APO

APO

pleasure have I hitherto lived a stranger to?” And that of Cato,

" Homines nihil agendo discunt male agere ; Men, by doing no-thing, learn to do mischief;” &c. The apophthegms of Plutarch are well known.

APOPHYGE, [fwofvyn, flight, or escape,] is, in architec-ture, that part of a column, where it begins to spring out of itsbase; and was originally no more than the ring or ferrel, whichanciently bound the extremities of wooden pillars, to keep themfrom splitting, and were afterwards imitated in stone work. Wesometimes call it the spring of the column.

APOPHYSIS , [tsirofujif,] tire prominent parts of some bones;the same as process.

Apophysis, in 'botany, an excrescence from the receptacle ofthe rnusci.

APOPLANESIS, [from arra-janaui, I deceive,] in oratory, akind of fallacious defence, and slurring over, darkening, andconcealing things, in order to blind the judges, or the audience.

APOPLECTIC Veins, a name sometimes given to. thejugulars. _ ,

APOPLEXY, [amn-xsih;,] a sudden deprivation of all inter-nal and external sensation, and of all motion, unless of the heartand thorax. The cause is generally a repletion, and indicates'evacuation, joined with stimuli.

APOPOMP.E, in antiquity, certain days in which sacrificeswere offered to the gods called Pompiei.

APOPSCYHIA, [from 1 expire,] is understood of

eflluvia, emitted from the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies ;to which their influence on sublunary things was ascribed by astro-logers.

APORIA, [retvoaia,] is a figure in rhetoric, by which theSpeaker shews, that he doubts where to begin for the multitude ofmatter, or what to say in some strange and ambiguous tiling; anddoth, as it were, argue the case with liimself, as, shall I speak orhold my tongue ?

APORIME, or APORION, [from am~o;, difficult, imprac-ticable,] a problem difficult to resolve, and which has never beenresolved, though it be not, in itself, impossible : Such as the qua-drature of a circle ; the duplicature of the cube ; the trisectionof an angle, &c. When a question was proposed to any of theGreek philosophers, especially of the sect of Academists; if hecould not give a solution, his answer was, Am™, “ I cannot seethrough it.” This word is also used by some Jaw-writers for aninexplicable speech or discourse.

APORRHOEA, in astrology, is when the moon separatesfrom one planet, and applies to another.

Aporrhoea, in physic, is used for morbid or contagious mi-asmata, or effluvia from unwholesome bodies.

APORRHOES, [from wi/fa*, to flow from,] in philosophy,Sulphureous effluvia, or exhalations, emitted from the earth, andsubterraneous bodies.

APOSIOPES1S, [«7roriu)7ni!rif, from awo, and e-iumuv, to besilent,] a form of speech, by which the speaker, through someaffection, as sorrow, bashfulness, fear, anger, or vehemency,breaks off his speech before it be all ended.

APOSPHRAGIS \IA, [from om and <rpo'iyt jG, to seal,] inantiquity, the figure or impression of a seal. It was forbid among theancients to have the figure or image of God on their rings and seals.

APOSTARE Leges, in law, wilfully to transgress the law.

APOSTASIS, [from afiripu, I depart, &c.] in physic, thesame with abscess.

APOSTASY, [awos-M-i;,] departure from what a man has pro-fessed: it is generally applied to a renunciation of religion. Theprimitive Christian church distinguished several kinds of apostasy.The first, of those who went entirely from Christianity to Judaism ;the second, of those who mingled Judaism and Christianity toge-ther; and the third, of tho.;e who complied so far with the Jews ,as to communicate with them, in many of their unlawful practices,without making a formal profession of their religion. But thefourth sort was of those, who, after having been sometime Chris-tians, voluntarily relapsed into Paganism . The perversion of aChristian to Judaism, Paganism , or other false religion, was pu-nished by the emperors Constantins and Julian with confiscationof goods; to which the emperors Theodosius and Valontir.ianadded capital punishment, in case the apostate endeavoured topervert others. A punishment too severe for any temporal lawsto inflict; and yet the zeal of our ancestors imported i.t into this

country; for we find by Bracton, that in his time apostates wereto be burnt to death. Doubtless, the preservation ol Christianity ,as a national religion, is, abstracted from its own intrinsic truth,,(and without entering upon the question respecting establishmentsof religion,) of the utmost consequence to the civil state; whicha single instance will sufficiently demonstrate. The belief in afuture state of rewards and punishments, the entertaining justideas of the moral attributes of the Supreme Being, and a firmpersuasion that he superintends, and will finally compensate everyaction in human life (all which are dearly revealed in the doctrn s,aud forcibly inculcated by the precepts, of our saviour Christ, )these are the grand foundation of all judicial oaths ; which call God to witness the truth of those facts, which perhaps may be onlyknown to him and the party attesting: all moral evidence, there-fore, all confidence in human veracity, must be weakened byapostasv, and overthrown by total infidelity. W herefore all af-fronts on Christianity , or endeavours to depreciate its efficacy, inthose who have once professed it, ?.re highly deserving of censure.But yet the loss of life is a heavier penalty than the offence, take*in a civil light, deserves ; and, taken in a spiritual light, our lawshave no jurisdiction over it. This punishment, therefore, haslong ago become obsolete; and the offence of apostasy was for alongtime the object only of the ecclesiastical courts, which cor-rected the offender pro salute amman But about the close of thelast century, the civil liberties, to which we were then restored,being used’ as a cloke of licentiousness, and doctrines, subversiveof all religion, being publicly avowed, both in discourse and wri-tings, it was thought necessary again, for the civil power tointerpose, by not admitting those miscreants to the privileges ofsociety, who maintained such principles as destroyed all moralobligation. To this end, it was enacted, by statute t) and lflW. III. c. 32. That if any person, educated in, or having madeprofession of, the Christian religion, shall, by writing, printing,teaching, or advised speaking, deny the Christian religion to betrue, or the holy Scriptures to be of divine authority, he shall,upon the first offence, be rendered incapable to hold any officeor place of trust; and, for the second, be rendered incapable ofbringing any action, or of being guardian, executor, legatee, orpurchaser of' lands, and shall suffer three years imprisonment with-out bail. To give room, however, for repentance, if, within fourmonths after the first conv iclion, the delinquent will, in open court,publicly renounce his error, he is discharged, for that once, fromall disabilities.

APOSTATA Capiendo, in the English law, a writ that for-merly lay against a person who, having entered into some order ofreligion, broke out again, and wandered up and down the country.

APOSTEME, APOSTUME, [«™r>ifi«,] a hollow swelling,filled with purulent matter; an abscess.

A POSTERIORI, or demonstration cl posteriori. See De-monstration.

APOSTLE, [nw5rox® j ,] properly signifies a messenge. or per-son sent by another upon some business; and lienee, by way ofeminence, denotes one of the twelve disciples, commissioned byJesus Christ to preach the gospel; also the term is applied toother eminent disciples of our blessed Lord. The apostles areusually represented with their respective badges: thus, Peter ispainted with the keys; Paul with a sword ; Andrew with a cross;James the greater with a pilgrim’s staff and a gourd-bottle ; Jamesthe less with a fuller’s pole; John with a cup and a winged-serpentflying out of it; Bartholomew with a knife; Philip with alongstaff, the upper end of which is formed into a cross ; Thomas with,a lance; Matthew with a hatchet; Matthias with a battle-ax;Simon with a saw; and Jude with a club. Our blessed Lordselected twelve of his disciple, to be apostles. There are variousconjectures, as to the reason oi his choo-ing exactly twelve. Thamost probable is, that it might be in allusion to the twelve pa-triarchs, as the founders of their several tribes; or to the twelvechief rulers of those tribes, of w Inch the body of the Jewish nationconsisted. This opinion seems to be countenanced, by what ourSaviour tells his apostles, that, “ when the Son of man shall sitin the throne of his glory, they also shall sit upon twelve thrones,judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Our l.-rd’s fir.,I commissionto his apo: lies was in the third year of his public ministry, abouteight months after their election; at which time he sent (hem outby two and two. They were to make no provision of money fortheir subsistence, in then journey, but to expect it from those to* ’ whom.