Apollonius of Tyana

“ There was also a certain indefinite charm about him that made him more pleasant to look upon than even the freshness of youth, and this even though his face was furrowed with wrinkles, just as the statues in the temple at Tyana represented him in the time of Philostratus. In fact, says his rhetorical biographer, report sang higher praises over the charm of Apollonius in his old age than over the beauty of Alcibiades in his youth (viii. 29) .
In brief, our philosopher seems to have been of a most charming presence and lovable disposition ”

“ The chief representative of Neo-Pythagorism was Apollonius, of Tyana, in Cappodocia, probably one of the most fantastic personages of all Greek and Roman antiquity. Venerated as a god by some of his contemporaries, such as Damis and Philostratus, his biographers, on account of his wisdom and of his extraordinary works, he is considered by others, on the other hand, as a magician engaged, like a common charlatan, in conjuring tricks. The opinions which posterity, down to modern times, has passed on Apollonius are of a similar nature. ”

“ Its most famous leader was Apollonius of Tyana in Cappadocia, who lived under Nero. By the third century a mass of marvellous legends had gathered about this Apollonius which is preserved in his life, written about 210 a.d. ”

“ Apollonius of Tyana in Cappadocia, a contemporary of Christ and the Apostles, was a philosopher, ascetic and magician esteemed among the people as a worker of miracles. As an earnest adherent of the doctrine of Pythagoras, whom he also imitated in his dress and manner of life, claiming the possession of the gifts of prophecy and miracle working, he assumed the role of a moral and religious reformer of the pagan religion of his fathers. ”

“ Neo-Pythagoreanism was a curious attempt to found a religion which would satisfy both the critical spirit and the people. At the beginning of the third century appeared The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a magician and a disciple of Pythagoras. Philostratus takes his hero to the Orient, Ethiopia, Greece, Rome. He writes a real 89 romance. And that of Heliodorus recalls it often. Both authors show the same admiration for the Gymnosophists, the same distinction between magic and theurgy. Both Apollonius and Calasiris are opposed to impure sacrifices. ”

“ APOLLONIUS OF TYANA. Apollonius of Tyana in Asia Minor was born nearly at the same time as Jesus Christ, and acquired great reputation while he lived, and for a considerable time after. He was born of wealthy parents, and seems early to have betrayed a passion for philosophy. ”

“ Vopiscus, writing in the last decade of the third century, tells us that Aurelian (Emp. 270-275) vowed a temple to Apollonius, of whom he had seen a vision when besieging Tyana. Vopiscus speaks of the Tyanean as “a sage of the most wide-spread renown and authority, an ancient philosopher, and a true friend of the Gods,” nay, as a manifestation of deity. “For what among men,” exclaims the historian, “was more holy, what more worthy of reverence, what more venerable, what more god-like than he? He, it was, who gave life to the dead. ”

“ Apollonius was not only a philosopher, in the sense of being a theoretical speculator or of being the follower of an ordered mode of life schooled in the discipline of resignation; he was also a philosopher in the original Pythagorean meaning of the term—a knower of Nature’s secrets, who thus could speak as one having authority.
He knew the hidden things of Nature by sight and not by hearing; for him the path of philosophy was a life whereby the man himself became an instrument of knowing. Religion, for Apollonius, was not a faith only, it was a science. ”

“ A glance at the cult associated with the name of the pagan Apollonius of Tyana, who won fame in the first century, makes it clear that even where a great renown attached to a travelling religious reformer and reputed wonder-worker, and where an adoring biography served in some degree to prolong his fame, the lack of a hierarchy or connected series of religious groups prevented on the one hand its continuance, and on the other hand the necessary development of the literature which should conserve it. ”

“ He gave great attention to the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. There was, however, another Eudemus, a physician of Rome, who became entangled in an intrigue with the wife of the son of the Emperor Tiberius. He aided her in an attempt to poison her husband in A.D. 23. He was put to torture, and finally executed by order of Tiberius. [Pg 80]
Apollonius of Tyana was born four years before the Christian era, in the time of Augustus Cæsar, and is known chiefly for the parallel that has been drawn by ancient and modern writers between his supposed miracles and those of the Saviour. ”

“ Apollonius of Tyana held, that birth and death are only in appearance; that which separates itself from the one substance (the one Divine essence) , and is caught up by matter, seems to be born; that, again, which releases itself from the bonds of matter, and is reunited with the one Divine Essence, seems to die. There is, at most, an alteration between becoming visible and becoming invisible. ”

“ Apollonius, on the contrary, a Greek by birth, had stored his vast intellect with the religious doctrines of the whole world, from India to Spain; his life extended over a century. Like a luminous meteor he traversed the universe, in constant intercourse with kings and the powerful ones of the earth, who venerate and fear him; and if he ever meets with hostility and opposition, he triumphs over it majestically, always stronger than his tyrants, never subject to humiliations, never brought into contact with public executioners. ”

“ To such high qualifications we can make no pretension, and our highest ambition is simply to give a few very general indications of the nature of the subject.
It is plainly asserted by the ancient Greeks that Pythagoras went to India, but as the statement is made by Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic writers subsequent to the time of Apollonius, it is objected that the travels of the Tyanean suggested not only this item in the biography of the great Samian but several others, or even that Apollonius himself in his Life of Pythagoras was father of the rumour. ”

“ In it we recognise a natural explanation of all our earlier studies; and we hail with sincere delight the progress of a science which reconciles us to magic without the necessity of interposing a diabolic agency. The miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, as related by Philostratus, become very commonplace performances when viewed by the light of mesmerism. ”

“ Now Celsus, who attributed the miracles of Jesus to sorcery, had said that the arts of magic could have no influence except upon men who were devoid of all cultivation and morality, and that with philosophers they were powerless. Origen replies to him with the remark that in order to convince himself of the contrary he has only to read the memoirs of Apollonius of Tyana, by Maeragenes, who speaks of him as a philosopher and a magician who exercised his magic repeatedly on philosophers. ”

“ Is it not that the application of his canons of interpretation to Apollonius would have deprived him of one of the sources from which the mythicity of Jesus by his anachronistic methods could be deduced?
The early passion play of the Sun-god Joshua Mr. Robertson endeavours in a halting manner to justify his partiality for Apollonius. “We have,” he writes (Pagan Christs, p. 283, § 16) , “no reason for doubting that there was an Apollonius of Tyana .... The reasons for not doubting are (1) that there was no cause to be served by a sheer fabrication ”

“ To this charge Apollonius replied with veiled irony: “You have omitted the most serious charge that might have been urged against me: to wit, that though I really know more about the mystic rite than its hierophant, I have come here pretending to desire initiation from men knowing more than myself.” ”

“ It is quite true that Apollonius is chaste and temperate—that he is actuated by the noble desire to know, and the still nobler desire to communicate his knowledge to mankind. He is ingenious, learned, and, generally speaking, there is a something at once lively and original in his language when he does not indulge in too long an oration—something which is admirably suited to the character of a popular reformer ”

“ Apollonius heals many sick people, and does much good, but he does it coldly, correctly, and more like an artist who is trying to eliminate all sounds of discord from the great harmonies of Nature, than like one who is touched by the infirmities and sufferings of that sacred being, so great and yet so miserable, whom we call man. ”

“ It is strange that, just as the biography of Apollonius is in a great measure an imitation of the Gospel narrative, so the life of Pythagoras, as it is found written in the work of Porphyry and Iamblichus, is nothing more than a reproduction of the characteristic traits in the life of the hero of Philostratus. Like Apollonius, Pythagoras had made long voyages in order that he might become the receptacle of all earthly wisdom. He had his Domitian in the tyrant Phalaris. He is the son of Apollo just as Apollonius is the son of Proteus. He works countless miracles. ”

“ Apollonius began to travel up and down the empire, sowing everywhere the seeds of discontent and rebellion against the crowned monster. Though at a distance, he fosters in Rome itself a conspiracy in favour of the virtuous Nerva, whose imminent elevation to the throne he foresees with certainty. Having been warned of this, Domitian ordered him to be arrested, when the dauntless philosopher, taking the initiative, appears of his own free will in the very heart of Rome, in spite of the entreaties of his disciples and of Damis himself that he should not go up to the city. ”

“ Seeing that the nature of Apollonius’ business with the priests of the temples and the devotees of the mystic life was necessarily of a most intimate and secret nature, for in those days it was the invariable custom to draw a sharp line of demarcation between the inner and outer, the initiated and the profane, it is not to be expected that we can learn anything but mere externalities from the Damis-Philostratus narrative ”

“ In answer to Vespasian’s earnest prayer, “Teach me what should a good king do,” Apollonius is said to have replied somewhat in the following words:
139 “You ask me what can not be taught. For kingship is the greatest thing within a mortal’s reach; it is not taught. Yet will I tell you what if you will do, you will do well. Count not that wealth which is stored up—in what is this superior to the sand haphazard heaped? nor that which comes from men who groan beneath taxation’s heavy weight—for gold that comes from tears is base and black. ”

“ In the second place, although we are not to suppose that we are reading the actual words of Apollonius, we are nevertheless conscious of being in immediate contact with the inner atmosphere of the best religious thought of the Greek mind, and have before our eyes the picture of a mystic and spiritual fermentation which leavened all strata of society in the first century of our era. ”

“ See Alford, ii. 178; and Conybeare and Howson, i. 406.
[104:2] It is a curious fact that the impostor Apollonius of Tyana, who was the contemporary of the apostle, speaks of Athens as a place "where altars are raised to the unknown Gods." "Life," by Philostratus, book vi. c. 3. See also Pausanias, Attic, i. 4.
[105:1] See Cudworth's "Intellectual System, with Notes by Mosheim," i. 513, 111. Edition, London, 1845.
[105:2] See Mosheim's "Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians before Constantine," by Vidal, i. 42. ”

“ The undoubted triumph of the Church deprives it of all positive interest. The night of the Middle Ages had set in. Not till the time of the Renaissance do we see the life of Apollonius brought to light again with many other specimens of ancient art, all of them doubtless surprised to see the light of day once more. Even then, however, there was something suspicious about this resuscitated Apollonius, so much so that the learned Aldus Manutius hesitated for a time before he granted the publicity of the press to the work of Philostratus. ”

“ Nevertheless, even were we with the scalpel of criticism to cut away every morsel of flesh from this body of tradition and legend, there would still remain a skeleton of fact that would still represent Apollonius and give us some idea of his stature. ”

“ In any case Apollonius restored the rites to Achilles, and erected a chapel in which he set up the neglected statue of Palamedes.104 The heroes of the Trojan period, then, it would seem, had still some connection with Greece, according to the science of the invisible world into which Apollonius was initiated. And if the Protestant sceptic can make nothing of it, at least the Roman Catholic reader may be induced to suspend his judgment by changing “hero” into “saint.” ”

“ The belief of the philosopher in the grand ideal of having nothing and yet possessing all things, is exemplified by his reply to the officer who asked him how he dared enter the dominions of Babylon without permission. “The whole earth,” said Apollonius, “is mine; and it is given me to journey through it” (i. 21) .
There are many instances of sums of money being offered to Apollonius for his services, but he invariably refused them; not only so but his followers also refused all presents. ”

“ He was opposed to the idea of Euphrates, a philosopher of quite a different stamp, who would have put an end to the monarchy and restored the republic (v. 33) ; he believed that government by a monarch was the best for the Empire, but he desired above all other things to see the “flock of mankind” led by a “wise and faithful shepherd” (v. 35) .
So that though Apollonius supported Vespasian as long as he worthily tried to follow out this ideal, he immediately rebuked him to his face when he deprived the Greek cities of their privileges. “You have enslaved Greece,” he wrote. ”