Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
CRISTOLITI. - (From the Greek χριστός = “Christ” and λύω = “I separate”). Name of an obscure sect of heretics who lived between 650 and 750, whose existence is attested to us solely by St. John Damascene (Haereses, XCIII: PG 94, 757) and by Constantine Copronymus in a passage cited by Nicephorus of Constantinople (Antirrhetica, I, 34: PG 100, 288).
They held that Jesus Christ, after His resurrection, had abandoned His soul and body and ascended to heaven with the divinity alone: the Incarnation was thus reduced to a merely temporary union of the person of the Word with human nature. Theodoret of Cyrus informs us that some Eutychians professed doctrines of this kind (Dial., II: PG 83, 164-63): it is not impossible that these were the same C. of whom Damascene speaks. In that case, these heretics would have to be placed around the middle of the 5th century.
BIBL.: W. Smith and H. Wace, Dictionary of Christian biography, I, London 1877, p. 495; G. Barville, Christolytes, in DTHC, II, cols. 2417-18. Guglielmo Zannoni
Cite this article
“CRISTOLITI.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV (1950), p. 547. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/cristoliti.
