Apollonius Tyaneus
Introduction
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.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 der römischen Kaiserreichs unter der
Regierung des 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.
The Religious Associations and Communities of the First Century
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 stateinstitutions 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
orgeônes—of 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
selfdenial.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 Bacchic 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 Lobeck’s Aglaophamus p
622.]Such words could well be put into the mouth of a Brâhman or
Buddhist ascetic, eager to escape the bonds of Samsâra; and such men
cannot therefore justly be classed together indiscriminately with ribald
evelers,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. 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 rhetorician’s 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!
The Apollonius of Early Opinion
Apollonius
of Tyana [Pronounced Týâna, 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
[τελεσματα.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 writea 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, Moeragenes, and Philostratus.]
Vopiscus,however, did not fulfil 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 K’s
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 Truthlover.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 fulfilment of world
prophecy.Lactantius, writing about 315, also attacked the treatise of
Hierocles, who seems to have put forward some very pertinent criticisms;
for the Church Father says that he enumerates so many of their
Christian inner teachings (intima) that sometimes he would seem to have
at one time undergone the same training (disciplina). But it is in vain,
says Lactantius, that Hierocles endeavours to show that Apollonius
performed similar or even greater deeds than Jesus, for Christians do
not believe that Christ is God because he did wonderful things, but
because all the things wrought in him were those which were announced by
the prophets. [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 evildoer,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 D’aussy,
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.” [ τι θεων τε κατ ανθρωπου μεσο , 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.,παν τα δαιμoνιον μετα εν εστι θεου τε και
θνητου, “a ϑ ll 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, Prooemium, 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 d’Aussy, 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
d’Aussy, op cit., p 286]nevertheless Cedrenus in the same century
bestows on Apollonius the not uncomplimentary title of an “adept
Pythagorean philosopher,” [ φιλοσοφος ΙΙυθαγορειος στοιχειωματικος —
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 d’Aussy, 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.
Texts, Translations, and Literature
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.), Rinucci’s translation was improved by Beroaldus and
printed at Lyons (1504?) , and again at Cologne 1534.]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
d’Apollonius (Paris 1596, 1599, 1611). Blaise de Vignère’s translation
was
subsequently corrected by Frédéric Morel and later by Thomas
Artus, Sieur d’Embry, with bombastic notes in which he bitterly attacks
the wonder-workings of Apollonius. A French translation was also made by
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 [L’Histoire d’Apollone de Tyane convaincue de Fausseté et
d’Imposture (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. l’Abbé 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. Chassang’s and Baltzer’s 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 again 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 fulfilment 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 Nielsen’s book, from
ignorance of Danish, but it has all the appearance of a careful,
scholarly treatise with abundance of references.] Priaulx’s 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
The Biographer of Apollonius
Flavius
Philostratus, the writer of the only Life of Apollonius which has come
down to us,Consisting of eight books written in Greek under the general
title Τα ες τον Τυανεα Απολλωνιον ] 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, [ η
θιλοιφος, see art. “Philostratus” in Smith’s Dict of Gr and Rom. Biog.
(London 1870) iii 327 b.] 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:“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 Gibbon’s.] 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 sex. 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 son’s 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.” [Gibbon’s 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 hewas 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
Kayser’s 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 [ τας δελτους 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. [ ως
υποφεαζων
την φιλοσφιαν εγενετο .The term υποφεαζων occurs only in this passage,
and I am therefore not quite certain of its meaning.] As to the four
books of Moeragenes [This Life by Moeragenes 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” [ λογος δαιμονιος ] 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. M’Crindle, 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 Âryâvarta. 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 41—iii 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 Juba’s 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.
Early Life
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,[αρρητω τινι σοφια
ενελαβε] 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.” [φησας ουκ ανφρπν εαυτω δειν αλλ ανδρων ] 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. [ ιδιοτοπα ] 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 (εταιρους) and pupils (ομιλητας), 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,[ τους ουτω φιλοσοφουντας.] 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 Brâhmans and Buddhists. Sarman is the Greet corruption of
the Sanskrit Shramana and Pâli Samano, the technical term for a Buddhist
ascetic or monk. 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 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).
The Travels of Apollonius
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).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 Ânanda, 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 master’s 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”[ εκφατνισματα ] from
the “feasts of the Gods” (i 19), those feasts of which he could for the
most part onlylearn 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 Himâlayan 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; 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, the general
name of the Ganges valley in which the dominant Âryas were settled. It
is also probable that these wise men were Buddhists, for they dwelt in a
τυρσις, a place that looked like a fort or fortress to Damis.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 theIndus. 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 “naked 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.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 Phoenicians, 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 17—viii
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.
In the Shrines of the Temples and the Retreats of Religion
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 ( μαντεια ).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 socalled 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 of 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.[ I -Âryas,
arχa(t)s, arhat.]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 would also point to a Buddhist
community, though it must be confessed that other indications point
equally strongly to Brâhmanical customs, such as the caste-mark on the
forehead of the messenger (iii 7, II), the carrying of (bamboo) staves
(danda), letting the hair grow long, and wearing of turbans (iii 13).
But indeed the whole account is too confused to permit any hope of
extracting historical details.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.”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.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).
[The words ουδεν κεκτημενος ν τα παντων , which Philostratus quotes
twice in this form, can certainly not be changed into μηδεν κεκτημενος
τα παντων εχειν without doing unwarrantable violence to their meaning.]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 erection of
the innumerable dâgobas 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 (γoης), and that no one could be
initiated who was tainted by intercourse with evil entities
(δαιμoνια).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
(γνωριμοι). 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).
The Gymnosophists of Upper Egypt
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 “Naked” (γυμvοι), and
it is very clear that the term is not to be understood as merely
physically naked; 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 naked I sought the Naked”(vi 16). [The word γυμνος (naked), however,
usually means lightly clad, as, for instance, when a man is said to
plough “naked,” that is with only one garment, and this is evident from
the comparison made between the costume of the Gymnosophists and that of
people in the hot weather at Athens (vi 6).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 Moeris,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.
The
community is called a φροντιστηριον , in the sense of a place for
meditation, a term used by ecclesiastical writers for a monastery, but
best known to classical students from the humorous use made
of it by Aristophanes, who in The Clouds calls the school of Socrates, a phrontistêrion or “thinking shop.”
The
collection of monasteria (ιερα), presumably caves, shrines, or cells,
[For they had neither huts nor houses, but lived in the open air.] was
situated on a hill or rising ground not far from the Nile. They were all
separated from one another, dotted about the hill, and ingeniously
arranged. There was hardly a tree in the place, with the exception of a
single group of palms, under whose shade they held their general
meetings (vi 6).It is difficult to gather from the set speeches, put
into the mouths of the head of the community and Apollonius (vi 10-13,
18-22), any precise details as to the mode of life of these ascetics,
beyond the general indications of an existence of great toil and
physical hardship, which they considered the only means of gaining
wisdom.What the nature of their cult was, if they had one, we are not
told, except that at midday the Naked retired to their monasteria (vi
14).The whole tendency of Apollonius’ arguments, however, is to remind
the community of its Eastern origin and its former connection with
India, which it seems to have forgotten. The communities of this
particular kind in southern Egypt and northern Ethiopia dated back
presumably some centuries, and some of them may have been remotely
Buddhist, for one of the younger members of our community who left it to
follow Apollonius, says that he came to join it from the enthusiastic
account of the wisdom of the Indians brought back by his father, who has
been certain of a vessel trading to the East. It was his father who
told him that these “Ethiopians” were from India, and so he had joined
them instead of making the long and perilous journey to the Indus itself
(vi 16). If there be any truth in this story it follows that the
founders of this way of life had been Indian ascetics,and if so they
must have belonged to the only propagandising form of Indian religion,
namely, the Buddhist.After the impulse had been given, the communities, which were presumably recruited from generations of Egyptians,
Arabs, and Ethiopians, were probably left entirely to themselves, and
so in course of time forgot their origin, and even perhaps their
original rule. Such speculations are permissible, owing to the repeated
assertion of the original connection between these Gymnosophists and
India. The whole burden of the story is that they were Indians who had
forgotten their origin and fallen away from the wisdom.The last incident
that Philostratus records with regard to Apollonius among the shrines
and temples is a visit to the famous and very ancient oracle of
Trophonius, near Lebadea, in Boeotia. Apollonius is said to have spent
seven days alone in this mysterious “cave,” and to have returned with a
book full of questions and answers on the subject of “philosophy” (viii
19). This book was still, in the time of Philostratus, in the palace of
Hadrian at Antium, together with a number of letters of Apollonius, and
many people used to visit Antium for the special purpose of seeing it
(viii 19, 29).In the hay-bundle of legendary rigmarole solemnly set down
by Philostratus concerning the cave of Trophonius, a small needle of
truth may perhaps be discovered. The “cave” seems to have been a very
ancient temple or shrine, cut in the heart of a hill, to which a number
of underground passages of considerable length led. It had probably been
in ancient times one of the most holy centres of the archaic cult of
Hellas, perhaps even a relic of that Greece of thousands of years B.C.,
the only tradition of which, as Plato tell us, was obtained by Solon
from the priests of Saïs. Or it may have been a subterranean shrine of
the same nature as the famous Dictæan cave in Crete which only last year
(1901 or so) was brought back to light by the indefatigable labours of
Messrs, Evans and Hogarth.
As in the case of the
travels of Apollonious, so with regard to the temples and communities
which he visited, Philostratus is a most disappointing cicerone.But
perhaps he is not to be blamed on this account,for the most important
and most interesting part of Apollonius’ work was of so intimate a
nature,prosecuted as it was among associations of such jealously-guarded
secrecy, that no one outside their ranks could know anything of it, and
those who shared in their initiation would say nothing.It is,
therefore, only when Apollonius comes forward to do some public act that
we can get any precise historical trace of him; in every other case he
passes into the sanctuary of a temple or enters the privacy of a
community and is lost to view.It may perhaps surprise us that Apollonius
after sacrificing his private fortune, could nevertheless undertake
such long and expensive travels, but it would seem that he was
occasionally supplied with the necessary monies from the treasuries of
the temples (cf viii 17), and that everywhere he was freely offered the
hospitality of the temple or community in the place where he happened to
be staying.In conclusion of the present part of our subject, we may
mention the good service done by Apollonius in driving away certain
Chaldæan and Egyptian charlatans who were making capital out of the
fears of the cities on the left shores of the Hellespont. These cities
had suffered severely from shocks of earthquake,and in their panic
placed large sums of money in the hands of these adventurers (who
“trafficked in the misfortune of others”), in order that they perform
propitiatory rites (vi 41). This taking money for the giving instruction
in the sacred science or for the performance of sacred rites was the
most detestable of crimes to all the true philosophers.
Apollonius and the Rulers of the Empire
But
not only did Apollonius vivify and reconsecrate the old centres of
religion for some inscrutable reason, and do what he could to help on
the religious life of the time in its multiplex phases, but he took a
decided, though indirect, part in influencing the destinies of the
Empire through the persons of its supreme rulers.
This influence, however, was invariably of a moral and not of a political nature. It was brought to bear by
means
of philosophical converse and instruction,by world of mouth or letter.
Just as Apollonius on his travels conversed on philosophy, and
discoursed on the life of a wise man and the duties of a wise ruler,with
kings, [He spent, we are told, no less than a year and eight months
with Vardan, King of Babylon, and was the honoured guest of the Indian
Râjâh “Phraotes.”] rulers, and magistrates, so he endeavoured to advise
for their good those of the emperors who would listen to him.Vespasian,
Titus, and Nerva were all, prior to their elevation to the purple,
friends and admirers of Apollonius, while Nero and Domitian regarded the
philosopher with dismay.During Apollonius’ short stay in Rome, in 66
A.D., although he never let the slightest word escape him that could be
construed by the numerous informers into a treasonable utterance, he was
nevertheless brought before Tigellinus, the infamous favourite of Nero,
and subjected to a severe cross-examination.Apparently up to this time
Apollonius working for the future, had confined his attention entirely
to the reformation of religion and the restoration of the ancient
institutions of the nations, but the tyrannical conduct of Nero, which
gave peace not even to the most blameless philosophers, at length opened
his eyes to a more immediate evil, which seemed no less than the
abrogation of the liberty of conscience by
an irresponsible tyranny. From this time onwards, therefore, we find him keenly interested in the persons
of
the successive emperors.Indeed Damis, although he confesses his entire
ignorance of the purpose of Apollonius’ journey to Spain after his
expulsion from Rome, would have it that it was to aid the forthcoming
revolt against Nero. He conjectures this from a three days’ secret
interview that Apollonius had with the Governor of the Province of
Bætica, who came to Cadiz especially to see him, and declares that the
last words of Apollonius’ visitor were: “Farewell, and remember Vindex”
(v 10). It is true that almost immediately afterwards
the revolt of Vindex, the Governor of Gaul, broke out, but the whole
life and character of Apollonius is opposed to any idea of political
intrigue; on the contrary, he bravely withstood tyranny and injustice to
the face. He was opposed to the idea of Euphrates, a philosopher of
quite a different stamp, who would have put an end to the monarchy and
restored the republic (v 33); he believed that government by a monarch
was the best for the Empire, but he desired above all other things to
see the “flock of mankind” led by a “wise and faithful shepherd” (v
35).So that though Apollonius supported Vespasian as long as he worthily
tried to follow out this ideal, he immediately rebuked him to his face
when he deprived the Greek cities of their privileges. “You have
enslaved Greece,” he wrote. “You have reduced a free people to slavery”
(v 41). Nevertheless, in spite of this rebuke, Vespasian in his last
letter to his son Titus, confesses that they are what they are solely
owing to the good advice of Apollonius (v 30).Equally so he journeyed to
Rome to meet Domitian face to face, and though he was put on trial and
every effort made to prove him guilty of treasonable plotting with
Nerva, he could not be convicted of anything of a political nature.
Nerva was a good man, he told the emperor, and no traitor. Not that
Domitian had really any suspicion that Apollonius was personally
plotting against him; he cast him into prison solely in the hope that he
might induce the philosopher to disclose the confidences of Nerva and
other prominent men who were objects of suspicion to him, and who he
imagined had consulted Apollonius on their chances of success.
Apollonius’ business was not with politics, but with the “princes who
asked him for his advice on the subject of virtue” (vi 43).
Apollonius The Prophet and Wonder-Worker
We
will now turn our attention for a brief space to that side of
Apollonius’ life which has made him the subject of invincible
prejudice.Apollonius was not only a philosopher, in the sense of being a
theoretical
speculator or of being the follower of an ordered mode of life schooled in the discipline of resignation; he
was
also a philosopher in the original Pythagorean meaning of the term - a
knower of Nature’s secrets, who thus could speak as one having
authority.He knew the hidden things of Nature by sight and not by
hearing; for him the path of philosophy was a life whereby the man
himself became an instrument of knowing. Religion, for Apollonius, was
not a faith only, it was a science. For him the shows of things were but
ever-changing appearances; cults and rites,religions and faiths, were
all one to him, provided the right spirit were behind them. The Tyanean
knew no differences of race or creed; such narrow limitations were not
for the philosopher.Beyond all others would he have laughed to hear the
word “miracle” applied to his doings. “Miracle,” in its Christian
theological sense, was an unknown term in antiquity, and is a vestige of
superstition today. For though many believe that it is possible by
means of the soul to effect a multitude of things beyond the
possibilities of a science which is confined entirely to the
investigation of physical forces, none but the
unthinking believe
that there can be any interference in the working of the laws which
Deity has impressed upon Nature - the credo of Miraculists.Most
of the recorded wonder-doings of Apollonius are cases of prophecy or
foreseeing; of seeing at a distance and seeing the past; of seeing or
hearing in vision; of healing the sick or curing cases of obsession or
possession.Already as a youth, in the temple of Ægæ, Apollonius gave
signs of the possession of the rudiments of this psychic insight; not
only did he sense correctly the nature of the dark past of a rich but
unworthy suppliant who desired the restoration of his eyesight, but he
foretold, though unclearly, the evil end of one who made an attempt upon
his innocence (i 12).On meeting with Damis, his future faithful
henchman volunteered his services for the long journey to India on the
ground that he knew the languages of several of the countries through
which they had to pass. “But I understand them all, though I have
learned none of them,” answered Apollonius, in his usual enigmatical
fashion, and added: “Marvel not that I know all the tongues of men, for I
know even what they never say” (i 19). And by this he meant simply that
he could read men's thoughts,not that he could speak all languages.But
Damis and Philostratus cannot understand so simple a fact of psychic
experience;they will have it that he knew not only the language of all
men, but also of birds and beasts (i 20).In his conversation with the
Babylonian monarch Vardan, Apollonius distinctly claims foreknowledge.
He says that he is a physician of the soul and can free the king from
the diseases of the mind, not only because he knows what ought to be
done, that is to say the proper discipline taught in the Pythagorean and
similar schools, but also because he foreknows the nature of the king
(i 32). Indeed we are told that the subject of foreknowledge (προγνωσεως
), of which science ( σοφια ) Apollonious was a deep student,was one of
the principal topics discussed by our philosopher and his Indian hosts
(iii 42).
In fact, as Apollonius tells his
philosophical and studious friend the Roman Consul Telesinus, for him
wisdom was a kind of divinizing or making divine of the whole of nature,
a sort of perpetual state of inspiration.And so we are told that
Apollonius was apprised of all things of this nature by the energy of
his dæmonial nature ( δαιμονιως ) (vii 10). Now for the student of the
Pythagorean and Platonic schools the “dæmon” of a man was what may be
called the higher self, the spiritual side of the soul as distinguished
from the purely human. It is the better part of the man, and when his
physical consciousness is at-oned with this “dweller in heaven,” he has
(according to the highest mystic philosophy of ancient Greece) while
still on earth the powers of those incorporeal intermediate beings
between Gods and men called “dæmons”; a state higher still, the living
man
becomes at-oned with the divine soul, he becomes a God on
earth; and yet a stage higher he becomes at one with the Good and so
becomes God.Hence we find Apollonius indignantly rejecting the
accusation of magic ignorantly brought against him, an art which
achieved its results by means of compacts with those low entities with
which the outermost realm of inner Nature swarms. Our philosopher
repudiated equally the idea of his being a soothsayer or diviner. With
such arts he would have nothing to do; if ever he uttered anything which
savoured of foreknowledge, let them know it was not by divination in
the vulgar sense, but owing to “that wisdom which God reveals to the
wise” (iv 44). The most numerous wonder-doings ascribed
to Apollonius are instances precisely of such foreknowledge or
prophecy. 8 [See i 22 (cf 40), 34; iv 4, 6, 18 (cf v 19), 24, 43; v 7,
11, 13, 30, 37; vi 32; viii 26.] It must be confessed that the
utterances recorded are often obscure and enigmatical, but this is the
usual case with such prophecy; for future events are most frequently
either seen in symbolic representations, the meaning of which is not
clear until after the event, or heard in equally enigmatical sentences.
At times, however, we have instances of very precise foreknowledge, such
as the refusal of Apollonius to go on board a vessel which foundered on
the voyage (v 18).The instances of seeing present events at a distance,
however - such as the burning of a temple at Rome, which Apollonius saw
while at Alexandria - are clear enough. Indeed, if people know nothing
else of the Tyanean, they have at last heard how he saw at Ephesus the
assassination of Domitian at Rome at the very moment of its
occurrence.It was midday, to quote from the graphic account of
Philostratus, and Apollonius was in one of the small parks or groves in
the suburbs, engaged in delivering an address on some absorbing topic of
philosophy.“At first he sank his voice as though in some apprehension;
he, however, continued his exposition, but haltingly, and with far less
force than usual, as a man who had some other subject in his mind than
that on which he is speaking; finally he ceased speaking altogether as
though he could not find his words.Then staring fixedly on the ground,
he started forward three or four paces, crying out: ‘Strike the
tyrant;strike!’ And this, not like a man who sees an image in a mirror,
but as one with the actual scene before his eyes, as though he were
himself taking part in it.”
Turning to his astonished
audience he told them what he had seen. But though they hoped it were
true,they refused to believe it, and thought that Apollonius had taken
leave of his senses. But the philosopher gently answered: You, on your
part, are right to suspend your rejoicings till the news is brought you
in the usual fashion; “as for me, I go to return thanks to the Gods for
what I have myself seen” (viii 26).Little wonder, then, if we read, not
only of a number of symbolic dreams, but of their proper
interpretation,one of the most important branches of the esoteric
discipline of the school. (See especially i 23 and iv 34). Nor are we
surprised to hear that Apollonius, relying entirely on his inner
knowledge, was instrumental in obtaining the reprieve of an innocent man
at Alexandria, who was on the point of being executed with a batch of
criminals (v 24). Indeed, he seems to have known the secret past of many
with whom he came in contact (vi 3, 5).
The possession
of such powers can put but little strain on the belief of a generation
like our own, to which such facts of psychic science are becoming with
every day more familiar. Nor should instances of curing diseases by
mesmeric processes astonish us, or even the so-called “casting out of
evil spirits,” if we give credence to the Gospel narrative and are
familiar with the general history of the times in which such healing of
possession and obsession was a commonplace. This, however, does not
condemn us to any endorsement of the fantastic descriptions of such
happenings in which Philostratus indulges.If it be credible that
Apollonius was successful in dealing with obscure mental cases - cases
of obsession and possession - with which our hospitals and asylums are
filled today, and which are for the most part beyond the skill of
official science owing to its ignorance of the real agencies at work, it
is equally evident that Damis and Philostratus had little understanding
of the matter, and have given full rein to their imagination in their
narratives (See ii 4; iv 20, 25; v 42; vi 27, 43) Perhaps, however,
Philostratus in some instances is only repeating popular legend, the
best case of which is the curing of the plague at Ephesus which the
Tyanean had foretold on so many occasions. Popular legend would have it
that the cause of the plague was traced to an old beggar man, who was
buried under a heap of stones by the infuriated populace. On Apollonius
ordering the stones to be removed, it was found that what had been a
beggar man was now a mad dog foaming at the mouth (iv 10)!
On
the contrary, the account of Apollonius’ “restoring to life” a young
girl of noble birth at Rome, is told with great moderation. Our
philosopher seems to have met the funeral procession by chance;
whereupon he suddenly went up to the bier, and, after making some passes
over the maiden, and saying some inaudible words, “waked her out of her
seeming death.” But, says Damis, “whether Apollonius noticed that the
spark of the soul was still alive which her friends had failed to
perceive - they say it was raining lightly and a slight vapour showed on
her face - or whether he made the life in her warm again and so
restored her,” neither himself nor any who were present could say (iv
45).Of a distinctly more phenomenal nature are the stories of Apollonius
causing the writing to disappear from the tablets of one of his
accusers before Tigellinus (iv 44); of his drawing his leg out of the
fetters to show Damis that he was not really a prisoner though chained
in the dungeons of Domitian (vii 38); and of his “disappearing”(ηφανσςη)
from the tribunal (viii 5).[This expression is, however, perhaps only
to be taken as rhetorical, for in viii 8, the incident is referred to in
the simple words “when he departed (απηλθε) from the tribunal.”We are
not, however, to suppose that Apollonius despised or neglected the study
of physical phenomena in his devotion to the inner science of things.On
the contrary we have several instances of his rejection of mythology in
favour of a physical explanation of natural phenomena.Such, for
instance, are his explanations of the volcanic activity of Ætna (v 14,
17), and of a tidal wave in Crete, the latter being accompanied with a
correct indication of the more immediate result of the occurrence. In
fact an island had been thrown up far out to sea by a submarine
disturbance as was subsequently ascertained (iv 34).The explanation of
the tides of Cadiz may also be placed in the same category (v 2).
His Mode of Life
We
will now present the reader with some general indications of the mode
of life of Apollonius, and the manner of his teaching, of which already
something has been said under the heading “Early Life.”Our philosopher
was an enthusiastic follower of the Pythagorean discipline; nay,
Philostratus would have us believe that he made more super-human efforts
to reach wisdom than even the great Samian (i 2).The outer forms of
this discipline as exemplified in Pythagoras are thus summed up by our
author.“Naught would he wear that came from a dead beast, nor touch a
morsel of a thing that once had life, nor offer it in sacrifice; not for
him to stain with blood the altars; but honey-cakes and incense, and
the service of his song went upward from the man unto the Gods, for well
he knew that they would take such gifts far rather than the oxen in
their hundreds with the knife. For he, in sooth, held converse with the
Gods and learned from them how they were pleased with men and how
displeased, and thence as well he drew his nature-lore. As for the rest,
he said, they guessed at the divine, and held opinions on the Gods
which proved each other false; but unto him Apollo’s self did come,
confessed, without disguise,[That is to say not in a “form,” but in his
own nature.] and there did come as well, though unconfessed,Athena and
the Muses, and other Gods whose forms and names mankind did not yet
know.Hence his disciples regarded Pythagoras as an inspired teacher, and
received his rules as laws. “In particular did they keep the rule of
silence regarding the divine science. For they heard within them many
divine and unspeakable things on which it would have been difficult for
them to keep silence, had they not first learned that it was just this
silence which spoke to them” (i I).
Such was the
general declaration of the nature of the Pythagorean discipline by its
disciples. But, says Apollonius in his address to the Gymnosphists,
Pythagoras was not the inventor of it. It was the immemorial wisdom,and
Pythagoras himself had learnt it from the Indians. [See in this
connection L. v. Schroeder, Pythagoras und die Inder, eine Untersuchung
über Herkunft und Abstammung der pythagoreischen Lehren (Leipzig 1884).]
This wisdom, he continued, had spoken to him in his youth; she had
said:“For sense, young sir, I have no charms; my cup is filled with
toils unto the brim. Would anyone embrace my way of life, he must
resolve to banish from his board all food that once bore life, to lose
the memory of wine, and thus no more to wisdom's cup befoul— the cup
that doth consist of wine-untainted souls. Nor shall wool warm him, nor
aught that’s made from any beast. I give my servants shoes of bast and
as they can to sleep. And if I find them overcome with love’s delights,
I’ve ready pits down into which that justice which doth follow hard on
wisdom's foot, doth drag and thrust them; indeed, so stern am I to those
who choose my way,that e’en upon their tongues I bind a chain. Now hear
from me what things thou’lt gain, if thou endure.An innate sense of
fitness and of right,and ne’er to feel that any’s lot is better than
they own; tyrants to strike with fear instead of being a fearsome slave
to tyranny; to have the Gods more greatly bless thy scanty gifts than
those who pour before them blood of bulls. If thou are pure,I’ll give
thee how to know what things will be as well, and fill thy eyes so full
of light, that thou may’st recognise the Gods, the heroes know, and
prove and try the shadowy forms that feign the shapes of men “ (vi II).The whole life of Apollonius shows that he tried to carry out consistently this rule of life, and the repeated statements that he would never join in the blood-sacrifices of the popular cults (see especially i 24, 31; iv 11;
v 25), but openly condemned them, show not only that the Pythagorean
school had ever set the example of the higher way of purer offerings,
but that they were not only not condemned and persecuted as heretics on
this account, but were rather regarded as being of peculiar sanctity,
and as following a life superior to that of ordinary mortals.The
refraining from the flesh of animals, however, was not simply based upon
ideas of purity, it found additional sanction in the positive love of
the lower kingdoms and the horror of inflicting pain on any living
creature.Thus Apollonius bluntly refused to take any part in the chase,
when invited to do so by his royal host at Babylon. “Sire,” he replied,
“have you forgotten that even when you sacrifice I will not be
present?Much less then would I do these beasts to death, and all the
more when their spirit is broken and they are penned in contrary to
their nature” (i 38). [This has reference to the preserved hunting
parks, or “paradises,” of the Babylonian monarchs.]But though
Apollonius was an unflinching task-master unto himself, he did not wish
to impose his mode of life on others, even on his personal friends and
companions (provided of course they did not adopt it of their own free
will). Thus he tells Damis that he has no wish to prohibit him from
eating flesh and drinking wine, he simply demands the right of
refraining himself and of defending his conduct if called on to do so
(ii 7).This is an additional indication that Damis was not a member of
the inner circle of discipline, and the latter fact explains why so
faithful a follower of the person of Apollonius was nevertheless so much
in the dark.Not only so, but Apollonius even dissuades the Râjâh
Phraotes, his first host in India, who desired to adopt his strict rule,
from doing so, on the ground that it would estrange him too much from
his subjects(ii 37).
Three times a day Apollonius
prayed and meditated; at daybreak (vi 10, 18; vii 31), at midday (vii
10),and at sun-down (viii 13). This seems to have been his invariable
custom; no matter where he was he seems to have devoted at least a few
moments to silent meditation at these times. The object of his worship
is always said to have been the “Sun,” that is to say the Lord of our
world and its sister worlds,whose glamorous symbol is the orb of day.We
have already seen in the short sketch devoted to his “Early Life” how he
divided the day and portioned out his time among his different classes
of hearers and inquirers. His style of teaching and speaking was the
opposite of that of a rhetorician or professional orator. There was no
art in his sentences, no striving after effect, no affectation. But he
spoke “as from a tripod,” with such words as “I know,” “Methinks,” “Why
do ye,” “Ye should know.” His sentences were short and compact, and his
words carried conviction with them and fitted the facts.His task, he
declared, was no longer to seek and to question as he had done in his
youth, but to teach what he knew (i 17). He did not use the dialectic of
the Socratic school,but would have his hearers turn from all else and
give ear to the inner voice of philosophy alone (iv 2). He drew his
illustrations from any chance occurrence or homely happening (iv 3;vi 3,
38), and pressed all into service for the improvement of his listeners.When
put on his trial, he would make no preparation for his defence. He had
lived his life as it came from day to day, prepared for death, and would
continue to do so (viii 30). Moreover it was now his deliberate choice
to challenge death in the cause of philosophy. And so to his old
friend’s repeated solicitations to prepare his defence, he
replied:“Damis, you seem to lose your wits in face of death, though you
have been so long with me and I have loved philosophy e’en from my
youth; [Reading φιλοσοφω for φιλοσοφων ] I thought that you were both
yourself prepared for death and knew full well my generalship in this.
For just as warriors in the field have need not only of good courage but
also of that generalship which tells them when to fight, so too must
they who wisdom love make careful study of good times to die, that they
may choose the best and not be done to death all unprepared. That I have
chosen best and picked the moment which suits wisdom best to give death
battle—if so it be that any one should wish to slay me - I' ve proved
to other friends when you were by, nor ever ceased to teach you it
alone” (vii 31).The above are some few indications of how our
philosopher lived, in fear of nothing but disloyalty to his high ideal.
We will now make mention of some of his more personal traits, and of
some of the names of his followers.
Himself and His Circle
Apollonius
is said to have been very beautiful to look upon (i 7, 12; iv 1);
[Rathgeber (G) in his Gross griechenland und Pythagoras (Gotha 1866), a
work of marvellous bibliographical industry, refers to three supposed
portraits of Apollonius (p 621). (i) In the Campidoglio Museum of the
Vatican, Indicazione delle Sculture (Roma 1840) p 68, nos 75, 76, 77;
(ii) in the Musée Royal Bourbon, described by Michel B. (Naples 1837), p
79, no 363; (iii) a contorniate reproduced by Visconti. I cannot trace
his first reference,but in a Guide pour le Musée Royal Bourbon, traduit
par C.J.J. (Naples 1831), I find on p 152 that no 363 is a bust of
Apollonius, 2¾ feet high, carefully executed, with a Zeus-like head,
having a beard and long hair descending onto his shoulders, bound with a
deep fillet. The bust seems to be ancient. I have, however, not been
able to find a reproduction of it. Visconti (E.Q) in the atlas of his
Iconographic Grecque(Paris 1808), vol i plate 17, facing p 68, gives the
reproduction of a contorniate, or medal with a circular border, on one
side of which is a head of Apollonius and the Latin legend APOLLONIVS
TEANEVS. This also represents our philosopher with a beard and long
hair; the head is crowned, and the upper part of the body covered with a
tunic and the philosopher’s cloak. The medal, however, is of very
inferior workmanship, and the portrait is by no means pleasing. Visconti
in his letterpress devotes an angry and contemptuous paragraph to
Apollonius, “ce trop célèbre imposteur,” as he calls him, based on De
Tillemont.] but beyond this we have no very definite description of his
person. His manner was ever mild and gentle (i 36; ii 22) and modest (iv
31; viii 15), and in this,says Damis,he was more like an Indian than a
Greek (iii 36); yet occasionally he burst out indignantly against some
special enormity (iv 30).His mood was often pensive (i
34), and when not speaking he would remain for long plunged in deep
thought, during which his eyes were steadfastly fixed on the ground (i
10 et al.).Though, as we have seen, he was inflexibly stern with
himself, he was ever ready to make excuses for others; if, on the one
hand, he praised the courage of those few who remained with him at Rome,
on the other he refused to blame for their cowardice the many who had
fled (iv 38). Nor was his gentleness shown simply by abstention from
blame, he was ever active in positive deeds of compassion (cf vi 39).One
of his little peculiarities was a liking to be addressed as “Tyanean”
(vii 38), but why this was so we are not told.It can hardly have been
that Apollonius was particularly proud of his birth-place, for even
though he was a great lover of Greece, so that at times you would call
him an enthusiastic patriot, his love for other countries was quite as
pronounced. Apollonius was a citizen of the world, if there has ever
been one, into whose speech the word native-land did not enter, and a
priest of universal religion in whose vocabulary the word sect did not
exist.In spite of his extremely ascetic life he was a man of strong
physique, so that even when he has reached the ripe age of four-score
years, we are told, he was sound and healthy in every limb and organ,
upright and perfectly formed. There was also a certain indefinite charm
about him that made him more pleasant to look upon than even the
freshness of youth, and this even though his face was furrowed with
wrinkles, just as the statues in the temple of Tyana represented him in
the time of Philostratus. In fact, says his rhetorical biographer,
report sang higher praises over the charm of Apollonius in his old age
than over the beauty of Alcibiades in his youth (viii 29).
In
brief, our philosopher seems to have been of a most charming presence
and lovable disposition; nor was his absolute devotion to philosophy of
the nature of the hermit ideal, for he passed his life among men. What
wonder then that he attracted to himself many followers and disciples!
It would have been interesting if Philostratus had told us more about
these “Apollonians,” as they were called (viii 21), and whether they
constituted a distinct school, or whether they were grouped together in
communities on the Pythagorean model, or whether they were simply
independent students attracted to the most commanding personality of the
times in the domain of philosophy. It is, however, certain that many of
them wore the same dress as himself and followed his mode of life (iv
39). Repeated mention is also made of their accompanying Apollonius on
his travels (iv 47; v 21; viii 19, 21, 24), sometimes as many as ten of
them at the same time, but none of them were allowed to address others
until they had fulfilled the vow of silence (v 43).The most
distinguished of his followers were Musonius, who was considered the
greatest philosopher of the time after the Tyanean, and who was the
special victim of Nero’s tyranny (iv 44; v 19; vii 16), and Demetrius,
“who loved Apollonius” (iv 25, 42; v 19; vi 31; vii 10; viii 10). These
names are well known to history; of names otherwise unknown are the
Egyptian Dioscorides, who was left behind owing to weak health on the
long journey to Ethiopia (iv 11, 38; v 43), Menippus, whom he had freed
from an obsession(iv 25, 38; v 43), Phædimus (iv 11), and Nilus, who
joined him from Gymnosophists (v 10 sqq., 28), and of course Damis, who
would have us think that he was always with him from the time of their
meeting at Ninus.On the whole we are inclined to think
that Apollonius did not establish any fresh organization; he made use
of those already existing, and his disciples were those who were
attracted to him personally by an overmastering affection which could
only be satisfied by being continually near him. This much seems
certain, that he trained no one to carry on his task; he came and went,
helping and illuminating, but he handed on no tradition of a definite
line, and founded no school to be continued by successors. Even to his
ever faithful companion, when bidding him farewell for what he knew
would be the last time for Damis on earth, he had no word to say about
the work to which he had devoted his life, but which Damis had never
understood. His last words were for Damis alone, for the man who had
loved him, but who had never known him. It was a promise to come to him
if he needed help. “Damis, whenever you think on high matters in
solitary meditation, you shall see me” (viii 28).We will next turn our
attention to a consideration of some of the sayings ascribed to
Appolonius and the speeches put into his mouth by Philostratus. The
shorter sayings are in all probability authentically traditional, but
the speeches are for the most part manifestly the artistic working-up of
the rough notes of Damis. In fact, they are definitely declared to be
so; but they are none the less interesting on this account, and for two
reasons.
In the first place, they honestly avow their
nature, and make no claim of inspiration; they are confessedly human
documents which endeavour to give a literary dress to the traditional
body of thought and endeavour which the life of the philosopher built
into the minds of his hearers. The method was common to antiquity, and
the ancient compilers of certain other series of famous documents would
have been struck with amazement had they been able to see how posterity
would divinise their efforts and regard them as immediately inspired by
the source of all wisdom.In the second place, although we are not to
suppose that we are reading the actual words of Apollonius,we are
nevertheless conscious of being in immediate contact with the inner
atmosphere of the best religious thought of the Greek mind, and have
before our eyes the picture of a mystic and spiritual fermentation which
leavened all strata of society in the first century of our era.
From His Sayings and Sermons
Apollonius
believed in prayer,but how differently from the vulgar.For him the idea
that the Gods could be swayed from the path of rigid justice by the
entreaties of men, was a blasphemy; that the Gods could be made parties
to our selfish hopes and fears was to our philosopher unthinkable. One
thing alone he knew, that the Gods were the ministers of right and the
rigid dispensers of just desertThe common belief, which has persisted to
our own day, that God can be swayed from His purpose, that compacts
could be made with Him or with His ministers, was entirely abhorrent to
Apollonius.Beings with whom such pacts could be made, who could be
swayed and turned, were not Gods but less than men. And so we find
Apollonius as a youth conversing with one of the priests of Æsculapius
as follows:“Since then the Gods know all things, I think that one who
enters the temple with a right conscience within him should pray thus:
‘Give me, ye Gods, what is my due!’ “ (i II).And thus again on his long
journey to India he prayed at Babylon: “God of the sun, send thou me
o’er the earth so far as e’er ‘tis good for Thee and me; and may I come
to know the good, and never know the bad nor they know me” (i 31).One of
his most general prayers, Damis tells us, was to this effect: “Grant
me, ye Gods, to have little and need naught” (i 34).“When you enter the
temples, for what do you pray?” asked the Pontifex Maximus Telesinus of
our philosopher. “I pray,” said Apollonius, “that righteousness may
rule, the laws remain unbroken, the wise be poor and others rich, but
honestly” (iv 40).
The belief of the philosopher in the
grand ideal of having nothing and yet possessing all things, is
exemplified by his reply to the officer who asked him how he dared enter
the dominions of Babylon without permission. “The whole earth,” said
Apollonius, “is mine; and it is given me to journey through it”(i
21).There are many instances of sums of money being offered to
Apollonius for his services, but he invariably refused them; not only so
but his followers also refused all presents. On the occasion when King
Vardan, with true Oriental generosity, offered them gifts, they turned
away; whereupon Apollonius said: “You see, my hands, though many, are
all like each other.” And when the king asked Apollonius what present he
would bring him back from India, our philosopher replied: “A gift that
will please you, sire.For if my stay there should make me wiser, I shall
come back to you better than I am” (i 41).When they were crossing the
great mountains into India a conversation is said to have taken place
between Apollonius and Damis, which presents us with a good instance of
how our philosopher ever used the incidents of the day to inculcate the
higher lessons of life. The question was concerning the “below” and
“above.” Yesterday, said Damis, we were below in the valley; today we
are above, high on the mountains, not far distant from heaven. So this
is what you mean by “below” and “above,” said Apollonius gently. Why, of
course, impatiently retorted Damis, if I am in my right mind; what need
of such useless questions? And have you acquired a greater knowledge of
the divine nature by being nearer heaven on the tops of the mountains?
continued his master. Do you think that those who observe the heaven
from the mountain heights are any nearer the understanding of things?
Truth to tell, replied Damis, somewhat crestfallen, I did think I should
come down wiser, for I’ve been up a higher mountain than any of them,
but I fear I know no more than before I ascended it. Nor do other men,
replied
Apollonius; “such observations make them see the heavens
more blue, the stars more large, and the sun rise from the night, things
known to those who tend the sheep and goats; but how God doth take
thought for human kind, and how He doth find pleasure in their service,
and what is virtue, righteousness and commonsense, that neither Athos
will reveal to those who scale his summit nor yet Olympus who stirs the
poet’s wonder, unless it be the soul perceive them; for should the soul
when pure and unalloyed essay such heights, I swear to thee, she wings
her flight far far beyond this lofty Caucasus” (ii 6).
So
again, when at Thermopylæ his followers were disputing as to which was
the highest ground in Greece, Mt OEta being then in view. They happened
to be just at the foot of the hill on which the Spartans fell
overwhelmed with arrows.Climbing to the top of it Apollonius cried out:
“And I think this the highest ground, for those who fell here for
freedom’s sake have made it high as OEta and raised it far above a
thousand of Olympuses” (iv 23).Another instance of how Apollonius turned
chance happenings to good account is the following. Once at Ephesus, in
one of the covered walks near the city, he was speaking of sharing our
goods with others,and how we ought mutually to help one another. It
chanced that a number of sparrows were sitting on a tree hard by in
perfect silence. Suddenly another sparrow flew up and began chirping, as
though it wanted to tell the others something. Whereupon the little
fellow all set to a-chirping also, and flew away
after the
newcomer. Apollonius’ superstitious audience were greatly struck by this
conduct of the sparrows, and thought it was an augury of some important
matter. But the philosopher continued with his sermon.The sparrow, he
said, has invited his friends to a banquet. A boy slipped down in a lane
hard by and spilt some corn he was carrying in a bowl; he picked up
most of it and went away. The little sparrow,chancing on the scattered
grains, immediately flew off to invite his friends to the feast.
Thereon
most of the crowd went off at a run to see if it were true, and when
they came back shouting and all agog with wonderment, the philosopher
continued: “Ye see what care the sparrows take of one another, and how
happy they are to share their goods. And yet we men do not approve; nay,
if we see a man sharing his goods with other men, we call it
wastefulness, extravagance, and by such names, and dub the men to whom
he gives a share, fawners and parasites. What then is left to us except
to shut us up at home like fattening birds, and gorge our bellies in the
dark until we burst with fat?” (iv 3).On another occasion, at Smyrna,
Apollonius, seeing a ship getting under weigh, used the occasion for
teaching the people the lesson of cooperation. “Behold the vessel’s
crew!” he said. “How some have manned the boats, some raise the anchors
up and make them fast, some set the sails to catch the wind,how others
yet again look out at bow and stern. But if a single man should fail to
do a single one of these his duties,or bungle in his seamanship, their
sailing will be bad, and they will have the storm among them. But if
they strive in rivalry each with the other, their only strife being that
no man shall seem worse than his mates, fair havens shall there be for
such a ship, and all good weather and fair voyage crowd in upon it” (iv
9).Again, on another occasion, at Rhodes, Damis asked him if he thought
anything greater than the famous Colossus. “I do,” replied Apollonius;
“the man who walks in wisdom's guileless paths that give us health”(v
21).
There is also a number of instances of witty or
sarcastic answers reported of our philosopher, and indeed, in spite of
his generally grave mood, he not unfrequently rallied his hearers, and
sometimes, if we may say so, chaffed the foolishness out of them (see
especially iv 30).Even in times of great danger this characteristic
shows itself.A good instance is his answer to the dangerous question of
Tigellinus,“What think you of Nero ? ” “I think better of him than you
do,” retorted Apollonius,“for you think he ought to sing, and I think he
ought to keep silence” (iv 44).So again his reproof to a young Croesus
of the period is as witty as it is wise. “Young sir,” he said, “methinks
it is not you who own your house, but your house you” (v 22).Of the
same style also is his answer to a glutton who boasted of his gluttony.
He copied Hercules, he said, who was as famous for the food he ate as
for his labours.“Yes,” said Apollonius, “for he was Hercules. But you,
what virtue have you, midden-heap?Your only claim to notice is your
chance of being burst” (iv 23).But to turn to more serious occasions. In
answer to Vespasian’s earnest prayer, “Teach me what should a good king
do,” Apollonius is said to have replied somewhat in the following
words:“You ask me what can not be taught. For kingship is the greatest
thing within a mortal’s reach;it is not taught. Yet will I tell you what
if you will do, you will do well. Count not that wealth which is stored
up - in what is this superior to the sand haphazard heaped? nor that
which comes from men to groan beneath taxation's heavy weight - for gold
that comes from tears is base and black. You’ll use wealth best of any
king, if you supply the needs of those in want and make their wealth
secure for those with many goods. Be fearful of the power to do whate’er
you please, so will you use it with more prudence. Do not lop off the
ears of corn that show beyond the rest and raise their heads - for
Aristotle is not just in this [See Chassang, op. cit., p 458, for a
criticism on this statement.]—but rather weed their disaffection out
like tares from corn, and show yourself a fear to stirrers up of strife
not in ‘I punish you’ but in ‘ I will do so.’ Submit yourself to law, O
prince, for you will make the laws with greater wisdom if you do not
despise the law yourself. Pay reverence more than ever to the Gods;
great are the gifts
you have received from them, and for great
things you pray. [This was before Vespasian became emperor.] In what
concerns the state act as a king; in what concerns yourself, act as a
private man”(v 36).And so on much in the same strain, all good advice
and showing a deep knowledge of human affairs.And if we are to suppose
that this is merely a rhetorical exercise of Philostratus and not based
on the substance of what Apollonius said, then we must have a higher
opinion of the rhetorician than the rest of his writings warrant.
There
is an exceedingly interesting Socratic dialogue between Thespesion, the
abbot of the Gymnosophist community, and Apollonius on the comparative
merits of the Greek and Egyptian ways of representing the Gods. It runs
somewhat as follows;“What! Are we to think,” said Thespesion, “that the
Pheidiases and Praxiteleses went up to heaven and took impressions of
the forms of the Gods, and so made an art of them, or was it something
else that set them a-modeling?”“Yes, something else,” said Apollonius,
“something pregnant with wisdom.”“What was that? Surely you cannot say
it was anything else but imitation?” “Imagination wrought them - a
workman wiser far than imitation; for imitation only makes what it has
seen, whereas imagination makes what it has never seen, conceiving it
with reference to the thing it really is.”
Imagination,
says Apollonius, is one of the most potent faculties, for it enables us
to reach nearer to realities. It is generally supposed that Greek
sculpture was merely a glorification of physical beauty, in itself quite
unspiritual. It was an idealisation of form and features, limbs and
muscles, an empty glorification of the physical with nothing of course
really corresponding to it in the nature of things. But Apollonius
declared it brings us nearer to the real, as Pythagoras and Plato
declared before him, and as all the wiser teach. He meant this
literally, not vaguely and fantastically. He asserted that the types and
ideas of things are the only realities. He meant that between the
imperfection of the earth and the highest divine type of all things,
were grades of increasing perfection. He meant that within each man was a
form of perfection, though of course not yet absolutely perfect. That
the angel in man, his dæmon, was of God-like beauty, the summation of
all the finest features he had ever worn in his many lives on earth.The
Gods, too, belonged to the world of types, of models, of perfections ,
the heaven-world. The Greek sculptors had succeeded in getting in
contact with this world, and the faculty they used was imagination.This
idealisation of form was a worthy way to represent the Gods; but, says
Apollonius, if you set up a hawk or owl or dog in your temples, to
represent Hermes or Athena or Apollo, you may dignify the animals, but
you make the Gods lose dignity. To this Thespesion replies that the
Egyptians dare not give any precise form to the Gods; they give them
merely symbols to which an occult meaning is attached.Yes, answers
Apollonius, but the danger is that the common people worship these
symbols and get unbeautiful ideas of the Gods. The best thing would be
to have no representations at all. For the mind of the worshipper can
form and fashion for himself an image of the object of his worship
better than any art.Quite so, retorted Thespesion, and then added
mischievously: There was an old Athenian, by-the-by - no fool - called
Socrates, who swore by the dog and goose as though they were Gods.Yes,
replied Apollonius, he was no fool. He swore by them not as being Gods,
but in order that he might not swear by the Gods (iv 19).
This
is a pleasant passage of wit, of Egyptian against Greek, but all such
set arguments must be set down to the rhetorical exercises of
Philostratus rather than to Apollonius, who taught as “one having
authority,” as “from a tripod.” Apollonius, a priest of universal
religion, might have pointed out the good side and the bad side of both
Greek and Egyptian religious art, and certainly taught the higher way of
symbol-less worship, but he would not champion one popular cult against
another. In the above speech there is a distinct prejudice against
Egypt and a glorification of Greece, and this occurs in a very marked
fashion in several other speeches. Philostratus was a champion of Greece
against all comers; but Apollonius, we believe, was wiser than his
biographer.In spite of the artificial literary dress that is given to
the longer discourses of Apollonius, they contain many noble thoughts,
as we may see from the following quotations from the conversations of
our philosopher with his friend Demetrius, who was endeavouring to
dissuade him from braving Domitian at
Rome.The
law, said Apollonius, obliges us to die for liberty, and nature ordains
that we should die for our parents, our friends, or our children. All
men are bound by these duties. But a higher duty is laid upon the sage;
he must die for his principles and the truth he holds dearer than life.
It is not the law that lays this choice upon him, it is not nature; it
is the strength and courage of his own soul. Though fire or sword
threaten him, it will not overcome his resolution or force him from the
slightest falsehood; but he will guard the secrets of others’ lives and
all that has been entrusted to his honour as religiously as the secrets
of initiation. And I know more than other men, for I know that of all
that I know, I know some things for the good, some for the wise, some
for myself, some for the Gods, but naught for tyrants.Again, I think
that a wise man does nothing alone or by himself; no thought of his so
secret but that he has himself as witness to it. And whether the famous
saying “know thyself” be from Apollo or from some sage who learnt to
know himself and proclaimed it as a good for all, I think the wise man
who knows himself and has his own spirit in constant comradeship, to
fight at his right hand, will neither cringe at what the vulgar fear,
nor dare to do what most men do without the slightest shame (vii 15).In
the above we have the true philosopher’s contempt for death, and also
the calm knowledge of the initiate, of the comforter and adviser of
others to whom the secrets of their lives have been confessed, that no
tortures can ever unseal his lips. Here, too, we have the full knowledge
of what consciousness is,of the impossibility of hiding the smallest
trace of evil in the inner world; and also the dazzling brilliancy of a
higher ethic which makes the habitual conduct of the crowd appear
surprising - the“that which they do - not with shame.''
From His Letters
Apollonius
seems to have written many letters to emperors, kings, philosophers,
communities and states, although he was by no means a “voluminous
correspondent”; in fact, the style of his short notes is exceedingly
concise, and they were composed, as Philostratus says, “after the manner
of the Lacedæmonian scytale” [This was a staff, or baton, used as a
cypher for writing dispatches. “A strip of leather was rolled slantwise
round it, on which the dispatches were written lengthwise, so that when
unrolled they were unintelligible; commanders abroad had a staff of like
thickness, round which they rolled their papers, and so were able to
read the dispatches.” (Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon sub voc.)Hence
scytale came to mean generally a Spartan dispatch, which was
characteristically laconin in its brevity.](iv 27 and vii 35).It is
evident that Philostratus had access to letters attributed to
Apollonius, for he quotes a number of them, [See i 7, 15, 24, 32; iii
51; iv 5, 22, 26, 27, 46; v 2, 10, 39, 40, 41; vi 18, 27, 29, 31, 33;
viii 7, 20,27, 28.], and there seems no reason to doubt their
authenticity. Whence he obtained them does not inform us, unless it be
that they were the collection made by Hadrian at Antium (viii 20).That
the reader may be able to judge of the style of Apollonius we append one
or two specimens of these letters, or rather notes, for they are too
short to deserve the title of epistles.Here is one to
the magistrates of Sparta:“Apollonius to the Ephors, greeting!“It is
possible for men not to make mistakes, but it requires noble men to
acknowledge they have made them.”All of which Apollonius gets into just
half as many words in Greek. Here, again, is an interchange of notes
between the two greatest philosophers of the time, both of whom suffered
imprisonment and were in constant danger of death. “Apollonius to
Musonius, the philosopher, greeting!“I want to go to you, to share
speech and roof with you, to be of some service to you. If you still
believe that Hercules once rescued Theseus from Hades, write what you
would have.Farewell!”“Musonius to Apollonius, the philosopher,
greeting!“Good merit shall be stored for you for your good thoughts;
what is in store for me is one who waits his trial and proves his
innocence. Farewell.” “Apollonius to Musonius, greeting!“Socrates
refused to be got out of prison by his friends and went before the
judges. He was put to death. Farewell.”“Musonius to Apollonius, the
philosopher, greeting!“Socrates was put to death because he made no preparation for his defence. I shall do so. Farewell!”However,
Musonius, the Stoic, was sent to penal servitude by Nero.Here is a note
to the Cynic Demetrius, another of our philosopher’s most devoted
friends.“Apollonius, the philosopher, to Demetrius, the Dog, [I.e.,
Cynic.] greeting!“I give thee to Titus, the emperor, to teach him the
way of kingship, and do you in turn give me to speak him true; and be to
him all things but anger. Farewell!”In addition to the notes quoted in
the text of Philostratus, there is a collection of ninety-five letters,
mostly brief notes, the text of which is printed in most editions.
[Chassang (op cit., pp 395 sqq) gives a French translation of them.]
Nearly all the critics are of opinion that they are not genuine, but
Jowett [Art.“Apollonius,” Smith’s Dict of Class Biog.] and others think
that some of them may very well be genuine.Here is a specimen or two of
these letters. Writing to Euphrates, his great enemy, that is to say
Champion of pure rationalistic ethic against the science of sacred
things, he says:17. “The Persians call those who have the divine faculty
(or are god-like) Magi. A Magus, then,is one who is a minister of the
Gods, or one who has by nature the god-like faculty. You are no Magus
but reject the Gods (i.e., are an atheist).”Again, in a letter addressed
to Criton, we read: 23. “Pythagoras said that the most divine art was
that of healing. And if the healing art is most divine, it must occupy
itself with the soul as well as with the body; for no creature can be
sound so long as the higher part in it is sickly.”
Writing
to the priests of Delphi against the practice of blood-sacrifice, he
says:27. “Heraclitus was a sage, but even he [That is to say, a
philosopher of 600 years ago.] never advised the people of Ephesus to
wash out mud with mud.” [That is to expiate blood-guiltiness with
blood-sacrifice.]Again, to some who claimed to be his followers, those
“who think themselves wise,” he writes the reproof: 43. “If any say he
is my disciple, then let him add he keeps himself apart out of the
Baths, he slays no living thing, eats of no flesh, is free from envy,
malice, hatred,calumny, and hostile feelings, but has his name inscribed
among the race of those who’ve won their freedom.”Among these letters
is found one of some length addressed to Valerius, probably P. Valerius
Asiaticus,consul in A.D. 70. It is a wise letter of philosophic
consolation to enable Valerius to bear the loss of his son, and runs as
follows: [Chaignet (A. É), in his Pythagore et la Philosophie
pythagoricienne (Paris 1873, 2nd ed 1874), cites this as a genuine
example of Apollonius philosophy.]“There is no death of anyone, but only
in 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. It is simply a being visible and then
invisible; the former through the density of matter, and the latter
because of the subtlety of being - being which is ever the same, its
only change being motion and rest. For being has this necessary
peculiarity, that its change is brought about by nothing external to
itself; but whole becomes parts and parts become whole in the oneness of
the all. And if it be asked: What is this which sometimes is seen and
sometimes not seen, now in the same, now in the different?—it might be
answered: It is the way of everything here in the world below that when
it is filled out with matter it is visible, owing to the resistance of
its density, but is invisible, owing to its subtlety, when it is rid of
matter, though matter still surround it and flow through it in that
immensity of space which hems it in but
knows no birth or death.“But why has this false notion [of birth and death] remained so long without a refutation?
Some
think that what has happened through them, they have themselves brought
about. They are ignorant that the individual is brought to birth
through parents, not by parents, just as a thing produced through the
earth is not produced from it. The change which comes to the individual
is nothing that is caused by his visible surroundings, but rather a
change in the one thing which is in every individual.“And what other
name can we give to it but primal being? ‘Tis it alone that acts and
suffers becoming all for all through all, eternal deity, deprived and
wronged of its own self by names and forms. But this is a less serious
thing than that a man should be bewailed, when he has passed from man to
God by change of state and not by the destruction of his nature. The
fact is that so far from mourning death you ought to honour it and
reverence it. The best and the fittest way for you to honour death is
now to leave the one who’s gone to God, and set to work to play the
ruler over those left in your charge as you were wont to do. It would be
a disgrace for such a man as you to owe your cure to time and not to
reason, for time makes even common people cease from grief. The greatest
things is a strong rule, and of the greatest rulers he is best who
first can rule himself. And how is it permissible to wish to change what
has been brought to pass by will of God? If there’s a law in things,
and there is one, and it is God who has appointed it, the righteous man
will have no wish to try to change good things,for such a wish is
selfishness, and counter to the law, but he will think that all that
comes to pass is a good thing. On! heal yourself, give justice to the
wretched and console them; so shall you dry your tears. You should not
set your private woes above your public cares, but rather set your
public cares before your private woes. And see as well what consolation
you already have! The nation sorrows with you for your son. Make some
return to those who weep with you; and this you will more quickly do if
you will cease from tears than if you still persist. Have you not
friends? Why! you have yet another son. Have you not even still the one
that’s gone?You have!—will answer anyone who really thinks. For ‘that
which is’ doth cease not - nayis just for the very fact that it will be
for aye; or else the ‘is not’ is, and how could that be when the ‘is’
doth never cease to be?“Again it will be said you fail in piety to God
and are unjust. ‘Tis true. You fail in piety to God,you fail in justice
to your boy; nay more, you fail in piety to him as well. Would’st know
what death is?Then make me dead and send me off to company with death,
and if you will not change the dress you’ve put on it, [That is his idea
of death.] you will have straightway made me better than yourself.”
[The text of the last sentence is very obscure].
The Writings of Apollonius
But
besides these letters Apollonius also wrote a number of treatises, of
which , however,only one or two fragments have been preserved.These
treatises are as follows: a. The Mystic Rites or Concerning Sacrifices.
[The full title is given by Eudocia, Ionia; ed. Villoison (Venet 1781) p
57] This treatise is mentioned by Philostratus (iii 41; iv 19), who
tells us that it set down the proper method of sacrifice to every God,
the proper hours of prayer and offering. It was in wide circulation, and
Philostratus had come across copies of it in many temples and cities,
and in the libraries of philosophers. Several fragments of it have been
preserved, [See Zeller, Phil d Griech, v 127] the most important of
which is to be found in Eusebius, [Præparat. Evangel., iv 12-13; ed
Dindorf (Leipzig 1867), i 176, 177] and is to this effect: “ ‘Tis best
to make no sacrifice to God at all, no lighting of a fire, no calling
Him by any name that men employ for things to sense. For God is over
all, the first; and only after Him do come the other Gods. For He doth
stand in need of naught e’en from the Gods, much less from us small men -
naught that the earth brings forth, nor any life she nurseth, or even
any thing the stainless air contains. The only fitting sacrifice to God
is man’s best reason, and not the word [A play on the meanings of λoγος,
which signifies both reason and word.] that comes from out his
mouth.“We men should ask the best of beings through the best thing in
us, for what is good - mean
by means of mind, for mind needs no
material things to make its prayer. So then, to God, the mighty One,
who’s over all, no sacrifice should ever be lit up.”Noack [Psyche, I
ii.5.] tells us that scholarship is convinced of the genuineness of this
fragment. This book, as we have seen, was widely circulated and held in
the highest respect, and it said that its rules were engraved on brazen
pillars at Byzantium. [Noack, ibid.]b. The Oracles or Concerning
Divination, 4 books. Philostratus (iii 41) seems to think that the full
title was Divination of the Stars, and says that it was based on what
Apollonius had learned in India; but the kind of divination Apollonius
wrote about was not the ordinary astrology, but something which
Philostratus considers superior to ordinary human art in such matters.
He had, however, never heard of anyone possessing a copy of this rare
work. c. The Life of Pythagoras. Porphyry refers to this work, 8 [See
Noack, Porphr. Vit. Pythag., p 15] and Iamblichus quotes a long passage
from it. [Ed. Amstelod., 1707, cc 254-264]d. The Will of Apollonius, to
which reference has already been made, in treating of the sources of
Philostratus (i 3). This was written in the Ionic dialect, and contained
a summary of his doctrines.A Hymn to Memory is also ascribed to him,
and Eudocia speaks of many other( και αλλα πολλα) works.We have now indicated for the reader all the information which exists concerning our philosopher. Was Apollonius,
then, a rogue, a trickster, a charlatan, a fanatic, a misguided
enthusiast, or a philosopher, a reformer, a conscious worker, a true
initiate, one of the earth’s great ones? This each must decide for
himself, according to his knowledge or his ignorance.
I for my part bless his memory, and would gladly learn from him, as now he is.
