ports the tableland of
Abruzzi.

APES, DEAD SEA, dwellers by the Dead Sea who, according to the
Moslem tradition, were transformed into apes because they turned a deaf
ear to God's message to them by the lips of Moses, fit symbol, thinks
Carlyle, of many in modern time to whom the universe, with all its
serious voices, seems to have become a weariness and a humbug See
"PAST AND PRESENT," BK. III. CHAP. III.

APH`IDES, a family of insects very destructive to plants by feeding
on them in countless numbers.

APHRODI`TE, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, wife of Hephaestos
and mother of Cupid; sprung from sea-foam; as queen of beauty had the
golden apple awarded her by Paris, and possessed the power of conferring
beauty, by means of her magic girdle, the cestus, on others.

API`CIUS, the name of three famous Roman epicures, the first of whom
was contemporary with Sulla, the second with Augustus, and the third with
Trajan.

A`PION, an Alexandrian grammarian of the 1st century, and an enemy
of the Jews, and hostile to the privileges conceded them in Alexandria.

A`PIS, the sacred live bull of the Egyptians, the incarnation of
Osiris; must be black all over the body, have a white triangular spot on
the forehead, the figure of an eagle on the back, and under the tongue
the image of a scarabaeus; was at the end of 25 years drowned in a sacred
fountain, had his body embalmed, and his mummy regarded as an object of
worship.

APOCALYPTIC WRITINGS, writings composed among the Jews in the 2nd
century B.C., and ascribed to one and another of the early prophets of
Israel, forecasting the judgments ordained of God to overtake the nation,
and predicting its final deliverance at the hands of the Messiah.

APOCRYPHA, THE, a literature of sixteen books composed by Jews,
after the close of the Hebrew canon, which though without the unction of
the prophetic books of the canon, are instinct, for most part, with the
wisdom which rests on the fear of God and loyalty to His law. The word
Apocrypha means hidden writing, and it was given to it by the Jews to
distinguish it from the books which they accepted as canonical.

APOL`DA (20), a town in Saxe-Weimar with extensive hosiery
manufactures; has mineral springs.

APOLLINA`RIS, bishop of Laodicea, denied the proper humanity of
Christ, by affirming that the Logos in Him took the place of the human
soul, as well as by maintaining that His body was not composed of