APOLLONIUS OF TYANA
The Philosopher Explorer and Social Reformer of the First Century AD
By G.R.S. Mead
||- The Religious Associations and Communities of the First Century
||- India and Greece
||- The Apollonius of Early Opinion
||- Texts, Translations, and Literature
||- The Biographer of Apollonius
||- Early Life
||- The Travels of Apollonius
||- In the Shrines of the Temples and the Retreats of Religion
|[The Indian sages]
||- The Gymnosophists of Upper Egypt
||- Apollonius and the Rulers of the Empire
||- Apollonius The Prophet and Wonder-Worker
||- His Mode of Life
||- Himself and His Circle
||- From His Sayings and Sermons
||- From His Letters
||- The Writings of Apollonius
[v] IN THE EARLY YEARS of the Christian era, the great mystic Apollonius of Tyana moved through the known world of the time, teaching wisdom and leaving strange legends of his miracles wherever he passed. Many devotees considered him divine.
G. R. S. Mead, who wrote this fine study of his life and work, says: "With the exception of the Christ no more interesting personage appears upon the stage of Western history in those early years."
There may have been only a few years between the birth of Jesus and of ApolIonius, and the curious parallels between their lives have given rise to much religious controversy, some believing that incidents in the life of Apollonius were myths thrown up by Christianity, others suggesting that the Christians had borrowed earlier stories concerning Apollonius for their own Gospels.
For centuries, religious argument raged around the figure of ApolIonius. Was he divine or charlatan, saint or magician? Was he better or worse than Jesus of Nazareth?
Apollonius was actually regarded as a serious religious rival to Jesus Christ, and even as late as the seventeenth century there were freethinkers like Voltaire who extolled his teachings above those of Christianity. This is the more remarkable when one remembers that Apollonius left no gospel; certainly not one that has been preserved. There is one early biography and there are [vi] stray references and fragments. We know that Apollonius was responsible for various treatises, since they are mentioned by other writers, but these books have all vanished. The medieval writer Nicetas tells us that there were bronze doors at Byzantium on which were inscribed extracts from the Book of Rites, one of the lost works of ApolIonius, that these doors were melted down in order to destroy the non-Christian beliefs and observances which had continued around these teachings.
Early Christian apologists made a serious attempt to discredit ApolIonius, just as in the fourth century they suppressed or modified any writings and documents on Christian origins which did not show the new religion in what they considered to be the best light. These sincere but misguided attempts to establish a state religion from teachings which went beyond narrow doctrine and dogma are discussed in The Lost Years of Jesus by Charles Francis Potter (University Books 1963). We must remember that before the new orthodoxy could be firmly established there were confused struggles with older faiths. Christianity finally emerged triumphant from a fantastic melting-pot of Isis, Mithras, the Manichaeans, Gnosticism and other faiths and deities. These struggles are exhaustively chronicled in F. Legge's excellent study Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity (University Books), while the complex phases of Gnosticism are described in another book by G. R. S. Mead, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (University Books), first published in 1900, a year before the present work.
This is the colorful background to the story of ApolIonius, which is a strange hidden chapter in the early days of the transition from the pagan religions to the new faith of Christianity. In a period when the stage was being set for the greatest clash of rival religious doctrines that the world has known, Apollonius travelled throughout that world, teaching a simple approach to religion which made him welcome at many different shrines. He had no quarrels with rival religions and does not mention the followers of Christ, although he must have encountered their [vii] teachings during his travels. He was concerned with the spirit rather than the form of religion.
It will be easier to understand why Apollonius was such a remarkable mystic if we first form a clear picture of him as a man of his time, and here alone the bare outline of his life and travels is a marvelous story.
Apollonius was born in Tyana, a town in Southern Cappadocia in the mid-eastern part of Asia Minor (later Turkey). Cappadocia is mentioned in the New Testament since the Jews there listened to the sermon of the Apostle Peter many years after Apollonius had left Tyana. The Greeks had settled this area, and it was formed into a Roman province in A.D. 17. Apollonius came from an ancient and wealthy family going back to the original settlers.
At the age of fourteen his father took him to Tarsus, the ancient capital of Cilicia, on the right bank of the river Cydnus in the fertile plains between Mount Taurus and the sea, an important trade rout. It was here that Mark Antony had received Cleopatra in 38 B.C. when she sailed up the Cydnus in the character of Aphrodite (as Plutarch has described) and it was also at Tarsus that a certain Saul was born - a tentmaker who became the Christian Apostle Paul....
Apollonius studied under Euthydemus the Phoenician, a celebrated rhetorician, but the boy was ill at ease in the luxurious life of Tarsus. He soon moved to the nearby town of Aegae which was quieter, and here he studied in a temple devoted to Aesculapius, god of healing. He had an extraordinary natural inclination to the teachings which had been brought to Greece from India. [Which teachings? Aesculapian or Pythagorean?] He became a Neo-Pythagorean, although he soon found the instruction too theoretical, and even at this age decided to live his philosophy, not discuss it. At the age of twenty he gave away his inheritance to his elder brother and other relatives. He took a vow of silence for five years and began his travels through the world, clad in a simple robe and eating only vegetarian food. He visited mystic communities south of Palestine [viii] and, somewhere between A.D. 41 and 54 he travelled to India, visiting Brahmans [& shramanas] and Buddhists.
Over the years his amazing travels for thousands of miles read like a detailed geography of the world of his time. He visited Nineveh, and stayed in Babylon for about two years before entering India, probably through the Khyber Pass, travelling in the Punjab where he spoke with Indian sages. Taxila, which he mentions, is east of the Indus and figured in the stupendous campaigns of Alexander the Great in 326 B.C. Once a great city, it is now a pile of ruins near the modern Rawalpindi. It is thought that "Parata" was probably "Bharata," [probably incorrect, for "Bharat" is not close to "Parata" if the latter is pronounced with 3 open and clear a's] the ancient name for the India of the Ganges Valley [or rather, Bharat is the valley between Indus and Ganges, near Kurukshetra], and Apollonius may have travelled as far as Nepal. [That "Nepal" doesn't become really clear from the text.]
He returned to Babylon and Nineveh, then went on to Antioch, Seleucia, Cyprus and Ionia, spending some time at Ephesus in Asia Minor. On to Smyrna, Troy and Lesbos, then by ship to Athens, spending several years in Greece. He went to Crete, and was in Rome in the time of Nero. He visited Spain and travelled across to Africa, Sicily, then back to Greece. From Pirreus by sea to Chios, then Rhodes and Alexandria, where he advised Vespasian before he became Emperor. The next travels were up the Nile to Ethiopia, then on to a community of Gymnosophists (nČked philosophers). He returned to Alexandria in the time of the Emperor Titus, and travelled again to Egypt and to Italy. On his second visit to Rome he was imprisoned by the tyrant Domitian, but escaped miraculously, and later saw the assassination of Domitian in a vision while hundreds of miles away at Ephesus. He finally disappeared mysteriously from mortal view at an age somewhere between eighty and a hundred years.
Throughout his travels he pleaded for simplicity and sincerity in religion. Although he had a reputation for performing miracles he did not pose as a superior being. He once said: "I ever remember my Masters and journey through the world teaching what I have learned from them..."
[ix] Much of the later controversy surrounding Apollonius arose because we have only one main source for his life and teachings. This is the biography by Philostratus the Elder, a Greek sophist of the following century, whose polished prose tricked out the plain unvarnished diaries of Damis, the faithful disciple of Apollonius who had accompanied him on many of his travels. The original diaries have not survived.
Apart from this book there is not much else. There are some short enigmatic letters of Apollonius, written in the terse laconic style called "scytale," after the manner of Lacedaemonian scytale, a traveller's cipher by which short messages were written lengthwise on strips of leather bound round a staff; when unrolled the message was unintelligible except to the recipient who read it by rolling it round a baton of corresponding diameter. Other early writers mention Apollonius, some approvingly, others critically, but do not give details, and there are some tantalizing references to other books that are lost to us.
It is no easy task to reconstruct the story of Apollonius from these fragments. It is rather as if all we had to validate the Christian story was a single romantic novel of the life of Christ written by a fashionable author, and a few stray allusions in Roman and Greek pagan works.
Doubts have been cast on the veracity of the biography written by Philostratus. In the first place, he was a professional writer and is obviously playing to the gallery. He admits condescendingly that Damis the Assyrian was "by no means stupid" and that "his journal was very well put together, but, he says, "the language was of a mediocre kind for he had not the gift of expressing himself. Now I belonged to the circle of the Empress," he goes on grandly, "for she was a devoted admirer of all rhetorical exercises, and she commanded me to recast and edit these essays, at the same time paying more attention to the style and diction of them." This was the Empress Julia Domna, a beautiful and intelligent woman, wife of Septimus Severus, who was interested in occult matters and studied astrology. [x] As it happened, it is unlikely that the Empress lived to read this biography, since it does not bear a dedication and was probably not published until about the year A.D. 217. Obviously Philostratus, writing for the approval of an Empress, wanted to present a thrilling and well-written story.
More seriously, it was suggested that the book was written as a pagan counterblast to the Christian gospels, a view which was held by some of the Christian church fathers and revived by nineteenth-century scholars.
It is difficult to see how this view can be sustained, since there is nothing critical of Christianity in Philostratus. Had he wished to establish a rival doctrine it would have been difficult to avoid criticizing Christianity, just as those who maintained that Philostratus was anti-Christian themselves poured scorn on Apollonius. I do not think there can be any serious doubt that Philostratus was just a good biographer, presenting an exciting story in his best style. He believed in the story because he had the diaries of Damis to work from and, like any modern researcher, took the trouble to consult other available works of the time dealing with Apollonius (now unfortunately lost to us), notably writings by Moiragenes and by Maximus of Aegre. He made the most of his materials, perhaps adding gossip, rumor and traveller's tales of the time and embroidering with a few purple patches of his own. He may have garbled some of the sayings of Apollonius through not understanding their deeper significance. Philostratus does not appear to have been a very religious man himself, judging by his other writings, and could not really be considered either pro- or anti-Christian. All the muddy controversies which followed his book, however, were deeply committed to doctrines and had an axe to grind.
The big stumbling-block was one which is basic to all religious discussion - the miracles! The story of Philostratus abounds in legends and miracles, and these upset both theologians and scholars. Many Christian theologians accepted the miracles, but they [xi] solemnly compared them with Christian miracles and tried to prove that theirs were the best ones! A polemic by Eusebius, a Christian bishop, Against the life of Apollonius of Tyana written by Philostratus, occasioned by the parallel drawn by Hierocles between him and Christ tells its own story. Hierocles, Proconsul of Bithynia under Diocletian, thought that the miracles attributed to Apollonius were better authenticated than those ascribed to Christ, but Eusebius maintained that if Apollonius did perform miracles he must have been a wizard, not a saint. There have been many opinions of this sort.
St. Jerome thought he was a magician, but that there were also praiseworthy things about his life.
St. Augustine, discussing heathen religion, allowed that Apollonius was "purer than Jove."
The Renaissance writer Pico della Mirandola thought he had made a pact with Satan.
The nineteenth-century scholar F. C. Baur tried to establish that the biography of Philostratus was deliberately modelled on the Christian Gospels (a view also held by Cardinal Newman), but this opinion is now considered untenable.
More recent scholars have accepted the general outlines of the history and travels of Apollonius but are sceptical about the miracles and unsympathetic about the religious aspects of his teachings. (Some, of course, have discounted the Christian miracles too). Modern scholars tend to treat Apollonius prosaically as a much travelled religious reformer around whom many legends grew.
Yet in his time and long after, Apollonius was revered and even worshipped! Clearly he was no ordinary person.
Between theologians and scholars he has remained an enigmatic figure for centuries, and it is now time to formulate a clearer picture of him. What theologians and scholars both failed to understand was the actual teaching of Apollonius and Its coherence with his own life. It may be useful for scholars to discuss whether Apollonius travelled further than Taxila, but [xii] what is far more important is the reach of his mind and spirit. An age that accepts parapsychology as a proper study need not shrink from admitting that Apollonius performed a few miracles, but essentially it is by the quality of his religious perception that we can assess his life and work.
Now what gives the story of Apollonius very special significance is that in an era when rival churches fought for establishment he taught the pure inner realization that was known to the sages of India as far back as their scriptures record, and that has endured even to the present day, an esoteric wisdom that has seen the rise and fall of many religions over thousands of years.
This has not been clear to the commentators of Apollonius. Doctrinaire theologians have been more interested in establishing a church than understanding a teaching; skeptical professors have been too anxious to prove a dry academic theory to be able to share a metaphysical insight. Both have tried to evaluate Apollonius by exterior evidence only, without any reliable measure for his inner life. As we shall see, the metaphysical knowledge of India is the key to an understanding of this strange mystic.
Few scholars could have been better equipped to write on Apollonius than George Robert Stow Mead. Born 1863, he studied at King's School, Rochester, and St. John's College, Cambridge University, where he took his M.A. He joined the Theosophical Society immediately on coming down from Cambridge and remained a member for twenty-five years. He became their greatest scholar, and the acknowledged expert on Gnosticism. Many of his books are still reprinted to meet a constant demand. In 1889 he gave up his teaching post and worked with Madame Blavatsky; he was her private secretary for the last three years of her life. He edited the journal The Theosophical Review until 1909, when he left the Society, distressed by the scandals and dissensions of the previous two years. In response to the pressure of many friends he formed the Quest Society and edited The Quest Review, a splendid publication [xiii] with contributions from leading scholars. Mead died 28 September 1933.
Amongst his sixteen published works was The Upanishads (1896) in collaboration with J. C. Chattopadhyaya, an English translation of nine of these key Hindu scriptures. In the preamble he wrote: "They are grand outpourings of religious enthusiasm, raising the mind out of the chaos of ceremony and the metaphysical and philological word-spinning of the schools." Mead combined excellent scholarship with true understanding of mysticism, particularly the teachings of India which had been the dominant influence on the formation of the Theosophical Society itself. It is this combination of qualities that makes his the most authoritative book on Apollonius and his times.
This sympathetic examination of the life and teachings of Apollonius is a reliable work of a high scholarly standard. It is carefully weighed and succinctly written, in marked contrast to the sophisticated prose of Philostratus or the turgid controversies which followed.
In evaluating this tangled story, however, even Mead is necessarily inhibited by the demands of accurate scholarship, and in giving us a clear account without the romantic flights of Philostratus he may sometimes seem a little dry. His instinctive awareness of the traditions of India leaves us in no doubt of his sympathies, but his terms of reference do not allow him to discuss the background of Hindu religious knowledge and its bearing on the life and teachings of Apollonius.
We shall be in a better position to understand Mead's book if we first consider what Apollonius knew and what he taught. There are two main divisions of Hindu religious knowledge.
The outer teaching prescribes rites and rituals for worship of God, and there are a great number of different forms of God in the Hindu pantheon from which to choose a suitable deity. Custom, region and family traditions usually dictate the form of God which a devotee serves. Every stage of life from birth to [xiv] death is governed by appropriate rituals, and many devotees may never progress beyond the simple devout relationship between man and God.
The esoteric teaching, however, is concerned with ultimate reality, in which all gods and all religions are subsumed in the Absolute. The approach to this knowledge is governed by six different schools of philosophy but all stem from interpretation of the same sacred scriptures and agree on fundamental points. Unlike Western philosophies, Hindu philosophy is not simply an intellectual affair, but a way of life directly related to actual experience. This experience is acquired by self-purification on different levels - physical, intellectual and spiritual - and yoga is a generic term for such purification. The Hatha Yoga of physical purification is only one of many yogas. Purification involves certain austerities and a firm code of ethics, so that body, mind and spirit may have integrity. In a sense, this divine awareness is a process of unlearning, but is not valid unless the duties and purposes of individual incarnation are properly accepted and lived out. Through this progress runs the secret teaching that the whole material creation of time, space and causality, with its myriad bodies and souls, is only the manifestation of the Absolute, that all other names and forms either of gods or men are illusory; that the divine is inside oneself.
This is the teaching very beautifully expressed in the Upanishads, taught by gurus to chosen pupils even long before Apollonius was born. As Mead writes in the preamble of his translation: "The Upanishads are ancient treatises, written in Sanskrit, containing the theosophy of the Vedas. They are often referred to as rahasya, the 'mystery' or 'secret,' as being formerly taught only to those who had gone through a special preliminary training and given proof of their fitness; they are also called shrutishirah, or the 'head of revelation,' as being the most precious revelation handed down to the Aryan inhabitants of India. . . ." The teaching was kept secret for many centuries, but eventually the texts were published and discussed by scholars and intellectuals. [xv] Intellectualism led further away from realization. Today this open secret is still inviolable and the esoteric knowledge of the Upanishads hidden except to those with true devotion and a pure heart. Somehow Apollonius understood this secret teaching and had passed through its disciplines.
It is clear that Apollonius was not an ordinary mortal. When Mead speaks of his birth he says, with scholarly caution: "Legends of the wonderful happenings at his birth were in circulation, and are of the same nature as all such birth-legends of great people." Philostratus quotes a legend, of no historical value, but of inspired truth and wistful beauty. He says that the god Proteus, master of changing forms, appeared in a vision to the mother of Apollonius and told her that he would be incarnated in her child. Philostratus says that Apollonius was born in a meadow, and a rich temple was later erected to him near the spot. "Let us not pass by the manner of his birth," he says, "for just as the hour was approaching, his mother was warned in a dream to walk out in the meadow and pluck flowers. . . She fell asleep lying on the grass, whereupon the swans who feed in the meadow set up a dance around her as she slept, and, lifting their wings as is their way, cried out all at once as a wind blew through the meadow. She leaped up at the sound of their song and bore the child Apollonius. But the country people say that at just the moment of birth a thunderbolt seemed to fall from the heavens and then rose up again in the air and disappeared. . . ."
The belief that gods are reborn as great teachers has always dominated Hindu religious tradition, even into present times. In 1835, a sincere and devout old brahmin called Khudiram rested one day under a tree outside a Bengal village, and, relaxed by the soft afternoon breeze, had a vision of Sri Rama, his chosen deity, who asked to share his hut. Soon afterwards, the Lord appeared to him in another vision, saying: "Khudiram, your great devotion has made me very happy. The time has come for me to be born once again on earth. I shall be born as your son." [xvi] In due course, Khudiram's wife Chandra also had extraordinary visions of gods and goddesses, and in the following year bore the boy Gadadhar who later became famous throughout the world as Sri Ramakrishna, one of the greatest mystics of modern times. As Christopher Isherwood points out in the fascinating biography Ramakrishna and His Disciples, we can hardly dismiss as legends the honest statements of the individuals concerned.
India has always been a fabled land of magic and miracles where saints are divine figures. It is true that miracles alone are not the real test of saintliness. Life itself is so miraculous that divinity does not require any additional endorsement. Miracles involve natural laws being suspended or overpowered by other natural laws, and begin and end on the material plane. True saints have never been interested in miracles, have never sought them, and have often been unaware of them. But the divine aspect of miracles, emanating from a transcendental law beyond the cause and effect of the material world, is that they excite feelings of wonder and awe. These emotions are important stages in religious awareness.
The world of Apollonius may seem rather remote, but it is no further than the religious traditions that survive in present day India, side by side with the hard economics of five-year plans. Today on the main pilgrim routes you may still see thousands of wandering monks who have renounced home, relatives and possessions in the ancient vow of sannyasa, existing only on charity and dedicated to eternal realities beyond the material world. They are not all saints or realized mystics. Some are patently rogues and vagabonds, yet we cannot judge too hastily. In India there is a saying that only a saint can recognize another saint, and the survival of sannayasa in the twentieth century bears witness to a tradition that is ageless. [But there is no certainty it will survive the more recent onslaught of westernization & consumerism.]
It is not difficult to picture the early life of Apollonius, since it is just the same as that of neophytes in Indian temples today. He kept strict celibacy, wore only a simple linen garment, [xvii] lived on a vegetarian diet, and maintained silence for five years.
Today, as in those far-off times, the young celibate in India is called a brahmachari, wears a simple white dhoti cloth, and abstains from all animal food as part of his observance of ahimsa or non-violence. The vow of silence is called mowna, and many still take it.
I myself have. sat on temple steps in the hot sun, day after day, with Sri Swami Parvatikar, one of India's greatest religious musicians, in the fifth year of his vow of silence. A mowni is allowed to write if he wishes, or if he is a musician to sing hymns, dedicating his voice only to praise of God. Swami Parvatikar would answer questions on scraps of paper, always prefacing his remarks with the inscription "Om Namo Narayana," a sacred name of God. Those who live constantly in the busy noisy Western world have no idea of the power of silence, the expressiveness of the communion of minds without spoken words.
In his own time, too, Apollonius generated power by his silence and also communicated by writing briefly on his tablets. By one terse written statement he quelled a riot at Aspendus in Pamphylia and saved the Governor from being lynched by an angry mob. Apollonius once admitted that by his austerities his senses became abnormally refined, so that he could understand the minds of men in distant places and foretell the future. These are some of the siddhis or occult powers discussed by Indian sages like Patanjali (circa 200 B.C.).
Every day Apollonius offered prayers to the sun, much as the Indian swami today performs Surya Namaskars. He recognized a supreme creator but did not make any distinction between the words "god" and "gods," and at one time or another spoke of a common soul of all men. These are the concepts of Brahma[n] and Atman which survive in India today. We cannot doubt that Apollonius had a deeper knowledge of Indian esoteric teaching than mere observances. He said there was a rule of silence regarding the "Divine Science" and Pythagoras did [xviii] not originate it, that it was the immemorial wisdom and Pythagoras himself had learned it from the Indians.
In India Apollonius met the greatest sages as an equal. We can only guess what metaphysical secrets were discussed since Damis was not allowed to be present. Many years earlier Alexander the Great had also conferred with such sages when he invaded India during the fourth century B.C. Although he had listened attentively to these nČked philosophers who seemed so much richer in their knowledge and simple life than the ruler of Macedonia he could not bring himself to renounce his kingdom and possessions, or his ambition. But Apollonius travelled without possessions or desires on the great pilgrimages that led him over the known world, becoming a legend wherever he passed, and his name was known from the Atlantic Ocean to the Nile and the Ganges.
There are confusions in the geography and history of Philostratus (even later scholars made mistakes) but there are also fascinating background details. Damis wrote of "dragons" which were tamed by spells (snakes, perhaps), and mentions with obvious fascination the pepper trees in India and the herds of elephants. He also makes obscure allusions to what may be one of the earliest accounts of levitating yogis, and the magic of producing fire from the ether. (As recently as 1950 the late Sir John Woodruffe mentioned a case of a sacred fire being lit by a mantra or spell without the use of light or matches. [Fraudulent in all probability])
It is said that in his travels Apollonius performed many miracles, raising the dead, curing the sick and exorcising demons; he knew his own previous incarnations and could tell those of other people.
He was welcomed in the temples of different faiths, and wherever he went he instructed people to purify their lives, to give up animal sacrifices, and to seek the essence of religion rather than the form. He spoke with authority and was accepted as a master. When challenged by an official who asked him how he dared to enter the dominions of Babylon without permission, [xix] he replied simply, "The whole earth is mine, and it is given me to journey through it." As Philostratus says: "He spoke, as it were, from a tripod," meaning that his words had the force of the Delphic oracle. Yet he was not always serious, and often used humor to make a point.
When he crossed into Mesopotamia with Damis he met a tax-gatherer, who demanded to know what he was taking out of the country, just like any modern customs official. Apollonius said gravely: "I am taking with me Temperance, Justice, Virtue, Continence, Valor and Discipline," using these feminine nouns in Greek as if they were proper names. The official, scenting perquisites for himself, said promptly, "You must then write down in the register these female slaves." With twinkling humor Apollonius replied: "That's impossible, for they are not female slaves that I am taking with me but ladies of quality!" A mystic who can make a joke is nearer to true inner realization than a solemn saint, in this tragicomedy of existence. . . .
Philostratus makes a thrilling story of the vindictive persecution by the tyrant Emperor Domitian. Apollonius publicly criticized the excesses of Domitian, for which he was held guilty of treason. Domitian had him arrested and thrown in prison amongst criminals. Here Apollonius told his fellow prisoners: "Whilst we live we are all prisoners, for the soul is bound to the body and suffers much. . ." When brought to trial he was accused on trumped up charges of ritual murder.
During the trial he was asked, "Why do you not wear the same garments as other men, instead of this peculiar and conspicuous costume?" Apollonius replied, "Because the same earth which feeds me clothes me too, and I would not wish to add to the troubles of the animals."
"Why do men call you a god?" he was asked, and he replied: "Every man thought to be good is honored with the title of God."
He made a brilliant terse rebuttal of the absurd charge of [xx] ritual murder, drawing a shout of applause from the court, and the Emperor said, "I acquit you of these charges, but you must remain until I can speak with you privately." But Apollonius spoke of the evil of false accusations that filled Domitian's prisons. "Let me go, then," he said, "or if not, send someone to arrest my body, for my soul cannot be kept in captivity-but you will not keep my body either. For you do not kill me, since I am fated not to die!"
And with these strange words he vanished from sight before the whole courtroom! "I have found this account in the court record of the proceedings," says Philostratus, adding that Apollonius reappeared the same afternoon at Puteoli, near the Bay of Naples, over a hundred miles from Rome.
Mystery and legend also surround the final disappearance of Apollonius. The story goes that he did not want any witness to his passing, so he sent Damis away to Rome with a message. Philostratus says: "The memoirs of Apollonius of Tyana which Damis the Assyrian composed end with this story, for with regard to the manner in which he died, if indeed he did actually die, there are many stories. . . ." It seems that some say he died in Ephesus, others that he continued to live in Crete, but that even after his passing he continued to preach that the soul is immortal, and although no one could see him, his utterance continued to guide them.
But similar and absolutely authentic stories are told of Indian mystics in present times. Sri Ramana Maharshi, the greatest of the modern Indian saints, who passed away in 1950, had taught the pure doctrine of the divinity of Atman, the essential self, and the illusions of the temporal body. When his devotees grieved during his final illness he said: "You attach too much importance to the body... They say I am dying, but I am not going away. Where could I go? I am here!"
During his own lifetime, Apollonius was reported to have said: "Live unobserved, and if that cannot be, slip away unobserved from life." [xxi] In an important and eloquent letter to Valerius, who had grieved at the loss of a son, he wrote:
"There is no death of anyone, but only an appearance, even as there is no birth of any, save only in seeming. The change from being to becoming seems to be birth, and the change from becoming to being seems to be death, but in reality no one is ever born, nor does one ever die. . ."
This lucid statement stands out from many obscure anecdotes reported of his sayings, and is a measure of his enlightenment. This awareness is one of the highest points of Hindu religious knowledge, and is the esoteric form of the teaching of the transmigration of souls, which Apollonius had given out on a popular level. We cannot doubt from this statement alone that Apollonius shared the same timeless wisdom as other saints of India, that he knew religion from the inside.
Through centuries of holy wars, bloodshed and martyrdom, history is littered with the debris of overthrown religions, and the images of discarded gods lie broken in empty temples. The knowledge which could liberate has often only enslaved minds and inflated egos. When a divine man becomes a symbol, a simple truth turns to dogma, and meaning is lost in the deification of form instead of essence. Yet many saints realized the same truths and practiced what they preached.
There is much opinion, gossip and rumor to sort out from the story of Apollonius. The playwright Lucian presented him as a rascal and mountebank. Moiragenes wrote that he was a magician practicing sinister rites. Eusebius condemned him as a wizard, and in seventeenth-century Britain Robert Turner translated the magical treatise Ars Notoria; The Notory Art of Solomon as the instruction of the "Master Apollonius." Hierocles and others thought him greater than Jesus Christ as a miracle-worker and saint. Alexander Severus, son of Julia Mamraea, worshipped Apollonius.
Mead's study presents the best picture of the life and [xxii] teachings of one of the most mysterious and remarkable mystics in history. There is a valuable modern translation of Philostratus by Charles P. Eells: Life and Times of Apollonius of Tyana, rendered into English from the Greek of Philostratus the Elder (Stanford University, California, 1923) which avoids some of the quaintness of earlier translations. Eells also cites that interesting letter of Sidonius Apollinaris in the latter part of the 5th century A.D., which described Apollonius in these terms:
"Courted by sovereigns, but never courting them; eager for knowledge; aloof from money-getting, fasting at feasts, linen-clad among wearers of purple; rebuking luxury; self-contained: plain-spoken; shock-headed in the midst of perfumed nations; revered and admired for his simplicity. . ."
The marble busts of Apollonius in the museums at Naples capture some of this likeness, but it is from the religion and saints of India that we get the inner picture of his mind and spirit. We need to experience the mystery and wonder surrounding transcendental knowledge, the emotions that have not altered in the course of centuries. The complete story is midway between Mead and Philostratus, between fact and allegory, scholarship and romance.
SECTION I - Introductory
It is unlikely that we will ever discover much additional factual information about Apollonius unless the original notebooks of Damis should reappear. Meanwhile Mead's book stands as an indispensable guide. But we need also to read between the lines to share those inner and outer journeys of the soul, to travel with Apollonius as spectator or disciple through a landscape that has not yet disappeared. We need to remember the temples, the blazing sun and cool waters of the Ganges, the herds of elephants, the pepper trees, the tales of miracles, the smells, the swarms of flies, the vow of renunciation, the wandering monks, the hot dusty roads and the timeless religion of India.
To the student of the origins of Christianity there is naturally no period in Western history of greater interest and importance than the first century of our era; and yet how little comparatively is known about it of a really definite and reliable nature. If it be a subject of lasting regret that no non-Christian writer of the first century had sufficient intuition of the future to record even a line of information concerning the birth and growth of what was to be the religion of the Western world, equally disappointing is it to find so little definite information of the general social and religious conditions of the time. The rulers and the wars of the Empire seem to have formed the chief interest of the historiographers of the succeeding century, and even in this department of political history, though  the public acts of the Emperors may be fairly well known, for we can check them by records and inscriptions, when we come to their private acts and motives we find ourselves no longer on the ground of history, but for the most part in the atmosphere of prejudice, scandal, and speculation. The political acts of Emperors and their officers, however can at best throw but a dim side-light on the general social conditions of the time, while they shed no light at all on the religious conditions, except so far as these in any particular contacted the domain of politics. As well might we seek to reconstruct a picture of the religious life of the time from Imperial acts and rescripts, as endeavour to glean any idea of the intimate religion of this country from a perusal of statute books or reports of Parliamentary debates.
SECTION II - The Religious Associations and Communities of the First Century
The Roman histories so-called, to which we have so far been accustomed, cannot help us in the reconstruction of a picture of the environment into which, on the one hand, Paul led the new faith in Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome; and in which, on the other, it already found itself in the districts bordering on the south-east of the Mediterranean. It is only by piecing together labouriously isolated scraps of information and fragments of inscriptions, that we become aware of the existence of the life of a world of religious associations and private cults which existed  at this period. Not that even so we have any very direct information of what went on in these associations, guilds, and brotherhoods; but we have sufficient evidence to make us keenly regret the absence of further knowledge.
Difficult as this field is to till, it is exceedingly fertile in interest, and it is to be regretted that comparatively so little work has as yet been done in it; and that, as is so frequently the case, the work which has been done is, for the most part, not accessible to the English reader. What work has been done on this special subject may be seen from the bibliographical note appended to this essay, in which is given a list of books and articles treating of the religious associations among the Greeks and Romans. But if we seek to obtain a general view of the condition of religious affairs in the first century we find ourselves without a reliable guide; for of works dealing with this particular subject there are few, and from them we learn little that does not immediately concern, or is thought to concern, Christianity; whereas, it is just the state of the non-Christian religious world about which, in the present case, we desire to be informed.
If, for instance, the reader turn to works of general history, such as Merivale's History of the Romans under the Empire (London; last ed. 1865), he will find, it is true, in chap iv., a description  of the state of religion up to the death of Nero, but he will be little wiser for perusing it. If he turn to Hermann Schiller's Geschichte des römischen Kaiserreichs unter der Regierung der Nero (Berlin; 1872), he will find much reason for discarding the vulgar opinions about the monstrous crimes imputed to Nero, as indeed he might do by reading in English G H. Lewes' article "Was Nero a Monster?" (Cornhill Magazine; July 1863)and he will also find (bk IV chap III.) a general view of the religion and philosophy of the time which is far more intelligent than that of Merivale's; but all is still very vague and unsatisfactory, and we feel ourselves still outside the intimate life of the philosophers and religionists of the first century.
If, again, he turn to the latest writers of Church history who have treated this particular question, he will find that they are occupied entirely with the contact of the Christian Church with the Roman Empire, and only incidentally give us any information of the nature of which we are in search. On this special ground C J. Neumann, in his careful study Der römische Staat und die allgemeine Kirche bis auf Diocletian (Leipzig; 1890), is interesting; while Prof W M. Ramsay, in The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170 (London; 1893), is extraordinary, for he endeavours to interpret Roman history by the  New Testament documents, the dates of the majority of which are so hotly disputed.
But, you may say, what has all this to do with Apollonius of Tyana? The answer is simple: Apollonius lived in the first century; his work lay precisely among these religious associations, colleges and guilds. A knowledge of them and their nature would give us the natural environment of a great part of his life; and information as to their condition in the first century would perhaps help us the better to understand some of the reasons for the task which he attempted.
If, however, it were only the life and endeavours of Apollonius which would be illuminated by this knowledge, we could understand why so little effort has been spent in this direction; for the character of the Tyanean, as we shall see, has since the fourth century been regarded with little favour even by the few, while the many have been taught to look upon our philosopher not only as a charlatan, but even as an anti-Christ. But when it is just a knowledge of these religious associations and orders which would throw a flood of light on the earliest evolution of Christianity, not only with regard to the Pauline communities, but also with regard to those schools which were subsequently condemned as heretical, it is astonishing that we  have no more satisfactory work done on the subject.
It may be said, however, that this information is not forthcoming simply because it is unprocurable. To a large extent this is true; nevertheless, a great deal more could be done than has yet been attempted, and the results of research in special directions and in the byways of history could be combined, so that the non-specialist could obtain some general idea of the religious conditions of the times, and so be less inclined to join in the now stereotyped condemnation of all non-Jewish or non-Christian moral and religious effort in the Roman Empire of the first century.
But the reader may retort: Things social and religious in those days must have been in a very parlous state, for, as this essay shows, Apollonius himself spent the major part of his life in trying to reform the institutions and cults of the Empire. To this we answer: No doubt there was much to reform, and when is there not? But it would not only be not generous, but distinctly mischievous for us to judge our fellows of those days solely by the lofty standard of an ideal morality, or even to scale them against the weight of our own supposed virtues and knowledge. Our point is not that there was nothing to reform, far from that, but that the wholesale  accusations of depravity brought against the times will not bear impartial investigation. On the contrary, there was much good material ready to be worked up in many ways, and if there has not been, how could there among other things have been any Christianity?
The Roman Empire was at the zenith of its power, and had there not been many admirable administrators and men of worth in the governing caste, such a political consummation could never have been reached and maintained. Moreover, as ever previously in the ancient world, religious liberty was guaranteed, and where we find persecution, as in the reigns of Nero and Domitian, it must be set down to political and not to theological reasons. Setting aside the disputed question of the persecution of the Christians under Domitian, the Neronian persecution was directed against those whom the Imperial power regarded as Jewish political revolutionaries. So, too, when we find the philosophers imprisoned or banished from Rome during those two reigns, it was not because they were philosophers, but because the ideal of some of them was the restoration of the Republic, and this rendered them obnoxious to the charge not only of being political malcontents, but also of actively plotting against the Emperor's majestas. Apollonius, however, was throughout a warm supporter of  monarchical rule. When, then, we hear of the philosophers being banished from Rome or being cast into prison, we must remember that this was not a wholesale persecution of philosophy throughout the Empire; and when we say that some of them desired to restore the Republic, we should remember that the vast majority of them refrained from politics, and especially was this the case with the disciples of the religio-philosophical schools.
SECTION III - India and Greece
In the domain of religion it is quite true that the state cults and national institutions throughout the Empire were almost without exception in a parlous state, and it is to be noticed that Apollonius devoted much time and labour to reviving and purifying them. Indeed, their strength had long left the general state-institutions of religion, where all was now perfunctory; but so far from there being no religious life in the land, in proportion as the official cultus and ancestral institutions afforded no real satisfaction to their religious needs, the more earnestly did the people devote themselves to private cults, and eagerly baptised themselves in all that flood of religious enthusiasm which flowed in with ever increasing volume from the East. Indubitably in all this fermentation there were many excesses, according to our present notions of religious decorum, and also grievous  abuses; but at the same time in it many found due satisfaction for their religious emotions, and, if we except those cults which were distinctly vicious, we have to a large extent before us in popular circles the spectacle of what, in their last analysis, are similar phenomena to those enthusiasms which in our own day may be frequently witnessed among such sects as the Shakers and Ranters, and at the general revival meetings of the uninstructed.
It is not, however, to be thought that the private cults and the doings of the religious associations were all of this nature or confined to this class; far from it. There were religious brotherhoods, communities and clubs thiasi, erani, and orgeonesof all sorts and conditions. There were also mutual benefit societies, burial clubs, and dining companies, the prototypes of our present-day Masonic bodies, Oddfellows, and the rest. These religious associations were not only private in the sense that they were not maintained by the State, but also for the most part they were private in the sense that what they did was kept secret, and this is perhaps the main reason why we have so defective a record of them.
Among them are to be numbered not only the lower forms of mystery-cultus of various kinds, but also the greater ones, such as the  Phrygian, Bacchic, Isiac, and Mithriac Mysteries, which were spread everywhere throughout the Empire. The famous Eleusinia were, however, still under the ægis of the State, but though so famous were, as a state-cultus, far more perfunctory.
It is, moreover, not to be thought that the great types of mystery-cultus above mentioned were uniform even among themselves. There were not only various degrees and grades within them, but also in all probability many forms of each line of tradition, good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, we know that it was considered de rigueur for every respectable citizen of Athens to be initiated into the Eleusinia, and therefore the tests could not have been very stringent; whereas in the most recent work on the subject, De Apuleio Isiacorum Mysteriorum Teste (Leyden; 1900), Dr K H E. De Jong shows that in one form of the Isiac Mysteries the candidate was invited to initiation by means of dream; that is to say, he had to be psychically impressionable before his acceptance.
Here, then, we have a vast intermediate ground for religious exercise between the most popular and undisciplined forms of private cults and the highest forms, which could only be approached through the discipline and training of the philosophic life. The higher side of these  mystery-institutions aroused the enthusiasm of all that was best in antiquity, and unstinted praise was given to one or another form of them by the greatest thinkers and writers of Greece and Rome; so that we cannot but think that here the instructed found that satisfaction for their religious needs which was necessary not only for those who could not rise into the keen air of pure reason, but also for those who had climbed so high upon the heights of reason that they could catch a glimpse of the other side. The official cults were notoriously unable to give them this satisfaction, and were only tolerated by the instructed as an aid for the people and a means of preserving the traditional life of the city or state.
By common consent the most virtuous livers of Greece were the members of the Pythagorean schools, both men and women. After the death of their founder the Pythagoreans seem to have gradually blended with the Orphic communities and the "Orphic life" was the recognised term for a life of purity and self-denial. We also know that the Orphics, and therefore the Pythagoreans, were actively engaged in the reformation, or even the entire reforming, of the Baccho-Eleusinian rites; they seem to have brought back the pure side of the Bacchic cult with their reinstitution or reimportation of the Iacchic  mysteries, and it is very evident that such stern livers and deep thinkers could not have been contented with a low form of cult. Their influence also spread far and wide in general Bacchic circles, so that we find Euripides putting the following words into the mouth of the chorus of Bacchic initiates: "Clad in white robes I speed me from the genesis of mortal men, and never more approach the vase of death, for I have done with eating food that ever housed a soul. [From a fragment of The Cretans. See Lobecks Aglaophamus p 622.] Such words could well be put into the mouth of a Brahman or Buddhist ascetic, eager to escape the bonds of Samsara; and such men cannot therefore justly be classed together indiscriminately with ribald revelers — the general mind-picture of a Bacchic company.
But, some one may say, Euripides and the Pythagoreans and Orphics are no evidence for the first century; whatever good there may have been in such schools and communities, it had ceased long before. On the contrary, the evidence is all against this objection. Philo, writing about 25 A.D., tells us that in his day numerous groups of men, who in all respects led this life of religion, who abandoned their property, retired from the world and devoted themselves entirely to the search for wisdom and the  cultivation of virtue, were scattered far and wide throughout the world. In his treatise, On the Contemplative Life, he writes: "This natural class of men is to be found in many parts of the inhabited world, both the Grecian and non-Grecian world, sharing in the perfect good. In Egypt there are crowds of them in every province, or nome as they call it, and especially round Alexandria." This is a most important statement, for if there were so many devoted to the religious life at this time, it follows that the age was not one of unmixed depravity.
It is not, however, to be thought that these communities were all of an exactly similar nature, or of one and the same origin, least of all that they were all Therapeut or Essene. We have only to remember the various lines of descent of the doctrines held by innumerable schools classed together as Gnostic, as sketched in my recent work, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, and to turn to the beautiful treatises of the Hermetic schools, to persuade us that in the first century the striving after the religious and philosophic life was wide-spread and various.
We are not, however, among those who believe that the origin of the Therapeut communities of Philo and of the Essenes of Philo and Josephus is to be traced to Orphic and Pythagorean influence. [But Indian, perhaps?] The question of precise  origin is as yet beyond the power of historical research, and we are not of those who would exaggerate one element of the mass into a universal source. But when we remember the existence of all these so widely scattered communities in the first century, when we study the imperfect but important record of the very numerous schools and brotherhoods of a like nature which came into intimate contact with Christianity in its origins, we cannot but feel that there was the leaven of a strong religious life working in many parts of the Empire.
Our great difficulty is that these communities, brotherhoods, and associations kept themselves apart, and with rare exceptions left no records of their intimate practices and beliefs, or if they left any it has been destroyed or lost. For the most part then we have to rely upon general indications of a very superficial character. But this imperfect record is no justification for us to deny or ignore their existence and the intensity of their endeavours; and a history which purports to paint a picture of the times is utterly insufficient so long as it omits this most vital subject from its canvas.
Among such surroundings as these Apollonius moved; but how little does his biographer seem to have been aware of the fact! Philostratus has a rhetoricians appreciation of a philosophical  court life, but no feeling for the life of religion. It is only indirectly that the Life of Apollonius, as it is now depicted, can throw any light on these most interesting communities, but even an occasional side-light is precious where all is in such obscurity. Were it but possible to enter into the living memory of Apollonius, and see with his eyes the things he saw when he lived nineteen hundred years ago, what an enormously interesting page of the world's history could be recovered! He not only traversed all the countries where the new faith was taking root, but he lived for years in most of them, and was intimately acquainted with numbers of mystic communities in Egypt, Arabia, and Syria. Surely he must have visited some of the earliest Christian communities as well, must even have conversed with some of the "disciples of the Lord"! And yet no word is breathed of this, not one single scrap of information on these points do we glean from what is recorded of him. Surely he must have met with Paul, if not elsewhere, then at Rome, in 66, when he had to leave because of the edict of banishment against the philosophers, the very year according to some when Paul was beheaded!
SECTION IV - The Apollonius of Early Opinion
THERE is, however, another reason why Apollonius is of importance to us. He was an enthusiastic admirer of the wisdom of India. Here again a subject of wide interest opens up. What influences, if any, had Brahmanism and Buddhism on Western thought in these early years? It is strongly asserted by some that they had great influence; it is as strongly denied by others that they had any influence at all. It is, therefore, apparent that there is no really indisputable evidence on the subject.
Just as some would ascribe the constitution of the Essene and Therapeut communities to Pythagorean influence, so others would ascribe their origin to Buddhist propaganda [or "Brahmanic"]; and not only would they trace this influence in the Essene tenets and practices, but they would even refer the general teaching of the Christ to a Buddhist source in a Jewish monotheistic setting. Not only so, but some would have it  that two centuries before the direct general contact of Greece with India, brought about by the conquests of Alexander, India through Pythagoras strongly and lastingly influenced all subsequent Greek thought.
The question can certainly not be settled by hasty affirmation or denial; it requires not only a wise knowledge of general history and a minute study of scattered and imperfect indications of thought and practice, but also a fine appreciation of the correct value of indirect evidence, for of direct testimony there is none of a really decisive nature. 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. The close resemblance, however, between many of the features of Pythagorean discipline and doctrine and Indo-Aryan thought and practice, make us  hesitate entirely to reject the possibility of Pythagoras having visited ancient åryavarta.
And even if we cannot go so far as to entertain the possibility of direct personal contact, there has to be taken into consideration the fact that Pherecydes, the master of Pythagoras, may have been acquainted with some of the main ideas of Vaidic lore. Pherecydes taught at Ephesus, but was himself most probably a Persian, and it is quite credible that a learned Asiatic, teaching a mystic philosophy and basing his doctrine upon the idea of rebirth, may have had some indirect, if not direct, knowledge of Indo-Aryan thought.
Persia must have been even at this time in close contact with India, for about the date of the death of Pythagoras, in the reign of Dareius, son of Hystaspes, at the end of the sixth and beginning of the fifth century before our era, we hear of the expedition of the Persian general Scylax down the Indus, and learn from Herodotus that in this reign India (that is the Punjab) formed the twentieth satrapy of the Persian monarchy. Moreover, Indian troops were among the hosts of Xerxes; they invaded Thessaly and fought at Platæa.
From the time of Alexander onwards there was direct and constant contact between aryavarta and the kingdoms of the successors  of the world-conqueror, and many Greeks wrote about this land of mystery; but in all that has come down to us we look in vain for anything but the vaguest indications of what the "philosophers" of India systematically thought.
That the Brahmans would at this time have permitted their sacred books to be read by the Yavanas (Ionians, the general name for Greeks in Indian records) is contrary to all we know of their history. The Yavanas were Mlechchhas, outside the pale of the Ìryas, and all they could glean of the jealously guarded Brahma-vidya or theosophy must have depended solely upon outside observation. But the dominant religious activity at this time in India was Buddhist, and it is to this protest against the rigid distinctions of case and race made by Brahmanical pride, and to the startling novelty of an enthusiastic religious propaganda among all classes and races in India, and outside India to all nations, that we must look for the most direct contact of thought between India and Greece. [But apart from the Brahmans and Buddhists, there were the lower-caste ascetics, the shramanas, who could have provided this knowledge.]
For instance, in the middle of the third century B.C., we know from Asoka's thirteenth edict, that this Buddhist Emperor of India, the Constantine of the East, sent missionaries to Antiochus II of Syria, Ptolemy II of Egypt, Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene, and Alexander II of Epirus. When, in a land of such imperfect  records, the evidence on the side of India is so clear and indubitable, all the more extraordinary is it that we have no direct testimony on our side of so great a missionary activity. Although, then, merely because of the absence of all direct information from Greek sources, it is very unsafe to generalize, nevertheless from our general knowledge of the times it is not illegitimate to conclude that no great public stir could have been made by these pioneers of the Dharma in the West. In every probability these Buddhist Bhikshus produced no effect on the rulers or on the people. But was their mission entirely abortive; and did Buddhist missionary enterprise westwards cease with them?
The answer to this question, as it seems to us, is hidden in the obscurity of the religious communities. We cannot, however, go so far as to agree with those who would cut the gordian knot by asserting dogmatically that the ascetic communities in Syria and Egypt were founded by these Buddhist propagandists. Already even in Greece itself were not only Pythagorean but even prior to them Orphic communities, for even on this ground we believe that Pythagoras rather developed what he found already existing, than that he established something entirely new. And if they were found in Greece, much more than is it reasonable to suppose that such communities  already existed in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt, whose populations were given far more to religious exercises than the skeptical and laughter-loving Greeks.
It is, however, credible that in such communities, if anywhere, Buddhist propaganda would find an appreciative and attentive audience; but even so it is remarkable that they have left no distinctly direct trace of their influence. [But if we assume that the lower-caste ascetics, the shramanas, or the traveling sadhus started all this, in various points of time, there is no such problem, for they would do it without any orders or without keeping records.] Nevertheless, both by the sea way and by the great caravan route there was an ever open line of communication between India and the Empire of the successors of Alexander; and it is even permissible to speculate, that if we could recover a catalogue of the great Alexandrian library, for instance, we should perchance find that in it Indian MSS were to be found among the other rolls and parchments of the scriptures of the nations.
Indeed, there are phrases in the oldest treatises of the Trismegistic Hermetic literature which can be so closely paralleled with phrases in the Upanishads and in the Bhagavad Gita, that one is almost tempted to believe that the writers had some acquaintance with the general contents of these Brahmanical scriptures. The Trismegistic literature had its genesis in Egypt, and its earliest deposit must be dated at least in the first century A.D., if it cannot even be pushed back earlier. Even more striking is the similarity between the  lofty mystic metaphysic of the Gnostic doctor Basilides, who lived at the end of the first and beginning of the second century A.D., and Vedantic ideas. Moreover, both the Hermetic and the Basilidean schools and their immediate predecessors were devoted to a stern self-discipline and deep philosophical study which would make them welcome eagerly any philosopher or mystic student who might come from the far East.
But even so, we are not of those who by their own self-imposed limitations of possibility are condemned to find some direct physical contact to account for a similarity of ideas or even of phrasing. Granting, for instance, that there is much resemblance between the teachings of the Dharma of the Buddha and of the Gospel of the Christ, and that the same spirit of love and gentleness pervades them both, still there is no necessity to look for the reason of this resemblance to purely physical transmission. And so for other schools and other teachers; like conditions will produce similar phenomena; like effort and like aspiration will produce similar ideas, similar experience, and similar response. [Yes, but the wheel for instance was invented only once and only in one place; but the idea traveled really fast.] And this we believe to be the case in no general way, but that it is all very definitely ordered from within by the servants of the real guardians of things religious in this world.
We are, then, not compelled to lay so much  stress on the question of physical transmission, or to be seeking even to find proof of copying. The human mind in its various degrees is much the same in all climes and ages, and its inner experience has a common ground into which seed may be sown, as it is tilled and cleared of weeds. The good seed comes all from the same granary, and those who sow it pay no attention to the man-made outer distinctions of race and creed.
However difficult, therefore, it may be to prove, from unquestionably historical statements, any direct influence of Indian thought on the conceptions and practices of some of these religious communities and philosophic schools of the Græco-Roman Empire, and although in any particular case similarity of ideas need not necessarily be assigned to direct physical transmission, nevertheless the highest probability, if not the greatest assurance, remains that even prior to the days of Apollonius there was some private knowledge in Greece of the general ideas of the Vedanta and Dharma; while in the case of Apollonius himself, even if we discount nine-tenths of what is related of him, his one idea seems to have been to spread abroad among the religious brotherhoods and institutions of the Empire some portion of the wisdom which he brought back with him from India.
When, then, we find at the end of the first  and during the first half of the second century, among such mystic associations as the Hermetic and Gnostic schools, ideas which strongly remind us of the theosophy of the Upanishads or the reasoned ethics of the Suttas, we have always to take into consideration not only the high probability of Apollonius having visited such schools, but also the possibility of his having discoursed at length therein on the Indian wisdom. Not only so, but the memory of his influence may have lingered for long in such circles, for do we not find Plotinus, the coryphæus of Neo-Platonism, as it is called, so enamoured with what he had heard of the wisdom of India at Alexandria, that in 242 he started off with the ill-starred expedition of Gordian to the East in the hope of reaching that land of philosophy? With the failure of the expedition and assassination of the Emperor, however, he had to return, for ever disappointed of his hope.
It is not, however, to be thought that Apollonius set out to make a propaganda of Indian philosophy in the same way that the ordinary missionary sets forth to preach his conception of the Gospel. By no means; Apollonius seems to have endeavoured to help his hearers, whoever they might be, in the way best suited to each of them. He did not begin  by telling them that what they believed was utterly false and soul-destroying, and that their eternal welfare depended upon their instantly adopting his own special scheme of salvation; he simply endeavoured to purge and further explain what they already believed and practised. That some strong power supported him in his ceaseless activity, and in his almost world-wide task, is not so difficult of belief; and it is a question of deep interest for those who strive to peer through the mists of appearance, to speculate how that not only a Paul but also an Apollonius was aided and directed in his task from within.
The day, however, has not yet dawned when it will be possible for the general mind in the West to approach the question with such freedom from prejudice, as to bear the thought that, seen from within, not only Paul but also Apollonius may well have been a "disciple of the Lord" in the true sense of the words; and that too although on the surface of things their tasks seem in many ways so dissimilar, and even, to theological preconceptions, entirely antagonistic.
Fortunately, however, even today there is an ever growing number of thinking people who will not only be shocked by such a belief, but who will receive it with joy as the herald of the  dawning of a true sun of righteousness, which will do more to illumine the manifold ways of the religion of our common humanity than all the self-righteousness of any particular body of exclusive religionists.
It is, then, in this atmosphere of charity and tolerance that we would ask the reader to approach the consideration of Apollonius and his doings, and not only the life and deeds of an Apollonius, but also of all those who have striven to help their fellows the world over.
SECTION V - Texts, Translations, and Literature
APOLLONIUS of Tyana [Pronounced Tyâna, with the accent on the first syllable and the first a short.] 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 oft-times 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" [Alexander sive Pseudomantis, vi.] of his life. And Appuleius, a contemporary of Lucian, classes  Apollonius with Moses and Zoroaster, and other famous Magi of antiquity. [De Magia, xc (ed Hildebrand, 1842, ii 614.)]
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 [tel¡smata Telesma was "a consecrated object, turned by the Arabs into telsam (talisman)"; see Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, sub voc.] 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." [Justin Martyr, Opera ed. Otto (2nd edition ; Jena 1849) iii 32.]
Dion Cassius in his history [Lib Ixxvii 18.] 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. [Life of Alexander Severus xxix.]
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." [Life of Aurelian xxiv.] 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. [Quae qui velit nosse, groecos legat libros qui de ejus vita conscripti sunt." These accounts were probably the books of Maximus, Mragenes, and Philostratus.] Vopiscus, however, did not fulfill his promise, but  we learn that about this date both Soterichus [An Egyptian epic poet, who wrote several poetical histories in Greek; he flourished in the last decade of the third century.] and Nichomachus wrote Lives of our philosopher, and shortly afterwards Tascius Victorianus, working on the papers of Nichomachus, [Sidonius Apollinaris, Epp., viii 3. See also Legrand d'Aussy, Vie d'Apollonius de Tyane (Paris 1807), p xIvii.] 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 seconds of Iamblichus are taken from Apollonius. [Porphyry, De Vita Pythagoræ, section ii., ed Kiessling (Leipzig 1816). Iamblichus De Vita Pythagorica, chap xxv., ed Kiessling (Leipzig 1813); see especially Ks note, pp II Sqq. See also Porphyry, Frag., De Styge, p 285, ed Holst.]
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 work of Celsus and Porphyry, [See Duchesne on the recently discovered works of Macarious Magnes (Paris 1877)], 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. [The most convenient text is by Gaisford (Oxford 1852), Eusebii Pamphili contra Hieroclem; it is also printed in a number of editions of Philostratus. There are two translations in Latin, one in Italian, one in Danish, all bound up with Philostratus' Vita, and one in French printed apart (Discours d'Eusèbe Evêque de Cesarée touchant les Miracles attribuez par les Payens à Apollonius de Tyane, tr by Cousin. Paris; 1584, 12mo, 135 pp.] 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 fulfillment 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. [Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones, v 2, 3; ed Fritsche (Leipzig 1842) pp 233, 236] 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. [Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, i, 52; ed Hildebrand (Halle 1844) p 86. The Church Father, however, with that exclusiveness peculiar to the Judæo-Christian view, omits Moses from the list of Magi.]
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, [John Chrysostom, Adversus Judæos, v 3 (p 631); De Laudibus Sancti Pauli Apost. Homil., iv (p 493 d; ed Montfauc] 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. [Hieronymus, Ep ad Paullinum, 53 (text ap. Kayser, præf ix]. 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. [August., Epp., cxxxviii. Text quoted by Legrand Daussy, op,cit., p 294.]
 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. [Isidorus Pelusiota, Epp., p 138; ed J Billius (Paris 1585)] 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 of 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, [See Arnobius, loc cit.] 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. [Sidonius Apollinaris, Epp., viii 3. Also Fabricius, Bibliotheca Græca, pp 549, 565 (ed Harles). The work of Sidonius on Apollonius is unfortunately lost.]
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"; [Amplissimus ille philosophus (xxiii 7). See also xxi 14; xxiii 19] 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. [meaning thereby presumably one who has reached the grade of being superior to man, but not yet equal to the gods. This was called by the Greeks the dæmonian order. But the word dæmon, owing to sectarian bitterness, has long been degraded from its former high estate, and the original idea is now signified in popular language by the term angel. Compare Plato, Symposium, xxiii., all that is dæmonian is between God and man.] 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." [Eunapius, Vitæ Philosophorum, Promium, vi ; ed Boissonade (Amsterdam 1822) p 3.] 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. [Réville, Apollonius of Tyana (tr from the French) p 56 (London 1866). I have, however, not been able to discover on what authority this statement is made.]
 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. [Insignis philosophus; see his Chronicon, written down to the year 519.] 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. [In his Chronographia. See Legrand dAussy, op.cit., p 313.] Tzetzes also, the critic and grammarian, calls Apollonius all-wise and a fore-knower of all things. [Chiliades ii 60]
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, [Cited by Legrand dAussy, op cit., p 286] nevertheless Cedrenus in the same century bestows on Apollonius the not uncomplimentary title of an adept Pythagorean philosopher, [Cedrenus, Compendium Historiarium, i 346; ed Bekker. The word which I have rendered by adept signifies one who has power over the elements.] 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. [Legrand dAussy, op cit., p 308.] Had the work of Philostratus disappeared with the rest of the Lives, the above would be all that we should have known about Apollonius. [If we except the disputed Letters and a few quotations from one of Apollonius lost writings.] 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.
WE will now turn to the texts, translations, and general literature of the subject in more recent times. Apollonius returned to the memory of the world, after the oblivion of the dark ages, with evil auspices. From the very beginning the old Hierocles-Eusebius controversy was revived, and the whole subject was at once taken out of the calm region of philosophy and history and hurled once more into the stormy arena of religious bitterness and prejudice. For long Aldus hesitated to print the text of Philostratus, and only finally did so (in 1501) with the text of Eusebius as an appendix, so that, as he piously phrases it, the antidote might accompany the poison. Together with it appeared a Latin translation by the Florentine Rinucci. [Philostratus de Vita Apollonii Tyanei Libri Octo, tr by A Rinuccinus, and Eusebius contra Hieroclem, tr by Z Acciolus (Venice 1501-04 fol.), Rinuccis translation was improved by Beroaldus and printed at Lyons (1504?) , and again at Cologne 1534.]
SECTION VI - The Biographer of Apollonius
 In addition to the Latin version the sixteenth century also produced an Italian [F Baldelli, Filostrato Lemnio della Vita di Apollonio Tianeo (Florence 1549, 8vo)] and French translation. [B de Vignère, Philostrate de la Vie dApollonius (Paris 1596, 1599, 1611). Blaise de Vignères translation was subsequently corrected by Frédéric Morel and later by Thomas Artus, Sieur dEmbry, with bombastic notes in which he bitterly attacks the wonder-workings of Apollonius. A French translation was also made by Th Sibilet about 1560, but never published; the MS was in the Bibliothèque Imperial. [See Miller, Journal des Savants 1849, p 625, quoted by Chassang, op infr cit., p iv.]
The editio princeps of Aldus was superseded a century later by the edition of Morel, [F Morellus, Philostrati Lemnii Opera, Gr. and Lat. (Paris 1608.)] which in its turn was followed a century still later by that of Olearius. [G. Olearius, Philostratorum quæ supersunt Omnia, Gr and Lat. (Leipzig 1709).] Nearly a century and a half later again the text of Olearius was superseded by that of Kayser (the first critical text), whose work in its last edition contains the latest critical apparatus. [C L. Kayser, Flavii Philostrati quæ supersunt, etc. (Zurich 1844, 4 to). In 1849 A Westermann also edited a text, Philostratorum et Callistrati Opera, in Didot's "Scriptorum Græcorum Bibliotheca" (Paris 1849, 8vo). But Kayser brought out a new edition in 1853 (?), and again a third, with additional information in the Preface, in the "Bibliotheca Teubneriana" (Leipzig 1870).] All information with regard to the MSS, will be found in Kayser's Latin Prefaces.
 We shall now attempt to give some idea of the general literature on the subject, so that the reader may be able to note some of the varying fortunes of the war of opinion in the bibliographical indications. And if the general reader should be impatient of the matter and eager to get to something of greater interest, he can easily omit its perusal; while if he be a lover of the mystic way, and does not take delight in wrangling controversy, he may at least sympathise with the writer, who has been compelled to look through the works of the last century and a good round dozen of those of the previous centuries, before he could venture on an opinion of his own with a clear conscience.
Sectarian prejudice against Apollonius characterises nearly every opinion prior to the nineteenth century. [For a general summary of opinions prior to 1807, if writers who mention Apollonius incidentally, see Legrand d'Aussy, op. cit., pp 313-327.] Of books distinctly dedicated to the subject the works of the Abbé Dupin [LHistoire dApollone de Tyane convaincue de Fausseté et dImposture (Paris 1705).] and of de Tillemont [An Account of the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus (London 1702), tr out of the French, from vol ii, of Lenain de Tillemont's Histoire des Empereurs (Second Edition, Paris 1720): to which is added Some Observations upon Apollonius. De Tillemont's view is that Apollonius was sent by the Devil to destroy the work of the Saviour.] are bitter attacks  on the Philosopher of Tyana in defence of the monopoly of Christian miracles; while those of the Abbé Houtteville [A critical and Historical Discourse upon the Method of the Principal Authors who wrote for and against Christianity from its Beginning (London 1739), tr. from the French of M. lAbbé Houtteville; to which is added a Dessertation on the Life of Apollonius Tyanæus, with some Observations on the Platonists of the Latter School, pp 213-254.] and Lüderwald [Anti-Hierocles oder Jesus Christus und Apollonius von Tyana in ihrer grossen Ungleichheit, dargestellt v. J.B. Lüderwald (Halle 1793).] are less violent, though on the same lines. A pseudonymous writer, however, of the eighteenth century strikes out a somewhat different line by classing together the miracles of the Jesuits and other Monastic Orders with those of Apollonius, and dubbing them all spurious, while maintaining the sole authenticity of those of Jesus. [Phileleutherus Helvetius, De Miraculis quæ Pythagoræ, Apolloni Tyanensi, Francisco Asisio, Dominico, et Ignatio Lojolæ tribuuntur Libellus (Draci 1734).]
Nevertheless, Bacon and Voltaire speak of Apollonius in the highest terms, [See Legrand d'Aussy, op. cit., p 314, where the texts are given.] and even a century before the latter the English Deist, Charles Blount, [The Two First Books of Philostratus concerning the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus (London ; 1680 fol.) Blount's notes (generally ascribed to Lord Herbert) raised such an outcry that the book was condemned in 1693, and few copies are in existence. Blount's notes were, however, translated into French a century later, in the days of Encyclopædism, and appended to a French version of the Vita, under the title, Vie d'Apollonius de Tyane par Philostrate avec les Commentaires donnés en Anglois par Charles Blount sur les deux Premiers Livres de cet Ouvrage (Amsterdam ; 1779, 4 vols., Svo), with an ironical dedication to Pope Clement XIV., signed "Philalethes."] raised his voice against the  universal obloquy poured upon the character of the Tyanean ; his work, however, was speedily suppressed.
In the midst of this war about miracles in the eighteenth century it is pleasant to remark the short treatise of Herzog, who endeavours to give a sketch of the philosophy and religious life of Apollonius, [Philosophiam Practicam Apollonii Tyanæ in Sciagraphia, exponit M. Io. Christianus Herzog (Leipzig 1709) ; an academical oration of 20 pp.] but, alas! there were no followers of so liberal an example in this century of strife.
So far then for the earlier literature of the subject. Frankly none of it is worth reading; the problem could not be calmly considered in such a period. It started on the false ground of the Hierocles-Eusebius controversy, which was but an incident (for wonder-working is common to all great teachers and not peculiar to Apollonius or Jesus), and was embittered by the rise of Encyclopædism and the rationalism of the Revolution period. Not that the miracle-controversy ceased even in the last century; it  does not, however, any longer obscure the whole horizon, and the sun of a calmer judgment may be seen breaking through the midst.
In order to make the rest of our summary clearer we append at the end of this essay the titles of the works which have appeared since the beginning of the nineteenth century, in chronological order.
A glance over this list will show that the last century has produced an English (Berwick's), an Italian (Lancetti's), a French (Chassang's), and two German translations (Jacobs' and Baltzer's). [Philostratus is a difficult author to translate, nevertheless Chassang and Baltzer have succeeded very well with him; Berwick also is readable, but in most places gives us a paraphrase rather than a translation and frequently mistakes the meaning. Chassangs and Baltzers are by far the best translations.] The Rev E. Berwick's translation is the only English version; in his Preface the author, while asserting the falsity of the miraculous element in the Life, says that the rest of the work deserves careful attention. No harm will accrue to the Christian religion by its perusal, for there are no allusions to the Life of Christ in it, and the miracles are based on those ascribed to Pythagoras.
This is certainly a healthier standpoint than that of the traditional theological controversy, which, unfortunately, however, was revived  gain by the great authority of Baur, who say in a number of the early documents of the Christian era (notably the canonical Acts) tendency-writings of but slight historical content, representing the changing fortunes of schools and parties and not the actual histories of individuals. The Life of Apollonius was one of these tendency-writings; its object was to put forward a view opposed to Christianity in favour of philosophy. Baur thus divorced the whole subject from its historical standpoint and attributed to Philostratus an elaborate scheme of which he was entirely innocent. Baur's view was largely adopted by Zeller in his Philosophie der Griechen (v 140), and by Réville in Holland.
This Christusbild theory (carried by a few extremists to the point of denying that Apollonius ever existed) has had a great vogue among writers on the subject, especially compilers of encyclopædia articles; it is at any rate a wider issue than the traditional miracle-wrangle, which was again revived in all its ancient narrowness by Newman, who only uses Apollonius as an excuse for a dissertation on orthodox miracles, to which he devotes eighteen pages out of the twenty-five of his treatise. Noack also follows Baur, and to some extent Pettersch, though he takes the subject onto the ground of philosophy; while Möckeberg, pastor of St. Nicolai in Hamburg,  though striving to be fair to Apollonius, ends his chatty dissertation with an outburst of orthodox praises of Jesus, praises which we by no means grudge, but which are entirely out of place in such a subject.
The development of the Jesus-Apollonius miracle-controversy into the Jesus-against-Apollonius and even Christ-against-Anti-Christ battle, fought out with relays of lusty champions on the one side against a feeble protest at best on the other, is a painful spectacle to contemplate. How sadly must Jesus and Apollonius have looked upon, and still look upon, this bitter and useless strife over their saintly persons. Why should posterity set their memories one against the other? Did they oppose one another in life? Did even their biographers do so after their deaths? Why then could not the controversy have ceased with Eusebius? For Lactantius frankly admits the point brought forward by Hierocles (to exemplify which Hierocles only referred to Apollonius as one instance out of many)that "miracles" do not prove divinity. We rest our claims, says Lactantius, not on miracles, but on the fulfillment of prophecy. [This would have at least restored Apollonius to his natural environment, and confined the question of the divinity of Jesus to its proper Judæo-Christian ground.] Had this more sensible position been revived  instead of that of Eusebius, the problem of Apollonius would have been considered in its natural historical environment four hundred years ago, and much ink and paper would have been saved.
With the progress of the critical method, however, opinion has at length partly recovered its balance, and it is pleasant to be able to turn to works which have rescued the subject from theological obscurantism and placed it in the open field of historical and critical research. The two volumes of the independent thinker, Legrand d'Aussy, which appeared at the very beginning of the last century, are, for the time, remarkably free from prejudice, and are a praiseworthy attempt at historical impartiality, but criticism was still young at this period. Kayser, though he does not go thoroughly into the matter, decides that the account of Philostratus is purely a "fabularis narratio," but is well opposed by I. Müller, who contends for a strong element of history as a background. But by far the best sifting of the sources is that of Jessen. [I am unable to offer any opinion on Nielsens book, from ignorance of Danish, but it has all the appearance of a careful, scholarly treatise with abundance of references.] Priaulxs study deals solely with the Indian episode and is of no critical value for the estimation of the sources. Of all previous studies, however, the works of Chassang and  Baltzer are the most generally intelligent, for both writers are aware of the possibilities of psychic science, though mostly from the insufficient standpoint of spiritistic phenomena.
As for Tredwell's somewhat pretentious volume which, being in English, is accessible to the general reader, it is largely reactionary, and is used as a cover for adverse criticism of the Christian origins from a Secularist standpoint which denies at the outset the possibility of "miracle" in any meaning of the word. A mass of well-known numismatological and other matter, which is entirely irrelevant, but which seems to be new and surprising to the author, is introduced, and a map is prefixed to the title page purporting to give the itineraries of Apollonius, but having little reference to the text of Philostratus. Indeed, nowhere does Tredwell show that he is working on the text itself, and the subject in his hands is but an excuse for a rambling dissertation on the first century in general from his own standpoint.
This is all regrettable, for with the exception of Berwick's translation, which is almost unprocurable, we have nothing of value in English for the general reader, [Réville's Pagan Christ is quite a misrepresentation of the subject, and Newman's treatment of the matter renders his treatise an anachronism for the twentieth century.] except Sinnett's short  sketch, which is descriptive rather than critical or explanatory.
So far then for the history of the Apollonius of opinion; we will now turn to the Apollonius of Philostratus, and attempt if possible to discover some traces of the man as he was in history, and the nature of his life and work.
FLAVIUS PHILOSTRATUS, the writer of the only Life of Apollonius which has come down to us, was a distinguished man of letters who lived in the last quarter of the second and the first half of the third century (cir. 175-245 A.D.). He formed one of the circle of famous writers and thinkers gathered round the philosopher empress, Julia Domna, who was the guiding spirit of the Empire during the reigns of her husband Septimius Severus and her son Caracalla. All three members of the imperial family were students of occult science, and the age was pre-eminently one in which the occult arts, good and bad, were a passion. Thus the sceptical Gibbon, in his sketch of Severus and his famous consort, writes:
SECTION VII - Early Life
"Like most of the Africans, Severus was  passionately addicted to the vain studies of magic and divination, deeply versed in the interpretation of dreams and omens, and perfectly acquainted with the science of judicial astrology, which in almost every age except the present, has maintained its dominion over the mind of man. He had lost his first wife whilst he was governor of the Lionnese Gaul. In the choice of a second, he sought only to connect himself with some favourite of fortune; and as soon as he had discovered that a young lady of Emesa in Syria had a royal nativity, [The italics are Gibbons.] he solicited and obtained her hand. Julia Domna [More correctly Domna Julia; Domna being not a shortened form of Domina, but the Syrian name of the empress.] (for that was her name) deserved all that the stars could promise her. She possessed, even in an advanced age, [She died A.D. 217.] the attractions of beauty, and united to a lively imagination, seldom bestowed on her se+. Her amiable qualities never made any deep impression on the dark and jealous temper of her husband. [The contrary is held by other historians.] but in her sons reign, she administered the principal affairs of the Empire with a prudence that supported his authority, and with a moderation that sometimes corrected  his wild extravagances. Julia applied herself to letters and philosophy with some success, and with the most splendid reputation. She was the patroness of every art, and the friend of every man of genius." [Gibbons Decline and Fall, I, vi.]
We thus see, even from Gibbon's somewhat grudging estimate, that Domna Julia was a woman of remarkable character, whose outer acts give evidence of an inner purpose, and whose private life has not been written. It was at her request that Philostratus wrote the Life of Apollonius, and it was she who supplied him with certain MSS, that were in her possession, as a basis; for the beautiful daughter of Bassianus, priest of the sun at Emesa, was an ardent collector of books from every part of the world, especially of the MSS of philosophers and of memoranda and biographical notes relating to the famous students of the inner nature of things.
That Philostratus was the best man to whom to entrust so important a task, is doubtful. It is true that he was a skilled stylist and a practised man of letters, an art critic and an ardent antiquarian, as we may see from his other works; but he was a sophist rather than a philosopher, and though an enthusiastic admirer of Pythagoras and his school, was so from a  distance, regarding it rather through a wonder loving atmosphere of curiosity and the embellishments of a lively imagination than from a personal acquaintance with its discipline, or a practical knowledge of those hidden forces of the soul with which its adepts dealt. We have, therefore, to expect a sketch of the appearance of a thing by one outside, rather than an exposition of the thing itself from one within.
The following is Philostratus account of the sources from which he derived his information concerning Apollonius: [I use the 1846 and 1870 editions of Kaysers text throughout.]
I have collected my materials partly from the cities which loved him, partly from the temples whose rites and regulations he restored from their former state of neglect, partly from his own letters. [A collection of these letters (but not all of them) had been in the possession of the Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117-138), and had been left in his palace at Antium (viii 20). This proves the great fame that Apollonius enjoyed shortly after his disappearance from history, and while he was still a living memory. It is to be noticed that Hadrian was an enlightened ruler, a great traveller, a lover of religion, and an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries.] More detailed information I procured as follows. Damis was a man of some education who formerly used to  live in the ancient city of Ninus. [Nineveh.] He became a disciple of Apollonius and recorded his travels, in which he says he himself took part, and also the views, sayings, and predictions of his master. A member of Damis family brought the Empress Julia the note-books [writing tablets. This suggests that the account of Damis could not have been very voluminous, although Philostratus further on asserts its detailed nature (i 19)] containing these memoirs, which up to that time had not been known of. As I was one of the circle of this princess, who was a lover and patroness of all literary productions, she ordered me to rewrite these sketches and improve their form of expression, for though the Ninevite expressed himself clearly, his style was far from correct. I also have had access to a book by Maximus [One of the imperial secretaries of the time, who was famous for his eloquence, and tutor to Apollonius.] of Ægæ which contained all Apollonius' doings at Ægæ. [A town not far from Tarsus.] There is also a will written by Apollonius, from which we can learn how he almost defied philosophy. As to the four books of Mragenes [This Life by Mragenes is casually mentioned by Origenes, Contra Celsum, vi 41; ed Lommatzsch (Berlin 1841), ii 373.] on Apollonius they do not deserve  attention, for he knows nothing of most of the facts of his life" (i. 2. 3).
These are the sources to which Philostratus was indebted for his information, sources which are unfortunately no longer accessible to us, except perhaps a few letters. Nor did Philostratus spare any pains to gather information on the subject, for in his concluding words (viii 31), he tells us that he has himself traveled into most parts of the "world" and everywhere met with the "inspired sayings" of Apollonius, and that he was especially well acquainted with the temple dedicated to the memory of our philosopher at Tyana and founded at the imperial expense ("for the emperors had judged him not unworthy of like honours with themselves"), whose priests, it is to be presumed, had got together as much information as they could concerning Apollonius.
A thoroughly critical analysis of the literary effort of Philostratus, therefore, would have to take into account all of these factors, and endeavour to assign each statement to its original source. But even then the task of the historian would be incomplete, for it is transparently evident that Philostratus has considerably  "embellished" the narrative with numerous notes and additions of his own and with the composition of set speeches.
Now as the ancient writers did not separate their notes from the text, or indicate them in any distinct fashion, we have to be constantly on our guard to detect the original sources from the glosses of the writer. [Seldom is it that we have such a clear indication, for instance, as in i 25; "The following is what I have been able to learn . . . about Babylon."] In fact Philostratus is ever taking advantage of the mention of a name or a subject to display his own knowledge, which is often of a most legendary and fantastic nature. This is especially the case in his description of Apollonius Indian travels. India at that time and long afterwards was considered the end of the world, and an infinity of the strangest travellers tales and mythological fables were in circulation concerning it. One has only to read the accounts of the writers on India [See E A. Schwanbeck, Megasthenis Indica (Bonn 1846), and J W. MCrindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian (Calcutta, Bombay, London 1877). The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythræan Sea (1879), Ancient India as described by Ktesias (1882), Ancient India as described by Ptolemy (London 1885) and The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great (London 1893, 1896.] from the time of Alexander onwards to discover the source of most of the strange incidents  that Philostratus records as experiences of Apollonius. To take but one instance out of a hundred, Apollonius had to cross the Caucasus, an indefinite name for the great system of mountain ranges that bound the northern limits of åryavarta. Prometheus was chained to the Caucasus, so every child has been told for centuries. Therefore, if Apollonius crossed the Caucasus, he must have seen those chains. And so it was, Philostratus assures us (ii 3). Not only so, but he volunteers the additional information that you could not tell of what they were made! A perusal of Megasthenes, however, will speedily reduce the long Philostratian account of the Indian travels of Apollonius (i 41iii 58) to a very narrow compass, for page after page is simply padding, picked up from any one of the numerous Indica to which our widely read author has access. [Another good example of this is seen in the disquisition on elephants which Philostratus takes from Jubas History of Libya (ii 13 and 16)] To judge from such writers, Porus [Perhaps a title, or the king of the Purus.] (the Râjâh conquered by Alexander) was the immemorial king of India. In fact, in speaking of India or any other little known country, a writer in these days had to drag in all that popular legend associated with it or he stood little chance of being listened to. He had  to give his narrative a "local colour," and this was especially the case in a technical rhetorical effort like that of Philostratus.
Again, it was the fashion to insert set speeches and put them in the mouths of well-known characters on historical occasions, good instances of which may be seen in Thucydides and the Acts of the Apostles. Philostratus repeatedly does this.
But it would be too long to enter into a detailed investigation of the subject, although the writer has prepared notes on all these points, for that would be to write a volume and not a sketch. Only a few points are therefore set down, to warn the student to be ever on his guard to sift out Philostratus from his sources. [Not that Philostratus makes any disguise of his embellishments; see, for instance, ii 17, where he says: "Let me, however, defer what I have to say on the subject of serpents, of the manner of hunting which Damis gives a description.
But though we must be keenly alive to the importance of a thoroughly critical attitude where definite facts of history are concerned, we should be as keenly on our guard against judging everything from the standpoint of modern preconceptions. There is but one religious literature of antiquity that has ever been treated with real sympathy in the West, and that is the Judæo-Christian; in that alone have men been  trained to feel at home, and all in antiquity that treats of religion in a different mode to the Jewish or Christian way, is felt to be strange, and, if obscure or extraordinary, to be even repulsive. The sayings and doings of the Jewish prophets, of Jesus, and of the Apostles, are related with reverence, embellished with the greatest beauties of diction, and illumined with the best thought of the age; while the sayings and doings of other prophets and teachers have been for the most part subjected to the most unsympathetic criticism, in which no attempt is made to understand their standpoint. Had even-handed justice been dealt out all round, the world today would have been richer in sympathy, in wide-mindedness, in comprehension of nature, humanity, and God, in brief, in soul-experience.
Therefore, in reading the Life of Apollonius let us remember that we have to look at it through the eyes of a Greek, and not through those of a Jew or a Protestant. The Many in their proper sphere must be for us as authentic a manifestation of the Divine as the One or the All, for indeed the "Gods" exist in spite of commandment and creed. The Saints and Martyrs and Angels have seemingly taken the place of the Heroes and Dæmons and Gods, but the change of name and change of viewpoint among men affect but little the unchangeable facts.  To sense the facts of universal religion under the ever changing names which men bestow upon them, and then to enter with full sympathy and comprehension into the hopes and fears of every phase of the religious mind - to read, as it were, the past lives of our own souls is a most difficult task. But until we can put ourselves understandingly in the places of others, we can never see more than one side of the Infinite Life of God. A student of comparative religion must not be afraid of terms; he must not shudder when he meets with "polytheism," or draw back in horror when he encounters "dualism," or feel an increased satisfaction when he falls in with "monotheism"; he must not feel awe when he pronounces the name of Yahweh and contempt when he utters the name of Zeus; he must not picture a satyr when he reads the word "dæmon," and imagine a winged dream of beauty when he pronounces the word "angel." For him heresy and orthodoxy must not exist; he sees only his own soul slowly working out its own experience, looking at life from every possible view-point, so that haply at last he may see the whole, and having seen the whole, may become at one with God.
To Apollonius the mere fashion of a man's faith was unessential; he was at home in all lands, among all cults. He had a helpful word for all,  an intimate knowledge of the particular way of each of them, which enabled him to restore them to health. Such men are rare; the records of such men are precious, and require the embellishments of no rhetorician.
Let us then, first of all, try to recover the outline of the early external life and of the travels of Apollonius shorn of Philostratus' embellishments, and then endeavour to consider the nature of his mission, the manner of the philosophy which he so dearly loved and which was to him his religion, and last, if possible, the way of his inner life.
SECTION VIII - The Travels of Apollonius
APOLLONIUS was born [Legends of the wonderful happenings at his birth were in circulation, and are of the same nature as all such birth-legends of great people.] at Tyana, a city in the south of Cappadocia, somewhere in the early years of the Christian era. His parents were of ancient family and considerable fortune (i 4). At an early age he gave signs of a very powerful memory and studious disposition, and was remarkable for his beauty. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Tarsus, a famous centre of learning of the time, to complete his studies. But mere rhetoric and style and the life of the "schools" were little suited to his serious disposition, and he speedily left for Ægæ, a town on the sea coast east of Tarsus. Here he found surroundings more suitable to his needs, and plunged with ardor into the study of philosophy. He became intimate with the priests of the temple of Æsculapius, when cures were still wrought,  and enjoyed the society and instruction of pupils and teachers of the Platonic, Stoic, Peripatetic, and Epicurean schools of philosophy; but though he studied all these systems of thought with attention, it was the lessons of the Pythagorean school upon which he seized with an extraordinary depth of comprehension, and that, too, although his teacher, Euxenus, was but a parrot of the doctrines and not a practiser of the discipline. But such parroting was not enough for the eager spirit of Apollonius; his extraordinary "memory," which infused life into the dull utterances of his tutor, urged him on, and at the age of sixteen "he soared into the Pythagorean life, winged by some greater one." [Sci., than his tutor; namely, the memory within him, or his dæmon.] Nevertheless he retained his affection for the man who had told him of the way, and rewarded him handsomely (i 7).
When Euxenus asked him how he would begin his new mode of life he replied: "As doctors purge their patients." Hence he refused to touch anything that had animal life in it, on the ground that it densified the mind and rendered it impure. He considered that the only pure form of food was what the earth produced, fruits and vegetables. He also abstained from wine, for though it was made from fruit, "it rendered turbid  the æther [This æther was presumably the mind-stuff.] in the soul and destroyed the composure of the mind. Moreover, he went barefoot, let his hair grow long, and wore nothing but linen. He now lived in the temple, to the admiration of the priests and with the express approval of Æsculapius, [That is to say presumably he was encouraged in his efforts by those unseen helpers of the temple by whom the cures were wrought by means of dreams, and help was given psychically and mesmerically.] and he rapidly became so famous for his asceticism and pious life, that a saying[Where are you hurrying? Are you off to see the youth? of the Cilicians about him became a proverb (i 8).
At the age of twenty his father died (his mother having died some years before) leaving a considerable fortune, which Apollonius was to share with his elder brother, a wild and dissolute youth of twenty-three. Being still a minor, Apollonius continued to reside at Ægae, where the temple of Æsculapius had now become a busy centre of study, and echoed from one end to the other with the sound of lofty philosophical discourses. On coming of age he returned to Tyana to endeavour to rescue his brother from his vicious life. His brother had apparently exhausted his legal share of the property, and Apollonius at once made over half of his own  portion to him, and by his gentle admonitions restored him to manhood. In fact he seems to have devoted his time to setting in order the affairs of the family, for he distributed the rest of his patrimony among certain of his relatives, and kept for himself but a bare pittance; he required but little, he said, and should never marry (i 13).
He now took the vow of silence for five years, for he was determined not to write on philosophy until he had passed through this wholesome discipline. These five years were passed mostly in Pamphylia and Cilicia, and though he spent much time in study, he did not immure himself in a community or monastery but kept moving about and travelling from city to city. The temptations to break his self-imposed vow were enormous. His strange appearance drew everyone's attention, the laughter-loving populace made the silent philosopher the butt of their unscrupulous wit, and all the protection he had against their scurrility and misconceptions was the dignity of his mien and the glance of eyes that now could see both past and future. Many a time he was on the verge of bursting out against some exceptional insult or lying gossip, but ever He restrained himself with the words: "Heart, patient be, and thou, my tongue, be still." [Compare Odyssey, xx 18.] (i 14).
 Yet even this stern repression of the common mode of speech did not prevent his good doing. Even at this early age he had begun to correct abuses. With eyes and hands and motions of the head, he made his meaning understood, and on one occasion, at Aspendus in Pamphylia, prevented a serious corn riot by silencing the crowd with his commanding gestures and then writing what he had to say on his tablet (i 15).
So far, apparently, Philostratus has been dependent upon the account of Maximus of Ægæ, or perhaps only up to the time of Apollonius' quitting Ægæ. There is now a considerable gap in the narrative, and two short chapters of vague generalities (i 16, 17) are all that Philostratus can produce as the record of some fifteen or twenty [I am inclined to think, however, that Apollonius was still a youngish man when he set out on his Indian travels, instead of being forty-six, as some suppose. But the difficulties of most of the chronology are insurmountable.] years, until Damis' notes begin.
After the five years of silence, we find Apollonius at Antioch, but this seems to be only an incident in a long round of travel and work, and it is probable that Philostratus brings Antioch into prominence merely because what little he had learnt of this period of Apollonius life, he picked up in this much-frequented city.  Even from Philostratus himself we learn incidentally later on (i 20; iv 38) that Apollonius had spent some time among the Arabians, and had been instructed by them. And by Arabia we are to understand the country south of Palestine, which was at this period a regular hot-bed of mystic communities. The spots he visited were in out-of-the-way places, where the spirit of holiness lingered, and not the crowded and disturbed cities, for the subject of his conversation, he said, required "men and not people." He spent his time in travelling from one to another of these temples, shrines, and communities; from which we may conclude that there was some kind of common freemasonry as it were, among them, of the nature of initiation , which opened the door of hospitality to him.
But whenever he went, he always held to a certain regular division of the day. At sun-rise he practised certain religious exercises alone, the nature of which he communicated only to those who had passed through the discipline of a "four years' " (? five years') silence. He then conversed with the temple priests or the heads of the community, according as he was staying in a Greek or non-Greek temple with public rites,  or in a community with a discipline peculiar to itself apart from the public cult.
He thus endeavoured to bring back the public cults to the purity of their ancient traditions, and to suggest improvements in the practices of the private brotherhoods. The most important part of his work was with those who were following the inner life, and who already looked upon Apollonius as a teacher of the hidden way. To these his comrades and pupils, he devoted much attention, being ever ready to answer their questions and give advice and instruction. Not however that he neglected the people; it was his invariable custom to teach them, but always after midday; for those who lived the inner life, he said, should on day's dawning enter the presence of the Gods, [That is to say, presumably, spend the time in silent meditation.] then spend the time till midday in giving and receiving instruction in holy things, and not till after noon devote themselves to human affairs. That is to say, the morning was devoted by Apollonius to the divine science, and the afternoon to instruction in ethics and practical life. After the day's work he bathed in cold water, as did so many of the mystics  of the time in those lands, notably the Essenes and Therapeuts (i 16).
"After these things," says Philostratus, as vaguely as the writer of a gospel narrative, Apollonius determined to visit the Brachmanes and Sarmanes. [That is the Brahmans and Buddhists. Sarman is the Greet corruption of the Sanskrit Shramana and Pali Samano, the technical term for a Buddhist ascetic or monk. And not only for Buddhist monks, but also for the "Hindu" ascetics, the munis and vratyas. The ignorance of the copyists changed Sarmanes first into Germanes and then into Hyrcanians!]
What induced our philosopher to make so long and dangerous a journey nowhere appears from Philostratus, who simply says that Apollonius thought it a good thing for a young man [This shows that Apollonius was still young, and not between forty and fifty, as some have asserted. Tredwell (p 77) dates the Indian travels as 41-54 A.D.] to travel. It is abundantly evident, however, that Apollonius never traveled merely for the sake of travelling. What he does he does with a distinct purpose. And his guides on this occasion, as he assures his disciples who tried to dissuade him from his endeavour and refused to accompany him, were wisdom and his inner monitor (dæmon). "Since ye are faint-hearted," says the solitary pilgrim, "I bid you farewell. As for myself I must go whithersoever wisdom and my inner self may lead me. The Gods are my advisers and I can but rely on their counsels" (i 18).
AND so Apollonius departs from Antioch and journeys on to Ninus, the relic of the once great Nina or Nineveh. There he meets with Damis, who becomes his constant companion and faithful disciple. "Let us go together," says Damis in words reminding us somewhat of the words of Ruth. "Thou shalt follow God, and I thee!" (i 19).
SECTION IX - In the Shrines of the Temples and the Retreats of Religion
From this point Philostratus professes to base himself to a great extent on the narrative of Damis, and before going further, it is necessary to try to form some estimate of the character of Damis, and discover how far he was admitted to the real confidence of Apollonius.
Damis was an enthusiast who loved Apollonius with a passionate affection. He saw in his master almost a divine being, possessed of marvellous powers at which he continually wondered, but which he could never understand. Like ånanda, the favourite disciple of the  Buddha and his constant companion, Damis advanced but slowly in comprehension of the real nature of spiritual science; he had ever to remain in the outer courts of the temples and communities into whose shrines and inner confidence Apollonius had full access, while he frequently states his ignorance of his masters plans and purposes. [See especially iii, 15, 41; v 5, 10; vii 10, 13; viii 28.] The additional fact that he refers to his notes as the "crumbs" from the "feasts of the Gods" (i 19), those feasts of which he could for the most part only learn at secondhand what little Apollonius thought fit to tell him, and which he doubtless largely misunderstood and clothed in his own imaginings, would further confirm this view, if any further confirmation was necessary. But indeed it is very manifest everywhere that Damis was outside the circle of initiation, and this accounts both for his wonder-loving point of view and his general superficiality.
Another fact that comes out prominently from the narrative is his timid nature. [See especially Vii. 13, 14, 15, 223] He is continually afraid for himself or for his master; and even towards the end, when Apollonius is imprisoned by Domitian, it requires the phenomenal removal of the fetters before his  eyes to assure him that Apollonius is a willing victim.
Damis loves and wonders; seizes on unimportant detail and exaggerates it, while he can only report of the really important things what he fancies to have taken place from a few hints of Apollonius. As his story advances, it is true it takes on a soberer tint; but what Damis omits, Philostratus is ever ready to supply from his own store of marvels, if chance offers.
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.
Apollonius was one of the greatest travellers known to antiquity. Among the countries and places he visited the following are the chief ones recorded by Philostratus. [The list is full of gaps, so that we cannot suppose that Damis notes were anything like the complete records of the numerous itineraries; not only so, but one is tempted to believe that whole journeys, in which Damis had no share, are omitted.]
From Ninus (i 19) Apollonius journeys to Babylon (i 21), where he stops one year and eight months (i 40) and visits surrounding cities such as Ecbatana, the capital of Media (i 39); from Babylon to the Indian frontier no names  are mentioned; India was entered in every probability by the Khaibar Pass (ii 6) [Here at any rate they came in sight of the giant mountains, the Imaus (Himavat) or Himalayan Range, where was the great mountain Meros (Meru), The name of the Hindu Olympus being changed into Meros in Greek had, ever since Alexander's expedition, given rise to the myth that Bacchus was born from the thigh (meros) of Zeus - presumably one of the facts which led Professor Max Müller to stigmatise the whole of mythology as a "disease of language."] for the first city mentioned is Taxila (Attock) (ii 20); and so they make their way across the tributaries of the Indus (ii 43) to the valley of the Ganges (iii 5), and finally arrive at the "monastery of the wise men" (iii 10), where Apollonius spends four months (iii 50).
This monastery was presumably in Nepâl [Why would he think that? There are no hints in the text, as far as I know.] ; it is in the mountains, and the "city" nearest it is called Paraca. The chaos that Philostratus has made of Damis' account, and before him the wonderful transformations Damis himself wrought in Indian names, are presumably shown in this word. Paraca is perchance all that Damis could make of Bharata, [probably incorrect, for "Bharat" is not close to "Parata' if the latter is pronounced with 3 open and clear a's] the general name of the Ganges valley in which the dominant åryas were settled. [and Bharat is the valley between Indus and Ganges, near Kurukshetra, certainly not in Nepal]. It is also probable that these wise men were Buddhists, for they dwelt in a a place that looked like a fort or fortress to Damis. [That's no reason to assume these were Buddhists; any group of ascetics could live in a "fort'.]
I have little doubt that Philostratus could  make nothing out of the geography of India from the names in Damis' diary; they were all unfamiliar to him, so that as soon as he has exhausted the few Greek names known to him from the accounts of the expedition of Alexander, he wanders in the "ends of the earth," and can make nothing of it till he picks up our travellers again on their return journey at the mouth of the Indus. The salient fact that Apollonius was making for a certain community, which was his peculiar goal, so impressed the imagination of Philostratus (and perhaps of Damis before him) that he has described it as being the only centre of the kind in India. Apollonius went to India with a purpose and returned from it with distinct mission; [Referring to his instructors he says, "I ever remember my masters and journey through the world teaching what I have learned from them" (vi 18).] and perchance his constant inquiries concerning the particular "wise men" whom he was seeking, led Damis to imagine that they alone were the "Gymnosophists," the "nČked philosophers" (if we are to take the term in its literal sense) of popular Greek legend, which ignorantly ascribed to all the Hindu ascetics the most striking peculiarity of a very small number. [I don't know if this number would be so small in those days. Probably not!] But to return to our itinerary.
Philostratus embellishes the account of the voyage from the Indus to the mouth of the  Euphrates (iii 52-58) with the travellers' tales and names of islands and cities he has gleaned from the Indica which were accessible to him, and so we again return to Babylon and familiar geography with the following itinerary:
Babylon, Ninus, Antioch, Seleucia, Cyprus; thence to Ionia (iii 58), where he spends some time in Asia Minor, especially at Ephesus (iv 1), Smyrna (iv 5), Pergamus (iv 9), and Troy (iv II). Thence Apollonius crosses over to Lesbos (iv 13), and subsequently sails for Athens, where he spends some years in Greece (iv 17-33) visiting the temples of Hellas, reforming their rites and instructing the priests (iv 24). We next find him in Crete (iv 34), and subsequently at Rome in the time of Nero (iv 36-46).
In A.D. 66 Nero issued a decree forbidding any philosopher to remain in Rome, and Apollonius set out for Spain, and landed at Gades, the modern Cadiz; he seems to have stayed in Spain only a short time (iv 47); thence crossed to Africa, and so by sea once more to Sicily, where the principal cities and temples were visited (v 11-14). Thence Apollonius returned to Greece (v 18), four years having elapsed since his landing at Athens from Lesbos (v 19). [According to some, Apollonius would be now about sixty-eight years of age. But if he were still young (say thirty years old or so) when he left for India, he must either have spent a very long period in that country, or we have a very imperfect record of his doings in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Spain, after his return.]
 From Piræus our philosopher sails for Chios (v 21), thence to Rhodes, and so to Alexandria (v 24). At Alexandria he spends some time, and has several interviews with the future Emperor Vespasian (v 27-41), and thence he sets out on a long journey up the Nile so far as Ethopia beyond the cataracts, where he visits an interesting community of ascetics called loosely Gymnosophists (vi 1-27).
On his return to Alexandria (vi 28), he was summoned by Titus, who had just become emperor, to meet him at Tarsus (vi 29-34). After this interview he appears to have returned to Egypt, for Philostratus speaks vaguely of his spending some time in Lower Egypt, and of visits to the Phnicians, Cilicians, Ionians, Achæans, and also to Italy (vi 35).
Now Vespasian was emperor from 69 to 79, and Titus from 79 to 81. As Apollonius' interviews with Vespasian took place shortly before the beginning of that emperor's reign, it is reasonable to conclude that a number of years was spent by our philosopher in his Ethiopian journey, and that therefore Damis account is a most imperfect one. In 81 Domitian became emperor, and just as Apollonius opposed  the follies of Nero, so did he criticise the acts of Domitian. He accordingly became an object of suspicion to the emperor; but instead of keeping away from Rome, he determined to brave the tyrant to his face. Crossing from Egypt to Greece and taking ship at Corinth, he sailed by way of Sicily to Puteoli, and thence to the Tiber mouth, and so to Rome (vii 10-16). Here Apollonius was tried and acquitted (vii 17viii 10). Sailing from Puteoli again Apollonius returned to Greece (viii 15), where he spent two years (viii 24). Thence once more he crossed over to Ionia at the time of the death of Domitian (viii 25), visiting Smyrna and Ephesus and other of his favourite haunts. Hereupon he sends away Damis on some pretext to Rome (viii 28) and - disappears; that is to say, if it be allowed to speculate, he undertook yet another journey to the place which he loved above all others, the "home of the wise men."
Now Domitian was killed 96 A.D., and one of the last recorded acts of Apollonius is his vision of this event at the time of its occurrence. Therefore the trial of Apollonius at Rome took place somewhere about 93, and we have a gap of twelve years from his interview with Titus in 81, which Philostratus can only fill up with a few vague stories and generalities.
As to his age at the time of his mysterious  disappearance from the pages of history, Philostratus tells us that Damis says nothing; but some, he adds, say he was eighty, some ninety, and some even a hundred.
The estimate of eighty years seems to fit in best with the rest of the chronological indications, but there is no certainty in the matter with the present materials at our disposal.
Such then is the geographical outline, so to say, of the life of Apollonius, and even the most careless reader of the bare skeleton of the journeys recorded by Philostratus must be struck by the indomitable energy of the man, and his power of endurance.
We will now turn our attention to one or two points of interest connected with the temples and communities he visited.
[The Indian sages]
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; nevertheless, even these outer indications are of interest.
The temple of Æsculapius at Ægæ, where Apollonius spent the most impressionable years of his life, was one of innumerable hospitals of Greece, where the healing art was practised on lines totally different to our present methods. We are at once introduced to an atmosphere laden with psychic influences, to a centre whither for centuries patients had flocked to "consult  the God." In order to do so, it was necessary for them to go through certain preliminary purifications and follow certain rules given by the priests; they then passed the night in the shrine and in their sleep instructions were given them for their healing. This method, no doubt, was only resorted to when the skill of the priest was exhausted; in any case, the priests must have been deeply versed in the interpretation of these dreams and in their rationale. It is also evident that as Apollonius loved to pass his time in the temple, he must have found there satisfaction for his spiritual needs, and instruction in the inner science; though doubtless his own innate powers soon carried him beyond his instructors and marked him out as the "favourite of the God." The many cases on record in our own day of patients in trance or some other psychic condition prescribing for themselves, will help the student to understand the innumerable possibilities of healing which were in Greece summed up in the personification Æsculapius.
Later on the chief of the Indian sages has a disquisition on Æsculapius and the healing art put into his mouth (iii 44), where the whole of medicine is said to be dependent upon psychic diagnosis and prescience.
Finally it may be noticed that it was the invariable custom of patients on their recovery to  record the fact on an ex-voto tablet in the temple, precisely as is done today in Roman Catholic countries. [For the most recent study in English on the subject of Æsculapius see The Cult of Asclepios, by Alice Walton, Ph.D., in No III of the Cornell Studies in Classical Philology (Ithaca N.Y; 1894]
On his way to India Apollonius saw a good deal of the Magi at Babylon. He used to visit them at midday and midnight, but of what transpired Damis knew nothing, for Apollonius would not permit him to accompany him, and in answer to his direct questions would only answer: "They are wise, but not in all things" (i 26).
The description of a certain hall, however, to which Apollonius had access, seems to be a garbled version of the interior of the temple. The roof was dome-shaped, and the ceiling was covered with "saphire"; in this blue heaven were models of the heavenly bodies ("those whom they regard as Gods") fashioned in gold, as though moving in the ether. Moreover from the roof were suspended four golden "Iygges" which the Magi call the "Tongues of the Gods." These were winged-wheels or spheres connected with the idea of Adrasteia (or Fate). Their prototypes are described imperfectly in the Vision of Ezekiel, and the so-called Hecatine strophali or spherulæ used in magical practices  may have been degenerate descendants of these "living wheels" or spheres of the vital elements. The subject is one of intense interest, but hopelessly incapable of treatment in our present age of scepticism and profound ignorance of the past. The "Gods" who taught our infant humanity higher than that at present evolving on our earth. They gave the impulse, and, when the earth-children were old enough to stand on their own feet, they withdrew. But the memory of their deeds and a corrupt and degenerate form of the mysteries they established has ever lingered in the memory of myth and legend. Seers have caught obscure glimpses of what they taught and how they taught it, and the tradition of the Mysteries preserved some memory of it in its symbols and instruments or engines. The Iygges of the Magi are said to be a relic of this memory.
With regard to the Indian sages it is impossible to make out any consistent story from the fantastic jumble of the Damis-Philostratus romance. Damis seems to have confused together a mixture of memories and scraps of gossip without any attempt to distinguish one community or sect from another, and so produced a blurred daub which Philostratus would have us regard as a picture of the hill and a description  of its "sages." Damis' confused memories, [He evidently wrote the notes of the Indian travels long after the time at which they were made.] however, have little to do with the actual monastery and its ascetic inhabitants, who were the goal of Apollonius' long journey. What Apollonius heard and saw there, following his invariable custom in such circumstances, he told no one, not even Damis, except what could be derived from the following enigmatical sentence: "I saw men dwelling on the earth and yet not on it, defended on all sides, yet without any defence, and yet possessed of nothing but what all possess." These words occur in two passages (iii 15 and vi II), and in both Philostratus adds that Apollonius wrote [This shows that Philostratus came across them in some work or letter of Apollonius, and is therefore independent of Damis account for this particular.] and spoke them enigmatically. The meaning of this saying is not difficult to divine. They were on the earth, but not of the earth, for their minds were set on things above. They were protected by their innate spiritual power, of which we have so many instances in Indian literature; and yet they possessed nothing but what all men possess if they would but develop the spiritual part of their being. But this explanation is not simple enough for Philostratus, and so he presses into  service all the memories of Damis, or rather travellers' tales, about levitation, magical illusions and the rest.
The head of the community is called Iarchas, a totally un-Indian name. The violence done to all foreign names by the Greeks is notorious, and here we have to reckon with an army of ignorant copyists as well as with Philostratus and Damis. I would suggest that the name may perhaps be a corruption of Arhat.
[Assuming this is a Buddhist sect, the derivation of the name could be correct. But there is no reason to assume it is a Buddhist sect. It is rather Shivaite, see below. So Id suggest yar-chas, ya-char, char-ya, acharya, i.e. teacher]
The main burden of Damis' narrative insists on the psychic and spiritual knowledge of the sages. They know what takes place at a distance, they can tell the past and future, and read the past births of men.
The messenger sent to meet Apollonius carried what Damis calls a golden anchor (iii II 17), and if this is an authentic fact, it would suggest a forerunner of the Tibetan dorje, the present degenerate symbol of the "rod of power," something like the thunder-bolt wielded by Zeus. [This could also be a bronze trishul, or trident, which indicates he might be a "Shivaite'] This would also point to a Buddhist community, though it must be confessed that other indications point equally strongly to Brahmanical customs, such as the caste-mark on the forehead of the messenger (iii 7, II) [This is not a "caste-mark' but a tilak, a sectarian mark, and it being crescent shaped indicates this boy might be a "Shivaite'], the carrying of (bamboo) staves (danda), letting the hair grow long [This especially suggests Shivaites.], and wearing of turbans (iii 13). But indeed the  whole account is too confused to permit any hope of extracting historical details. [So in conclusion, I'd say these ascetics are "Shivaites']
Of the nature of Apollonius' visit we may, however, judge from the following mysterious letter to his hosts (iii 51):
"I came to you by land and ye have given me the sea;
nay, rather, by sharing with me your wisdom ye have given me power to travel through heaven.
These things will I bring back to the mind of the Greeks,
and I will hold converse with you as though ye were present,
if it be that I have not drunk of the cup of Tantalus in vain.
[Reminds me a little bit of Hymn 10,136 of the Rig Veda, the one about the longhaired Sage.]
It is evident from these cryptic sentences that the sea and the cup of Tantalus are identical with the wisdom which had been imparted to Apollonius - the wisdom which he was to bring back once more to the memory of the Greeks. He thus clearly states that he returned from India with a distinct mission and with the means to accomplish it, for not only had he drunk of the ocean of wisdom in that he has learnt the Brahma-vidyâ from their lips, but he has also learnt how to converse with them though his body be in Greece and their bodies in India.
SECTION X - The Gymnosophists of Upper Egypt
But such a plain meaning - plain at least to every student of occult nature - was beyond the understanding of Damis or the comprehension of Philostratus. And it is doubtless the mention  of the cup of Tantalus [Tantalus is fabled to have stolen the cup of nectar from the gods; this was the amrita, the ocean of immortality and wisdom, of the Indians.] in this letter which suggested the inexhaustible loving cup episode in iii 32, and its connection with the mythical fountains of Bacchus. Damis presses it into service to "explain" the last phrase in Apollonius' saying about the sages, namely, that they were "possessed of nothing but what all possess" - which, however, appears elsewhere in a changed form, as "possessing nothing, they have the possessions of all men" (iii 15).
On returning to Greece, one of the first shrines Apollonius visited was that of Aphrodite at Paphos in Cyprus (iii 58). The greatest external peculiarity of the Paphian worship of Venus was the representation of the goddess by a mysterious stone symbol. It seems to have been of the size of a human being, but shaped like a pine-cone, only of course with a smooth surface. Paphos was apparently the oldest shrine dedicated to Venus in Greece. Its mysteries were very ancient, but not indigenous; they were brought over from the mainland, from what was subsequently Cilicia, in times of remote antiquity.  The worship or consultation of the Goddess was by means of prayers and the pure flame of fire, and the temple was a great centre of divination. [See Tacitus, Historia, ii 3.]
Apollonius spent some time here and instructed the priests at length with regard to their sacred rites.
In Asia Minor he was especially pleased with the temple of Æsculapius at Pergamus; he healed many of the patients there, and gave instruction in the proper method to adopt in order to procure reliable results by means of the prescriptive dreams.
At Troy, we are told, Apollonius spent a night alone at the tomb of Achilles, in former days one of the spots of greatest popular sanctity in Greece (iv II). Why he did so does not transpire, for the fantastic conversation with the shade of the hero reported by Philostratus (iv 16) seems to be devoid of any element of likelihood. As, however, Apollonius made it his business to visit Thessaly shortly afterwards expressly to urge the Thessalians to renew the old accustomed rites to the hero (iv 13), we may suppose that it formed part of his great effort to restore and purify the old institution of Hellas, so that, the accustomed channels being freed, the life might flow more healthily in the national body.
 Rumour would also have it that Achilles had told Apollonius where he would find the statue of the hero Palamedes on the coast of Æolia. Apollonius accordingly restored the statue, and Philostratus tells us he had seen it with his own eyes on the spot (iv 13).
Now this would be a matter of very little interest, were it not that a great deal is made of Palamedes elsewhere in Philostratus' narrative. What it all means is difficult to say with a Damis and Philostratus as interpreters between ourselves and the silent and enigmatical Apollonius.
Palamedes was one of the heroes before Troy, who was fabled to have invented letters, or to have completed the alphabet of Cadmus. [Berwick, Life of Apollonius, p 200 n.]
Now from two obscure sayings (iv 13, 33), we glean that our philosopher looked upon Palamedes as the philosopher-hero of the Trojan period, although Homer says hardly a word about him.
Was this, then, the reasons why Apollonius was so anxious to restore his statue? Not altogether so; there appears to have been a more direct reason. Damis would have it that Apollonius had met Palamedes in India; that he was at the monastery; that Iarchas had one day pointed out a young ascetic who could "write without ever learning letters"; and that  this youth had been no other than Palamedes in one of his former births. Doubtless the sceptic will say: "Of course! Pythagoras was a reincarnation of the hero Euphorbus who fought at Troy, according to popular superstition; therefore, naturally, the young Indian was the reincarnation of the hero Palamedes! The one legend simply begat the other." But on this principle, to be consistent, we should expect to find that it was Apollonius himself and not an unknown Hindu ascetic, who had been once Palamedes.
In any case Apollonius restored the rites to Achilles, and erected a chapel in which he set up the neglected statue of Palamedes. [He also built a precinct round the tomb of Leonidas at Thermopylæ (iv 23).] 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."
Can it be possible that the attention which Apollonius bestowed upon the graves and funeral monuments of the mighty dead of Greece may have been inspired by the circle of ideas which  led to the ere+tion of the innumerable dagobas and stûpas in Buddhist lands, originally over the relics of the Buddha, and the subsequent preservation of relics of arhats and great teachers?
At Lesbos Apollonius visited the ancient temple of the Orphic mysteries, which in early years had been a great centre of prophecy and divination. Here also he was privileged to enter the inner shrine or adytum (iv 14).
The Tyanean arrived in Athens at the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and in spite of the festival and rites not only the people but also the candidates flocked to meet him to the neglect of their religious duties. Apollonius rebuked them, and himself joined in the necessary preliminary rites and presented himself for initiation.
It may, perhaps, surprise the reader to hear that Apollonius, who had already been initiated into higher privileges than Eleusis could afford, should present himself for initiation. But the reason is not far to seek; the Eleusinia constituted one of the intermediate organisations between the popular cults and the genuine inner circles of instruction. They preserved one of the traditions of the inner way, even if their officers for the time being had forgotten what their predecessors had once known. To restore these ancient rites to their purity, or to  utilise them for their original object, it was necessary to enter within the precincts of the institution; nothing could be effected from outside. The thing itself was good, and Apollonius desired to support the ancient institution by setting the public example of seeking initiation therein; not that he had anything to gain personally.
But whether it was that the hierophant of that time was only ignorant, or whether he was jealous of the great influence of Apollonius, he refused to admit our philosopher, on the ground that he was a sorcerer, and that no one could be initiated who was tainted by intercourse with evil entities. 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." This charge would have been true; he had made a pretence.
Dismayed at these words, frightened at the indignation of the people aroused by the insult offered to their distinguished guest, and overawed by the presence of a knowledge which he could no longer deny, the hierophant begged our philosopher to accept the initiation.  But Apollonius refused. "I will be initiated later on, " he replied; "he will initiate me." This is said to have referred to the succeeding hierophant, who presided when Apollonius was initiated four years later (iv 18; v 19).
While at Athens Apollonius spoke strongly against the effeminacy of the Bacchanalia and the barbarities of the gladiatorial combats (iv 21, 22).
The temples, mentioned by Philostratus, which Apollonius visited in Greece, have all the peculiarity of being very ancient; for instance, Dodona, Dephi, the ancient shrine of Apollo at Abæ in Phocis, the "caves" of Amphiaraus [A great centre of divination by means of dreams (see ii 37).] and Trophonius, and the temple of the Muses on Helicon.
When he entered the adyta of these temples for the purpose of "restoring" the rites, he was accompanied only by the priests, and certain of his immediate disciples. This suggests an extension to the meaning of the word "restoring" or "reforming," and when we read elsewhere of the many spots consecrated by Apollonius, we cannot but think that part of his work was the reconsecration, and hence psychic purification, of many of these ancient centres. His main external work, however, was the  giving of instruction, and, as Philostratus rhetorically phrases it, "bowls of his words were set up everywhere for the thirsty to drink from" (iv 24).
But not only did our philosopher restore the ancient rites of religion, he also paid much attention to the ancient polities and instructions. Thus we find him urging with success the Spartans to return to their ancient mode of life, their athletic exercises, frugal living, and the discipline of the old Dorian tradition (iv 27, 31-34); he, moreover, specially praised the institution of the Olympic Games, the high standard of which was still maintained (iv 29), while he recalled the ancient Amphictionic Council to its duty (iv 23), and corrected the abuses of the Panionian assembly (iv 5).
In the spring of 66 A.D. he left Greece for Crete, where he seems to have bestowed most of his time on the sanctuaries of Mount Ida and the temple of Æsculapius at Lebene ("for as all Asia visits Pergamus so does all Crete visit Lebene"); but curiously enough he refused to visit the famous Labyrinth at Gnossus, the ruins of which have just been uncovered for a sceptical generation, most probably (if it is lawful to speculate) because it has once been a centre of human sacrifice, and thus pertained to one of the ancient cults of the left hand.
 In Rome Apollonius continued his work of reforming the temples, and this with the full sanction of the Pontifex Maximus Telesinus, one of the consuls for the year 66 A.D., who was also a philosopher and a deep student of religion (iv 40). But his stay in the imperial city was speedily cut short, for in October Nero crowned his persecution of the philosophers by publishing a decree of banishment against them from Rome, and both Telesinus (vii II) and Apollonius had to leave Italy.
We next find him in Spain, making his headquarters in the temple of Hercules at Cadiz.
On his return to Greece by way of Africa and Sicily (where he spent some time and visited Ætna), he passed the winter (? of 67 A.D.) at Eleusis, living in the temple, and in the spring of the following year sailed for Alexandria, spending some time on the way at Rhodes. The city of philosophy and eclecticism par excellence received him with open arms as an old friend. But to reform the public cults of Egypt was a far more difficult task than any he had previously attempted. His presence in the temple (? the temple of Serapis) commanded universal respect, everything about him and every world he uttered seemed to breathe an atmosphere of wisdom and of "something divine." The high priest of the temple looked on in proud  disdain. "Who is wise enough," he mockingly asked, "to reform the religion of the Egyptians?only to be met with the confident retort of Apollonius: "Any sage who comes from the Indians." Here as elsewhere Apollonius set his face against blood-sacrifice, and tried to substitute instead, as he had attempted elsewhere, the offering of frankincense modelled in the form of the victim (v 25). Many abuses he tried to reform in the manners of the Alexandrians, but upon none was he more severe than on their wild excitement over horse-racing, which frequently led to bloodshed (v 26).
Apollonius seems to have spent most of the remaining twenty years of his life in Egypt, but of what he did in the secret shrines of that land of mystery we can learn nothing from Philostratus, except that on the protracted journey to Ethiopia up the Nile no city or temple or community was unvisited, and everywhere there was an interchange of advice and instruction in sacred things (v 43).
We now come to Apollonius' visit to the "Gymnosophists" in "Ethopia," which, though the artistic and literary goal of Apollonius' journey in Egypt as elaborated by Philostratus, is only a single incident in the real history of the unrecorded life of our mysterious philosopher in that ancient land.
Had Philostratus devoted a chapter or two to the nature of the practices, discipline, and doctrines of the innumerable ascetic and mystic communities that honeycombed Egypt and adjacent lands in those days, he would have earned the boundless gratitude of students of the origins. But of all this he has no word; and yet he would have us believe that Damis' reminiscences were an orderly series of notes of what actually happened. But in all things it is very apparent that Damis was rather a compagnon de voyage than an initiated pupil.
Who then were these mysterious "Gymnosophists,"  as they are usually called, and whence their name? Damis calls them simply the "N‰ked", and it is very clear that the term is not to be understood as merely physically nČked; indeed, neither to the Indians nor to these ascetics of uppermost Egypt can the term be applied with appropriateness in its purely physical meaning, as is apparent from the descriptions of Damis and Philostratus. A chance sentence that falls from the lips of one of these ascetics, in giving the story of his life, affords us a clue to the real meaning of the term. "At the age of fourteen," he tells Apollonius, "I resigned my patrimony to those who desired such things, and nČked I sought the N‰ked (vi 16).
This is the very same diction that Philo uses about the Therapeut communities, which he declares were very numerous in every province of Egypt and scattered in all lands. We are not, however, to suppose that these communities were all of the same nature. It is true that Philo tries to make out that the most pious and the chief of all of them was his particular community  on the southern shore of Lake Mris, which was strongly Semitic if not orthodoxly Jewish; and for Philo any community with a Jewish atmosphere must naturally have been the best. The peculiarity and main interest of our community, which was at the other end of the land above the cataracts, was that it had had some remote connection with India.