Acts of Apollonius: Essential Insights into a Powerful Philosopher

Apollonius was a learned philosopher. Judged by Perennis, the Prefect of the Praetorium in Rome, he was beheaded during the reign of the Emperor Commodus (180-185). The speeches with which Apollonius defends his faith before Perennis resemble in their argumentation the writings of the Apologists. They are most probably based on the answers which the philosopher gave according to the official Acta Praefectoria. A. Harnack has called them ‘the noblest apology of Christianity which came down to us from antiquity.’ Two versions of these acts have been published, one in Armenian by Conybeare in 1893, the other in Greek by the Bollandists in 1895. An English translation of the Armenian was made by F. C. Conybeare in The Armenian Apology and Acts of Apollonius and Other Monuments of Early Christianity (London 1894).

Some Contemporary Texts: Celsus (178 A.D.), Letter from Vienna and Lyons (178 A.D.), Passion of the Scillitan Martyrs (180 A.D.), Theophilus of Antioch (180-185 A.D.), Acts of Apollonius (180-185 A.D.), Bardesanes (180-220 A.D.), Kerygmata Petrou (180-220 A.D.), Hippolytus of Rome (180-230 A.D.), Sentences of Sextus (180-230 A.D.).