The Apollinarians and Their Heresy

There were two men of the same name at Laodicea in Syria, a father and a son; their name was Apollinaris. The father was a presbyter of that church, and the son a reader. Both taught Greek literature, the father grammar and the son rhetoric. The father was a native of Alexandria. He taught first at Berytus, but later moved to Laodicea, where he married and where the younger Apollinaris was born. They lived at the same time as Epiphanius the sophist, and being true friends, they became close to him. But Theodotus, bishop of Laodicea, fearing that this companionship would corrupt their principles and lead them into paganism, forbade them to associate with him. They paid little attention to this ban, however, and kept up their friendship with Epiphanius. George, the successor of Theodotus, also tried to stop them from keeping company with Epiphanius; but when he could in no way persuade them on this point, he excommunicated them. The younger Apollinaris regarded this severe treatment as an injustice, and relying on the resources of his rhetorical sophistry, he started a new heresy, which was named after its inventor and still has many supporters. Some, however, say that it was not for the reason given above that they broke with George, but because they saw how unsettled and inconsistent his profession of faith was. For at times he held that the Son is like the Father, as had been decided at the synod at Seleucia, and at other times he favored the Arian view. So they made this their pretext for separating from him. But when no one followed their example, they brought in a new form of doctrine. At first they asserted that in the plan of the incarnation God the Word took a human body without a soul. Afterward, as if they had changed their minds, they took this back, admitting that he did take a soul, but an irrational one, God the Word himself being in the place of a mind. Those who follow them and bear their name today maintain that this is the only point on which they differ from the catholics; for they acknowledge that the persons of the Trinity are of one substance. But we will say more about the two Apollinarises in the proper place. [a]