The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (748 page)

Euhemerism
.

From Euhemerus (
c.
320 BCE), who argued that the gods developed out of elaborated legends concerned originally with historical people. Applied to Jesus, the question becomes, not
cur
Deus homo
?
, but
cur homo Deus
? Why (or how) was the man Jesus promoted to become the Son of God? The historical evidence supporting this interpretation of Jesus is negligible, not least since the letters of Paul, among the earliest writings of the New Testament, associate Jesus closely with God, with extremely high titles and claims.

 
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(
c.
260–
c.
340).
Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and church historian. Eusebius's most important work was the
Ecclesiastical History
, containing an immense range of material, including many extracts from earlier writers, about the Church from the beginning to his own time. Among his other historical works are a
Chronicle
, containing tables synchronizing events in ancient history; a
Life of Constantine
, to whom he was theological advisor; and an account of the
Martyrs of Palestine
in the persecution of 303–10. His most important theological writings are the two apologetic works,
Preparation for the Gospel
(refuting Greek polytheism) and
Demonstration of the Gospel
(proving Christianity from the Old Testament).

 
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(
c.
378–454).
Christian heretic, who opposed
Nestorianism
so strongly that he was accused in 448 of the opposite error of confounding the two natures in Christ, and of denying that Christ's manhood was consubstantial with ours. He was deposed, then reinstated at
Ephesus
in 449, and finally condemned at
Chalcedon
in 451.

 
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(346–99).
Christian spiritual writer. He was a noted preacher in
Constantinople
, but left the temptations of the capital for Jerusalem and (in 382) the Nitrian desert of Egypt, to devote himself to prayer among the monks. He became a disciple of St
Macarius
. His mystical works, largely in the form of aphorisms, were the main channel through which the ideas of
Origen
passed to later writers. His
Centuries
is preserved in Syriac, where, however, it was heavily edited to alter the more Origenistic statements.

 
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(Skt., P
li). ‘Thus have I heard. At one time …’, the form of words occurring at the beginning of Buddhist
s
tras
to show that a discourse of the Buddha is being related.