RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Agenda Agnosticism
AGNELLUS, ag"nelTus (called also Andrew): The historian of the Church of Ravenna; b. in that city early in the ninth century [some authorities say in 805, of a rich and noble family]; the year of his death is unknown. He entered the clerical state very early, and became abbot of the monasteries of St. Mary ad Blachernas and St. Bartholomew, both in Ravenna. He was ordained priest by Archbishop Petronacius (817-835). His reputation for learning induced his brother clergy to ask him to write the history of the local church, and he began his Liber pontificalis Ecclesice Ravennatis before 838, and finished it after 846. It follows the model of the Roman Liber pontificalis, giving a series of biographies of the bishops of Ravenna, beginning with Apollinaris, said to have been a disciple of St. Peter and to have died as a martyr July 23, 75 (or 78), in whose memory the Basilica in Classe at Ravenna was dedicated in the year 549. The last bishop mentioned is George, whose death falls apparently in 846. The characteristics of the work are its strong tendency to the expression of local patriotism, and the interest which it shows in buildings, monuments, and other works of art. It is one of the earliest historical works to make an extensive use of architectural monuments as sources. Agnellus had little command of written documents; he availed himself of oral tradition wherever possible, and supplied its deficiencies by a well-meaning imagination.
(A. Hauck.)
Bibliography: His history, edited by O. Holder-Egger, is in MGH, Script, rer. Lang., 1878, pp. 265-391, also in the continuation to 1296 by an unknown writer and to 1410 by Paul Scordilli, in MPL, cvi. 429-840; A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der Litteratur des Mittelalters, ii. 374-377, Leipsic, 1880.
AGNES, SAINT: A saint commemorated in the Roman Church on Jan. 21 and 28 (the Gelasian Liturgy giving the former; the Gregorian, the latter date), and in the Greek Church on Jan. 14 and 21 and July 5. Since the oldest documents (the Calendarium Romanum, the Calendarium Africanum, and the Gothic and Oriental Missale) agree in fixing Jan. 21 as the day of her death, Bolland has rightly assigned to that day the acts of her martyrdom. The year of her death, according to Ruinart, was about 304. The cause and manner of her martyrdom are given in a very legendary manner by an undoubtedly spurious Passion in the older editions of the works of St. Ambrose, which states that, having made a vow of perpetual virginity while still a child, she successfully resisted the wooing of a noble youth, the son of Symphromus, the city prefect, and embellishes the narrative with many wonders. Her hair suddenly grew so long and thick as to serve for a cloak; a light from heaven struck her importunate lover lifeless to the ground; when she was bound to the stake the flames were extinguished in answer to her prayer. After she had been beheaded at the command of the prefect, and had been buried by her parents in their field on the Via Nomentana, outside of Home, she appeared to her people in glorified form with a little lamb at her side, and continued to perform miracieS) such as the healing of the princess tonstantia, for which, it is said, she was honored
under Constantine the Great by the erection of a basilica at her tomb (Sanf Agnese fuori le Mura). Evidence of the high antiquity of her worship is given by Ambrose in several of his genuine writings, by Jerome (Epist.,cxxx., ad Demetriadem), by Augustine, by the Christian poets Damasus and Prudentius, and by others.
In medieval art St. Agnes is usually represented with a lamb, which indicates her character as representative of youthful chastity and innocence, but may have been derived from her name, which is to be connected with the Greek hagne, " chaste " (cf. Augustine, Sermones, cclxxiii. 6). Two lambs are blessed every year on Jan. 21 in the Agnes basilica, mentioned above (one of the principal churches of Rome, after which one of the cardinal priests is called), and their wool is used to make the archiepiscopal pallia which are consecrated by the pope (see Pallium). O. ZocKLEst.
Bibliography: For life and legends: Ambrose, Vita gloriosa Virginia Agnetis, in folio 115 of his works, Milan, 1474; ASB, Jan., ii. 350-363; T. Ruinart, Acta Martyrum, Amsterdam, 1713, Ratisbon, 1859; A. Butler, Lives of the Saints, under Jan. 21, London, 1847; L. Santini, Leben der heiligen Agnes, Ratisbon, 1884; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Santa Agnese nella tradizione e nella leggenda, Rome, 1899. For representations in Christian art: H. Detzel, Christliche Ikonographie, vol. ii., Freiburg, 1896. For the Catacombs of St. Agnes: J. S. Northcote and W. C. Brownlow, Roma Sotterranea, London, 1879-80; M. Amellini, II Cimiterio di S. Agnese, Rome, 1880; W H. Withrow, Catacombs of Rome, London, 1888; V. Schultze, Archaologie der altchristlichen Kunst, Munich, 1895. For the mystery play of St. Agnes: Sancta Agnes, Provenzalisches geistliches Schauspiel, Berlin, 1869.
AGNOET-S5, ag"no-i'ti or -e'te (Gk. agnoetai, "ignorant"): 1. Name of a sect of the fourth century, a branch of the Eunomians (q.v.), who followed the lead of Theophronius of Cappadocia. They were so named because they limited the divine omniscience to the present, maintaining that God knew the past merely by memory, and the future by divination (Socrates, Hist, eccl., v. 24).
2. The name was borne also by the sect of the sixth century, founded by Themistius, a deacon of Alexandria, and sometimes called Themistians. They consisted chiefly of the Severian faction of the Monophysites, and maintained that, as the body of Christ was subject to natural conditions, so also his human soul must be thought of as not omniscient. In support of their view they quoted Mark xiii. 32 and John xi. 34. The heresy was revived by the Adoptionists in the eighth century.
AGNOSTICISM: A philologically objectionable and philosophically unnecessary but very convenient term, invented toward the end of the nineteenth century (1869) as a designation of the skeptical habit of mind then quite prevalent. It is denned in the Oxford Dictionary as the doctrine which holds that " the existence of anything beyond and behind natural phenomena is unknown, and (so far as can be judged) unknowable, and especially that a First Cause and an unseen world are subjects of which we know nothing." It is thus equivalent to the common philosophical term, skepticism, although expressing the phase of thought designated by both alike from the point of view of its outcome rather than of its method. Some have held, it is true, that the true agnostic is not
Agnosticism Agonizants