APOSTOLIC MAJESTY, a title borne by the kings of Hungary. About A.D. 1000 it was conferred by Pope Silvester II. upon St Stephen (975-1038), the first Christian king of Hungary, in return for his zeal in seeking the conversion of the heathen. It was renewed by Pope Clement XIII. in 1758 in favour of the empress Maria Theresa and her descendants. The emperor of Austria bears the title of apostolic king of Hungary.
APOSTOLIUS, MICHAEL (d. c. 1480), a Greek theologian and rhetorician of the 15th century. When, in 1453, the Turks conquered Constantinople, his native city, he fled to Italy, and there obtained the protection of Cardinal Bessarion. But engaging in the great dispute that then raged between the upholders of Aristotle and Plato, his zeal for the latter led him to speak so contemptuously of the more popular philosopher and of his defender, Theodorus Gaza, that he fell under the severe displeasure of his patron. He afterwards retired to Crete, where he earned a scanty living by teaching and by copying manuscripts. Many of his copies are still to be found in the libraries of Europe. One of them, the Icones of Philostratus at Bologna, bears the inscription: “The king of the poor of this world has written this book for his living.” Apostolius died about 1480, leaving two sons, Aristobulus Apostolius and Arsenius. The latter became bishop of Malvasia (Monemvasia) in the Morea.
Of his numerous works a few have been printed: Παροιμίαι (Basel, 1538), now exceedingly rare; a collection of proverbs in Greek, of which a fuller edition appeared at Leiden, “Curante Heinsio,” in 1619; “Oratio Panegyrica ad Fredericum III.” in Freher’s Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, vol. ii. (Frankfort, 1624); Georgii Gemisthi Plethonis et Mich. Apostolii Orationes funebres duae in quibus de Immortalitate Animae exponitur (Leipzig, 1793); and a work against the Latin Church and the council of Florence in Le Moine’s Varia Sacra.
APOSTROPHE (Gr. ἀποστροφή, turning away; the final e being sounded), the name given to an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech, when a speaker or writer breaks off and addresses some one directly in the vocative. The same word (representing, through the French, the Greek ἀπόστροφος προσῳδία, the accent of elision) means also the sign (’) for the omission of a letter or letters, e.g. in “don’t.” In physiology, “apostrophe” is used more precisely in connexion with its literal meaning of “turning away,” e.g. for movement away from the light, in the case of the accumulation of chlorophyll-corpuscles on the cells of leaves.
APOTACTITES, or Apotactici (from Gr. ἀποτακτός, set apart), a sect of early Christians, who renounced all their worldly possessions. (See [Apostolici] ad init.)
APOTHECARY (from the Lat. apothecarius, a keeper of an apotheca, Gr. ἀποθήκη, a store), a word used by Galen to denote the repository where his medicines were kept, now obsolete in its original sense. An apothecary was one who prepared, sold and prescribed drugs, but the preparing and selling of drugs prescribed by others has now passed into the hands of duly qualified and authorized persons termed “chemists and druggists,” while the apothecary, by modern legislation, has become a general medical practitioner, and the word itself, when used at all, is applied, more particularly in the United States and in Scotland, to those who in England are called “pharmaceutical chemists.” The Apothecaries’ Society of London is one of the corporations of that city, and both by royal charters and acts of parliament exercises the power of granting licences to practise medicine. The members of this society do not possess and never have possessed any exclusive power to deal in or sell drugs; and until 1868 any person whatever might open what is called a chemist’s shop, and deal in drugs and poisons. In that year, however, the Pharmacy Act was passed, which prohibits any person from engaging in this business without being registered.