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Is it probable that his opinions should be diametrically opposed to those of his friend and contemporary on a cardinal point affecting the very conception of Christianity (for the rejection of St. Paul must be considered in this light)? or that this vital heterodoxy, if it existed, should have escaped an intelligent critic of the next generation who had the five books of his work before him, who himself had passed his early life in Asia Minor, and who yet appeals to Papias as preserving the doctrinal tradition which had been handed down from the Apostles themselves to his own time? I say nothing of Eusebius himself, who, with a distinct prejudice against Papias, accuses him of no worse heresy in his writings than entertaining millennarian views.

      Millennarian views consistent with the recognition of St. Paul.

      It may indeed be confessed that a man like Papias, whose natural bent, assisted by his Phrygian education, was towards sensuous views of religion, would not be likely to appreciate the essentially spiritual teaching of St. Paul; but this proves nothing. The difference between unconscious want of sympathy and conscious rejection is all important for the matter in hand. The same charge might be brought against numberless theologians, whether in the middle ages or in more modern times, into whose minds it never entered to question the authority of the Apostle and who quote his writings with the utmost reverence. Neither in the primitive days of Christianity nor in its later stages has the profession of Chiliastic views been found inconsistent with the fullest recognition of St. Paul’s Apostolic claims. In the early Church Irenæus and Tertullian are notable instances of this combination; and in our own age and country a tendency to millennarian speculations has been commonly associated with the staunchest adherence to the fundamental doctrines of St. Paul.

      Abercius probably his successor.

      As the successor of Papias and the predecessor of Claudius Apollinaris in the see of Hierapolis, we may perhaps name Abercius or Avircius^[172]. His legendary Acts assign his episcopate to the reign of Marcus Aurelius; and, though they are disfigured by extravagant fictions, yet the date may perhaps be accepted, as it seems to be confirmed by other evidence. An inscription on his tombstone recorded how he had paid one |His journeys.| visit to the city of Rome, and another to the banks of the Euphrates. These long journeys are not without parallels in the lives of contemporary bishops. Polycarp of Smyrna visited Rome, hoping to adjust the Paschal controversy; Melito of Sardis went as far as Palestine, desiring to ascertain on the spot the facts relating to the Canon of the Old Testament Scriptures. These or similar motives may have influenced Abercius to undertake his distant journeys. If we may assume the identification of this bishop with one Avircius Marcellus who is mentioned in a contemporary document, he took an active interest in the Montanist controversy, as from his position he was likely to do.

      Claudius Apollinaris bishop of Hierapolis.

      The literary character of the see of Hierapolis, which had been inaugurated by Papias, was ably sustained by Claudius Apollinaris. His surname, which seems to have been common in these parts^[173], may have been derived from the patron deity of Hierapolis^[174] and suggests a Gentile origin. His intimate acquaintance with heathen literature, which is mentioned by more than one ancient writer, points in the same direction. During the reign of M. Aurelius he had already made himself a name by his writings, and seems to have been promoted to the see of Hierapolis before the death of that emperor^[175].

      His literary works.

      Of his works, which were very numerous, only a few scanty fragments have survived^[176]. The imperfect lists however, which have reached us, bear ample testimony both to the literary activity of the man, and to the prominence of the Church, over which he presided, in the great theological and ecclesiastical controversies of the age.

      He takes part in the two chief controversies of the day.

      The two questions, which especially agitated the Churches of Asia Minor during the last thirty years of the first century, were the celebration of the Easter festival and the pretensions of the Montanist prophets. In both disputes Claudius Apollinaris took an active and conspicuous part.

      1. The Paschal question.

      1. The Paschal controversy, after smouldering long both here and elsewhere, first burst into flames in the neighbouring Church of Laodicea^[178]. An able bishop of Hierapolis therefore must necessarily have been involved in the dispute, even if he had been desirous of avoiding it. What side Apollinaris took in the controversy the extant fragments of his work do not by themselves enable us to decide; for they deal merely with a subsidiary question which does not seriously affect the main issue^[179]. But we can hardly doubt that with Polycarp of Smyrna and Melito of Sardis and Polycrates of Ephesus he defended the practice which was universal in Asia^[180], observing the Paschal anniversary on the 14th Nisan whether it fell on a Friday or not, and invoking the authority of St. John at Ephesus, and of St. Philip at his own Hierapolis^[181], against the divergent usage of Alexandria and Palestine and the West.

      2. Montanism.

      2. His writings on the Montanist controversy were still more famous, and are recommended as an authority on the subject by Serapion of Antioch a few years after the author’s death^[182]. Though later than many of his works^[183], they were written soon after Montanus had divulged the extravagance of his pretensions and before Montanism had attained its complete development. If a later notice may be trusted, Apollinaris was not satisfied with attacking Montanism in writing, but summoned at Hierapolis a council of twenty-six bishops besides himself, where this heresy was condemned and sentence of excommunication pronounced against Montanus together with his adherent the pretended prophetess Maximilla^[184].

      His other hæresiological writings.

      Nor were his controversial writings confined to these two topics. In one place he refuted the Encratites^[185]; in another he upheld the orthodox teaching respecting the true humanity of Christ^[186]. It is plain that he did not confine himself to questions especially affecting Asia Minor; but that the doctrine and the practice of the Church generally found in him a vigorous advocate, who was equally opposed to the novelties of heretical teaching and the rigours of overstrained asceticism.

      Nor again did Apollinaris restrict himself to controversies carried on between Christian and Christian. He appears alike as the champion of the Gospel against attacks from without, and as the promoter of Christian life and devotion within the pale of the Church. |His apologetic| On the one hand he was the author of an apology addressed to M. Aurelius^[187], of a controversial treatise in five books against the Greeks, and of a second in two books against the Jews^[188]; on the other we find mentioned among his |and didactic works.| writings a work in two books on Truth, and a second on Piety, besides several of which the titles have not come down to us^[189]. He seems indeed to have written on almost every subject which interested the Church of his age. He was not only well versed in the Scriptures, but showed a wide acquaintance with secular literature also^[190]. His style is praised by a competent judge^[191], and his orthodoxy was such as to satisfy the dogmatic precision of the post-Nicene age^[192].

      Important bearing of these facts on the history of Christianity.

      These facts are not unimportant in their bearing on the question which has been already discussed in relation to Papias. If there had been such a discontinuity of doctrine and practice in the Church of Hierapolis as the theory in question assumes, if the Pauline Gospel was repudiated in the later years of the first century and rank Judaism adopted in its stead, how can we explain the position of Apollinaris? Obviously a counter-revolution must have taken place, which undid the effects of the former. One dislocation must have been compensated by another. And yet Irenæus knows nothing of these religious convulsions which must have shaken the doctrine of the Church to its foundations, but represents the tradition as one, continuous, unbroken, reaching back through the elders of the Asiatic Churches, through Papias and Polycarp, to St. John himself—Irenæus who received his Christian education in Asia Minor, who throughout life was in communication with the churches there, and who had already reached middle age when this second revolution is supposed to have occurred. The demands on our credulity, which this theory makes, are enormous. And its improbability becomes only the more glaring,

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