APOL'LINA'RIS ( ? -392). The younger, bishop of Laodicea in Syria, and one of the warmest opponents of Arianism. Both as a man and a scholar he was held in the greatest reverence, and his writings were extensively read in his own clay. His father, Apollinaris the elder, who was Bishop of Laodicea, was horn at Alexandria, and taught grammar, first at Berytus, and afterwaid at Laodicea. When Julian prohibited the Christians from teaching the classics, the father 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; while the New Testament formed the groundwork of dia logues in imitation of Plato. It is not ascer tained what share the father had in this work; but as he had a reputation for poetry, he prob ably put the Old Testament into Greek verse. But it was chiefly as a controversial theologian, and as the founder of a sect. that Apollinaris is celebrated. He maintained the doctrine that the logos, or divine nature in Christ, took the 1 In dace of the rational human soul or hill, and that the body of Christ was a spiritualized and glorified 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 Apollinarianism spread rapidly through Syria and the neighboring countries, and, after the death of Apollinaris, its adherents formed two sects—the Vitalians, named after Vitalis, bishop of Antioch, and the Polemeans, after Polemo, who added to the doctrine of Apollinaris 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 anthro polatria (worship of man), and also were styled synousiastoi (o-dv, sin, together, oboia, ousia, substance), because they confused the two dis tinct substances. Other leaders were Valen tinus and Timothy.