Apollinaris, Father and Son

About this time Apollinaris openly worked out a heresy, which has since been called by his name. He persuaded many people to break away from the church, and he formed separate congregations. Vitalius, a presbyter of Antioch and one of the priests under Meletius, agreed with him and helped to establish his peculiar opinion. In other respects Vitalius was outstanding in his life and conduct, and he watched zealously over those placed in his pastoral care, so the people held him in great reverence. He broke off communion with Meletius, joined Apollinaris, and presided over those at Antioch who had taken up the same opinions. By the holiness of his life he drew a great number of followers, and the citizens of Antioch still call them Vitalians. It is said that he was led to leave the church by resentment at the contempt shown him by Flavian, then one of his fellow presbyters, who was afterward raised to be bishop of Antioch. Flavian kept him from his usual meeting with the bishop. Vitalius took this as a slight, entered into communion with Apollinaris, and held him as his friend. [a]

From that time the members of this sect have formed separate churches in various cities under their own bishops, and have set up laws that differ from those of the catholic church. Besides the customary sacred service, they sang metrical songs composed by Apollinaris. For besides all his other learning he was a poet, skilled in a great variety of meters, and by the sweetness of his songs he drew many to cling to him. Men sang his verses at their banquets and at their daily work, and women sang them at the loom. But whether his tender poems were written for holidays, for festivals, or for other occasions, all of them alike were for the praise and glory of God. Damasus, bishop of Rome, and Peter, bishop of Alexandria, were the first to learn that the heresy was creeping in among the people, and at a council held at Rome they voted it foreign to the catholic church.

It is said that narrowness of mind, as much as any other cause, led Apollinaris to bring in something new in doctrine. When Athanasius, who governed the church of Alexandria, was on his way back to Egypt from the place where Constantine had banished him, he had to pass through Laodicea. While he was in that city he became close to Apollinaris, and their acquaintance ended in the strictest friendship. But those who held the wrong belief considered it a disgrace to be in communion with Athanasius. So George, the bishop of the Arians in that city, threw Apollinaris out of the church in a most insulting manner, on the plea that he had received Athanasius against the canons and the holy laws. The bishop did not stop there. He also reproached him with sins he had committed, and repented of, long before. For when Theodotus, George’s predecessor, governed the church of Laodicea, Epiphanius the sophist recited a hymn he had composed in honor of Dionysus. Apollinaris, then a youth and a pupil of Epiphanius, went to hear the recitation with his father, who was also named Apollinaris and was a well-known grammarian. After the opening, Epiphanius, following the custom always kept at public recitations of hymns, ordered the uninitiated and the unhallowed to go outside. But neither the younger nor the elder Apollinaris, nor indeed any of the Christians who were present, left the audience. When Theodotus the bishop heard that they had stayed for the recitation, he was extremely displeased. He pardoned the laymen who had fallen into this error after giving them a moderate rebuke. But as for Apollinaris, father and son, he convicted them both of their sin in public and put them out of the church, because they both belonged to the clergy: the father was a presbyter, and the son a reader of the Holy Scriptures. After some time had passed, when father and son had shown by tears and fasting a repentance equal to their offense, Theodotus restored them to their offices in the church.

When George took over the same bishopric, he excommunicated Apollinaris and treated him as a stranger to the church, because, as I have said, he had received Athanasius into communion. It is said that Apollinaris begged him again and again to restore him to communion, but George would not be moved. Overcome with grief, Apollinaris threw the church into confusion and, by bringing new things into doctrine, introduced the heresy I have spoken of. He thought that by means of his eloquence he could take revenge on his enemy, by proving that George had deposed a man who knew the Sacred Scriptures more deeply than he did. So it is that the private quarrels of the clergy do great harm to the church from time to time, and split religion into many heresies. This case proves it. Had George, like Theodotus, received Apollinaris back into communion when he repented, I believe we would never have heard of the heresy that bears his name. When people are heaped with insult and contempt, they are quick to turn to rivalry and new teachings; but when they are treated justly, they stay moderate and remain where they were.