New Disturbances
raised in Rome, by
the Partisans of
Ursinus;
Damasus was far more successful in suppressing the Schism of Ursinus, which about this time was revived at Rome. The Emperor Valentinian, some time before, by a Rescript addressed to Ampelius Governor, and Maximinus Vicar of Rome, had allowed Ursinus, and the leading Men of his Party, who had been confined with him to Gaul, Liberty to live where they pleased, provided they kept out of Rome, and the Suburbicarian Provinces[[1056]]. This Indulgence shewn by the Emperor to Ursinus, encouraged his Followers in Rome to declare openly in his Favour, and even to assemble apart from those who communicated with Damasus. But, being therein opposed by the Party of Damasus with their usual Violence, new Disturbances arose, and the City was upon the point of becoming again the Scene of a Civil War. |who are banished.| Simplicius, then Vicar of Rome, at the Request of Damasus, gave the Emperor immediate Notice of the approaching Danger; and the Emperor, in Answer to his Letter, sent him a Rescript, commanding all those who, in Contempt of Religion, held or frequented unlawful Assemblies, to be banished an Hundred Miles from Rome, that their Obstinacy might hurt none but themselves[[1057]]. Thus for the present a Stop was put to the Disorders that had begun to reign in the City.
The Luciferians per-
secuted by Damasus.
The two Presbyters Marcellinus and Faustinus pretend, that this Law was levelled at the Ursinians alone, but was interpreted by Damasus, as comprehending the Luciferians, or the Followers of Lucifer Bishop of Cagliari, who, refusing to communicate with the Bishops who signed the Confession of Rimini, and with all who communicated with them, had separate Assemblies at Rome, and even a Bishop of their own, named Aurelius. But Damasus, say they, using them, in virtue of the above-mentioned Law, with no less Cruelty than he did the Ursinians, they thenceforth assembled only in the Night, under a Presbyter, named Macarius, of whose Sanity and Austerities they relate wonderful Things. But Night and Darkness could not protect them against the persecuting Spirit of Damasus, whose Clerks, breaking one Night in upon them, while they were performing Divine Service in a private House, dispersed the Congregation, seized Macarius, and dragging him along with them over the sharp Flints, by which he was cruelly bruised, and dangerously wounded in the Thigh, they kept him the remaining Part of the Night closely confined. Next Morning he was carried before the Judge, who, finding him inflexible in rejecting the Communion of Damasus, condemned him to Exile; but the holy Presbyter, being arrived at Ostia, died there of his Wounds[[1058]]. The same Authors add, that Damasus caused several Catholic Presbyters to be sent into Exile, and some Laymen; but that Aurelius, the Luciferian Bishop, in spite of all his Efforts, continued in Rome to the Hour of his Death[[1059]].
Apollinaris the
Heresiarch. An
Account of him.
About this Time, that is, in the Year 377. a great Council was held at Rome, in which the famous Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea in Syria, was condemned and deposed with his Two Disciples Vitalis and Timotheus. Apollinaris was a Man of uncommon Parts, great Penetration, universal Knowlege; and had at first been so zealous a Defender of the Orthodox Faith, that he was looked upon by all, particularly by Epiphanius and Athanasius, as one of the great Champions of that Cause[[1060]], and ranked by Philostorgius with Basil, and Gregory Nazianzen[[1061]]. He contracted a strict Friendship with Athanasius, when that Prelate passed through Laodicea in 349. on his Return to Egypt, and ever after maintained a close Correspondence with him, on which Account he was excommunicated by Gregory the Arian Bishop of that City[[1062]]. When the Arians began to prevail in the East, Apollinaris was cruelly persecuted by the Men in Power of that Party, and at last driven into Exile[[1063]]. Basil writ several Letters to him, and in those he writ to others, often mentions him as a Person for whom he had the greatest Esteem[[1064]]. He is said to have excelled in the Knowlege of the Scriptures, which he publicly interpreted at Antioch, where he had Jerom among the many Disciples, who flocked from all Parts to hear him[[1065]]. But he was equally versed in human Learning, especially in Poetry; and his Knowlege in that Branch of Literature proved very useful in the Time of the Emperor Julian. For that Prince having by a Law debarred the Christians from perusing or studying the Pagan Authors, Apollinaris, to supply the want of those Writers, composed several Pieces in Imitation of them, and, among the rest, a Poem comprising the History of the Jews to the Time of Saul, and divided into Twenty-four Books, which he distinguished by so many Letters of the Greek Alphabet, as Homer had done[[1066]]. He likewise writ Comedies, Tragedies, Lyric Verses, &c. imitating Pindar in the latter, and Menander and Euripides in the Two former[[1067]]. Sozomen thinks his Compositions fell in no respect short of the Works of the Antients; who, upon the Whole, says he, were far inferior to him, since they excelled, each in one Kind only, but he equally in all[[1068]]. The Tragedy, intituled, Christ suffering, which is to be found among the Works of Gregory Nazianzen, is by some ascribed to Apollinaris; but that Piece does not at all answer the great Opinion Sozomen seems to have entertained of him. His Paraphrase in Hexameter Verse on the Psalms, the only intire Work of his that has reached our Times, is an elegant, exact, and sublime Translation of them, greatly commended and admired by the best Judges[[1069]]. His Poetry proved very serviceable to him, when he began to broach his Heresy; for great Numbers of People, especially Women, embraced his Doctrine, being taken, and in a manner inchanted, with the Sweetness of his Verses; for he composed a great many Songs and Odes equally pious and elegant, adapted to all Occasions, and on all Occasions sung with suitable Airs by his Followers[[1070]]. To these Gregory Nazianzen no doubt alludes, where he speaks of the Psalms of the Apollinarists, to which the Psalms of David had given place; of those sweet and so much admired Verses, which were looked upon by them as a Third Testament[[1071]]. It was chiefly to oppose the Progress Apollinaris made, by the insinuating Means of his Poetry, that Gregory Nazianzen applied himself to the same Study. About the Year 362. Apollinaris was raised, in Consideration of his great Piety and Learning, to the See of Laodicea in Syria, in which City he was born, according to the most probable Opinion, and had spent the greater Part of his Life.
The Doctrine held by
Apollinaris, and his
Disciples.
As for the Doctrine held by Apollinaris, and his Followers, called from him Apollinarists; they maintained at first, that Christ had human Flesh, but not a human Soul, the Want of which was supplied, according to them, by the Divinity. But being afterwards convinced, that such a Doctrine was repugnant to several plain and express Passages of Scripture, they abandoned it in Part, and, distinguishing, with some Philosophers, the Soul, by which we live, from the Intelligence, by which we reason, they allowed the former in our Saviour, but denied the latter; the Operations of which, said they, were performed by the Divinity[[1072]]. Thus they allowed him, says St. Austin, the Soul of a Beast, but denied him that of a Man[[1073]]. By means of this Doctrine they avoided the Absurdity with which they reproached the Catholics, admitting in Christ, as they falsly imagined, Two opposite and distinct Natures, without any Union or Subordination between them[[1074]]. The Catholics indeed acknowleged Two distinct and complete Natures in Christ; but at the same time maintained an Union between them, such an Union as was admitted by the Apollinarists between the Flesh and the Divinity. The latter upbraided the Catholics with adoring a Man, styling them Anthropolaters; and the Catholics reproached in their Turn the Apollinarists with adoring the Flesh, calling them Sarcolaters[[1075]]. The Apollinarists distinguished themselves from the Catholics, by causing the following Words to be fixed on the Front of their Houses; We must not adore a Man that bears a God, but a God that bears Flesh. The Errors of the Apollinarists were not only concerning the Soul, but likewise the Body of our Saviour; for they maintained, that his Body, like other Bodies only in Appearance, was coeval with the Divinity, and of the same Substance with the eternal Wisdom[[1076]]. Hence it followed, by a natural Consequence, that the Body of our Saviour was impassible and immortal; that it was not taken of the Virgin Mary; that he was not born of her; that his Birth, Passion, Death, and Resurrection, were mere Illusions; or else, that the Divine Nature was passible: both which Absurdities were admitted by some of the Sects into which the Apollinarists were afterwards divided[[1077]].
Apollinaris not known
nor suspected to be
the Author of the
Heresy he broached.
This Doctrine was first heard of in 362. and condemned the same Year in the Council of Alexandria. In 373. it began to make a great Noise in the Church; but it was not known even then by whom it had been broached: for Apollinaris was so far from owning himself the Author of those Tenets, that, in one of his Letters to Serapion Bishop of Thmuis in Egypt, which is still extant[[1078]], he expresses, in the strongest Terms, his Approbation of a Letter from Athanasius to Epictetus Bishop of Corinth, confuting the very Errors he held; and at the same time condemns the Folly of those, who maintained the Flesh to be consubstantial to the Divine Nature. In another Letter to the same Serapion, he owns the Body of our Saviour to have been taken of the Virgin Mary, to have been formed in her Womb, and his Flesh to have been of the same Substance with ours; adding, And these are Truths not to be called in question[[1079]]. In a Third Letter he assures Serapion, that he has ever denied in his Writings the Flesh of our Saviour to have descended from Heaven, or to be of the same Substance with the Divinity[[1080]]. Apollinaris, by thus publicly declaring against the Doctrine, which at the same time he was privately propagating, eluded the Vigilance of Athanasius himself, who, in confuting his Errors, never mentions his Name, nor seems to have entertained the least Suspicion of him; nay, he recommended Timotheus, a favourite Disciple of his, to Damasus, as a Person whose Orthodoxy was not to be questioned; and as such he was received, not only by the Bishop of Rome, but by all the Western Bishops, of whom he obtained Letters, on his Return, directed to Apollinaris, as to a Bishop of the Catholic Communion[[1081]].