Nicetas Acominatls ('A/coyuii'droc), also Chonia- TES (so called probably from his native place, Chonte, the ancient Colossi), was a younger brother of Michael Aco- minatus. Both occupy a distinguished place among the Greek writers of the 12th century. Nicetas Choniates is eminent as a doctrinal and polemical writer, and also as a Byzantine historian. He was educated at Constan- tinople under his brother's .supervision, and, besides studying theology, applied himself especially to history and jurisprudence. Under Isaac Angelus he became imperial under-secretary (liTroypapfiard'c jSaaiXtKu^), then privy councillor, chief justice, and finally governor of the province of Philippopolis. In this position he had to endure many annoyances during the passage of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1189 ; and when the Latins took Constantinople in 1203, he was obliged to flee to Nice, where he died about 1206 or later. His Histor. Byzant. libri xxi embraces the period from 1118 to 1205 ; the fact that the author himself bore a part in many of the events he relates gives his work great his- torical value. The mode of quoting this historical work is thus : Nicetas, Isaac A ngelus, i, 3 ; Urhs Capita, c. i ; Andron. Comnen. ii, 5, etc. Editions: Ed. princeps, by H.Wolf, with a Latin version (Basle, 1557, fol.) ; reprint- ed, with an index and a chronology by Simon Goulartius (Geneva, 1.593, 4to), by Fabrot, with a most valuable glossarium Gra;co-barbarum, and a revised translation, notes, etc. (Paris, 1647, fol.), in the Paris collection of the Byzantines ; the same, badly reprinted, Venice, 1729, fol. The last edition is in the Bonn collection of the Byzantines, edited by J. Bckker (1835). A Greek MS. in the Bodleian, divided into two books, and giving an account of the conquest of Constantinople, with special regard to the statues destroyed by the Latins, is as- cribed to Nicetas, but it seems to have been altered by a later writer, who also made additions. The accoimt of the statues, which is of great interest, is given by Fabricius, quoted below, and critical investigations concerning this MS. are given b^' Harris in his Philological Inquiries (pt. iii, c. 5). The work itself has been published by Wilken, under the title of Niceta- Karratio de Statuis antiquis, quas Fi'anci, post captcan anno 1204 Const antinopolin destruxerunt (Lips. 1803). The result of his theological studies is embodied in his Qijaavpo^ opBoco^iaQ, written ostentatiously for the information of a friend, but evi- dently intended for circulation. Ullmann compares this work to the Panoplia of Euthymius, as both represent the state of dogmatic criticism, and of the kno^vledge of the history of dogmas at that time, but lie justly gives the first place to the work of Nicetas, as the latter shows an independence of views, a soundness of criti- cism, and a philosophical spirit which we do not find in Euthymius. The work of Nicetas commences with an exposition of the Jewish and Greek philosophy and mythology. Then he reviews the principal doctrines of the Church, taking as a basis the dogmatic traditions of the Greek fathers, yet not without expressing some personal views, especially in anthropology and psychol- ogy. Thus he divides spiritual activity in man into three functions— the I'oijaic, or the highest degree of contemplation ; oox'!, or the lowest degree of conception or thought; and hnrota, the connection between both, or reasonable thought. Nicetas counts six degrees in virtue: natural, moral, civil, purifying, contemplative (3'£(iip>jrtK»'/), and theurgical (B(ovpyiK))), i. e. such as brings us into a state of assimilation to God. These divisions resemble somewhat the psychological theory of the Latin mystics. With the fourth part Nicetas com- mences his polemics against the heretics, opening with Simon Magnus, and mentioning many previously ob-
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scure heresies and unknown heretics. The last parts treat of Islamisrn, the controversj^ with the Latin Church, and the inner dissensions in the Greek Church. The whole is as yet unpublished. The work in its com- plete form is in the royal library at Paris, and a frag- ment of it is preserved in tlie Bodleian. Only the first five parts have been translated into Latin by Petrus Morelhis (Paris, 1561, 1579; Geneva, 1629; Bihl. Patr. [Lugd.] XXV, 54) ; a fragment in Greek of the twentieth part, against the Agarenes, is to be fomid in the Si/lburf/i Saracenids (Heidelb. 1595), p. 74. A description of the contents of the work is given in Montfaucon, Pa- laorjr. Gr. p. 326, and Fabricius, Bihl. Gnec. vi, 429; but whether the complete work will ever appear is doubtful. Some minor productions of Nicetas, among which a fragment on the ceremonies observed when a Mohammedan adopted the Christian religion, are extant in diiferent libraries in Europe. See Ullmann, Die Dog- matik d. griech. Kircke im 12 Jahrh. (in Stud. u. Krit. 1833); EUissen, Michael Akominafos von Chome; Fa- bricius, Bibl. Grcec. vii, 737 sq. ; Neander, Ch. Hist, iv, 530, 533, 537 ; Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Rom, Biogr. ii, 1183. (J. H.W.)
Nicetas [or Nic(a)eus] of Dacia, an Eastern ecclesiastic, who was bishop of a city called by eccle- siastical writers Cicitas Romatiana or Remesianensis, situated in Mffisia, somewhere between Naissus and Sardia, flourished near the close of the 4th century. He visited Italy about this time, and while at Nola viewing the tomb of St. Felix made a warm friend of Paulinus (q. v.), who celebrated in a poem still extant the high talents and virtues of Nicetas, and the zeal with which this man of God labored in preaching the Gospel among the barbarians. A.D. 402 Nicetas paid a second visit to Nola, and it appears from an epistle of pope Innocent I (note xvii, ed. Constant.) that he was still living in A.D. 414, The time of his death is as uncertain as that of his birth. Considerable confusion has been oc- casioned by the mistake of Baronius, who supposed that Nicetas the Dorian, mentioned in the Roman martyr- ology under January 7th, was a different person from the Kieceus Romatinnce civitatis episcopus of Gennadius, and that the latter was the same with the Nicseas of Aqui- lea, to whom a letter was addressed by pope Leo the Great in A.D. 458 — a hypothesis which forced him to prove that Aquilea bore the name of Civitas Romatiana, But the researches of Holstein, Quesnel, and Tillemont have set the question at rest. Gennadius informs us that Nicetas composed in a plain but elegant style in- structions for those who were preparing for baptism, in six books, of which he gives the arguments, and also Ad Lapsam Virginem LibeUus, Of these the former is certainly lost, but we find among the works of St. Jerome (vol. xi, 178, ed. Vallarsi ; vol. v, ed. Bened.) a tract entitled Ohjurgatio ad Susannam Lapsam; and among the works of St. Ambrose (vol. ii, 311, ed. Bened.) the same piece under the name Tractafus ad Virginem Lapsam, although it can be proved b}' the most con- vincing arguments that neither of these divines could have been the author. Hence it was conjectured by Cotelerius that it might m reality belong to Nicetas, and his opinion has been very generally adopted, although the matter is involved in great doubt. See Gennadius, De Viris Illustr, 22; Schonemann, Bihlioth. Patmm Lat. vol. ii, § 17.— Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman Biog, and Mythol, ii, s. v.