APOSTASY, a renouncing of the true religion. The primitive Christian church distinguished several kinds of apostasy. The first, of those who went over entirely from Christianity to Judaism; the second, of those who mingled Judaism and Christianity together; and the third, of those who complied so far with the Jews as to communicate with them in many of their unlawful practices, without making a formal profession of their religion. But the fourth sort was of those who, after having been some time Christians, voluntarily relapsed into Paganism.