The name of a considerable party who adhered to the cause of Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, in Upper Egypt, after he was deposed, about the year 306, by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, under the charge of his having sacrificed to the gods, and having been guilty of other heinous crimes; though Epiphanius makes his only failing to have been an excessive severity against the lapsed. This dispute, which was at first a personal difference between Meletius and Peter, became a religious controversy; and the Meletian party subsisted in the fifth century, but was condemned by the first council of Nice.
Despite a stated reliance on the plain meaning of the Bible and the dictates of common sense, Buck's Theological Dictionary, first published in London in 1802, seeks to provide a textual basis for the evangelical community. By combining brief essays on orthodox belief and practice with historical entries on various denominations, Buck provided an interpretive lens that allowed antebellum Protestants to see Christianity's almost two millennia as their own history.Wikipedia
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