Apelles, who died after 180 CE, was the most prominent disciple of Marcion, as well as a Christian teacher and headmaster of a school. He taught in Rome, where he engaged in philosophical and religious disputes (e.g. with Rhodon, a student of Tatian). Tertullian’s remark that Apelles became familiar with Platonic philosophy in Alexandria (Tert. Praesc. 30.5–6) is probably a polemical device, like the claim that Apelles ab…