APOLLO. - God of Greece, among the most popular of the Hellenic religion. His origin is uncertain and the name resists the efforts of philologists to reach a satisfactory etymology; his original character is also unknown.
For some, A. is the Greek god par excellence, Doric or Ionic; for others he is a foreign god, who would have supplanted pre-Hellenic divinities. Depending on the etymologies, the importance given to individual ancient sources or to particular aspects of the god, A. has been made a native of Asia Minor (Leleges or Lycians), or of the Aegean, or he would be an ill-documented Hittite god, Apulunas, who would in turn go back to the Babylonians.
No other divinity has the multiplicity of functions that we find in A. He is a god of agriculture, he wards off diseases and the animals that could damage the crops and brings them to maturity; he is the god of the woods. As a shepherd god he gives health to the flock: legend too knows him under this aspect, has him serve as a shepherd with Admetus and has him steal the oxen from Hermes. He was also the god of hunting, of young men and of the wrestling school, god of contests and the first victor at Olympia, protector in wrestling and in war. He was god of the roads, of traffic and of markets, god of the mountains, of the sea and of navigation: in this last attribute he often had sanctuaries by the sea and was known especially as A. Delphinios, with a widespread cult in Crete and in the Peloponnese. He was protector of colonization, founder of new cities (A. Archegetes), oaths were sworn in his name. He was god of music, master of the Muses whose choruses he led (A. Musagetes), his favorite instrument was the cithara. He was par excellence the purifier of moral and physical evils, the one who freed men and cities from every contamination and pointed out the way of expiation: in Aeschylus he alone can redeem Orestes the matricide. Physical evils were the result of the god's wrath, but he could heal them, as he healed moral ones: he was therefore also god of health and physician, but in this function of his he was in part replaced by Asclepius, whom a legend made his son. He was god of light and of the sun. Some consider this his original aspect, while others point out that the identification with the sun does not go back beyond the 5th century B.C. and is due first of all to the influence of Asia Minor, where numerous solar divinities were identified with A. He enjoyed great popularity as god of divination and of oracles. Sometimes he also granted to mortals knowledge of the future (Cassandra, the Sibyls, etc.), but generally divination was tied to individual sanctuaries.
The best known was the oracle of A. Pythios at Delphi, which the Homeric hymn holds to have been founded by the god himself after the victory over the serpent Python, which spread desolation through the territory. In reality A. seems to have replaced a more ancient oracle of the earth. The priestess mounted the sacred tripod and gave the responses under the intoxicating influence of the vapors that issued from a cleft in the ground. The Delphic oracle had great influence on private and public life and was the religious center of the Greek world, of the colonies and of those who came into contact with the Greeks: the Lydian kings sent to consult it, Syracuse, Cyrene, the Etruscan cities of Caere and Spina had money and treasures at Delphi; Rome sent embassies during the siege of Veii and after Cannae. According to Plutarch, Sulla wore around his neck as an amulet a gold statuette of the Delphic god. The importance of Delphi was maintained until the fall of paganism: apocryphal oracles circulated, almost to legitimize the new Christian religion. In Asia Minor the oracles of Patara, of A. Clarios at Claros, of A. Didymeus near Miletus, etc., were famous. At Delphi A. gave responses only from spring to autumn; in winter the god resided among the Hyperboreans. According to another legend he dwelt at Patara in Lycia: this legend is proper to Delos, the center of the cult of A. Delios, rival of Delphi and in some periods as powerful and famous as it. At Delos the two twins A. and Artemis and their mother Leto are united in the cult, and there the legend of the birth of A. is localized.
Some have noted contrasts in the cult and in the attributions of A., but the fusion is ancient and is already complete in the Iliad, where A. is, with Zeus and Athena, the most powerful god; he is the brother of Artemis, the "far-shooter" armed with the silver bow whose arrows bring diseases and death, the god of music, who leads the choruses of the Muses, the god of prophecy. He has the epithet of Phoebus, which some connect with light, others with divinatory mantic.
The festivals in honor of A. were not numerous. The principal ones were the Carneia, celebrated especially in the Doric lands, the Hyacinthia, likewise especially Doric, the Thargelia at Athens and in the Ionic cities, the Daphnephoria.
The most usual among the attributes of A. were the bow and arrows, the cithara and, in connection with the cult of Delphi, the tripod and the omphalos; among the animals sacred to him the hind, the roe deer and, in the Peloponnese, the wolf were particularly frequent; among the trees, the laurel born from the metamorphosis of Daphne, the maiden loved in vain by A., and, at Delos, the palm.
At Rome A. penetrated at the end of the regal period. He was not assimilated to indigenous divinities, but, both here and in Etruria, he kept his own name. To Etruscan Veii belongs the archaic A., of life size, clothed in chiton and mantle, an outstanding example of Etruscan coroplastics, found in the excavations of 1915, now in the museum of Villa Giulia. In 433 B.C., on the occasion of a pestilence, he received a temple in the Flaminian Meadows, which was dedicated in 431. In 212 the Apollinarian games were introduced, which became permanent in 208. The cult of A. received great impetus from Augustus, who built a temple in his honor on the Palatine. At Rome A. remained above all a god of health, and under this aspect he also spread in the provinces, where he was assimilated to indigenous divinities, Belenus, Grannus, etc. His cult continued in the countryside even after the fall of paganism: in 529 St. Benedict destroyed an altar of A. at Montecassino.
Ancient art represented A. under two schemes, with a long robe and nude, in the archaic age also with the chitoniskos and bearded. Later the clothed A. remained only for A. Citharoedus. Generally A. is nude with his hair loose or tied. In vase painting he is depicted preferably in mythical scenes, among which the most frequent are the struggle with Heracles for the tripod of Delphi, with Hermes for the hind, with the serpent Python, the slaughter of the Niobids, etc. - See Pl. CXXV.
Bibliography4 works
Luna Banti
APOLLO (Ἀπολλῶς, contraction of Ἀπολλώνιος preserved by the codex Bezae). - Christian missionary of the apostolic age. An Alexandrian Jew (according to Aigrain, Holzner and others: a Platonizer, a disciple of Philo), a convert, expert in the Holy Scriptures, a brilliant speaker, he appeared in 53-4 at Ephesus (between the first and second stay of St. Paul) where in the synagogue he preached Jesus Christ with ardor (ferens spiritus). But, well instructed in the life of the Savior, he knew little of his doctrine: only the baptism of John was known to him (according to the codex Bezae, he would have been instructed in Alexandria by disciples of the Baptist). The spouses Aquila and Priscilla (v.), coming from Corinth, instructed him fully. What they narrated to him of Paul's work begun at Corinth enticed him to go, furnished with letters of recommendation, to Achaia, where he seconded the preaching of the Apostle, demonstrating from the Scriptures the messiahship of Jesus (Acts 18, 24-28). He rendered excellent service at Corinth to the cause of the Gospel and Paul gives him the praise of having watered what he had planted (1 Cor. 3, 6).
The success of A.'s eloquence in the Church of Corinth was such that a party was formed under his name, as opposed to the parties that took their name from Peter and from Paul (1 Cor. 1:12; cf. St. Clement of Rome, ad Cor. 47, 3-4). It seems that the insistence with which Paul rejects "oratorical wisdom" (1 Cor. 1:12 ff.; 3:4-5, 22) is in part aimed at condemning the infatuation produced by the learned and subtle speech of A. But it does not appear that A. himself, prudent and humble, gave occasion for this. On the contrary, to avoid any division among the faithful, he withdrew from Corinth, and refused to return there, despite Paul's urgings (1 Cor. 16:12), with whom he was at Ephesus (the year 57).
He remained a faithful collaborator of Paul (ibid. 3:4-6), who later recommended him to Titus (Tit. 3:13): A. was therefore in Crete (perhaps as the bearer of the letter) around the year 65, and was preparing with Zenas for a journey whose destination we do not know (a return to Corinth, according to St. Jerome). The supposed belonging of A. to a Judeo-Christian sect of Baptists is disputed and denied by J. Thomas, (Le mouvement baptiste en Palestine et Syrie, Gembloux 1935, pp. 96-102).
St. Jerome (In Titum, 3: PL 26, 598) makes him bishop of Corinth; pseudo-Dorotheus of Tyre (PG 92, 1064-65) and the Constantinopolitan Synaxarion (p. 786) bishop of Caesarea; local traditions assign him the see of Durazzo, or of Colophon, or of Iconium; but without foundation. The Martyr. Romanum commemorates him on December 9. He is sometimes called "apostle" (Syntax. Constantinop., p. 376).
Luther was the first to attribute to him the epistle to the Hebrews (v.); this hypothesis, spread by F. Bleek (1828) followed by G. Lünemann, A. Hilgenfeld, O. Pfeiderer, H. Alford and others, was taken up by the Catholics J. Ev. Belser (1901) and I. Rohr (Der Hebräerbrief..., 4th ed., Bonn 1932: A. was the "redactor") though only on vague conjectures (supposed "Alexandrian" features of allegorical exegesis and style). The opinion of E. H. Plumptre (The writings of Apollos, in Expositor, 1 [1875], pp. 320-48, 409-35), who attributes to A. the Alexandrian book of Wisdom, was accepted by some (P. Heinisch, Das Buch der Weisheit, Münster 1912, p. xxiii).
Bibliography12 works
Antonino Romeo