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Agrapha of Jesus

(Encyclopedia)Agrapha of Jesus ăgˈrəfə [key] [gr.,=unwritten], sayings attributed to Jesus not found in the canonical Gospels, but found elsewhere in the New Testament, the Apocryphal Gospels, the early Fathers...

Bradshaw, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Bradshaw, Henry, 1831–86, English librarian and antiquarian at Cambridge. He discovered, organized, and made known the university's treasures of manuscripts and incunabula, especially those in Gaeli...

Smith, James, American political leader

(Encyclopedia)Smith, James, c.1719–1806, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Ireland. He settled in Pennsylvania in his youth and practiced law at York. He s...

Saco, river, United States

(Encyclopedia)Saco, river, c.105 mi (170 km) long, rising in the White Mts., N central N.H. and flowing SE through Maine to the Atlantic Ocean below Biddeford. The falls at Biddeford, site of a hydroelectric dam (o...

alchemy

(Encyclopedia)alchemy ălˈkəmē [key], ancient art of obscure origin that sought to transform base metals (e.g., lead) into silver and gold; forerunner of the science of chemistry. Some scholars hold that it was ...

Georgian literature

(Encyclopedia)Georgian literature. Early Georgian literature shows the influence of two distinctly different civilizations—medieval Eastern Orthodox Christianity and, later, Persia. The Passion of St. Shushanik, ...

Pseudepigrapha

(Encyclopedia)Pseudepigrapha so͞oˌdĭpĭˈgrəfə [key] [Gr.,=things falsely ascribed], a collection of early Jewish and some Jewish-Christian writings composed between c.200 b.c. and c.a.d. 200, not found in the...

Cimarron, Territory of

(Encyclopedia)Cimarron, Territory of, now the Panhandle of Okla. It was settled in the early 1800s by cattle ranchers, many of them squatters. To protect their claims they attempted, in 1887, to create a separate t...

applejack

(Encyclopedia)applejack, brandy made by distilling hard cider or fermented apple pomace. Another method of making applejack, now rarely used, is to let fermented cider freeze and then to remove the ice. It was one ...

kitsch

(Encyclopedia)kitsch [Ger.,=trash], term most frequently applied since the early 20th cent. to works considered pretentious and tasteless. Exploitative commercial objects such as Mona Lisa scarves and abominable pl...