THE APOLLONIUS OF EARLY OPINION.
Apollonius of Tyana[2] was the most famous philosopher of the
Græco-Roman world of the first century, and devoted the major part of
his long life to the purification of the many cults of the Empire and to
the instruction of the ministers and priests of its religions. With the
exception of the Christ no more interesting personage appears upon the
stage of Western history in these early years. Many and various and
ofttimes mutually contradictory are the opinions which have been held
about Apollonius, for the account of his life which has come down to us
is in the guise of a romantic story rather than in the form of a plain
history. And this is perhaps to some extent to be expected, for
Apollonius, besides his public teaching, had a life apart, a life into
which even his favourite disciple does not enter. He journeys into the
most distant lands, and is lost to the world for years; he enters the
shrines of the most sacred temples and the inner circles of the most
exclusive communities, and what he says or does therein remains a
mystery, or serves only as an opportunity for the weaving of some
fantastic story by those who did not understand.
The following study will be simply an attempt to put before the reader a
brief sketch of the problem which the records and traditions of the life
of the famous Tyanean present; but before we deal with the Life of
Apollonius, written by Flavius Philostratus at the beginning of the
third century, we must give the reader a brief account of the references
to Apollonius among the classical writers and the Church Fathers, and a
short sketch of the literature of the subject in more recent times, and
of the varying fortunes of the war of opinion concerning his life in the
last four centuries.
First, then, with regard to the references in classical and patristic
authors. Lucian, the witty writer of the first half of the second
century, makes the subject of one of his satires the pupil of a disciple
of Apollonius, of one of those who were acquainted with "all the
tragedy"[3] of his life. And Appuleius, a contemporary of Lucian,
classes Apollonius with Moses and Zoroaster, and other famous Magi of
antiquity.[4]
About the same period, in a work entitled Quæstiones et Responsiones ad
Orthodoxos, formerly attributed to Justin Martyr, who flourished in the
second quarter of the second century, we find the following interesting
statement:
"Question 24: If God is the maker and master of creation, how do the
consecrated objects[5] of Apollonius have power in the [various] orders
of that creation? For, _as we see_, they check the fury of the waves and
the power of the winds and the inroads of vermin and attacks of wild
beasts."[6]
Dion Cassius in his history,[7] which he wrote A.D. 211-222, states that
Caracalla (Emp. 211-216) honoured the memory of Apollonius with a chapel
or monument (_heroum_).
It was just at this time (216) that Philostratus composed his Life of
Apollonius, at the request of Domna Julia, Caracalla's mother, and it is
with this document principally that we shall have to deal in the sequel.
Lampridius, who flourished about the middle of the third century,
further informs us that Alexander Severus (Emp. 222-235) placed the
statue of Apollonius in his _lararium_ together with those of Christ,
Abraham, and Orpheus.[8]
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. He, it was, who did and
said so many things beyond the power of men."[9] So enthusiastic is
Vopiscus about Apollonius, that he promises, if he lives, to write a
short account of his life in Latin, so that his deeds and words may be
on the tongue of all, for as yet the only accounts are in Greek.[10]
Vopiscus, however, did not fulfil his promise, but we learn that about
this date both Soterichus[11] and Nichomachus wrote Lives of our
philosopher, and shortly afterwards Tascius Victorianus, working on the
papers of Nichomachus,[12] also composed a Life. None of these Lives,
however, have reached us.
It was just at this period also, namely, in the last years of the third
century and the first years of the fourth, that Porphyry and Iamblichus
composed their treatises on Pythagoras and his school; both mention
Apollonius as one of their authorities, and it is probable that the
first 30 sections of Iamblichus are taken from Apollonius.[13]
We now come to an incident which hurled the character of Apollonius into
the arena of Christian polemics, where it has been tossed about until
the present day. Hierocles, successively governor of Palmyra, Bithynia,
and Alexandria, and a philosopher, about the year 305 wrote a criticism
on the claims of the Christians, in two books, called A Truthful
Address to the Christians, or more shortly The Truth-lover. He seems to
have based himself for the most part on the previous works of Celsus and
Porphyry,[14] but introduced a new subject of controversy by opposing
the wonderful works of Apollonius to the claims of the Christians to
exclusive right in "miracles" as proof of the divinity of their Master.
In this part of his treatise Hierocles used Philostratus' Life of
Apollonius.
To this pertinent criticism of Hierocles Eusebius of Cæsarea immediately
replied in a treatise still extant, entitled Contra Hieroclem.[15]
Eusebius admits that Apollonius was a wise and virtuous man, but denies
that there is sufficient proof that the wonderful things ascribed to him
ever took place; and even if they did take place, they were the work of
"dæmons," and not of God. The treatise of Eusebius is interesting; he
severely scrutinises the statements in Philostratus, and shows himself
possessed of a first rate critical faculty. Had he only used the same
faculty on the documents of the Church, of which he was the first
historian, posterity would have owed him an eternal debt of gratitude.
But Eusebius, like so many other apologists, could only see one side;
justice, when anything touching Christianity was called into question,
was a stranger to his mind, and he would have considered it blasphemy to
use his critical faculty on the documents which relate the "miracles" of
Jesus. Still the problem of "miracle" was the same, as Hierocles pointed
out, and remains the same to this day.
After the controversy reincarnated again in the sixteenth century, and
when the hypothesis of the "Devil" as the prime-mover in all "miracles"
but those of the Church lost its hold with the progress of scientific
thought, the nature of the wonders related in the Life of Apollonius was
still so great a difficulty that it gave rise to a new hypothesis of
plagiarism. The life of Apollonius was a Pagan plagiarism of the life of
Jesus. But Eusebius and the Fathers who followed him had no suspicion of
this; they lived in times when such an assertion could have been easily
refuted. There is not a word in Philostratus to show he had any
acquaintance with the life of Jesus, and fascinating as Baur's
"tendency-writing" theory is to many, we can only say that as a
plagiarist of the Gospel story Philostratus is a conspicuous failure.
Philostratus writes the history of a good and wise man, a man with a
mission of teaching, clothed in the wonder stories preserved in the
memory and embellished by the imagination of fond posterity, but not the
drama of incarnate Deity as the fulfilment of world-prophecy.
Lactantius, writing about 315, also attacked the treatise of Hierocles,
who seems to have put forward some very pertinent criticisms; for the
Church Father says that he enumerates so many of their Christian inner
teachings (_intima_) that sometimes he would seem to have at one time
undergone the same training (_disciplina_). But it is in vain, says
Lactantius, that Hierocles endeavours to show that Apollonius performed
similar or even greater deeds than Jesus, for Christians do not believe
that Christ is God because he did wonderful things, but because all the
things wrought in him were those which were announced by the
prophets.[16] And in taking this ground Lactantius saw far more clearly
than Eusebius the weakness of the proof from "miracle."
Arnobius, the teacher of Lactantius, however, writing at the end of the
third century, before the controversy, in referring to Apollonius
simply classes him among Magi, such as Zoroaster and others mentioned in
the passage of Appuleius to which we have already referred.[17]
But even after the controversy there is a wide difference of opinion
among the Fathers, for although at the end of the fourth century John
Chrysostom with great bitterness calls Apollonius a deceiver and
evil-doer, and declares that the whole of the incidents in his life are
unqualified fiction,[18] Jerome, on the contrary, at the very same date,
takes almost a favourable view, for, after perusing Philostratus, he
writes that Apollonius found everywhere something to learn and something
whereby he might become a better man.[19] At the beginning of the fifth
century also Augustine, while ridiculing any attempt at comparison
between Apollonius and Jesus, says that the character of the Tyanean was
"far superior" to that ascribed to Jove, in respect of virtue.[20]
About the same date also we find Isidorus of Pelusium, who died in 450,
bluntly denying that there is any truth in the claim made by "certain,"
whom he does not further specify, that Apollonius of Tyana "consecrated
many spots in many parts of the world for the safety of the
inhabitants."[21] It is instructive to compare the denial of Isidorus
with the passage we have already quoted from Pseudo-Justin. The writer
of Questions and Answers to the Orthodox in the second century could not
dispose of the question by a blunt denial; he had to admit it and argue
the case on other grounds--namely, the agency of the Devil. Nor can the
argument of the Fathers, that Apollonius used magic to bring about his
results, while the untaught Christians could perform healing wonders by
a single word,[22] be accepted as valid by the unprejudiced critic, for
there is no evidence to support the contention that Apollonius employed
such methods for his wonder-workings; on the contrary, both Apollonius
himself and his biographer Philostratus strenuously repudiate the charge
of magic brought against him.
On the other hand, a few years later, Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of
Claremont, speaks in the highest terms of Apollonius. Sidonius
translated the Life of Apollonius into Latin for Leon, the councillor of
King Euric, and in writing to his friend he says: "Read the life of a
man who (religion apart) resembles you in many things; a man sought out
by the rich, yet who never sought for riches; who loved wisdom and
despised gold; a man frugal in the midst of feastings, clad in linen in
the midst of those clothed in purple, austere in the midst of luxury....
In fine, to speak plainly, perchance no historian will find in ancient
times a philosopher whose life is equal to that of Apollonius."[23]
Thus we see that even among the Church Fathers opinions were divided;
while among the philosophers themselves the praise of Apollonius was
unstinted.
For Ammianus Marcellinus, "the last subject of Rome who composed a
profane history in the Latin language," and the friend of Julian the
philosopher-emperor, refers to the Tyanean as "that most renowned
philosopher";[24] while a few years later Eunapius, the pupil of
Chrysanthius, one of the teachers of Julian, writing in the last years
of the fourth century, says that Apollonius was more than a
philosopher; he was "a middle term, as it were, between gods and
men."[25] Not only was Apollonius an adherent of the Pythagorean
philosophy, but "he fully exemplified the more divine and practical side
in it." In fact Philostratus should have called his biography "The
Sojourning of a God among Men."[26] This seemingly wildly exaggerated
estimate may perhaps receive explanation in the fact that Eunapius
belonged to a school which knew the nature of the attainments ascribed
to Apollonius.
Indeed, "as late as the fifth century we find one Volusian, a proconsul
of Africa, descended from an old Roman family and still strongly
attached to the religion of his ancestors, almost worshipping Apollonius
of Tyana as a supernatural being."[27]
Even after the downfall of philosophy we find Cassiodorus, who spent
the last years of his long life in a monastery, speaking of Apollonius
as the "renowned philosopher."[28] So also among Byzantine writers, the
monk George Syncellus, in the eighth century, refers several times to
our philosopher, and not only without the slightest adverse criticism,
but he declares that he was the first and most remarkable of all the
illustrious people who appeared under the Empire.[29] Tzetzes also, the
critic and grammarian, calls Apollonius "all-wise and a fore-knower of
all things."[30]
And though the monk Xiphilinus, in the eleventh century, in a note to
his abridgment of the history of Dion Cassius, calls Apollonius a clever
juggler and magician,[31] nevertheless Cedrenus in the same century
bestows on Apollonius the not uncomplimentary title of an "adept
Pythagorean philosopher,"[32] and relates several instances of the
efficacy of his powers in Byzantium. In fact, if we can believe
Nicetas, as late as the thirteenth century there were at Byzantium
certain bronze doors, formerly consecrated by Apollonius, which had to
be melted down because they had become an object of superstition even
for the Christians themselves.[33]
Had the work of Philostratus disappeared with the rest of the Lives, the
above would be all that we should have known about Apollonius.[34]
Little enough, it is true, concerning so distinguished a character, yet
ample enough to show that, with the exception of theological prejudice,
the suffrages of antiquity were all on the side of our philosopher.