a Christian sect, in the primitive church, who celebrated the eucharist with bread and cheese, saying, that the first oblations of men were not only of the fruits of the earth, but of their flocks. The word is derived from agros, bread, and vepes, cheese.
The Artotyrites admitted women to the priesthood and episcopacy; and Epiphanius tells us, it was a common thing to see seven girls at once enter into their church, robed in white, and holding a torch in their hand; where they wept and bewailed the wretchedness of human nature, and the miseries of this life.
ARAU, in Ancient Geography, a town of Baetica, in the jurisdiction of the Conventus Hispalensis: now Alcala, a citadel of Andalusia, on the Betis or Guadalquivir, seven leagues above Seville.