Apollinaris of Hierapolis

Saint Apollinaris Claudius, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, was a writer and defender of the Christian faith of the second century, known as an apologist and an opponent of the Montanist heresy. He is remembered on 8 January.

He lived in the time of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, to whom he addressed an apology for the Christians, between 171 and 177. In it he appealed, according to the sources, to the emperor's own experience with the “Thundering Legion,” whose prayers won him the victory over the Quadi. He wrote five books “Against the Pagans,” two books “On Truth,” “Against the Cataphrygians,” “To the Greeks,” two books “To the Jews,” and “On Passover,” and a work against the Encratites of the school of Severus. He became famous for his treatises against the heretics of his day. According to the ninth-⁠century Synodikon he convened a synod, in which twenty-⁠six bishops took part, which condemned Montanus, Maximilla and the shoemaker Theodotus.

Nothing of his writings survives whole; only a few extracts remain, the longest of which concerns the date of Passover, contained in the Paschal Chronicle, and the authenticity of some is doubtful. Eusebius of Caesarea speaks of him in the Church History, Jerome in “On Illustrious Men” and Photius in the Library. The exact date of his death is not known; he probably died about 190, perhaps while Marcus Aurelius was still emperor.