the author often copies, especially those of John Malalas, and the monk John of Antioch. But it has preserved some local traditions, not to be found elsewhere, on the ancient history of Egypt, also some details otherwise unknown, and apparently authentic, on certain periods of Eastern Empire, in particular on the revolution which brought about the fall of Phocas and the accession of Herclius I, and the condition of Egypt during the seventh century. The last chapters contain a relation of the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs, but little posterior to the events.
This chronicle was originally written in Greek, with the exception of some of the chapters concerning Egypt, which were very probably written in Coptic. It has come down to us in an Ethiopic version made in 1602 by an Abyssinian scholar, with the assistance of an Egyptian monk on a much older Arabic text non lost like the original. The text, unfortunately, has suffered much at the hands of the translators and copyists, especially in passing into Arabic. Such as it is, it has been the subject of a careful study and analysis by H. Zotenberg, in the "Journal Asiatique", 7th series, vols. X, XII, XIII (Paris, 1877-79), "La Chronique de Jean de Nikioû, notice et extraits" (also in book form, Paris, 1879); later it was published in its entirety, with a French version, by the same scholar; "La Chronique de Jean de Nikioû" (Paris, 1883), in "Notices et Extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale", t. XXIV, I, pp. 125-605) (also separately, Paris, 1883).
The two above-named publications of ZOTENBERG; cf. the reviews of NOLDEKE, Gittlinger gelehrte Anzeigen (Gottingen, 1881), 587- 594; DROUIN, Le Museon, III (Louvain, 1884), 235-268.
H. HYVERNAT