Apollinarians, followers of Apollinaris, or Apol- linarius (q. v.).
Apollinaris or Apollinarius, Claudius, bish- op of Hieropolis in Phrygia, in the second century, an apologist (q. v.) of Christianity, and an opponent of Montanism (q. v. . He was well acquainted with the classic literature of the Greeks, and a prolific writer; but his works, which are mentioned by Euse- bius and I'hotius, are lost; o,..y two fragments of his work on the Passover are extant. — Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iv,27; Fabricius, Biblioth. Grwca. vii, 160 ; Tillemont, Me in i tires, t. i, pt. ii.
Apollinaris or Apollinarius, bishop of Laodi- cea, the son <>f Apollinaris the elder, who taught first at Berytus, in Phoenicia, and afterward at Laodicea, where he became a presbyter and married. Both fa- ttier and son were on terms of intimacy with Epipha- nius and Libanius, lh<> Sophists. The bishop of La- odicea, Theodotus, having warned them to renounce this friendship, they were excommunicated, but after- ward, upon expressing penitence, they were restored. Julian the Apostate forbade the Christians to read the works of any heathen author, upon which the two Apollinarii (father and son) composed many works in imitation of the style of Homer and other ancient
Greek works. Among others, they turned the books of Moses into heroic verse ; indeed, Sozomen (Hist. Ec- cles. v, 18) says, the whole of the Old Testament as far as the account of Saul ; they also composed dramatic pieces on scriptural subjects, after the style of Menan- der (Socrat. Hist. Eccles. iii, 16). The younger Apol- linaris is mentioned (in Athanas. Ep. ad Antiochenos, torn, i ; Opp. ed. Montfaucon, ii, 776) as orthodox bish- op of Laodicea A. D. 362, while Pelagius was bishop of the Arians in that city. He was esteemed by Athana- sius, Basil, and other great men of that age, who con- tinued to speak respectfully of his merits even after he was suspected of heresj'. Apollinaris distinguished himself especially by polemical and exeg tical writ- ings ; for instance, by his work on Truth, against the Emperor Julian. He also wrote thirty books against Porphyry, against the Manichaeans, Arians, Marcellus, and others. Jerome himself, during his residence at Antioch, A.D. 373 and 374, enjoyed the instructions of Apollinaris, then bishop of Laodicea. The interpre- tations of Apollinaris, quoted in the commentaries of Jerome, were peculiarly valuable in those days on ac- count of his knowledge of the Hebrew tongue. Basil mentions a work of Apollinaris on the Holy Ghost. In the year 1552 was published at Paris a Metaphrasis Psalmorum of Apollinaris, and re-edited by Sylburg at Heidelberg in 1596; this, and a tragedy on "Christ suffering," in the works of Gregory of Nazianzus, were ascribed to Apollinaris ; but it is difficult to say what share in these works belongs to the father, and what to the son.
Late in life, Apollinaris, who had strenuously de- fended the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity in his youth, himself incurred the reproach of heresy be- cause he taught that the divine Logos occupied in the person of Christ the place of the human rational soul. " The greatest difficulty in the doctrine of the Trinit}' appeared to him to consist in the union of the divine person of the Logos with a perfect human person. Two perfect wholes could not be united in one whole (Gregory, Antirrh. cap. xxxix, p. 323: ei &v9p<i)iruiT£- Xti(>j(Tvi'i](p0i] Stog reXtiog ciio av ijaaii). Setting out from Anthropology, he asserted that the essence of the rational soul consists in its self-determination. If this characteristic were retained in connection with the divine nature, there could be no true personal union, but only such a divine influence on Jesus as might be experienced by any other man. On the ' other hand, if the soul forfeited this characteristic, it would renounce its essential peculiarity (Ibid. p. 245: <>i9opd roil airtt,ovaiov £ioov to /<>} tlvai avTtZovmov ' oli (pBtiptrcu Si ?'/ fvaig vtto roii Trou]aavTog aiiri]v). On the first point he objected to the school of Origen, that it admitted no true union of the divine and the human, but made instead two Sons of God, the Logos and the man Jesus (L. c. xlii : ilg fiiv <t>i>ati vlog Siov, tig di St roY). Hence he thought the rational human soul must be excluded from the God-man, and, in this, the old undefined doctrine was on his side. For the human soul he substituted the Logos himself as the vovg Btlog. He developed this doctrine with origi- nality and acuteness. The scheme of human nature which he made use of was the common trichotomical one, of the lpv^i} Xoynci) (voepa), dXoyoc, and the awpa. That an animal principle of life, a \pvx>) dXoyog, must be admitted to exist in human nature, he thought might be proved from Paul's Epistles, in the passages where he speaks of the flesh lusting against the Spirit; for the body in itself has no power of lusting, but on'.y the soul that is connected with it. It is not self-de- termining, but must be determined by the ipi>X>) Xoyi- ki'i, which with it ought to govern the body. But this result is frustrated by sin, and, conquered by it, the reason succumbs to the power of the irrational desires. In order to free man from sin, the unchangeable Di- vine Spirit must be united witli a human nature, con- trol the anima, and present a holy human life (contra