APOSTOLICI, APOSTOLIC BRETHREN. This name has been applied to certain obscure sects arising in eastern Chris tendom at various periods during the first three centuries. All that we know of them is that they were celibate communists, maintain ing an ascetic rigidity of morals (Epiphanius, Haereses, 61). Hence they were sometimes called Apotactites or Renuntiatores. But as the name of a definite historical movement, it is properly applied only to the Order of the Apostles or Apostolic Brethren which appeared in the second half of the 13th century in Italy. This was a product of the mystic fermentation which proceeded from exalted Franciscanism and from Joachimism (see FRATICELLI and JoACHIM). The order of the Apostles was founded about 1260 by a young workman from the environs of Parma, Gerard Segarelli, who had sought admission unsuccessfully to the Francis can order. He attempted to imitate the external aspects of Christ's life, and was followed by a throng of men and women, peasants and mechanics. They lived in absolute poverty, chastity, and idleness, begging, and preaching repentance. Their diffusion into several countries of Christendom disturbed Pope Honorius IV., who in 1286 ordered them to adhere to an already recognized rule. On their refusal, the Pope condemned them to banishment. The councils of Wilrzburg (1287) and Chichester (1289) took meas ures against the Apostles of Germany and England. But soon the sect reappeared, sensibly increased, and Pope Nicholas IV. pub lished anew the bull of Honorius IV. From that day the "Apostles," regarded as rebels, were persecuted pitilessly. They had had close relations with the dissident Franciscans, but the Spirituals often disavowed them, especially when the sect, which in Segarelli's time had had no very precise doctrinal character, became with Dolcino frankly heterodox. Dolcino of Novara was brought up at Vercelli, and had been an "Apostle" since 1291. Thrice he fell into the hands of the Inquisition, and thrice recanted. But immediately after Segarelli's death he gave himself out as an angel sent from God to elucidate the prophecies. Soon he founded an Apostolic congregation at whose head he placed himself. He taught almost the same principles of devotion as Segarelli, but the Messianic character which he attributed to himself, the announcement of a communistic millennial kingdom, and, besides, an aggressive anti-sacerdotalism, gave to Dolcino's sect a clearly marked character, analogous only to the theocratic community of the Anabaptists of Munster in the 16th century. On June 5, 1305, Pope Clement V., recognizing the impotence of the ordinary methods of reprqssion, issued bulls for preaching a crusade against the Dolcinists But four crusades, directed by the Bishop of Vercelli, were required to reduce the little army of the heresiarch, entrenched in the mountains in the neighbourhood of Vercelli. Not till March 23, 1307, were the sectaries definitively overcome. The Catholic crusaders seized Dolcino in his entrench ments on Mt. Rubello. At Vercelli he suffered a horrible punish ment. He was torn in pieces with red-hot pincers—the torture lasting an entire day. Dante mentions Dolcino's name (Inferno, c.xxviii. ), and his memory is not yet completely effaced in the province of Novara. The "Apostles" continued their propaganda in Italy, Languedoc, Spain and Germany. They were constantly attacked by the Inquisition ; but the movement lingered on to the beginning of the 15th century.