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Apelles

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Founder of a Gnostic sect; died at an advanced age late in the second century. What little is known of his life is gleaned chiefly from fragments of the writings of his antagonist Rhodon, preserved by Eusebius (Church History V.12), and from Tertullian's Prescription against Heretics (30). At Rome he separated from Marcion, whose most famous pupil he was, and went to Alexandria, where he met the visionary Philumene, whose utterances he regarded as inspired. Besides collecting her oracles in a book entitled "Manifestations", he wrote an extensive work, Eullogismoi, an attack on Mosaic theology. The moral character of Apelles is differently estimated according as one is influenced either by Rhodon's uncoloured picture of the aged heresiarch, or by the stories of scandals in his early life to which Tertullian, not without exaggeration, refers.

Sources

HARNACK, De Apellis gnosi monarchicâ (Leipzig, 1874); IDEM in Texte und Untersuch. (Leipzig, 1890), VI, iii, 109-120, and ibid. (new series, Leipzig, 1900), V, iii, 93-100; BARDENHEWER, Gesch. der altkirch. Lit. (Freiburg, 1902), I, 343, 344; TILLEMONT, Mémoires (Venice, 1732), II, 282-285, 610, 611. BAREILLE, in Dict. de théol. cath., I, 1455-57. HORT in Dict. of Christ. Biog. (London, 1877), I, 127, 128.

About this page

APA citation. Peterson, J.B. (1907). Apelles. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01593a.htm

MLA citation. Peterson, John Bertram. "Apelles." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01593a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Robert B. Olson.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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