APOLLINA'RIS, the younger, bishop of Laodicea in Syria (362), and one of the warm opponents of Arianism. Both as a man and a scholar, lie was held in the greatest reverence; and his writings were extensively read in his own day. His father, A. the elder, who was presbyter of Laodicea, was b. at Alexandria, and taught grammar, first at Berytus, and afterwards at Laodicea. When Julian prohibited the Christians from teaching the classics, the fattier and son endeavored to supply the loss by converting the Scriptures into a body of poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy. The Old Testament was selected as the subject for poetical compositions after the manner of Homer, Pindar, and the tragedians; whilst the New Testament formed the groundwork of dialogues in imita tion of Plato. It is not ascertained what share the father had in this work, but as he had a reputation for poetry, he probably put the Old Testament into Greek verse. But it was chiefly as a controversial theologian, and as the founder of a sect, that A. is celebrated. He maintained the doctrine that the logos, or divine nature in Christ, took the place of the rational human soul or mind, and that the body of Christ was a spiritualized and glori fied form of humanity. This doctrine was condemned by several synods, especially by the council of Constantinople (381), on the ground that it denied the true human nature of Christ. The heresy styled Apollinariauism spread itself rapidly in Syria and the neighboring countries, and, after the death of A., divided itself into two sects—the Vita lians, named after Vitalis, bishop of Antioch; and the Polemeans, who added to the doc trine of A. the assertion that the divine and human natures were so blended as one substance in Christ that his body was a proper object of adoration. On this account they were accused of sarcolatria (worship of the flesh) and anthropolatn'a (worship of man), and also were styled synousiastoi (syn, together, and ousia, substance), because they con fused together the two distinct substances. The whole controversy, which occupied a great part of the 5th c., is an instance of human reason wandering out of its proper
sphere. A. must not be confounded with Claudius A., bishop of Hierapolis, in Plirygia (170 A.D.), and who wrote an Apology for the Christian faith and several other works, all of which are lost.
AP0111.0 (Gr. APOLLON). A. may be regarded as the characteristic divinity of the Greeks, inasmuch as he was the impersonation of Greek life in its most beautiful and natural forms, and the ideal representative of the Grecian nation. His mild worship, with its many festivals, accompanied as they were by a cessation from all hostilities; his various shrines at sacred places, with their oracles, and the general idea of character, had a wide, powerful, and beneficent influence on social and political life throughout the states of Greece. Homer and Hesiod mention that he was the son of Zeus and Leto, but neither states where lie was born. The Epliesiane believed that both he and Diana, his sister, were born in a grove near their city. The Tegyrwans of Bceotia, and the inhabitants of Zoster in Attica, also claimed the honor of his birth; while the Egyptians seemed to think lie properly belonged to them; but the most popular legend was that which made him a native of Delos, one of the Cyclades, where his mother Leto, followed by the jealous wrath of Juno over land and sea, at length found rest and shelter, and was delivered of him, under the shadow of an olive-tree, at the foot of Mt. Cynthus. To spite the queen of heaven, who was far from being a favorite with the other goddesses; these hastened to tender their services to the weak and wearied Leto. The young A. was much made of. Themis fed him with nectar and ambrosia, the food of the gods, which seems so have suddenly excited the conceit of the infant deity, inasmuch as lie surprised his nurse by starting to his feet, demanding a lyre, and announcing his intention of henceforth revealing to mortals the will of Jove. The island, proud of having been the birth-place of A., adorned itself with a robe of golden flowers.