APO

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APO

whom they preached ; to declare, that the kingdom of heaven, orthe Messiah , was at hand; to confirm their doctrine by miracles;to avoid going cither to the Gentiles, or to the Samaritans , and toconiine their preaching to the people of Israel . In obedience totheir Master, the apostles went into all the parts of Palestine, in-habited by the Jews , preaching the gospel, and working miracles.The evangelical history is silent as to the particular circumstancesattending this first preaching of the apostles; and only jnforms 11 s,that they returned, and told their Master of all that they haddone. Their second commission, just before our Lord's ascensioninto heaven, was of a more extensive nature. They were nowordered to “ go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the nameof the Father, and of the bon, and of the Holy Ghost.” Accord-ingly, they began publicly, after our Lord’s ascension, to exercisetlie office of their ministry, working miracles daily, in proof ottheir mission, and making great numbers of converts to the Chris-tian faith. This alarmed the Jewish Sanhedrim ; whereupon theapostles were apprehended, and, being examined before the high-priest and elders, were commanded not to preach any more in thn.name of Christ. But this injunction did not terrify them frompersisting in their duty ; for they continued daily, in the templeand private houses, teaching and preaching the gospel. After theapostles had exercised their ministry for twelve years in Judea ,they resolved to disperse themselves in different parts ot theworld, rrnd agreed to determine by lot what parts each shouldtake. According to this division, St. Peter went into Pontus,Galatia, and some parts adjacent; St. Andrew into the vast nor-thern countries of Sevthia and Sogdiana ; St. John into the AsiaMinor ; St. Philip into the Upper Asia and some parts of Scythiaand Colchis; St. Bartholomew into Arabia Felix; St. Matthew travelled into Chalda'a, Persia , and Parthia; St. Thomas intoIlyrcama, Bactria , and India; St. James the l.a:ss continued inJerusalem , of which church he was bishop, ruling elder, or chiefminister; St. Simon travelled into F.gvpt, Gyrene, Libya , andMauritania; St. Jude, sirnamed Thaddeus, or Lebbeus , intoSyria and Mesopotamia; and St. Matthias , who was chosen in theroom of the traitor Judas Iscariot, into Cappadocia and Colchis .Thus, by the dispersion of the apostles, Christianity was veryearly planted in a great many parts of the world. We have butvery short and imperfect accounts of their travels and actions;excepting those of the apostle. Paul, who amply supplied the placeof St. James Major, whom llerod murdered. To qualify theapostles for the arduous task of converting the world to the Chris-tian religion, t.hey w ere miraculously enabled to speak the languagesof the several nations to whom tliev were to preach; and wereendowed with the power of working miracles, in confirmation ofthe doctrines they taught; gifts which Mere unnecessary, andtherefore ceased, in the after ages of the church. St. Paul isfrequently called the apostle of the Gentiles, because his ministrywas chielly made use of for the conversion of the Gentile world,as that of St. Peter was for the Jew ’s, who is therefore styled theApostle of the Circumcision.

APOSTJ.ES, Inferior. This appellation was also given tothe ordinary travelling ministers of the church. Thus St. Paul ,in his epistle to the Pliilippians, chap. ii. 25. styles Epaphrodi-tus expresslv their apostle, [yuiuv Si «m>yoXov,] though in our transla-tion, the word is rendered messenger. The term apostle is alsoapplied to those persons who first planted the Christian faith inany place. Thus Dionysius of Corinth is called the Apostle ofFrance ; Xavier the Apostle of the Indies , Sec. In the East Indiesthe Jesuit missionaries are also called apostles. The word isalso used among the Jews tor a kind of officer anciently sent intothe several parts and provinces in their jurisdiction, by way ofvisitor or commissary, to see that the laws were duly observed,ami to receive the monies collected for the reparation of the tem-ple, and the tribute payable (o the Homans.

Apostle , in the Greek liturgy, is used for a book containingthe Epistles of St. Paul, printed in the order wherein tliev are tobe read in churches, through the course of the year. Anotherbook of the like kind, containing the Gospels, is called EuafyeXiov,Gospel. The apostle, of late days, lias also contained the otherCanonical Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Revelation .

Arosn.Es’ Creed. See Creed.

APOSTOL.EUM, or A I’OS J i ILIUM , in ecclesiastical wri-ters, de-notes a church dedicated to, and called by, the name of anapostle.

vol. 1 .—no. 13.

APOSTOLATE, in a general sense, is used for mission. Itproperly signifies the office or dignity of an apostle of Christ.

APOSd 01.1 C, or APOSTOLICAL, something that relates tothe apostles, or descends from them. Thus we say, the apostolic age,apostolical doctrine, &c. Apostolic, in the primitive church, was anappellation given to all such churches as were founded by the apos-tles ; and even to the bishops of those churches, as being the reputedsuccessors of the apostles. There were four, viz. Rome, Alexandria,Antioch, and Jerusalem . In after times, other churches assumed thesame quality, on account, principally, of the conformity of theirdoctrine with that ot the churches which were apostolical by founda-tion, and because all bishops held themselves successors of theapostles, or acted in their dioceses with the authority of apostles.

AeosToi.rcAt, Fathers is an appellation usually * given to thewriters of the lirst century w ho employed their pens in the causeof Christianity .

APOSTOLICI, or APOSTOL1CS, a name assumed bythree different sects, on account of their pretending to imitate thepractice of the apostles. !. The first apostolici, called apotactita:and apotactici, rose out of the Encratitir, and Cathari , in the 3dcentury. They made profession of abstaining from marriage, andthe use of wine, flesh, money, &c, 2. Gerhard Sagarelli was the

founder of the second sect. He obliged his followers to go fromplace to place, as the apostles did, to wander about, cloathcd inwhite, with long beards, dishevelled hair, and bare heads, accom-panied with women, whom they called their spiritual sisters. 3.The last apostolici were of the tilth century. These also con-demned marriage, preferring celibacy, and calling themselves thechaste brethren and sisters; though each was allowed a spiritualsister, with whom he lived in a domestic relation.

APGSTOLICUM, a peculiar kind of song or hymn, ancientlyused in churches.

APOSTROPHE, [ainifjoftr, from ten, from, and s-jfpiv, to turn,]in rhetoric, a diversion of speech to a different person fromwhom the speech did intend or require; or, it is a turning of thespeech from one person to another, many times abruptly. Afigure, when we break off the course of our speech, and speak tosome new person, present or absent, as to the people or witnesses,when it was before directed to the judges, or opponent. Thisfigure, in boldness, is a degree lower than the address to personi-fied objects (see Personification ) ; since it requires a less ef-fort of imagination to suppose persons present, who are dead orabsent, than to animate insensible beings and direct our discourseto them. The Poems of Ossian abound with the most beautifulinstances of this figure. “ Weep on the rocks of roaring winds,O Maid of lnistore! Bend thy fair head over the waves, thoufairer than the ghost of the hills, when it moves in a sun-beam atnoon over the silence of Morven ! He b fallen !

Apostrophe, in grammar, a mark placed over a letter to shewthat a voM’el is cut off, as call’d for called. It is also a sign of thepossessive case of a noun.

APOTACTICI, or APOTACTIT.E, [formed from kvItstto,to renounce,] an ancient sect, who, alfecting to follow the evan-gelical counsels of poverty, and the examples of the apostles, andprimitive Christians , renounced all their effects and possessions.

APOTF.iCIlISMUS, [from to raise a wall,] in the

ancient military art, a line of circmnvallation drawn round a place,to besiege it.

APOTELESMA, [from rraolfx™, (o perform,] an effectof some cause; also a prognostic, or prediction of an event.

APOTELESMATICA, the art of foretelling future events,from the aspects of the heavenly bodies.

A POT E LESM AT 1C A L Astronomy, the same with astrology.

APOTHECARIES, in writers of the middle age, denotes ashop-keeper, or warehouse-keeper.

APOTHECARY, [from am a shop,] one who practisesthe art of pharmacy. In London , the apothecaries are one ofthe city companies. They were incorporated by a charter fromking James I. procured at the solicitaiion of Dr. Maverne andDr. Aitkens: till that time they only made a part of the grocerscompany; plums, sugar, spice, Venice treacle, niithridate, Sec.were sold in the same shop, and by the same person. The reasonof separating them was, that medicines might be better prepared,and in opposition to divers persons, who imposed'unwholesomeremedies on the people. By ■. n act which was made perpetual inthe ytli Geo. 1. they are exempted from serving upon juries, or3 P in