STANTINOPOLITAN CREED.
II. Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, iii. 441 sqq., Eng. transl., v. 342-400; C. W. F. Walch, Historie der Ketzereien, x. 419 sqq., 11 vols., Leipsic, 1762-85; Schaff, Church History, iv. 459-463; literature under Caroline Books; Images And Image Worship, II.
NICENO-CONSTANTINOPOLITAN CREED. See
Constantinopolitan Creed.
NICARAGUA. See Central America.
NICCOLLS, SAMUEL JACK: Presbyterian; b. at Greenfield Farm, Westmoreland Co., Pa., Aug. 3, 1838. He was graduated from Jefferson College (now Washington and Jefferson), Cannonsburg, Pa. (A.B., 1857), and Western Theological Seminary, Alleghany, Pa. (1860). He was then pastor of Falling Springs Presbyterian Church at Chambersburg, Pa. (1860-64), and since 1864 has been pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, Mo. He was also chaplain of the 126th Pennsylvania Volunteers in 1863, and a member of the committee on the revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1890 and 1900. He is likewise president of the board of directors of McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, and has written The Eastern Question in Prophecy (St. Louis, 1878). He is evangelical in belief and holds the Reformed theology.
NICENE CREED. See Constantinopolitan Creed.
NICEPHORUS: Celebrated Byzantine writer and patriarch of Constantinople; b. in Constantinople c. 758; d. at the monastery Tou Agathou June 2, 829. Of a strictly orthodox family, which had suffered from the earlier iconoclasm, he nevertheless entered the service of the State, became cabinet secretary, and under Irene took part in the synod of 787 as imperial commissioner. He then withdrew to a cloister that he had founded on the Propontis, until he was appointed director of the largest home for the destitute in Constantinople. After the death
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Nicsea Nicephorus
of Tarasius, although still a layman, he was chosen patriarch by the wish of the emperor (Easter, April 12, 806). The uncanonical choice met with opposition from the strictly clerical party of the Studites, and this opposition was intensified to an open break when Nicephorus, in other respects a very rigid moralist, showed himself compliant to the will of the emperor by reinstating the excommunicated priest Joseph. After the emperor's death (811), Nicephorus cooperated in the removal of Staurakios and in the elevation of the incapable Michael Rhangabe. With Emperor Leo the Armenian, who was raised to the throne by the army in 813, Nicephorus was at first on good terms. When, however, this emperor revived with ever-increasing harshness the policy of the iconoclastic Isaurians, a conflict broke out, which led at the same time to a reconciliation of Nicephorus with the Studites. After vain theological disputes, in December, 814, there followed personal insults. Nicephorus at first replied to his removal from his office by excommunication, but was at last obliged to yield to force, and was taken to one of the cloisters he had founded, Tou Agathou, and later to that called Tou hagiou Theodorou. From there he carried on a literary polemic for the cause of the image-worshippers against the synod of 815; on the occasion of the change of sovereigns, in 820, he at least obtained the promise of toleration. He died revered as a confessor. His remains were solemnly brought back to Constantinople on Mar. 13, 847, and interred in the Church of the Apostles, where they were annually the object of imperial devotion.
Compared with Theodore of Studium, Nicephorus appears as a friend of conciliation, learned in patristics, more inclined to take the defensive than the offensive, and possessed of a comparatively chaste, simple style. He was mild in his ecclesiastical and monastical rules and non-partizan in his historical treatment of the period from 610 to 769 (Historia syntomos, breviarium). His tables of universal history {Chronographikon syntomon), in passages extended and continued, were in great favor with the Byzantines, and were also circulated in the West in the Latin version of Anastasius. The principal works of Nicephorus are three writings referring to iconoclasm: Apologeticus minor, probably composed before 814, an explanatory work for laymen concerning the tradition and the first phase of the iconoclastic movement; Apologeticus major with the three Antirrhetici against Mamonas-Constantine Copronymus, a complete dogmatics of the belief in images, with an exhaustive discussion and refutation of all objections made in opposing writings, as well as those drawn from the works of the Fathers; the third of these larger works is a refutation of the iconoclastic synod of 815 (ed. Serruys, Paris, 1904). Nicephorus is lacking in originality and follows the path marked out by John of Damascus. His merit is the thoroughness with which he traced the literary and traditional proofs, and his detailed refutations are serviceable for the knowledge they afford of important texts adduced by his opponents and in part drawn from the older church literature.
E. von DobscbCtz.
Bibliography: The " History " was edited by D. Petavius, Paris, 1616, by I. Bekker in CSHB, Bonn, 1837, thence taken into MPG, c, best ed. by C. de Boor, Leipsic, 1880; the Chronographikon was edited by J. Goar, Paris, 1652, by Dindorf for CSHB, Bonn, 1829, is in MPG, c, and ed. De Boor, Leipsic, 1880. An Epistola ad Leonem III. is in MPG, cii. 1037-68. On the Vita by a pupil of Nicephorus, Ignatius, in ASB, March, ii. 704-726, MPG, c. 41- 160, and in De Boor's ed., ut sup., pp. 139-217, cf. Von Dobschiitz in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, xviii (1909), 41-105; a lecture on his exile by Theophanes is in MPG, c. 160-168; the lives of Theodore the Studite and his -correspondence are pertinent, in MPG, xcix. 113-328, 988, 1005, 1173, 1317. Consult further: Krumbacher, Geschichte, pp. 71 sqq., 349 sqq., 965-966; Fabricius-Harles, Bibliotheca Grwca, vu. 603 sqq., Hamburg, 1801; G. Finlay, Hist, of the Byzantine and Greek Empires, i. 113 sqq., London, 1854; J. Hergenrother, Photius, i. 261-286, Regensburg! 1867; H. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus, ii. 1, pp. 384- 388, Leipsic, 1885; T. Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, ii. 295, ib. 1891 ; C. Thomas, Theodore von Studion, pp. 67-138, Osnabriick, 1892; K. Holl, Enthusiasmus und BussgewaU, pp. 282, 319, Leipsic, 1898; KL, ix. 249-259.
NICEPHORUS, CALLISTUS XANTHOPULUS: Church historian of the fourteenth century During the reigns of the Paleologues there were several writers of the name of Xanthopoulos. Two monks of Mount Athos, Callistus (patriarch 1397 a.d.) and Ignatius his brother, wrote a tractate on ascetics, while Gabriel composed hymns for liturgical use. Theodore attended the Council of Florence (1439) as secretary. But the most celebrated of the name was Callistos or Callistou (i.e., " son of Callistos "), who grew up at Constantinople and was trained, as it seems, by the famous George of Cyprus (patriarch 1283-89) in close relationship with Nicephorus Chumnos, Theodore Metochites, Maximos Planudes, and Michael Gabras, a coterie of classical students who, like the humanists of the fifteenth century, cultivated style and phraseology often at the expense of sense. The Emperor Andronicus was their adored patron, since he supported Greek culture and orthodoxy against the Latins.
Except for a few homilies, prayers, hymns, and commentaries, poems, and epigrams, the authenticity of which needs further investigation, the name of Nicephorus is chiefly connected with his ecclesiastical history in eighteen books, under the acrostic letters: Nikephorou Kallistou (610 a.d.). This work has been severely criticized by most Roman Catholic and Protestant writers, but has received high praise from the great Tubingen master Baur. As de Boor has pointed out, the whole work is nothing but a modernization of an anonymous church history of the tenth century. It is not valuable even for the reconstruction of its older sources (such as the Hist. eccl. of Eusebius), because the Byzantine author, roughly paraphrases them. Some apocryphal matter is all that possesses interest.
E. VON DOBSCHUTZ. Bibliography: His remains, including the " History," a Catalogue imperatorum et patriarcharum Constantinopolitanorum, and a Carmen de excidio Hierosolymitano are in MPG, cxlv.-cxlvii. Consult: Krumbacher, Geschichte, pp. 291-293; Fabricius-Harles, Bibliotheca Graca, vii. 437-444, Hamburg, 1801 ; G. J. Voss, De historicis Groscis, pp. 367-368, Leipsic, 1838; F. C. Baur, Die Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtsschreibung, pp. 32 sqq., Tubingen, 1852; C. de Boor, in ZKG, vi (1884), 478-494; J. Bidez and L. Parmentier, in Revue de Vinstruction publique en Beige, xl (1897), 161-178; Papadopoulos-Kerameus, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, xi (1902), 38 sqq.
Nicetas Acominatus Nicholas I.