Part 2

And even if we cannot go so far as to entertain the possibility of direct personal contact, there has to be taken into consideration the fact that Pherecydes, the master of Pythagoras, may have been acquainted with some of the main ideas of Vaidic lore. Pherecydes taught at Ephesus, but was himself most probably a Persian, and it is quite credible that a learned Asiatic, teaching a mystic philosophy and basing his doctrine upon the idea of rebirth, may have had some indirect, if not direct, knowledge of Indo-Aryan thought.

Persia must have been even at this time in close contact with India, for about the date of the death of Pythagoras, in the reign of Dareius, son of Hystaspes, at the end of the sixth and beginning of the fifth century before our era, we hear of the expedition of the Persian general Scylax down the Indus, and learn from Herodotus that in this reign India (that is the Punj[=a]b) formed the twentieth satrapy of the Persian monarchy. Moreover, Indian troops were among the hosts of Xerxes; they invaded Thessaly and fought at Platæa.

From the time of Alexander onwards there was direct and constant contact between [=A]ry[=a]varta and the kingdoms of the successors of the world-conqueror, and many Greeks wrote about this land of mystery; but in all that has come down to us we look in vain for anything but the vaguest indications of what the "philosophers" of India systematically thought.

That the Br[=a]hmans would at this time have permitted their sacred books to be read by the Yavanas (Ionians, the general name for Greeks in Indian records) is contrary to all we know of their history. The Yavanas were Mlechchhas, outside the pale of the [=A]ryas, and all they could glean of the jealously guarded Brahm[=a]-vidy[=a] or theosophy must have depended solely upon outside observation. But the dominant religious

## activity at this time in India was Buddhist, and it is to this protest

against the rigid distinctions of caste and race made by Br[=a]hmanical pride, and to the startling novelty of an enthusiastic religious propaganda among all classes and races in India, and outside India to all nations, that we must look for the most direct contact of thought between India and Greece.

For instance, in the middle of the third century B.C., we know from Asoka's thirteenth edict, that this Buddhist Emperor of India, the Constantine of the East, sent missionaries to Antiochus II. of Syria, Ptolemy II. of Egypt, Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene, and Alexander II. of Epirus. When, in a land of such imperfect records, the evidence on the side of India is so clear and indubitable, all the more extraordinary is it that we have no direct testimony on our side of so great a missionary activity. Although, then, merely because of the absence of all direct information from Greek sources, it is very unsafe to generalize, nevertheless from our general knowledge of the times it is not illegitimate to conclude that no great public stir could have been made by these pioneers of the Dharma in the West. In every probability these Buddhist Bhik[s.]hus produced no effect on the rulers or on the people. But was their mission entirely abortive; and did Buddhist missionary enterprise westwards cease with them?

The answer to this question, as it seems to us, is hidden in the obscurity of the religious communities. We cannot, however, go so far as to agree with those who would cut the gordian knot by asserting dogmatically that the ascetic communities in Syria and Egypt were founded by these Buddhist propagandists. Already even in Greece itself were not only Pythagorean but even prior to them Orphic communities, for even on this ground we believe that Pythagoras rather developed what he found already existing, than that he established something entirely new. And if they were found in Greece, much more then is it reasonable to suppose that such communities already existed in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt, whose populations were given far more to religious exercises than the sceptical and laughter-loving Greeks.

It is, however, credible that in such communities, if anywhere, Buddhist propaganda would find an appreciative and attentive audience; but even so it is remarkable that they have left no distinctly direct trace of their influence. Nevertheless, both by the sea way and by the great caravan route there was an ever open line of communication between India and the Empire of the successors of Alexander; and it is even permissible to speculate, that if we could recover a catalogue of the great Alexandrian library, for instance, we should perchance find that in it Indian MSS. were to be found among the other rolls and parchments of the scriptures of the nations.

Indeed, there are phrases in the oldest treatises of the Trismegistic Hermetic literature which can be so closely paralleled with phrases in the Upani[s.]hads and in the Bhagavad G[=i]t[=a], that one is almost tempted to believe that the writers had some acquaintance with the general contents of these Br[=a]hmanical scriptures. The Trismegistic literature had its genesis in Egypt, and its earliest deposit must be dated at least in the first century A.D., if it cannot even be pushed back earlier. Even more striking is the similarity between the lofty mystic metaphysic of the Gnostic doctor Basilides, who lived at the end of the first and beginning of the second century A.D., and Ved[=a]ntic ideas. Moreover, both the Hermetic and the Basilidean schools and their immediate predecessors were devoted to a stern self-discipline and deep philosophical study which would make them welcome eagerly any philosopher or mystic student who might come from the far East.

But even so, we are not of those who by their own self-imposed limitations of possibility are condemned to find some direct physical contact to account for a similarity of ideas or even of phrasing. Granting, for instance, that there is much resemblance between the teachings of the Dharma of the Buddha and of the Gospel of the Christ, and that the same spirit of love and gentleness pervades them both, still there is no necessity to look for the reason of this resemblance to purely physical transmission. And so for other schools and other teachers; like conditions will produce similar phenomena; like effort and like aspiration will produce similar ideas, similar experience, and similar response. And this we believe to be the case in no general way, but that it is all very definitely ordered from within by the servants of the real guardians of things religious in this world.

We are, then, not compelled to lay so much stress on the question of physical transmission, or to be seeking even to find proof of copying. The human mind in its various degrees is much the same in all climes and ages, and its inner experience has a common ground into which seed may be sown, as it is tilled and cleared of weeds. The good seed comes all from the same granary, and those who sow it pay no attention to the man-made outer distinctions of race and creed.

However difficult, therefore, it may be to prove, from unquestionably historical statements, any direct influence of Indian thought on the conceptions and practices of some of these religious communities and philosophic schools of the Græco-Roman Empire, and although in any

## particular case similarity of ideas need not necessarily be assigned to

direct physical transmission, nevertheless the highest probability, if not the greatest assurance, remains that even prior to the days of Apollonius there was some private knowledge in Greece of the general ideas of the Ved[=a]nta and Dharma; while in the case of Apollonius himself, even if we discount nine-tenths of what is related of him, his one idea seems to have been to spread abroad among the religious brotherhoods and institutions of the Empire some portion of the wisdom which he brought back with him from India.

When, then, we find at the end of the first and during the first half of the second century, among such mystic associations as the Hermetic and Gnostic schools, ideas which strongly remind us of the theosophy of the Upani[s.]hads or the reasoned ethics of the Suttas, we have always to take into consideration not only the high probability of Apollonius having visited such schools, but also the possibility of his having discoursed at length therein on the Indian wisdom. Not only so, but the memory of his influence may have lingered for long in such circles, for do we not find Plotinus, the coryphæus of Neo-Platonism, as it is called, so enamoured with what he had heard of the wisdom of India at Alexandria, that in 242 he started off with the ill-starred expedition of Gordian to the East in the hope of reaching that land of philosophy? With the failure of the expedition and assassination of the Emperor, however, he had to return, for ever disappointed of his hope.

It is not, however, to be thought that Apollonius set out to make a propaganda of Indian philosophy in the same way that the ordinary missionary sets forth to preach his conception of the Gospel. By no means; Apollonius seems to have endeavoured to help his hearers, whoever they might be, in the way best suited to each of them. He did not begin by telling them that what they believed was utterly false and soul-destroying, and that their eternal welfare depended upon their instantly adopting his own special scheme of salvation; he simply endeavoured to purge and further explain what they already believed and practised. That some strong power supported him in his ceaseless

## activity, and in his almost world-wide task, is not so difficult of

belief; and it is a question of deep interest for those who strive to peer through the mists of appearance, to speculate how that not only a Paul but also an Apollonius was aided and directed in his task from within.

The day, however, has not yet dawned when it will be possible for the general mind in the West to approach the question with such freedom from prejudice, as to bear the thought that, seen from within, not only Paul but also Apollonius may well have been a "disciple of the Lord" in the true sense of the words; and that too although on the surface of things their tasks seem in many ways so dissimilar, and even, to theological preconceptions, entirely antagonistic.

Fortunately, however, even to-day there is an ever-growing number of thinking people who will not only not be shocked by such a belief, but who will receive it with joy as the herald of the dawning of a true sun of righteousness, which will do more to illumine the manifold ways of the religion of our common humanity than all the self-righteousness of any particular body of exclusive religionists.

It is, then, in this atmosphere of charity and tolerance that we would ask the reader to approach the consideration of Apollonius and his doings, and not only the life and deeds of an Apollonius, but also of all those who have striven to help their fellows the world over.

SECTION IV.

THE APOLLONIUS OF EARLY OPINION.

Apollonius of Tyana[2] was the most famous philosopher of the Græco-Roman world of the first century, and devoted the major part of his long life to the purification of the many cults of the Empire and to the instruction of the ministers and priests of its religions. With the exception of the Christ no more interesting personage appears upon the stage of Western history in these early years. Many and various and ofttimes mutually contradictory are the opinions which have been held about Apollonius, for the account of his life which has come down to us is in the guise of a romantic story rather than in the form of a plain history. And this is perhaps to some extent to be expected, for Apollonius, besides his public teaching, had a life apart, a life into which even his favourite disciple does not enter. He journeys into the most distant lands, and is lost to the world for years; he enters the shrines of the most sacred temples and the inner circles of the most exclusive communities, and what he says or does therein remains a mystery, or serves only as an opportunity for the weaving of some fantastic story by those who did not understand.

The following study will be simply an attempt to put before the reader a brief sketch of the problem which the records and traditions of the life of the famous Tyanean present; but before we deal with the Life of Apollonius, written by Flavius Philostratus at the beginning of the third century, we must give the reader a brief account of the references to Apollonius among the classical writers and the Church Fathers, and a short sketch of the literature of the subject in more recent times, and of the varying fortunes of the war of opinion concerning his life in the last four centuries.

First, then, with regard to the references in classical and patristic authors. Lucian, the witty writer of the first half of the second century, makes the subject of one of his satires the pupil of a disciple of Apollonius, of one of those who were acquainted with "all the tragedy"[3] of his life. And Appuleius, a contemporary of Lucian, classes Apollonius with Moses and Zoroaster, and other famous Magi of antiquity.[4]

About the same period, in a work entitled Quæstiones et Responsiones ad Orthodoxos, formerly attributed to Justin Martyr, who flourished in the second quarter of the second century, we find the following interesting statement:

"Question 24: If God is the maker and master of creation, how do the consecrated objects[5] of Apollonius have power in the [various] orders of that creation? For, _as we see_, they check the fury of the waves and the power of the winds and the inroads of vermin and attacks of wild beasts."[6]

Dion Cassius in his history,[7] which he wrote A.D. 211-222, states that Caracalla (Emp. 211-216) honoured the memory of Apollonius with a chapel or monument (_heroum_).

It was just at this time (216) that Philostratus composed his Life of Apollonius, at the request of Domna Julia, Caracalla's mother, and it is with this document principally that we shall have to deal in the sequel.

Lampridius, who flourished about the middle of the third century, further informs us that Alexander Severus (Emp. 222-235) placed the statue of Apollonius in his _lararium_ together with those of Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus.[8]

Vopiscus, writing in the last decade of the third century, tells us that Aurelian (Emp. 270-275) vowed a temple to Apollonius, of whom he had seen a vision when besieging Tyana. Vopiscus speaks of the Tyanean as "a sage of the most wide-spread renown and authority, an ancient philosopher, and a true friend of the Gods," nay, as a manifestation of deity. "For what among men," exclaims the historian, "was more holy, what more worthy of reverence, what more venerable, what more god-like than he? He, it was, who gave life to the dead. He, it was, who did and said so many things beyond the power of men."[9] So enthusiastic is Vopiscus about Apollonius, that he promises, if he lives, to write a short account of his life in Latin, so that his deeds and words may be on the tongue of all, for as yet the only accounts are in Greek.[10] Vopiscus, however, did not fulfil his promise, but we learn that about this date both Soterichus[11] and Nichomachus wrote Lives of our philosopher, and shortly afterwards Tascius Victorianus, working on the papers of Nichomachus,[12] also composed a Life. None of these Lives, however, have reached us.

It was just at this period also, namely, in the last years of the third century and the first years of the fourth, that Porphyry and Iamblichus composed their treatises on Pythagoras and his school; both mention Apollonius as one of their authorities, and it is probable that the first 30 sections of Iamblichus are taken from Apollonius.[13]

We now come to an incident which hurled the character of Apollonius into the arena of Christian polemics, where it has been tossed about until the present day. Hierocles, successively governor of Palmyra, Bithynia, and Alexandria, and a philosopher, about the year 305 wrote a criticism on the claims of the Christians, in two books, called A Truthful Address to the Christians, or more shortly The Truth-lover. He seems to have based himself for the most part on the previous works of Celsus and Porphyry,[14] but introduced a new subject of controversy by opposing the wonderful works of Apollonius to the claims of the Christians to exclusive right in "miracles" as proof of the divinity of their Master. In this part of his treatise Hierocles used Philostratus' Life of Apollonius.

To this pertinent criticism of Hierocles Eusebius of Cæsarea immediately replied in a treatise still extant, entitled Contra Hieroclem.[15] Eusebius admits that Apollonius was a wise and virtuous man, but denies that there is sufficient proof that the wonderful things ascribed to him ever took place; and even if they did take place, they were the work of "dæmons," and not of God. The treatise of Eusebius is interesting; he severely scrutinises the statements in Philostratus, and shows himself possessed of a first rate critical faculty. Had he only used the same faculty on the documents of the Church, of which he was the first historian, posterity would have owed him an eternal debt of gratitude. But Eusebius, like so many other apologists, could only see one side; justice, when anything touching Christianity was called into question, was a stranger to his mind, and he would have considered it blasphemy to use his critical faculty on the documents which relate the "miracles" of Jesus. Still the problem of "miracle" was the same, as Hierocles pointed out, and remains the same to this day.

After the controversy reincarnated again in the sixteenth century, and when the hypothesis of the "Devil" as the prime-mover in all "miracles" but those of the Church lost its hold with the progress of scientific thought, the nature of the wonders related in the Life of Apollonius was still so great a difficulty that it gave rise to a new hypothesis of plagiarism. The life of Apollonius was a Pagan plagiarism of the life of Jesus. But Eusebius and the Fathers who followed him had no suspicion of this; they lived in times when such an assertion could have been easily refuted. There is not a word in Philostratus to show he had any acquaintance with the life of Jesus, and fascinating as Baur's "tendency-writing" theory is to many, we can only say that as a plagiarist of the Gospel story Philostratus is a conspicuous failure. Philostratus writes the history of a good and wise man, a man with a mission of teaching, clothed in the wonder stories preserved in the memory and embellished by the imagination of fond posterity, but not the drama of incarnate Deity as the fulfilment of world-prophecy.

Lactantius, writing about 315, also attacked the treatise of Hierocles, who seems to have put forward some very pertinent criticisms; for the Church Father says that he enumerates so many of their Christian inner teachings (_intima_) that sometimes he would seem to have at one time undergone the same training (_disciplina_). But it is in vain, says Lactantius, that Hierocles endeavours to show that Apollonius performed similar or even greater deeds than Jesus, for Christians do not believe that Christ is God because he did wonderful things, but because all the things wrought in him were those which were announced by the prophets.[16] And in taking this ground Lactantius saw far more clearly than Eusebius the weakness of the proof from "miracle."

Arnobius, the teacher of Lactantius, however, writing at the end of the third century, before the controversy, in referring to Apollonius simply classes him among Magi, such as Zoroaster and others mentioned in the passage of Appuleius to which we have already referred.[17]

But even after the controversy there is a wide difference of opinion among the Fathers, for although at the end of the fourth century John Chrysostom with great bitterness calls Apollonius a deceiver and evil-doer, and declares that the whole of the incidents in his life are unqualified fiction,[18] Jerome, on the contrary, at the very same date, takes almost a favourable view, for, after perusing Philostratus, he writes that Apollonius found everywhere something to learn and something whereby he might become a better man.[19] At the beginning of the fifth century also Augustine, while ridiculing any attempt at comparison between Apollonius and Jesus, says that the character of the Tyanean was "far superior" to that ascribed to Jove, in respect of virtue.[20]

About the same date also we find Isidorus of Pelusium, who died in 450, bluntly denying that there is any truth in the claim made by "certain," whom he does not further specify, that Apollonius of Tyana "consecrated many spots in many parts of the world for the safety of the inhabitants."[21] It is instructive to compare the denial of Isidorus with the passage we have already quoted from Pseudo-Justin. The writer of Questions and Answers to the Orthodox in the second century could not dispose of the question by a blunt denial; he had to admit it and argue the case on other grounds--namely, the agency of the Devil. Nor can the argument of the Fathers, that Apollonius used magic to bring about his results, while the untaught Christians could perform healing wonders by a single word,[22] be accepted as valid by the unprejudiced critic, for there is no evidence to support the contention that Apollonius employed such methods for his wonder-workings; on the contrary, both Apollonius himself and his biographer Philostratus strenuously repudiate the charge of magic brought against him.

On the other hand, a few years later, Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Claremont, speaks in the highest terms of Apollonius. Sidonius translated the Life of Apollonius into Latin for Leon, the councillor of King Euric, and in writing to his friend he says: "Read the life of a man who (religion apart) resembles you in many things; a man sought out by the rich, yet who never sought for riches; who loved wisdom and despised gold; a man frugal in the midst of feastings, clad in linen in the midst of those clothed in purple, austere in the midst of luxury.... In fine, to speak plainly, perchance no historian will find in ancient times a philosopher whose life is equal to that of Apollonius."[23]

Thus we see that even among the Church Fathers opinions were divided; while among the philosophers themselves the praise of Apollonius was unstinted.

For Ammianus Marcellinus, "the last subject of Rome who composed a profane history in the Latin language," and the friend of Julian the philosopher-emperor, refers to the Tyanean as "that most renowned philosopher";[24] while a few years later Eunapius, the pupil of Chrysanthius, one of the teachers of Julian, writing in the last years of the fourth century, says that Apollonius was more than a philosopher; he was "a middle term, as it were, between gods and men."[25] Not only was Apollonius an adherent of the Pythagorean philosophy, but "he fully exemplified the more divine and practical side in it." In fact Philostratus should have called his biography "The Sojourning of a God among Men."[26] This seemingly wildly exaggerated estimate may perhaps receive explanation in the fact that Eunapius belonged to a school which knew the nature of the attainments ascribed to Apollonius.