Apollinaris of Laodicea

Who was Apollinaris of Laodicea?

Apollinarius "the Younger" was a bishop of Laodicea in Syria. He collaborated with his father Apollinarius the Elder in reproducing the Old Testament in the form of Homeric and Pindaric poetry, and the New Testament after the fashion of Platonic dialogues, when the emperor Julian had forbidden Christians to teach the classics.

Best known, however, as a noted opponent of Arianism, Apollinarius' eagerness to emphasize the deity of Jesus and the unity of his person led him so far as to deny the existence of a rational human soul in Christ's human nature, this being replaced in him by the Logos, so that his body was a glorified and spiritualized form of humanity. Over against this view the orthodox and catholic position that God as his Logos assumed human nature in its entirety, including the νους, for only so could he be humanity's perfect redeemer and prototype. It was alleged that the Apollinarian approach implied docetism, that if the Godhood without constraint swayed the manhood there was no possibility of real human probation or of real advance in Christ's manhood. The position was accordingly condemned by several synods and in particular by that of Constantinople.