RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Antonians Apharsachites
ANTONINUS, an"to-nai'nus, PIUS: Roman emperor 138-161; b. near Lanuvium (Civita Lavigna, 18 m. s.s.e. of Rome) Sept. 19, 86; d. at Lorium (in southern Etruria, 12 Roman miles from Rome) Mar. 7 161. He was made consul in 120 and was adopted by Hadrian in 138, after he had distinguished himself by his administration of the province of Asia. On his accession as emperor he took the name Titus iElius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius, his original one having been Titus Aurelius Fulvius Boionius Arrius Antoninus. Under his just and gentle rule the empire enjoyed almost unbroken peace. In his last years he left the government more and more in the hands of his associate, Marcus Aurelius (q.v.), with whom he was on terms of the closest friendship. For the Christian Church his reign is marked by the flourishing of Marcion and the Gnostic schools, by the apology of Aristides and the writings of Justin, probably by the Oratio of Tatian, and possibly by the final edition of the Shepherd of Hermas. Within the same period fall the beginning of the Easter controversy, the visit of Polycarp and Hegesippus to Rome, the rise of the monarchical episcopate in that city, and the early stages of the consolidation against Gnosticism of the Roman Church. The civil magistrates observed the same policy of tolerance toward the Church as under Trajan and Hadrian. Practically, however, by forbidding or rendering difficult the delation of the Christians on a charge of atheism by the excited population of Asia Minor, as well as by his edicts addressed " to the people of Larissa, Thessalonica, Athens, and all the Greeks," Antoninus so far protected them that he was considered by many ecclesiastical writers as a positive friend of the new religion. His prohibition of denunciation by fanatical private citizens, however, can not be taken as equivalent to an official sanction for the practise of Christianity. (A. Harnack.)
Bibliography: E. E. Bryant, Reign of Antoninus Pius, Cambridge, 1895 (a scholarship-essay); Neander, Christian Church, i. passim; B. Aube\ Histoire des persecutions, pp. 297-341, Paris, 1875; W. W. Capes, The AgeofOie Antonines, London, 1876; Schaff, Church History, ii. 51-52; also, on the period, C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, 8 vols., London, 1865.
ANTONINUS, SAINT, OF FLORENCE (ANTO- NIO PIEROZZI): Archbishop of Florence; b. in that city 1389; d. there May 2, 1459. In 1404 he joined the Dominicans, and in 1436 was made prior of the monastery of San Marco in Florence. In 1439 he took part in the negotiations for union with the Greeks. In 1446, against his wish but at the express behest of Pope Eugenius IV., he was chosen archbishop. His blameless life and devotion to duty rendered him beloved by all, and his canonization by Adrian VI. in 1523 was looked upon as the just due of an untiring, humble, and exemplary bishop. He has been a favorite subject of Florentine art.
The humanistic tendency of the time had no effect upon Antoninus. He wrote certain works quite in the scholastic spirit, as: Summa theologica [i parts, Venice and Nuremberg, 1477; ed. P and B- Ballenni, Verona, 1740), based upon Thomas Aquinas, the first text-book of ethics, and still esteemed in Italy; Summa confessionalis or Sum-
mula confessionum (Mondovi, 1472); and Summa historialis or Chronicon ab orbe condita bipartitum (3 vols., Venice, 1480, and often; ed. P Maturus, S. J., Lyons, 1587), a world-chronicle to 1457, uncritical and full of fables and legends, but showing industry and systematic arrangement. Here and there, as in judging of the great schism, he ventures to advance his own opinion and he questions the genuineness of the Donation of Constantine. A complete edition of Antoninus' works, in four volumes, was published at Venice, 1474-75, and a second edition, in eight volumes, at Florence, 1741. In later years have appeared: Opera a ben vivere di Sant' Antonino (Florence, 1858) and Lettere (1859).
K. Benrath.
Bibliography: A life, by Franciscus Castilionensis, and another by Leonardus de Serubertis are in ASB, May, i. 314-362; Qu£tif-Echard, Scriptores ordinis prcedicatorum, i. 817-819, Paris, 1719 ; iEneas Silvius, Commentarii, p. 50, Frankfort, 1614; Creighton, Papacy, i. 504; A. von Reumont, Brief e heiliger und gottesfiirchtiger Jtaliener, pp. 135-150, Freiburg, 1877; idem, Lorenzo de' Medici, i. 148, 176, 562-564, Leipsic, 1874, Eng. transl., i. 123, 151, 463-465, London, 1876.
ANTONIO DE LEBRIJA, an-to'ni-o de le-bri'Ha, (Lat. Mlius Antonius Nebrissensis, i.e., " of Lebrija," the ancient Nebrissa, on the Guadalquivir, 34 m. s. of Seville): Spanish humanist; b. 1442 (1444?); d. at Alcala July 2, 1522. He studied in his native land, and for about ten years in Italy, and returned to Spain with a plan for reforming the schools and studies. As professor in Salamanca and by his Introductiones in Latinam grammaticam (1481; innumerable editions, translations, and adaptations, even as late as Paris, 1858; an Eng. ed., London, 1631), he led the way to a knowledge of the classics. Retiring from the university, he spent eight or ten years in the preparation of a Latin-Spanish and Spanish-Latin lexicon (Seville, n.d.; Alcala, 1532; and often), a pioneer work at that time. He published also archeological works and a grammar of Greek and of Castilian, and labored to improve the text of the Vulgate. He was one of the chief workers on the Complutensian polyglot, and spent his last years as teacher at Alcala, protected by Cardinal Ximenes from the attacks of the adherents of the old scholastic school. As historiographer to Ferdinand the Catholic he wrote a history of two decades of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella (Granada, 1545) [by some assigned to Hernando da Pulgar rather than to Antonio; cf. Potthast, Wegweiser, Berlin, 1896, p. 946]. K. Benrath.
Bibliography: Nicholaus Antonius, Bibliofheca Hispana nova, i. 132-139, Madrid, 1783; J. B. Mufioz, in Memorias de la real academia de la hisloria, iii. 1-30, Madrid, 1799; C. J. Hefele, Cardinal Ximenes, pp. 116-117, 124, 379, 458, Tubingen, 1844.
ANTWERP POLYGLOT. See Bibles, Polyglot.
APHARSACHITES, a-far'sa-kaits, APHARSATH- CHITES, a-far"sath'kaits, APHARS1TES, a-far'saits : Words occurring only in the Book of Ezra (Apharsachites, v. 6; Apharsathchites and Apharsites, iv. 9). Most translators and commentators have regarded them as names of peoples, including them among the tribes settled in Samaria by the Assyrians (II Kings xvii. 24), and have made unsatisfactory attempts to identify them (e.g., the
Aphraates Apocalyptic