A circumstance which favoured the study of letters and philosophy was the accession to the throne about A.D. 750 of the Abassides, an enlightened line of Caliphs who encouraged learning, and patronized the representatives, chiefly Syrian and Persian, of foreign culture.

Arabia formerly belonged to the mission of Galla (Africa), but was made a separate prefecture Apostolic by Pius IX, 21 Jan., 1875.

In 246 and 247 two councils were held at Bostra in Arabia against Beryllus, Bishop of the see, and others who maintained with him that the soul perished and arose again with the body.

The cradle of Islam and, in all probability, the primitive home of the Semitic race.

An Italian diocese immediately subject to the Holy See.

Aquileia and certain of its suffragan sees had a special rite but they do not give any clear indication as to what this rite was.

A council held in 381, presided over by St. Valerian of Aquileia.

A former city of the Roman Empire, situated at the head of the Adriatic.

Jewish tentmakers, who left Rome in the Jewish persecution under Claudius, 49 or 50, and settled in Corinth.

An Italian archdiocese in the Abruzzi, directly dependent on the Holy See.

A name given to several sects in the early Church.

Held 14 May, 1365, in the cathedral of that city by the archbishops and bishops of the provinces of Arles, Embrun, and Aix, in the south of France.

A small or secondary apse, one of the apses on either side of the main apse in a triapsidal church, or one of the apse-chapels when they project on the exterior of the church.

A chapel radiating tangentially from one of the bays or divisions of the apse, and reached generally by a semicircular passageway, or ambulatory, exteriorly to the walls or piers of the apse.

The semicircular or polygonal termination to the choir or aisles of a church.

In theology, appropriation is used in speaking of the different Persons of the Trinity.

An act by which a bishop or other superior grants to an ecclesiastic the actual exercise of his ministry.

A tendency, an inclination, or direction.

The purpose of this article is to give a comprehensive view of the positive legislation of the Church on appeals belonging to the ecclesiastical forum; but it does not treat of the nature of the ecclesiastical forum itself nor of the rights of the Church and its supreme head, the pope, to receive appeals in ecclesiastical matters.

The object was to safeguard equally the rights both of the State and of the Church.

The official name given to an officer in ecclesiastical courts designated to serve the summons, to arrest a person accused, and, in ecclesiastico-civil procedure, to take possession, physically or formally, of the property in dispute.

Deification, the exaltation of men to the rank of gods.

The adherents of a heresy which sprang up in the third century and spread through the western and southern parts of Asia Minor.