Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/50

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32
APION
APOLINARIS

Halicarnassus, and his contemporary Xenajas of Hierapolis. They argued, from the commingling (σύγχυσις) of the two natures of Christ, that the body of our Lord, from the very beginning, became partaker of the incorruptibility of the Logos, and was subject to corruptibility merely κατ᾿ οἰκονομίαν. They appealed in proof especially to Christ's walking on the sea during His earthly life. Their opponents among the Monophysites, the Severians (from Severus, patriarch of Antioch), maintained that the body of Christ before the Resurrection was corruptible, and were hence called Phthartolatrae (Φθαρτολάτραι, from φθαρτός and λάτρεία), or Corrupticolae, i.e. Worshippers of the Corruptible. Both parties admitted the incorruptibility of Christ's body after the Resurrection. The word φθορά was generally taken in the sense of corruptibility, but sometimes in the sense of mere frailty. This whole question is rather one of scholastic subtlety, though not wholly idle, and may be solved in this way: that the body of Christ, before the Resurrection, was similar in its constitution to the body of Adam before the Fall, containing the germ or possibility of immortality and incorruptibility, but subject to the influence of the elements, and was actually put to death by external violence, but through the indwelling power of the sinless Spirit was preserved from corruption and raised again to an imperishable life, when—to use an ingenious distinction of St. Augustine—the immortalitas minor became immortalitas major, or the posse non mori a non posse mori.

The Aphthartodocetae were subdivided into Ktistolatrae, or, from their founder, Gajanitae, who taught that the body of Christ was created (κτιστόν), and Aktistetae, who asserted that the body of Christ, although in itself created, yet by its union with the eternal Logos became increate, and therefore incorruptible. The most consistent Monophysite in this direction was the rhetorician Stephanus Niobes (about 550), who declared that every attempt to distinguish between the divine and the human in Christ was improper and useless, since they had become absolutely one in him. An abbot of Edessa, Bar Sudaili, extended this principle even to the creation, which he thought would at last be wholly absorbed in God.

Cf. the dissertations of Gieseler, Monophysitarum variae de Christi Persona Opiniones, 1835 and 1838; the remarks of Dorner, History of Christology, ii. 159 ff. (German ed.); Ebrard, Church and Doctrine History, i. 268; and Schaff, Church History, iii. 766 ff.

[P.S.]

Apion. The name is properly Egyptian (see Procop. Pers. i. 8; Ross. Inscr. fasc. 2, p. 62) and derived from the god Apis, after the analogy of Anubion, Serapion, etc.

(1) The son of Poseidonius (Justin (?) Coh, ad Gent. § 9; Africanus in Eus. Pr. Ev. x. 10. p. 490), a grammarian of Alexandria in the 1st cent. His literary triumphs and critical labours on Homer do not fall within our scope, but his conflict with Jews and Jewish Christians entitles him to a place here.

(i) His hostility to Judaism was deep, persistent, and unscrupulous (Joseph. c. Ap. ii. 1‒13; Clem. Hom. iv. 24, v. 2, πάνυ Ἰουδαίους δι᾿ ἀπεχθείας ἔξοντα, v. 27, 29, ὁ ἀλόγως μισῶν

τὸ Ἰουδαίων κ.τ.λ.; Clem. Strom. i. 21), as the direct extracts preserved by Josephus from his writings clearly prove. These attacks were contained in two works especially: in his Egyptian History (Αἰγυπτιακά), and in a separate treatise Against the Jews (κατὰ Ἰουδαίων βίβλος, Justin. (?) l.c.; Africanus, l.c.). Josephus exposes the ignorance, mendacity, and self-contradictions of Apion.

(ii) It is not surprising that the spent wave of this antagonism should have overflowed on Judaic Christianity. Whether Apion actually came in contact with any members of the new brotherhood is more than questionable. His early date (for he flourished in the reigns of Tiberius, Caius, and Claudius) renders this improbable. But in the writings of the Petro-Clementine cycle he holds a prominent place as an antagonist of the Gospel. In the Clementine Homilies he appears in company with Anubion and Athenodorus among the satellites of Simon Magus, the arch-enemy of St. Peter and St. Peter's faith. The Clementine Recognitions contain nothing corresponding to the disputes of Clement and Apion in the 4th, 5th, and 6th books of the Homilies; but at the close of this work (x. 52), as at the close of the Homilies, he is introduced as a subsidiary character in the plot. See the treatises on these writings by Schliemann, Uhlhorn, Hilgenfeld, Lehmann, and others.

(2) A Christian author about the end of 2nd cent., who wrote on the Hexaemeron (Eus. H. E. v. 27; Hieron. Vir. Ill. 49).

[L.]

Apolinaris, or Apolinarius Claudius. Ἀπολινάριος: so spelt in the most ancient Gk. MSS.; Latin writers generally use the form Apollinaris), bp. of Hierapolis, in Phrygia A.D. 171 and onwards (Eus. Chron.); one of the most active and esteemed Christian writers of the day, he is praised by Photius for his style (Phot. Cod. 14). Jerome enumerates him among the ecclesiastical writers who were acquainted with heathen literature, and who made use of this knowledge in the refutation of heresy (Ep. ad Magnum, iv. 83, p. 656. Cf. Theod. Haer. Fab. Compend. iii. 2).

Only a few fragments of his works have been preserved. Eusebius (H. E. iv. 27) gives the following list of those which had fallen into his hands; and his list is repeated by St. Jerome (de Vir. Ill. c. 26) and Nicephorus (H. E. iv. 11). (1) An apology addressed to Marcus Aurelius, probably written after A.D. 174, since it is likely that it contained the reference to the miracle of the Thundering Legion elsewhere quoted by Eusebius from Apolinaris (H. E. v. 5). (2) Five books πρὸς Ἕλληνας, written according to Nicephorus in the form of a dialogue. (3) Two books περὶ ἀληθείας. (4) Two books πρὸς Ἰουδαίους: these are not mentioned by St. Jerome, and the reference to them is absent from some copies of Eusebius. (5) Writings against the Phrygian heresy, published when Montanus was first propounding his heresy; i.e. according to the Chronicon of Eusebius, c. 172. These writings, which were probably in the form of letters, are appealed to by Serapion, bp. of Antioch (Eus. H. E. v. 19); and Eusebius elsewhere (v. 16) describes Apolinaris as raised up as a strong and irresistible weapon against Mon-