Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/689

APOLLINARIS Apollinaris (The Elder), a Christian grammarian of the fourth c-eiitury, first at Hcrj-tus in Phcrnicia, then at Laodicoa in Syria. He became a priest, and was among the stanehest upholders of tiie Council of Nica-a (325) and of St. Atliana-sius. When Juhan the .postate forbade Christian professors to lecture or coininont on the poets or philosophers of Greece (!62), .|M)llinaris and his .son bearing the same name, both hiplily cultivated and resourceful, zealously strove to replace the literary masterpieces of antiquity by new works which should offset the threatened loss to Christians of the advantages of poHte instruc- tion and help to win respect for the Christian re- ligion among the lieathens. According to Socrates (Hist. Keel., II, xlvi; III, xvi), the elder ApoUinaris translated the Pentateuch into (Ireek hexameters, converted the first two books of Kings into an epic poem of twenty-four cantos, wrote tragetlies modelled on Kuripides, comedies after the manner of .Menander, and ikIcs imitated from Pintlar. Sozomen (Hist. Eccl., V, xviii; VI, xxv) .says nothing of the poetical works of the elder .polUnaris, but lays stress on those of liis son. This improvised Greek literature, however, uninspired by genius, ilid not sur^ave. As soon as Valentinian I (364-375) had revoked the edict of Julian the schools returned to the great classic writers, and only the memory of the courageous efforts of ApoUinaris to nullify the malice of Juhan survived. Kruubacher, Getch. d. bt/iant. Lilt., 2(1 ed.; Godet in ZHcl. de Uieol. cath., I, 1505.

John J. a' Becket.

Apollinaris Claudius, Sajnt. a Christian apolo- gist, Mishop of llierapolis in Phrygia in the second centurj-. He lx;came famous for liis polemical trea- tises against the heretics of liis day, who.se errors he showed to be entirely borrowed from the pagans. He wrote two books against the Jews, five against the pagans, and two on "Truth." In 177 he published an elotjuent "Apologia" for the Christians, addressed to Marcus Aurelius, and appealing to the Emperor's own experience with the "Thundering Legion", whose prayei's won him the victorj- over the (Juadi. The exact date of his death is not known, but it was probably while Marcus Aurelius was still Emperor. None of his writings is extant. His feaat is kept 8 January. BcTLbK, Lives of the Saints, 8 January; MicnAUD, Biog. Univ.; VcRSCHAFPEL in Diet, de thiol cath.; SalkoN io Diet, of Christ. Biogr.

T. J. Campbell.

ApoUinaris Sidonius. See Sidonius.

Apollonia, Saint, a holy virgin who suffered martyrdom in Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians previous to the persecution of Decius (end of 248, or beginning of 249). During the festivities commemorative of the first millenary of the Roman Empire, the agitation of the heathen populace rose to a great height, and when one of their poets prophesied a calamity, they committed bloody outrages on the Christians whom the authori- ties made no effort to protect. The great Dionysius, then Jiishop of Alexandria (247-265), relates the sufferings of his people in a letter addressed to Fa- bius. Bishop of Antioch, long extracts from which Eiisebius has preserved for us (Hist. Eccl., I, vi, 41). After describing how a Christian man and woman, named respectively Metras and Quinta, were seized by the seditious mob and put to tleath with the most crviel tortures, and how the houses of .several other Christians were completely pillaged. Dionysius continues: "At that time .pollonia the irapWwjj rpta^uTK (I'irgo pTcubytcrii, by which he verj' prob- ably means not a virgin advanced in years, but a deaconess) was held in high esteem. These men seized her also and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. They then erected outside the city gates a pile of fagots and threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them impious words (either a blasphemy agaittst Christ, or an invocation of the heathen gods). Given, at her own recpicst, a little freedom, she sprang quickly into the lire and was burned to death." Apollonia belongs, therefore, to that chuss of early Christian martyrs who did not await the death they were threatened with, but either to preserve their cliastity, or becau.se confronted with the alternative of renouncing their faith or suffering death, voluntarily embraced the latter in the form prepared for them. In the honour paid to her martyrs the Church made no distinction Detween these women and others. St. Augustine touches on this question in the first book of the "City of God", apropos of suicide (De Civ. Dei, I, 20): " But, they say, during the time of persecution cer- tain holy women plunged into the water with the intention of being swept away by the waves and drowned, and tluLS preserve their threatened chas- tity. Although they quitted life in this wise, never- theless they receive high honour as martyrs in the Catholic Church and their fe;ists are observed with great ceremony. This is a matter on which I dare not pass judgment lightly. For I know not but that the Church was divinely authorized throngh trustworthy revelations to honour thus the memory of these Christians. It may be that such is the case. May it not be, too, that these acted in such a manner, not through human caprice but on the command of God, not erroneously but through obedience, as we must believe in the case of Samson? When, how- ever, God gives a command and makes it clearly known, who would account obedience thereto a crime or condemn such pious devotion and ready service?" The narrative of Dionysius does not sug- gest the slightest reproach its to tiiis act of St. Apol- lonia; in liis eyes she was as much a martjT as the others, and as such she was revered in the Alexan- drian Church. In time, her feast was also popular in the West. A later legend assigned a similar martyrdom to Apollonia, a Christian virgin of Rome in the reign of Julian the Apostate. There wius, however, but one martyr of this name, i. e. the Saint of Alexamlria. The Roman Church celebrates her memory on 9 Februarj', and she is popularly in- voked against the toothache because of the torments she had to endure. She is represented in art with pincers in which a tootli is held. There was a church dedicated to her at Rome but it no longer exists. The little square, however, in which it stood is still called "Piazza Sant' Apollonia".

Acta SS.. Feb.. II. 278 s<iq.; kiilholik (18721. I. 220 Kiq.; Bililiolheca hiffinurnphim lalina, e<l. Boi.la.mi. (Urussels, 1898). 10.3 Miq; Neumann, Dcr romigchr .Stoat und die allprmeine Kirche (I.oip7.ig, IR90) I, 2.")2 .«<i'i.; Bdtler, LiiM, Feb.

J. P. KiRSCH.

Apollonius of Ephesus, anti-Montanist Greek ec- clesiastical writer, between 180 and 210, probably from Asia Minor, for he is thoroughly acquainted with the Christian history of Ephesus and the doings of the Phrj'gian Montanists. If we may accept what the unknown author of " Prwdestinatus" says (I, 26, 27, 28; P. L., LIII, .596), he was a Bishop of Ephesus. but the silence of other Christian writers n^nders this testimony doubtful. He undertook the defence of the Church against Montanus, and followed in the footsteps of Zoticus of Comanus, Julian of Apama'a, Solas of. chialus, and .pollinaris of Hierapolis. His work is cited by Ensebius (Hist. l'>cl., V, 18), and is praised by St. Jerome (De vir. ill., c. xl), but hius been lost, and not even its title is known. It seems certain that it showed the falsity of the .Ion- tanist prophecies, recounte<l the unedifying lives of Montanus and his prophetesses, also gave currency to the report of their suicide by hanging, and threw