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Bible Dictionaries
Euchites
Charles Buck Theological Dictionary
or Or EUCHITAE, a sect of ancient heretics, who were first formed into a religious body towards the end of the fourth century, though their doctrine and discipline subsisted in Syria, Egypt, and other eastern countries, before the birth of Christ: they were thus called, because they prayed without ceasing, imagining that prayer alone was sufficient to save them. They were a sort of mystics, who imagined, according to the oriental notion, that two souls resided in man, the one good, and the other evil; and who were zealous in expelling the evil soul or demon, and hastening the return of the good Spirit of God, by contemplation, prayer, and singing of hymns. They also embraced opinions nearly resembling the Manichean doctrine, and which they derived from the tenets of the oriental philosophy. The same denomination was used in the twelfth century to denote certain fanatics who infested the Greek and Eastern churches, and who were charged with believing a double trinity, rejecting wedlock, abstaining from flesh, treating with contempt the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper, and the various branches of external worship, and placing the essence of religion solely in external prayer; and maintaining the efficacy of perpetual supplications to the Supreme Being for expelling an evil being or genius, which dwelt in the breast of every mortal. This sect is said to have been founded by a person called Lucopetrus, whose chief disciple was named Tychicus. By degrees it become a general and invidious appellation for persons of eminent piety and zeal for genuine Christianity, who opposed the vicious practices and insolent tyranny of the priesthood, much in the same manner as the Latins comprehended all the adversaries of the Roman pontiff under the general terms of Albigenses and Waldenses.
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Buck, Charles. Entry for 'Euchites'. Charles Buck Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/cbd/e/euchites.html. 1802.
