OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agathias

From volume 1 of the work.
​Agathias, a Byzantine historian and man of letters, b. at Myrina in Asia Minor about 536; d. at Constantinople 582 (594?). He is a principal authority for the reign of Justinian (527–65), and is often quoted by ecclesiastical historians. He was probably educated at Constantinople, spent some time at Alexandria, and returned to the royal city in 554, where he took up the profession of law and became a successful pleader at the bar. His tastes, however, were literary, and he soon produced nine books of erotic poetry (Daphniaca), also epigrams and sonnets, many of which are preserved in the so-called Palatine Anthology. He wrote also marginal notes on the Periegetes of Pausanias. He is the last in whom we can yet trace some sparks of the poetic fire of the classic epigrammatists. At the age of thirty he turned to the writing of history and composed a work in five books "On the Reign of Justinian." It deals with the events of 552–558, and depicts the wars with the Goths, Vandals, and Franks, as well as those against the Persians and the Huns. He is the continuator of Procopius, whom he imitates in form and also in the abundance of attractive episodes. Agathias, it has been said, is a poet and a rhetorician, while Procopius is a soldier and a statesman. The former loves to give free play to his imagination, and his pages abound in philosophic reflection. He is able and reliable, though he gathered his information from eye- witnesses, and not, as Procopius, in the exercise of high military and political offices. He delights in depicting the manners, customs, and religion of the foreign peoples of whom he writes; the great disturbances of his time, earthquakes, plagues, famines, attract his attention, and he does not fail to insert "many incidental notices of cities, forts, and rivers, philosophers, and subordinate commanders." Many of his facts are not to be found elsewhere, and he has always been looked on as a valuable authority for the period he describes. There are reasons for doubting that he was a Christian, though it seems improbable that he could have been at that late date a genuine pagan. Dr. Milligan thinks (Dict. of Chr. Biogr. I, 59) that "he had gained from Christianity those just notions of God and religion to which he often gives expression, but that he had not embraced its more peculiar truths." His history was edited by B. G. Niebuhr for the "Corpus SS. Byzant." (Bonn, 1828; P.G., LXXXVIII, 1248–1608), and is also in Dindorf, "Hist. Græci minores" (1871), II, 132–453.
Krumbacher, Gesch. d. byzant. Litt. I, 240–242; Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire (London, 1889), II, 179–81.
Thomas J. Shahan.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Age of Reason

From volume 1 of the work.
​Age of Reason, the name given to that period of human life at which persons are deemed to begin to be morally responsible. This, as a rule, happens at the age of seven, or thereabouts, though the use of reason requisite for moral discernment may come before, or may be delayed until notably after, that time. At this age Christians come under the operation of ecclesiastical laws, such as the precept of assistance at Mass on Sundays and holydays, abstinence from meat on certain days, and annual confessions, should they have incurred mortal sin. The obligation of Easter Communion literally understood applies to all who have reached "the years of discretion"; but according to the practical interpretation of the Church it is not regarded as binding children just as soon as they are seven years old. At the age of reason a person is juridically considered eligible to act as witness to a marriage, as sponsor at baptism or confirmation, and as a party to the formal contract of betrothal; at this age one is considered capable of receiving extreme unction, of being promoted to first tonsure and minor orders, of being the incumbent of a simple benefice (beneficium simplex) if the founder of it should have so provided; and, lastly, is held liable to ecclesiastical censures. In the present discipline, however, persons do not incur these penalties until they reach the age of puberty, unless explicitly included in the decree imposing them. The only censure surely applicable to persons of this age is for the violation of the clausura of nuns, while that for the maltreatment, suadente diabolo, of clerics is probably so.
Ferraris. Bibliotheca prompta jur. can. s.v. 'Ætas, (Rome, 1844); Wernz, Jus Decretalium (Rome, 1899).
Joseph F. Delany.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agents of Roman Congregations

From volume 1 of the work.
​Agents of Roman Congregations, persons whose business it is to look after the affairs of their patrons at the Roman Curia. The name is derived from the Latin Agens in Rebus, corresponding to the Greek Apocrisiarius. We first meet these agents for ecclesiastical matters not at the court of Rome, but at the imperial palace of Constantinople. Owing to the close connection between Church and State under the early Christian emperors and the absence of canons concerning many matters of mixed jurisdiction, the principal bishops found it necessary to maintain agents to look after their interests at the imperial court. Until the French Revolution, the prelates of France maintained similar agents at the royal court of St. Denis. (See Assemblies of French Clergy.) At present the agents of the Roman Congregations are employed by bishops or private persons to transact their affairs in the pontifical courts. Such an agency is undertaken temporarily or perpetually. The principal business of the agents is to urge the expedition of the cases of their patrons. They undertake both judicial and extrajudicial business. If it is a question of favors, such as dispensations or increased faculties, these agents prepare the proper supplications and call repeatedly on the officials of the proper congregation until an answer is obtained. They expend whatever money is necessary to pay for the legal documents or to advance in general the affairs of those who employ them. These agents have a recognized position in the Roman Curia, and rank next in dignity before the notaries. The money they expend and the pay they receive depend entirely on the will of their employers. Some authors include under this name the solicitors and expeditioners of the Roman Curia, whose business it is to assist the procurators in the mechanical details of the preparation of cases for the congregational tribunals. Usually, however, these functionaries are considered as distinct from agents and as outranking them in dignity.
Baart, The Roman Court (New York, 1895); Humphrey, Urbs et Orbis (London, 1899); Migne, Dict. de droit canon. (Paris, 1846), I; Wernz, Jus Decretalium (Rome, 1899), II.
William H. W. Fanning.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agapetæ

From volume 1 of the work.
​Agapetæ (ἀγαπηταί, beloved). In the first century of the Christian era, the Agapetæ were virgins who consecrated themselves to God with a vow of chastity and associated with laymen. In the beginning this community of spiritual life and mutual support, which was based on St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (ix, 5), was holy and edifying. But later it resulted in abuses and scandals, so that councils of the fourth century forbade it. The origin of this association was very probably that these virgins, who did not live in community, required laymen to look after their material interests, and they naturally chose those who, like themselves, had taken a vow of chastity. St. Jerome asked indignantly (Ep., xxii, ad Eustochium) after it had degenerated, Unde in ecclesias Agapetarum pestis introiit? A letter of St. Cyprian shows that abuses of this kind developed in Africa and in the East (Ep., iv., Ed. Hartel). The Council of Ancyra, in 314, forbade virgins consecrated to God to live thus with men as sisters. This did not correct the practice entirely, for St. Jerome arraigns Syrian monks for living in cities with Christian virgins. The Agapetæ are sometimes confounded with the subintroductæ, or woman who lived with clerics without marriage, a class against which the third canon of the Council of Nice (325) was directed. The word Agapetæ was also the name of a branch of the Gnostics in 395, whose tenet was that the relations of the sexes were purified of impropriety if the mind was pure. They taught that one should perjure himself rather than reveal the secrets of his sect.
Hemmer in Dict. de théol. cath. s.v.; and in Giraud, Bibl. Sac., I, 207–208; Achelis, Virgines Subintroductæ (Leipzig, 1902).
John J. a'Becket.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Agnetz

From volume 1 of the work.
​Agnetz (Latin, agnus, lamb), the Slavonic word for the square portion of bread cut from the first loaf in the preparation (proskomide) for Mass according to the Greek rite. The word is used both in the Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches of the United States, as well as in Europe.
Andrew J. Shipman.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Atahuallpa

From volume 2 of the work.
Properly ATAU-HUALLPA (etymology usually given as from huallpa, the name of some indigenous bird).
Son of the Inca war chief Huayna Capac and an Indian woman from Quito hence (descent being in the female line) not an Inca, but an Indian of Ecuador. The protracted wars, during which the Incas overpowered the Ecuadorian tribes, having brought about the permanent lodgment of Inca war parties in Ecuador, led to interformation of a new tribe and the descendants of Inca men with women and children from Quito. Collisions ensued between this tribe and the descendants of Inca women, and the strife, Atau-huallpa figured as the leader of the former, whilst the latter recognized Huascar, duly elected war chief at Cuzco. Atau-huallpa acted with great cruelty, nearly exterminating such Ecuadorian tribes as resisted. He finally prevailed, and sent his warriors southward along the backbone of the mountains, against Cuzco. When Pizarro landed at Tumbez (northern Peruvian coast) in 1532, the Quito people had already overthrown the Inca tribe at Cuzco, taken the settlement, and committed the most horrible cruelties, chiefly against the keepers of ancient traditions whom they attempted to exterminate, so as to wipe out the remembrance of the past of Cuzco and begin a new era. Atau-huallpa himself remained with a numerous war party at Caxamarca. There he awaited the whites, whom he despised. The Spaniards found Caxamarca deserted, and the warriors of Atau-hauallpa camping three miles from the place. Pizarro recognized that a trap had been set for him, and prepared for the worst.
On the evening of the 16th of November, 1532, Atau-hauallpa entered the squared of Caxamarca with a great retinue of men carrying their weapons concealed. They packed the court densely. Pizarro had placed on the roof of the building his artillery (two pedereros) that could not be pointed except horizontally. When the Indians thronged into the square, a Dominican friar, Fray Vicente Valverde, was sent by Pizarro to inform Atau-huallpa, through an interpreter, of the motives of the Spaniards' appearance in the country. This embassy was received with scorn, and the friar, seeing the Indians ready to begin hostilities, warned Pizarro. His action has been unjustly criticized; Valverde did what was his imperative duty under the circumstances. Then, not waiting for the Indians to attack the Spaniards to the offensive. The sound of cannon and musketry, and the sight of the horses frightened the Indians so that they fled in dismay, leaving Atau-huallpa a prisoner in the hands of Pizarro, who treated him with proper regard. The stories of a terrible slaughter of the Indians are inordinate exaggerations. While a prisoner, Atau-huallpa caused the greater portion of the gold and silver at Cuzco to be turned over to the Spaniards and having them massacred. When this was discovered Pizarro had him executed, on the 9th of August, 1633. The execution was no unjustifiable. Atau-huallpa, at the time of his death, was about thirty years of age.
AD. F. BANDELIER
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Delegation Apostolic of Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, and Armenia

From volume 10 of the work.
Created by Gregory XVI on 17 Dec., 1832. Mgr. Trioche, Archbishop of Babylon or Bagdad, became its first titular; he resided habitually in Bagdad. Resigning in 1850; Mgr. Trioche returned to France, retaining his title of Archbishop of Bagdad, but losing that of Apostolic delegate which passed to other bishops. These, while having charge of the administration of the Archdiocese of Bagdad, resided at Mosul, where they could better discharge their duties as Apostolic delegates in behalf of the Chaldeans, Syrians, and Armenians. Four out of six, from 1850 to 1887, were Dominicans. When Mgr. Trioche died in France 27 Nov., 1887, the delegate Apostolic, Mgr Altmayer, received the title of Archbishop of Babylon or Bagdad, but continued to reside at Mossul. In 1902 he resigned and was replaced in the See of Bagdad by a Carmelite, Mgr. Drure, who on 5 March, 1904, received the title of delegate Apostolic of Mesopotamia and still bears it. He usually resides at Mossul. The Delegation Apostolic of Mesopotamia has almost the same boundaries as the Archdiocese of Bagdad, but comprises part of the mission of Greater Armenia and the Nestorians of Turkish Kurdistan, which mission is confided to the Dominicans of Mossul. (See Bagdad; Mossul.)
PIOLET, Les Missions, I (Paris, 1900), 236-44.
S. Vailhé
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Delcus

From volume 4 of the work.
A titular see of Thrace, suffragan of Philippopolis. The Greek name of the place was Delkos or Delkoi, later Derkos or Derkoi; the latter forms have prevailed. The Turkish and common name is Derkos. It is now a little village south-west of Kara Bournou, a promontory on the Black Sea, and on the southern bank of Lake Derkos, the waters of which are brought to Constantinople by an aqueduct. There are about 300 inhabitants. The see, though some have connected its origin with the preaching of St. Andrew, is not mentioned before the eighth century; however a rather obscure record of Balsamon (P. G., CXXXVII. 548) permits the supposition that it was established shortly after the Trullan Council of 692; The first known bishop is Gregory, who attended the Second Council of Nicæa in 787. In the records of the councils under Photius are found the signatures of his partisan Neophytus and of Macarius, the partisan of St. Ignatius. About 840 the see stood twentieth among the autocephalous archbishoprics. Its archbishop, John, subscribed a synodal sentence in 997. Balsamon (P. G., CXXXVIII, 273) speaks of another prelate who sought permission to reside in the larger and richer city of Phileas. Another was reproached in the Holy Synod by the Patriarch Michael with having ordained a bishop native of Constantinople and before the canonical age (ibid., 213); he was perhaps the John who was present in 1166 at the council of Constantinople, known as "Pater major me est". One Gregory subscribed another council in 1193. In 1316 the see was given to the Archbishop of Nymphæum, who had been deprived of his own (Miklosich and Müller, "Acta et diplomata græca", I ,50). Luke was archbishop in 1329 (ibid., 98). In 1356 the see was per adjunctionem in the hands of the Metropolitan of Bizye (ibid., 355). In 1365 it had again an occupant, and its bishop in 1379 and 1381 was Paul; in 1389 Joseph was bishop (op. cit., II, 6, 39, and 129). In 1466 it was and probably had long been ruled directly by the Patriarch of Constantinople [Kambouroglous, Monuments for History of Athens (Gr.), II, 354]. It was not re-established until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the titular resided at Therapia on the Bosphorus. Delcus was made a metropolis in 1655. In October, 1746, it was raised to the eighth rank of the Greek hierarchy (Mansi, Col. concil., XXXVIII, 527). The diocese now includes 41 villages in the vicinity of Constantinople and along the shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora, among them San Stefano, Makri-Keui, and Beuyuk-Déré, with Catholic parishes conducted by Capuchins, Dominicans, and Minor Conventuals.
LEQUIEN, Oriens christianus, I, 1163; GEDEON, Engraved Stones and Bricks (Constantinople, 1893), 169-175; BAKALOPOULOS, Eastern Calendar for 1896 (Constantinople, 1895), 103-34; IDEM, Calendar of the National Philanthropic Establishments for 1906 (Constantinople, 1905), 145-58.
L. Petit.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Archdiocese of Belem do Pará

From volume 2 of the work.
In South America, formerly (after 4 March, 1719) a suffragan diocese of Bahia (San Salvador), but raised to metropolitan rank 3 May, 1906. The city of Belem is the capital of the Brazilian State of Pará, and is situated on the Bay of Guajara, in the richest rubber and coffee section of the Republic. Santa Maria de Nazareth do Pará, to give the city its full name, was founded in 1615, but has reached its present importance as one of the largest shipping ports of northern Brazil only during the last twenty years. Not only is it the most northerly port of any importance in South America, and as such the nearest to the great shipping centers of North America and Europe, but it is also the great outlet for the natural products of the State of Pará. It has a population of 100,000, an export trade of about $25,000,000, and an import trade of about $12,000,000 annually. The mean temperature is about 80° Fahrenheit.
Among the churches of this cathedral city is that of Santa Maria de Nazareth in the pretty suburb of Nazareth. The old convent and chapel of the Carmelite Order have been converted into a seminary, while the old Jesuit College is now occupied by the episcopal palace and another seminary. The city has all modern improvements, and what are considered of the best museum and botanical gardens in Brazil. The Amparo Orphan Asylum is ranked among the leading charitable institutions of the State and the city.
In 1903 the Praelatura Nullius of Santarem was made from the Diocese of Belem; and again, in 1904, a new delimitation of the same quasi-episcopal territory took place. The Catholic population of the Archdiocese of Belem is now about 480,000. There are about 500 Protestants. In this vast territory, which before the above-mentioned division included 1,176,100 square miles, the parishes are 77 in number with 29 filial churches. There are 47 secular, and 13 religious, priests, and 21 Brothers.
Gerarchia Cattolica (Rome, 1907); WERNER, Orbis Terr. Cath. (Freiburg, l890); SODRÉ, The State of Pará (London, 1893); BUREAU OF AMERICAN REPUBLICS, Handbook of Brazil (Washington, 1901); GROSSI, Storia della Colonizzazione Europea al Brasile (Rome, 1905).
Francisco J. Yanes.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/English Recusants

From volume 12 of the work.
The first statute in which the term "Popish Recusants" is used is 35 Eliz. c. 2, "An Act for restraining Popish Recusants to some certain place of abode", which was passed in 1593. The statute defines a recusant as one "Convicted for not repairing to some Church, Chapel, or usual place of Common Prayer to hear Divine Sevice there, but forbearing the same contrary to the tenor of the laws and statutes heretofore made and provided in that behalf". The Recusancy Acts are: 1 Eliz. c. 2, 23 Eliz. c. 1, 29 Eliz. c. 6, 35 Eliz. c. 2, 3 Jac. I. c. 5, 7 Jac. I. c. 6, and 3 Car. I. c. 2. But several statutes declare that other offenses shall be deemed acts of recusancy, and that those convicted of them shall be deemed "popish recusants convict".
As time went on there were other recusants who were not Catholics, but who for one reason or another refrained from attending the Church of England services. This fact must be remembered in dealing with the Recusancy lists, though, of course, far the larger number of recusants were Catholics. The number of recusants was very great, as may be seen by one instance adduced by J.S. Hansom in his preface to the list of convicted recusants in the reign of Charles II, where on one day (24 Feb., 1690) the names of 1755 recusants were presented in he single town of Thirsk. The recusancy laws were in force from the reign of Elizabeth to that of George III, though they were not always put into execution with equal vigour. Lists of recusants for various counties exist in the Pipe Rolls preserved in the Record Office, Longon. Others are to be found in the British Museum, Bodleian Library, and in various local archives.
EDWIN BURTON
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Enrique Henríquez

From volume 7 of the work.
Noted Jesuit theologian, b. at Oporto, 1536; d. at Tivoli, 28 January, 1608. At the age of sixteen, in 1552, he entered the Society of Jesus, and soon became celebrated for his philosophical and theological erudition. He taught both these branches at the Jesuit colleges of Cordova and Salamanca; in the latter place he numbered Suarez and Gregory of Valencia among his pupils. In 1593 he left the Society of Jesus and entered the Order of St. Dominic, but soon returned to his former companions. Father Alcazar (Hist. Prov. Tolet., I, 204) gives the following account of this incident. After Henríquez had printed in the preface of one of his theological works some passages not approved by the censors, Father Acquaviva ordered him to tear out the page containing these paragraphs. Henríquez felt so disturbed over this punishment that he obtained permission from the holy father to leave the society and enter the Dominican Order. It was Gregory of Valencia who advised him to return to his former associates. Father Henríquez is especially noted for two theological works: (1) The first part of his "Theologiæ Moralis Summa" was published at Salamanca in 1591, the second in 1593; the work appeared again at Venice, in 1597, and 1600; at Mentz, in 1613, under the title "Summa Theologiæ Moralis libri XV" etc. It was forbidden by decree of 7 Aug., 1603, donec corrigatur, because the author allowed confession (but not absolution) by way of letter, and held opinions too unfavorable to the rights of the Church. In the "Summa", Henríquez treats only of the end of man, of the sacraments, and of ecclesiastical censures and irregularities; but he manages to find an opportunity of declaring himself against Molina's scientia media; he defends the Dominican theory of physical predetermination, and of a predestination antecedent to the Divine foresight of our future merits. St. Alphonsus highly esteems the authority of Henríquez on moral questions, an opinion fully shared by Doujat in his "Prænot. canon.", V. xv. (2) Henríquez's second work is entitled "De pontificis romani clave, libri VI". It was published at Salamanca in 1593, but nearly all its copies were burnt by the Apostolic nuncio of Madrid on account of its allowing the king too much power over ecclesiastics. It is said that only three or four copies have been preserved among the rarities of the Escorial. The subjects treated by Henríquez in his second work are: the power and election of the Roman pontiff; the authority of the councils; the question of law. The rarity of Father Henríquez's second work is the reason why some biographers consider its treatises as part of his "Theolgiæ Moralis Summa".
Hurter, Nomenclator; Sommervogel, Bibl. de la C. de J., IV (Brussels and Paris, 1893), 275 sq.; Morgott in Kirchenlex., s. v.
A.J. MAAS