Apollonius of Ephesus

Apollonius of Ephesus, so called on the doubtful authority of the writer of Praedestinatus, ed. by Sirmond, who styles him bp. of Ephesus, but the silence of Eusebius and all other earlier testimony makes it difficult to lay much stress on this statement. He wrote a work in five books against the Cataphrygian or Montanist heresy. Fragments of the first three books are extant in Eusebius (H. E. v. 18), and contain much that is curious and valuable with regard to the lives and characters of Montanus, the prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla, and their followers. Jerome also devotes an article to Apollonius. Vir. Illust. c. 50, in which he calls him ἀνὴρ ἐλλογιμώτατος, the author of a μέγα καὶ ἐπίσημον τεῦχος, and quotes him as stating that Montanus and his prophetesses hanged themselves. The book professes to be written 40 years after the commencement of Montanus's pretensions to prophesy. Taking for the rise of Montanism the date given in the Chronicon of Eusebius (A.D. 172), this would give about A.D. 210 for the date of this work. Eusebius mentions also that Apollonius cites the Revelation of St. John, that he relates the raising to life of a dead man at Ephesus by the same John, and that he makes mention of the tradition quoted also by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. vi. 5 sub finem) from the Apocryphal "Preaching of Peter" that our Lord commanded His apostles not to leave Jerusalem for twelve years after His ascension. This work of Apollonius was thought sufficiently important by Tertullian to demand an answer; bk. vii. of his lost work, de Ecstasi, was devoted to a refutation of his assertions (Hieron. de Vir. Ill. c. 50). Tillemont, Hist. Eccl. ii. 426; Bonwetsch. Gesch. des Montanismus (Erlanger, 1881).

[E.V.]