RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Apologetics Apostle
Chalcedon (451) such offenders were excommunicated; and later ecclesiastical law maintains this position even more strongly, requiring the offender's diocesan to arrest and imprison him, if a cleric, or, if a monk, to deliver him to the authorities of his order, to be punished according to its own laws. In non-Catholic countries both classes of apostates may commonly be forgiven on condition of voluntary return to obedience; and the bishops possess various faculties for the purpose. Neither of these forms of apostasy is punished by the State.
Apoatasia a fide is the deliberate denial, expressed by outward acts, of the Christian faith, whether connected or not with the adoption of a non-Christian religion. This is allied to heresy, of which, in fact, it forms a higher degree. The passages of Scripture on which the treatment of this form of apostasy is based are Heb. iii. 12, vi. 4-9, x. 16-29; II Pet. ii. 15-21; II John 9-11; Luke xii. 9. During the epoch of persecution such apostasy was of course far commoner than in later times; but the primitive Church made a distinction, calling apostates only those who had abandoned the faith of their own free will, distinguishing them from those who had yielded to violence or seduction. According to the various manners of denying Christ, they were classified as libellatici, sacrificati,traditores, etc. (see Lapsed). All were by the very nature of the case excommunicated, and at first some churches felt bound, in accordance with the passages cited above, to refuse absolution altogether or withhold it until the hour of death. Afterward this severity decreased, and apostates, like other excommunicated persons, were restored to communion on fitting penance. Among later enactments, the decree of Boniface VIII. (1294- 1303) prescribing the same procedure for apostates to Judaism as for heretics has been of special influence not only in ecclesiastical, but in civil legislation.
Under the first Christian emperors, the Roman state considered apostasy as a civil crime, to be punished by confiscation of goods, inability to make wills or serve as a witness, and infamy. During the Middle Ages the Empire had no occasion to adopt special legislation against apostasy, but was content to adhere to the ecclesiastical view of it as a qualified heresy. Since in the countries for which the Protestant legal codes were designed apostasy to Judaism or idolatry was not looked for, they make no mention of such a crime. It is, however, in the very nature of a State Church, that it can not tolerate desertion of its communion, but must mark its sense of the evil by such means as are in its power. Nowadays, of course, the aid of the State can no longer be called in to punish such offenders. (g. Friedberg.)
Biblio8ra*hy: G. M. Amthor, De apostasia, Coburg, 1833; E. Platner, Quaationea de jure criminum Romano, Marburg. 1842; N. Miinchen, Das kanoniache Gerichtsverlahren und Strafrecht, ii. 357, Cologne, 1865.
APOSTLE ("One Sent [of God]"): A name applied in the Old Testament to the chosen organs of the divine revelation (Num. xvi. 28; Isa. vi. 8; •Jer. xxvi. 5). In the New Testament it is used not only in a special sense for Jesus himself, but also
for John the Baptist (John i. 6) and for those whom Jesus sent forth (cf. Luke xi. 49 with Matt, xxiii. 34, 37). It would seem that the name was chosen by Jesus himself for the Twelve, since The it came so early into use as a definite Twelve, term for a definite body of men, and then for others who held or claimed a similar position (Acts xiv. 4, 14; II Cor. xi. 5, xii. 11; I Thess. ii. 6; Rev. ii. 2). The training of the Twelve shows that they had a future mission, which was fully opened to them by the appearance and teaching of the risen Christ (Acts i. 2-11); they are to be witnesses to him, and especially to his resurrection, before all peoples. Their number, corresponding to that of the twelve tribes, shows that they are destined primarily to work among the children of Israel, to whom, accordingly, they make their first appeal in Jerusalem. By degrees they collect around them a distinct community, in which they hold the position of appointed leaders (Acts ii. 42, iv. 35, v. 1-2, vi. 1-2), and after persecution begins to spread the Gospel throughout Palestine and its neighborhood, they remain mostly in Jerusalem, thence exercising supervision over the Church of the Circumcision (Acts viii. 14, ix. 32-43), and providing for the performance of some of their internal duties by the choice of deacons and the formation of the college of presbyters under James.
The original apostles are still occupied with the Jews when their number receives an addition; the manner of Saul's conversion shows that he is destined to a similar work, but especially among the Gentiles (Acts ix. 1-31; Gal. i. 11-24). This involves, despite Paul's consciousness Paul. of equal authority and independence, no breach with the earlier organization. His ministry, begun by a miracle, develops itself in perfect continuity and in unity with that of the older apostles. His very conversion and call do not take place without the intervention of a member of the existing community (Acts ix. 10-18, xxii. 12-16); only after an unsuccessful attempt to work among the Jews does he turn to the Gentiles (Acts ix. 20-31, xxii. 17-21), and even then he enters the work already founded from Jerusalem as an auxiliary of Barnabas, who is sent thence (Acts xi. 25); he is sent out only with Barnabas by the combined Jewish and Gentile community, with his attention directed first to the conversion of the Jews (Acts xiii.), and only the stubborn opposition of the synagogues causes him to decide in favor of the direct mission to the Gentiles (verse 46). He is, however, fully recognized at the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem (q.v.) by the older apostles and the representatives of Jewish Christianity as an independent apostle to the Gentiles; and no opposition from Jewish Christians in Galatia or at Corinth makes them recede from this attitude. In all his far-reaching activity as head of the Gentile Church, he never forgets the welfare and the future of his own countrymen (Rom. xi. 13-14); nor is there any division between the Gentile Church and the older apostles, to his unity with whom Paul constantly appeals in teaching his converts (I Cor. xv. 3; Eph. ii. 20, iii. 5).
Apostle Apostles' Creed