APOSTLES, Teaching of the Twelve. Teachini: of the Twelve Apostle.s.
APOSTLES' CREED. See Creeds and Con- fessions.
APOSTLES' ISLANDS, or The Twelve Apostles. A group of isUinds in Lake Superior, near the western end, belonging to Wisconsin (Map: Wisconsin, C 1). There are in all 27 • islands, having an area of 125,000 acres. The largest of the group is Madeline Island, on whTch are La Pointe. a thriving town, and the La Pointe Indian Reservation. The other im- portant islands of the group are Oak Presque and Outer Islands. These islands were occupied by the Frcuili missions as early as 1680.
APOSTLE SPOONS. The name given to spoons, usually in sets of 13, the handles of which are formed by images of the Twelve Apostles and of the Virgin Mary. Up to the Seventeenth Century, such sets were favorite christening gifts.
APOSTLE TO GERMANY. A title given to Saint Boniface, an Knglish missionary (died 755), for his lifelong labors among the Frisian and German tribes.
APOSTLE TO THE ENGLISH. An appellation given to Saint Augustine, who led the body of monks sent to England by Gregory I. to "convert the Angles into angels."
APOSTLE TO THE FRENCH. An appel- lation of Saint Denis (((.v. I, the patron saint of France, who is said to have been beheaded about A.D. 272 at Paris.
APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS, The. John Eliot, tlius styled l)eoause of his efforts to convert the Indian tribes of New England in the middle of the Seventeenth Century. See Eliot, John.
APOSTLE TO THE SCOTS, The. A term applied to the Scottish reformer and historian, John Knox (q.v.), because of liis untiring exer- tions to spread the Calvinistie doctrines in Scot- land at the expense of those of the English and Koman cliurelies.
AP'OSTOL'IC, or AP'OSTOL'ICAL. An ad- jective used in various connections to denote (something) that is supposed to date from tbe age of the first apostles of the Christian Church, or to have received their sanction, or to rest upon their authority. As applied to a church, it means that the Twelve Apostles, or at least one of them, taught the truths and established the polity it stands for. As applied to a doctrine or practice, it means that either it is taught in the New Testament, which, generally speaking, is of exclusively apostolic com|)osition. or that tradi- tionally it has been handed down from apostolic days. " The claim to such origin, in jiarticular cases, is much disputed by Protestants among themselves in regard to such points as infant baptism, immersion, and Church government; and by Protestants over against Roman Catho- lics as to the priority of the Church of Rome and Papal claims generally.
APOSTOLIC BRETH'REN, or Apostolici. The name given in Italy, toward the end of the Thirteenth Century, to one of those sects which, animated by the spirit of an Arnold of Brescia, felt constrained to oppose the worldly tendencies of the Church. Its founder was Gherardo Sega- rclli, a weaver in Parma. Rejected, from some cause or other, by the Franciscan Order, his long- continued and enthusiastic meditations led him to the profound conviction that it was above all things necessary to return to the simple forms of apostolic lite. Accordingly, he went about (1260) in the garb of the apostles, as a preacher of repentance, and by his practical discourses gathered many adherents into a kind of free society, bound" by no oaths. At first he man- aged to avoid any direct collision with the dog- mas of the Church; but after twenty years of undisturbed activity and growing influence, Se- garelli was arrested by the Bishop of Parma, who, hovever, soon after released him and kept him in his palace as his fool, and in 1286 ban- ished him from his diocese. Upon the occasion of his release, Pope Honorius IV. renewed a de- cree of the Council of Lyons (1274) against all religious communities not directly sanctioned by the Papal chair. In 1200, Nicholas IV. set- ting himself to expose and persecute the Apos- tolic Brethren, they, on their side, began to de- nounce the Papacy as the Babylon of the Apoca- lypse. Jlany, both men and women, perished at the stake, among them Segarelli (.July 18, 1300). But his cause survived him. Dolcino, a more energetic and cultivated man, brought up as a priest, who had previously taken an active part in Tyrol against the alleged corruptions of the Church, now headed the sect in Italy. He taught the duty of a complete renunciation of all worldly ties, of property, and settled abode, etc. Having retreated into Dalmatia. he an- nounced from thence the dating of the new era, and in 1304 reappeared in Upper Italy, with thousands of adherents, as the enemy of the Papacy — at that time humbled and impoverished by France. In 1305 a crusade was preached against him. He fortified the mountain Zebello, in the diocese of Vereelli, but was, after a gal- lant defense, compelled by famine to submit. After horrible tortures, which he bore with the utmost fortitude, he %as burned at Vereelli. June 1, 1307. In Lombardy and the south of France, brethren lingered till ]3ti8.
APOSTOLIC CON'STITU'TIONS AND CAN'ONS. The Constitutions are a collection of ecclesiastical ordinances, in eight books, erroneously supposed to have been the work of the Apostles, and to have been written down liy Saint Clement. In the last chapter of the eighth book the so-called Apostolic Canons, eighty-five in number, are given. It is now recognized that both works are compositions of a later date; but scholars are not yet fully agreed upon the sources and dates for the different parts. The theory most generally held is that the first six books of the Constitutions are based upon the Didoscalin, a work of the last third of the Third Century; that the seventh book is a rcAvorking of the Didachc. a Second-Century work; and that the eighth book rests probably upon a collection based upon the Canons of Hippolytus (q.v.). The Canons were probably composed m Syria, and according to Funk, who may be regarded as the best authority, date from the beginning of the Fifth Century. The authority of the constitutions was never accepted in the Western Church, and was rejected by the Eastern at the Council of Constantinople, in 002. The Canons were accepted by the Eastern Church at that council. In the West, the first fifty were translated by Dionysius Exiguus (q.v.), were incorporated" in ihe Decrctum of Gratian (q.v.), and although held to be apocryphal, are considered
