The first extant notice of Apolinarius is that of Serapion, bishop of Antioch from about 192 to 209 (see Harnack, Zeit des Ignatius, p. 46), in the epistle quoted by Eusebius in V. 19. We learn from this notice that Apolinarius was already dead when Serapion wrote (he calls him “most blessed bishop”; μακαριώτατος ), and that he had been a skillful opponent of Montanism. His name is not mentioned again, so far as we know, by any Father of the second or third century. Jerome ( de vir. ill. 26) simply repeats the account of Eusebius, but in his Epist. ad Magnum, c. 4 (Migne, I. 607), he enumerates Apolinarius among those Christian writers who were acquainted with heathen literature, and made use of it in the refutation of heresies.
Photius ( Cod. 14) praises his literary style in high terms. Socrates ( H. E. III. 7) names Apolinarius with Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Serapion as holding that the incarnate Christ had a human soul ( žμψυχον τὸν ἐνανθρωπήσαντα ). Jerome, in his de vir. ill. chap. 18, mentions an Apolinarius in connection with Irenæus as a chiliast. But in his Comment. in Ezech. Bk. XI. chap. 36, he speaks of Irenæus as the first, and Apolinarius as the last, of the Greek Millenarians, which shows that some other Apolinarius is meant in that place, and therefore without doubt in the former passage also; and in another place ( Prooem. in lib.
XVIII. Comm. in Esaiam ) he says that Apolinarius replied to Dionysius of Alexandria on the subject of the Millenium, and we are therefore led to conclude that Apolinarius, bishop of Laodicea (of the fourth century), is meant (see Routh, Rel. Sac. I. 174). Of the bishops of Hierapolis, besides Apolinarius, we know only Papias and Abircius Marcellus (of whom we have a Martyrdom, belonging to the second century; see Pitra, Spic. Solesm. III. 533), who, if he be identical with the Abircius Marcellus of Eusebius, Bk.
V. chap. 16 (as Harneck conjectures) must have been bishop after, not before Apolinarius (see note 6 on Bk. V. chap. 16). It is impossible to determine the exact date of Apolinarius’ episcopate, or of his death. As we see from Serapion’s notice of him, he must have been dead at least before 202. And if Abircius Marcellus was bishop after him, and also bishop in the second century, Apolinarius must have died some years before the year 200, and thus about the same time as Melito. The fact that he is mentioned so commonly in connection with Melito, sometimes before and sometimes after him, confirms this conclusion.
The Chron. mentions him as flourishing in the tenth (Syncellus and Jerome), or the eleventh (Armenian) year of Marcus Aurelius. His Apology was addressed, as we learn from Eusebius, to Marcus Aurelius; and the fact that only the one emperor is mentioned may perhaps be taken (as some have taken it) as a sign that it was written while Marcus Aurelius was sole emperor (i.e. between 169 and 176). In Bk. V. chap. 5, Eusebius speaks of the story of the thundering legion as recorded by Apolinarius, and it has been thought (e.g. by Salmon, in the Dict. of Christ.
Biog. ) that this circumstance was recorded in the Apology, which cannot then have been written before the year 174. Harnack, however, remarks that this venturesome report can hardly have stood in a work addressed to the emperor himself. But that seems to assume that the story was not fully believed by Apolinarius, which can hardly have been the case. The truth is, the matter cannot be decided; and no more exact date can be given for the Apology. Eusebius, in the present chapter, informs us that he has seen four works by Apolinarius, but says that there were many others extant in his day.
In addition to the ones mentioned by Eusebius, we know of a work of his, On the Passover ( περὶ τοῦ π€σχα ), which is mentioned by the Chron. Paschale, and two brief fragments of which are preserved by it. These fragments have caused a discussion as to whether Apolinarius was a Quartodeciman or not. The language of the first fragment would seem to show clearly that he was opposed to the Quartodecimans, and this explains the fact that he is never cited by the later Quartodecimans as a witness for their opinions.
The tone of the work, however, as gathered from the fragments, shows that it must have been written before the controversy had assumed the bitter tone which it took when Victor became bishop of Rome; i.e. it was written, probably, in the seventies (see, also, Bk. V. chap. 23, note 1). Photius ( Cod. 14) mentions three apologetic works by Apolinarius known to him: πρὸς ῞Ελληνας, περὶ εὐσεβείας , and περὶ ἀληθείας . The first and last are mentioned by Eusebius, but the second is a work otherwise unknown to us.
There is no reason to suppose, as some have done, that the περὶ εὐσεβείας does not designate a separate work (cf. e.g., Donaldson, Hist. of Christ. Lit. and Doctrine, III. 243), for Eusebius expressly says that he mentions only a part of Apolinarius’ writings. Theodoret ( Hær. Fab. I. 21) mentions Apolinarius, together with Musanus and Clement, as having written against the Severians (see chap. 29, below). But, as Harnack justly remarks (p. 235), the most we can conclude from this is that Apolinarius in his Anti-Montanistic work, had mentioned the Severians with disapproval.
Five mss. of Eusebius, and the Church Hist. of Nicephorus, mention just after the work On Truth, a work Against the Jews, in two books ( καὶ πρὸς ᾽Ιουδαίους πρῶτον καὶ δεύτερον ). The words are found in many of our editions, but are omitted by the majority of the best Greek mss. , and also by Rufinus and Jerome, and therefore must be regarded as an interpolation; and so they are viewed by Heinichen, Laemmer, Otto, Harnack, and others. Harnack suggests that they were inserted under the influence of Bk. V. chap. 17, §5, where the works of Miltiades are given. We thus have knowledge of six, and only six, distinct works of Apolinarius, though, since no writer has pretended to give a complete list, it is quite probable that he wrote many others.