APOTACTICS
650
APPEAL
Apotactics (from Gr., d^oTda-o-oMai, to renounce),
the acllicrcnts of a lieresy which sprang up in the
tliinl centurj' and spread through the western and
southern parts of Asia Minor. What little we know
of this obscure sect we owe to the writings of St.
Epiphanius. He tells us that they called themselves
.\potactics (i. e. renunciators) because they scrupu-
lously renounced all private property; they also
affected the name of Apostolics, because they pre-
tended to follow the manner of life of the Apostles.
The saint regards them as a branch of the Tatians,
akin to the Encratites and the Cathari. "Their
sacraments and mysteries are different from ours;
they pride themselves upon extreme poverty, bring
divisions into Holy Church by their foolish super-
stitions, and depart from the divine mercy by refus-
ing to admit to reconciliation those w-ho have once
fallen, and like those from whom they have sprung,
condemn marriage. In place of the Holj' Scriptures,
which they reject, they base their heresy on the
apocryphal .\cts of Andrew and Thomas. They are
altogether alien from the rule of the Church". .\t
the time when St. Epiphanius wrote, in the fourth
century, they had become an insignificant sect, for
in refuting them he says: "They are found in small
groups in Phrygia, Cilicia, and Pamphylia, whereas
the Church of God, according to Christ's promise,
has spread to the ends of the earth, and if marriage
is an unholy thing, then they are doomed to speedy
extinction, or else they must be born out of wedlock.
If they are born out of wedlock, then they themselves
are impure. .\nd if they are not impure, although
bom in wedlock, then marriage is not impure. . . .
The Church praises renouncement, but does not
condemn marriage; she preaches poverty, but does not
intolerantly inveigh against those who possess prop-
erty inherited from their parents with which they
support themselves and assist the poor; many in the
cliurch abstain from certain kinds of food, but do
not look with contempt upon those who do not so
abstain. " St. Basil mentions these heretics in his
Epistles. He gives them the name of ' ATroTaKTirai
(Apotactites) and says that they declared God's
creatures defiled (inqxiinaiam). They are also briefly
mentioned by St. Augustine and by St. John Damas-
cene. They were condemned in the Code of Theodo-
sius the Great as a branch of the Manichjeans.
St. Epiphanius, H(et., in P. G., XLI, 1040 sqq.
B. GULDNER.
Apotheosis (Gr. dinSjfrom, and 6ebw, deify), deifica- tion, the exaltation of men to the rank of gods. Closely connected with the universal worship of the dead in the history of all primitive peoples was the con- secration as deities of heroes or rulers, as a reward for bravery or other great services. " In the same man- ner everj- city worshipped the one who founded it" (Fustel do Coulanges, The Ancient City, III, v). Because of the theocratic form of their government, and the religious cliaracter which sovereign power assumed in their eyes, the peoples of the great nations of the Orient— Persia, Chaldea, ICgypt — paid divine honours to living rulers. Hero-worship had familiar- ized the minds of the Greeks with the idea that a man by illustrious deeds can become a god, and con- tact with the Orient made them ready to accept the grosser form of apotheosis Ijy which divine honours were olTcred to the living" (Hoi.ssier, I. a religion romame, I, 112). Philip of Macedon wa.s honoured as a god at .\mphipolis. and his son, .\lexander the Great, not only claimed descent from the gods of KgJ'P'. '>ut decreed that he should be worshipped in the cities of Greece (Beuriier, Do divinis honoribus auos acceperunt Alexander et succcs.sores ejus, p. 17). After his death, and probably largely a.s the result of the teaclungof Kuhemerus. that all the gods were deified men, the custoiii of apotheosis became very prevalent among the Greeks (Dollinger, Heideii-
thum und Judenthum, 314 sqq.). In Rome the
way for the deification of the emperors was prepared
by many historic causes, such as the cult of the manes
or the souls of departetl friends and ancestors, the
worsliip of the legendary kings of Latium, the Di
Indigetes, the myth that Romulus had been trans-
jx)rted to heaven, and the deification of Roman sol-
diers and statesmen by some of the Greek cities.
The formal enrolment of the emperors among the
gods began with Csesar, to whom the Senate decreed
divine honours before liis death. Through politic
motives Augustus, though tolerating the building of
temples and the organization of priestly orders in
his honour throughout the pro\-inces and even in
Italy, refused to permit himself to be worshipped
in Rome itself. Though many of the early emperors
refused to receive divine honours, and the senate, to
whom the right of deification belonged, refused to
confirm others, the great majority of the Roman
rulers and many members of the imperial family,
among whom were some women, were enrolled among
the gods. While the cultured classes regarded the
deification of members of the imperial family and
court favourites with boldly expressed scorn, em-
peror-worship, which was in reality political rather
than personal, was a powerful element of unity in
the empire, as it afforded the pagans a common re-
ligion in which it was a patriotic duty to participate.
The Christians constantly refused to pay divine hon-
ours to the emperor, and their refusal to strew in-
cense was the signal for the tleath of many martyrs.
The custom of decreeing divine honours to the em-
perors remained in existence until the time of Gratian,
who was the first to refuse the insignia of the Sura-
mus Pontifex and the first whom the senate failed
to place among the gods.
Preller, Rbmische Mytkologie, 770-796; Boissier, /.a religion romaiiie, I, 109-186; Marquartit-Mom.msen, ffti- mische-Staatsverwattung, II, 731-740; VI, 44.3-455; Beurlif.r, Esaai eur le culte rendu aux empereurs romnins (Paris, 1890). P.iTRICK J. He.\LY.
Apparitions. See Visions.
Apparitor, the official name given to an officer in ecclesiastical courts designated to serve the summons, to arrest a person accused, and, in eccle- siastico-civil procedure, to take possession, physi- cally or formally, of the property in dispute, in order to secure the execution of the judge's sentence, in countries where the ecclesiastical forum, in its sub- stantial integrity, is recognized. He thus acts as constable and sheriff. His guarantee of his delivery of the summons is evidence of the knowledge of the summoned of his obligation to appear, either to stand trial, to give testimony, or to do whatever else may be legally enjoined by the judge; his state- ment becomes the basis of a charge of contumacy against anyone refusing to obey summons. The new summary form of procedure, granted by Leo XIII in 1880 to the bishops of Italy, provides, in arti- cle XIV, for the elimination of this officer, yet nec- essary in some ecclesiastical courts: "Wherever for the summons and notifications there is not at hand an apparitor of the court, the defect may be suj)- plied by designating a reliable person who shall certify to the fact, or by use of the system of registry of lettere, where this prevails, and whereby is re- quired an acknowledgment of delivery, receipt, or rejection." This is in force likewise in the foriii of procedure appointed for the Church in the United States.
Deer. Greg. IX, Lib. II, til. XXVIII, de exec, sent.; Santi, Prizlecl. hir. can., ed. Lkitner (lliitisbon, 1898); Pieranto- NEl.Li, Praxis fori red. (Umne, 1SS;5); Dhoste-Messmeu, Canonical Procedure (New York, 1880).
R. L. BUKTSELL.
Appeal as from an abuse {.Ippcl comme d'abus) was originally a recour.se to the civil forum against the usurpation by the ecclesiastical forum of the
