§ 178. Apolinarius of Hierapolis. Miltiades.
Claudius Apolinarius, [1377] 377 bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, a successor of Papias, was a very active apologetic and polemic writer about a.d. 160-180. He took a leading part in the Montanist and Paschal controversies. Eusebius puts him with Melito of Sardis among the orthodox writers of the second century, and mentions four of his "many works" as known to him, but since lost, namely an "Apology" addressed to Marcus Aurelius (before 174). "Five books against the Greeks" "Two books on Truth." "Two books against the Jews." He also notices his later books "Against the heresy of the Phrygians" (the Montanists), about 172. [1378] 378
Apolinarius opposed the Quartodeciman observance of Easter, which Melito defended. [1379] 379 Jerome mentions his familiarity with heathen literature, but numbers him among the Chiliasts. [1380] 380 The latter is doubtful on account of his opposition to Montanism. Photius praises his style. He is enrolled among the saints. [1381] 381
Miltiades was another Christian Apologist of the later half of the second century whose writings are entirely lost. Eusebius mentions among them an "Apology" addressed to the rulers of the world, a treatise "against the Greeks," and another "against the Jews;" but be gives no extracts. [1382] 382 Tertullian places him between Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. [1383] 383
[1377] This is the spelling of the ancient Greek authors who refer to him. Latin writers usually spell his name Apollinaris or Apollinarius. There are several noted persons of this name: 1) the legendary St. Apollinaris, bishop of Ravenna (50-78?), who followed St. Peter from Antioch to Rome, was sent by him to Ravenna, performed miracles, died a martyr, and gave name to a magnificent basilica built in the sixth century. See Acta Sanct. Jul. V. 344. 2) Apollinarus the Elder, presbyter at Laodicea in Syria (not in Phrygia), an able classical scholar and poet, about the middle of the fourth century. 3) Apollinaris the Younger, son of the former, and bishop of Laodicea between 362 and 380, who with his father composed Christian classics to replace the heathen classics under the reign of Julian, and afterwards originated the christological heresy which is named after him. See my article in Smith and Wace I. 134 sq.
[1378] H. E. IV. 27; repeated by Jerome, De Viris ill. 26. Two extracts of a work not mentioned by Eusebius are preserved in the Chron. Pasch. Copies of three of his apologetic books, pros Hellenas peri eusebeias, peri aletheias , are mentioned by Photius. The last two are probably identical, as they are connected by kai. See the fragments in Routh, I. 159-174. Comp. Donaldson III. 243; Harnack, Texte, I. 232-239, and Smith and Wace I. 132.
[1379] See above, p. 214 sq., and Chron. Pasch. 1. 13.
[1380] De Vir. ill. 18; Com. in Ezech. c. 36. In the latter place Jerome mentions Irenaeus as the first, and Apollinaris as the last, of the Greek Chiliasts (" ut Graecos nominem, et primum extremumque conjugam, Iren. et Ap."); but this is a palpable error, for Barnabas and Papias were Chiliasts before Irenaeus; Methodius and Nepos long after Apolinarius. Perhaps he meant Apollinaris of Laodicea, in Syria.
[1381] Acta Sanct. Febr. II. 4. See Wetzer and Welte2 I. 1086.
[1382] H. E. V. 17. Jerome, De Vir. ill. 39. Comp. Harnack, Texte, I. 278-282, and Salmon, in Smith and Wace III. 916.
[1383] Adv. Valent. 5. Miltiades is here called "ecclesiarum sophista," either honorably= rhetor or philosophus (See Otto and Salmon), or with an implied censure ("mit einem üblen Nebegeschmack, " as Harnack thinks). The relation of Miltiades to Montanism is quite obscure, but probably he was an opponent.
§ 179. Hermias.
Ermeiou philosophou Diasurmos ton exo philosophon, Hermiae Philosophi Gentilium Philosophorum Irrisio, ten chapters. Ed. princeps with Lat. vers. Base!, 1553, Zurich, 1560. Worth added it to his Tatian, Oxf. 1700. In Otto and Maranus (Migne, vi. Col. 1167-1180).
Donaldson, III. 179-181.
Under the name of the "philosopher" Hermias (Hermeias or Hermias) otherwise entirely unknown to us, we have a "Mockery of Heathen Philosophers," which, with the light arms of wit and sarcasm, endeavors to prove from the history of philosophy, by exposing the contradictions of the various systems, the truth of Paul's declaration, that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. He derives the false philosophy from the demons. He first takes up the conflicting heathen notions about the soul, and then about the origin of the world, and ridicules them. The following is a specimen from the discussion of the first topic:
"I confess I am vexed by the reflux of things. For now I am immortal, and I rejoice; but now again I become mortal, and I weep; but straightway I am dissolved into atoms. I become water, and I become air: I become fire: then after a little I am neither air nor fire: one makes me a wild beast, one makes me a fish. Again, then, I have dolphins for my brothers. But when I see myself, I fear my body, and I no longer know how to call it, whether man, or dog, or wolf, or bull, or bird, or serpent, or dragon, or chimaera. I am changed by the philosophers into all the wild beasts, into those that live on land and on water, into those that are winged, many-shaped, wild, tame, speechless, and gifted with speech, rational and irrational. I swim, fly, creep, run, sit; and there is Empedocles too, who makes me a bush."
The work is small and unimportant. [1384] 384 Some put it down to the third or fourth century; but the writer calls himself a "philosopher" (though be misrepresents his profession), has in view a situation of the church like that under Marcus Aurelius, and presents many points of resemblance with the older Apologists and with Lucian who likewise ridiculed the philosophers with keen wit, but from the infidel heathen standpoint. Hence we may well assign him to the later part of the second century.
[1384] Hase aptly calls it "eine oberflächlich witzige Belustigung über paradoxe Philosopheme."