Part 2

The tradition which credits Apollonius with being a worker of miracles and magician is widespread, but there is comparatively little that is narrated of him by Philostratus which is incredible, if assumed to have been performed by a man who had led a life such as that of the Sage of Tyana, and who was gifted with such psychic powers as we are familiar with at the present day. We shall probably be right in regarding most of these narratives of psychic incidents as taken direct from the tablets of Damis, and therefore in the main authentic, even if the details are not in every case exact. A few instances will serve to illustrate the point of what I have said.

After Apollonius’s visit to Athens, in which he was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, he took ship for Egypt, stopping at Rhodes on the way. Arriving at Alexandria he found that his reputation had preceded him, and was met everywhere with reverence and respect. He took advantage of the friendly popular feeling towards him to intervene in a case of miscarriage of justice. A robbery had recently taken place in the town, and twelve men had been condemned in connection with it. An innocent victim of the general sentence was revealed psychically to Apollonius. He thereupon called the procession to a halt as they were being led to execution, and instructed the guard to place the innocent man last of the twelve. The delay thus secured gave time for a horseman to ride up with a reprieve for the man in question, whose innocence had been established subsequently to the trial. It is not difficult to attribute such a case as this to psychic powers, but, on the other hand, it is quite open to us to assume that Apollonius had learned something by normal means as to the doubt hanging over the condemned man’s implication in the crime.

Never, perhaps, has any possessor of noted psychic powers enjoyed the friendship or the hostility of so many great Emperors as did Apollonius. Vespasian and Titus were both intimate in their friendship, and sought the advice of the sage of Tyana on various notable occasions. It was, it appears, during this same visit to Alexandria that Vespasian arrived at the great Egyptian seaport and requested an interview with the sage. Vespasian explained to him his schemes, for he was already then aiming at the supreme power. Apollonius encouraged him, and to his great surprise informed him that it was his destiny to rebuild the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus at Rome. As a matter of fact the temple had just been burned down, but the news did not reach Egypt till some time later. What we call nowadays a telepathic wave had conveyed the incident to the knowledge of the seer. A similar instance of Apollonius’s telepathic powers is narrated in connection with the death of Domitian. Apollonius had previously been arrested by this Emperor on the ridiculous charge of sacrificing an Arcadian boy, in order, apparently, to discover the prospects of the succession of Nerva to the Empire. He was acquitted by the monster who was Nero’s rival in cruelty without Nero’s artistic talents, to the great surprise of all his friends. The story is that he vanished mysteriously from the court. We may, however, I think, without hesitation attribute this incident to Philostratus’s love of the dramatic, especially as it seems clear that he had already been acquitted and that there was no apparent reason why he should not walk out as a free man like any ordinary mortal in similar circumstances. What strikes the dispassionate reader as really remarkable is the fact that though Apollonius was twice arrested, once by Nero and again by Domitian, and though the philosophers of the day, being supposed to be hostile to the tyrants, met almost invariably with short shrift, the sage of Tyana was in each case acquitted and left the court, as we say to-day, “without a stain on his character.” Why, if the Emperors had him arrested, knowing doubtless the value of the charges against him, did they not take steps to ensure his condemnation? The fact seems to be, without doubt, that they regarded him with fear. Whether this fear was due merely to his reputation as a worker of wonders, or to his actual psychic power exercised at their expense in the courts of justice, is an open question, and clearly admits of two opinions.

His own observations on this subject, as quoted by Philostratus, seem, however, to justify our accepting by preference the latter of the two views. Speaking to his friends about his intention to take ship for Rome in order to meet openly any charge that might be made against him rather than to lie low in some distant corner of the Empire as his disciples were anxious that he should do, he observed that he would not consider a man a coward because he had disappeared out of dread of Nero, but would hail as a philosopher any one who rose superior to such a fear. And he added, “Let not any one think it foolish so to venture along a path which many philosophers are fleeing from, for in the first place I do not esteem any human agency so formidable that a wise man can ever be terrified by it, and in the second place I would not urge upon you the pursuit of bravery unless it were attended with danger.” After dwelling upon the ferocity and brutality of Nero, contrasting him with savage animals who could sometimes be tamed, and mollified by coaxing and flattery, whereas Nero was only roused to greater cruelty than before by those who stroked him, he continued in the following remarkable strain:

If, however, any one is disposed to dread Nero for these reasons, and is led abruptly to forsake philosophy, conceiving that it is not safe for him to thwart his evil temper, let him know that the quality of inspiring fear really belongs to those who are devoted to temperance and wisdom, because they are sure of Divine succour. But let him snap his fingers at the threats of the proud and insolent, as he would at those of drunken men, for we regard these surely as daft and senseless, but not as formidable.

We are accustomed to refer to Apollonius as a philosopher. While we are perfectly correct in so doing, it is well to observe what the term philosophy connotes when employed by the Tyanian sage. It is not obviously a question merely of adopting a creed or view of life or a certain set of philosophical opinions, but implies in the fullest measure the life led in accordance with these opinions and inspired by the courage with which the knowledge of their truth endows the man who professes them. The keynote, indeed, to the whole of Apollonius’s life lies in the fact that his so-called philosophy was an active and inspiring force which dominated his whole conduct.

I have alluded to the evidence of Apollonius’s telepathic powers in connection with the death of Domitian. His passage of arms with this tyrant may have afforded the requisite psychic link. In any case the Tyanian was made aware of Domitian’s assassination under sufficiently dramatic circumstances. He had returned to Ionia after a stay of two years in Greece, and was at the moment speaking at Ephesus. In the midst of his discourse he seemed to lose the current of his words, and the audience noticed a troubled expression passing over his features. Suddenly breaking off any further attempt to continue his speech, he stepped forward three or four paces on the platform from which he was addressing the assembly, and cried out in loud tones, “Strike the tyrant! Strike!” The audience were naturally amazed at this sudden outburst, but soon coming to himself, Apollonius explained to them that Domitian had been slain at that hour, and that a vision from the gods had been granted to him at the moment of what actually took place. News arrived in due course confirming his statement. This story is narrated by Dion Cassius as well as by Philostratus.

Beyond these records there are several others of a sufficiently startling character, which it is not easy to take too literally. There is, for instance, the narrative of the rescue of a young Athenian from the clutches of a vampire. The youth, according to the story, mistook the vampire for a normal living woman, and being infatuated with her, was on the point of marrying her until Apollonius dispelled the illusion. Probably this was one of the many romances that had collected round the name of Apollonius between his death and the time of Philostratus, though there may possibly have been some small grain of truth at the bottom of it. Another story which may have had some basis in fact, has been so embroidered upon as to render it quite incredible in the form in which it is presented by the biographer. This relates to the supposed interview of Apollonius with the ghost of Achilles, which was held to haunt the tomb of the Grecian hero. The reputation of Apollonius was so great and his supposed power as a worker of miracles had obtained so widespread a currency by the second century of our era that all sorts of miraculous happenings were readily credited by the ignorant public when ascribed to the Tyanian sage. Philostratus appears to have made use of certain of these floating stories.

That the name of Apollonius was regarded with the greatest veneration during the centuries following his death is abundantly evident. Caracalla (Roman Emperor 211-216 A.D.) honoured his memory with a chapel or monument (heroum). Alexander Severus (Emperor 225-235 A.D.) placed his statue in his lararium along with those of Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus. Aurelius is stated to have vowed a temple to the sage of Tyana, of whom he had seen a vision. Vopiscus at the end of the third century speaks of him as “a sage of the most widespread renown and authority, an ancient philosopher and a true friend of the gods.” “He it was,” says Vopiscus, “who gave life to the dead. He it was who did and said so many things beyond the power of men.” In the work entitled Quaestiones et Responsiones ad Orthodoxos, attributed (though apparently in error) to Justin Martyr, occurs among other of these “questions” the following: “If God is the maker and master of creation how do the telesmata of Apollonius have power in the 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.” These telesmata or talismans were articles that had been, or were supposed to have been, consecrated or magnetised, with some religious ceremony, by Apollonius.

We see, then, that around the name of this philosopher gathered, as time went on, a mass of more or less incredible miraculous tradition. And, as happens too often in such cases, the real work of this great religious reformer was lost sight of amid this accumulation of legend that impressed the popular eye, which was too dull to appreciate or understand the deeper significance of the life-work and esoteric teaching of the sage. Orthodox religion in the Roman Empire had indeed at this time fallen into very much the same sort of discredit as orthodox Christianity has among ourselves to-day. Two definite attempts were made to resuscitate these old religions of Greece and Rome by reviving the understanding of the essential spiritual truths which they enshrined; the first by Apollonius of Tyana, who was above all else a reformer of the ancient Greek religion from within, and the other, an abortive one three hundred years later, by Julian the so-called Apostate. These classical faiths were, however, too much overlaid with mythological stories of an unedifying character ever again to recover their ascendancy over the popular imagination, and the ascetic life and esoteric interpretation which appealed to the isolated religious communities which Apollonius visited in his extensive travels throughout the countries bordering the Mediterranean, and as far east as Persia and India, could not in their very nature make a popular appeal to the average man. We see now that the triumph of Christianity was due to the universality of its appeal, and that however uncertain the issue of the struggle of the contending faiths appeared at the time, that issue was never really in doubt. The ascetic philosopher worked for the little public to whom the life of self-denial and esoteric truth are all in all, and to whom the world and the pursuits of the ordinary citizen take a place of minor importance. The “friend of publicans and sinners,” “who was in all things tempted like as we are,” was able to “draw all men unto him” by a compelling force such as the austere discipline and profound philosophy of Apollonius could never command. Jesus of Nazareth, in short, triumphed—and there is a profound significance in this fact—because mankind in the realisation of his true humanity forgot that he was accounted a God. The life of Apollonius was so far removed from anything the average man could comprehend that the world lost sight of the wisdom and deep spirituality of his teaching, in amazement at a worker of miracles so far beyond human ken that he came to be reckoned even a manifestation of Deity.

We are not, however, justified in supposing that it was primarily to his miracle-working powers that Apollonius owed his reputation among his contemporaries. It was rather as the wise man who had more knowledge and experience of the world than those around him, whose judgment was sounder and more unbiased by personal considerations than other men’s, and whose high spirituality kept him aloof from all considerations of private gain or private interest, that Apollonius was regarded by the men of his own day. Later tradition which invested him with all kinds of miraculous achievements served to dim the halo round a great name. The foremost men of his time in thought and action, the Emperors Vespasian, Titus, and many others, did not come to consult Apollonius because he was some master magician. We do not in effect ask advice of a man in our hour of need because he can do the vanishing trick in a court of law, or pull rabbits out of his hat when there are no rabbits to pull, or do any of the marvellous performances which strike the vulgar with amazement. We seek rather the advice of one whose judgment is saner and whose knowledge of the world is greater than that of his fellows. It was for this reason that the wisest of the Roman Emperors came to consult Apollonius by preference with regard to the great task with which they were entrusted, when they had all the highest intellects in the Roman Empire from which to choose.

The account of Titus’s first meeting with the Tyanian sage is of some interest, and not without its humorous side. Apollonius, who was already acquainted with his father, sent greetings to Titus, after the suppression of the Jewish insurrection, saying in characteristic manner, “Whereas you have refused to be proclaimed for success in war and for shedding the blood of your enemies, I myself assign to you the crown of temperance and moderation because you thoroughly understand what deeds really merit a crown.” Titus thoroughly appreciated the compliment, and was not to be outdone by the other’s courtesy. “On my own behalf,” he replied, “I thank you no less than on behalf of my father, and I will not forget your kindness. For although I have captured Jerusalem, you have captured me.”

After Titus had been appointed to share his father’s responsibilities in the government of the Empire he did not forget Apollonius, and when he was in Tarsus wrote to the sage begging him to come and see him.

When he had arrived [says the narrative], Titus embraced him, saying, “My father has told me by letter everything in respect of which he consulted you; and lo! here is his letter, in which you are described as his benefactor and the being to whom we owe all that we are. Now though I am only just thirty years of age, I am held worthy of the same privileges to which my father only attained at the age of sixty. I am called to the throne to rule, perhaps before I have learnt myself to obey, and I therefore dread lest I am undertaking a task beyond my powers.” Thereupon Apollonius, after stroking his neck, said (for he had as stout a neck as any athlete in training), “And who will force so sturdy a bull-neck as yours under the yoke?” “He that from my youth up reared me as a calf,” answered Titus, meaning his own father, and implying that he could only be controlled by the latter, who had accustomed him from childhood to obey himself. “I am delighted then,” said Apollonius, “in the first place, to see you prepared to subordinate yourself to your father, whom without being his natural children so many are delighted to obey, and next to see you rendering to his court homage in which others will associate yourself. When youth and age are paired in authority, is there any lyre or any flute that will produce so sweet a harmony and so nicely blended? For the qualities of old age will be associated with those of youth, with the result that old age will gain in strength and youth in discipline.”

The records of Apollonius’s pithy sayings are very numerous and give a better insight into the man’s character than the startling achievements with which he is so commonly credited. Once, when staying at Smyrna, he complimented the inhabitants on their zeal for letters and philosophy and their numerous activities, urging them to take pride rather in themselves than in the beauty of their city, for “although they had the most beautiful of cities under the sun, and although they had a friendly sea at their doors, nevertheless it was more pleasing for the city to be crowned with men than with porticoes and pictures, or even with gold in excess of what they needed.” “For,” he said, “public edifices remain where they are and are nowhere seen except in that particular part of the earth where they exist, but good men are conspicuous everywhere and everywhere talked about, and so they can magnify the city the more to which they belong in proportion to the numbers in which they are able to visit any part of the earth.” And again, when visiting the monument to Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylæ, he was enthusiastic in admiration for the Greek leader, and on coming to the mound where the Lacedemonians were said to have been overwhelmed by the arrows which the enemy rained upon them, he heard his companions discussing with one another which was the loftiest peak in Hellas, the topic being suggested, apparently, by the sight of Mount Oeta which rose before their eyes. Accordingly ascending the mound, he said, “I consider this the loftiest of all, for those who fell here in defence of freedom raised it to a level with Oeta and carried it to a height surpassing many mountains like Olympus.” On another occasion when, on arriving at Athens, and meeting with an enthusiastic reception at the hands of the people, he proposed to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, the hierophant showed jealousy of Apollonius’s great reputation, which he felt put his own into the shade, and was reluctant, accordingly, to admit so formidable a rival. He therefore made the excuse that Apollonius was a wizard and had dabbled in impure rites, and that he could not in consequence consent to initiate him. Apollonius, however, was fully equal to the occasion, and retorted, “You have not yet mentioned the chief head of my offending, which is that knowing as I do more about the initiatory rite than you do yourself, I have nevertheless come for initiation to you as if you were wiser than I am.” The attitude of the crowd was so hostile to the hierophant, on discovering his rejection of their honoured guest, that he found it advisable to change his tone. But Apollonius preferred to postpone his initiation till a later occasion, and, it is said, foretold the name of the successor who was destined to initiate him four years after.

Of many men who have led a deeply spiritual life and sacrificed everything for the sake of the pursuit of a spiritual ideal, it is recorded that they were wild and profligate in youth. Such was the case with St Francis of Assisi, and Apollonius’s contemporary, the zealous Saul of Tarsus, led a changed life from the moment of his conversion. Indeed it has been said, referring doubtless to such instances, that “the greater the sinner the greater the saint.” This saying, however, is by no means applicable to Apollonius. From his earliest days his choice was made clear. He came of a family which was at once wealthy and well-connected, and in addition to this he was endowed by nature with exceptional abilities and a remarkable memory, while the beauty of his person excited universal admiration. Every temptation, therefore, which fortune could offer, might, one would have thought, have led him to choose the path of worldly success. From the age of fourteen, however, he abandoned all idea of the pursuit of pleasure and devoted himself to discovering among the numerous Greek philosophies of the day some school of thought which would enable him to live up to his own ideals. Finally he adopted the system of Pythagoras, but was not content to receive it in the sense of accepting its doctrines and not living the life, after the manner of his teacher, Euxenus. Accordingly when Euxenus asked him how he would begin his new mode of life, he replied, “As doctors purge their patients.” “Hence” (says G. R. S. Mead, in his Biography), “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 ether in the soul, and destroyed the composure of the mind.” In addition to this, he went barefoot, let his hair grow long, and wore nothing but linen.

On the death of his father, when he was twenty years of age, he inherited a considerable fortune, which was left to him to share with his elder brother, a dissolute young man of three-and-twenty. When his brother had run through his share of the patrimony, he endeavoured (successfully as it appears) to rescue him from his vicious life, and made over to him half his own share of the inheritance. Having distributed the major part of the remainder among his relatives, he merely retained for himself a bare pittance.

Before starting on his missionary activities—he was probably by far the greatest traveller of his time—he took the vow of silence for five years. After this, he travelled from place to place making the acquaintance of temple priests and heads of the religious communities, endeavouring always 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 being devoted to those who were followers of the inner life. Public instruction in ethics and practical life he never gave until after the middle of the day, “for,” he said, “those who live the inner life should on day’s dawning enter the presence of the gods, spending the time till midday in giving and receiving instructions in holy things.” His Indian expedition, from which his friends and disciples endeavoured to dissuade him, he undertook, as he stated, on the advice of his inner monitor, starting his perilous undertaking entirely alone, and so continuing until he made the acquaintance of Damis at Nineveh.

There is some doubt as to the date of Apollonius’s birth, but an allusion by Philostratus makes it appear that he was quite a young man at the time of his Indian expedition, and as he apparently did not commence his five years’ vow of silence till after he came of age, we must assume that he was somewhere between twenty-six and thirty at the commencement of this undertaking. Treadwell dates the Indian travels as from 41 to 54 A.D. If this is approximately accurate we may assign his birth-date to the second decade of the first century of the Christian era. Assuming this to be the case, he was presumably over eighty years old at the time of his death, which occurred about 98 A.D. Damis had been his almost inseparable companion from the time when he first met him at Nineveh. It seems to have been a case of something akin to “love at first sight,” for the Assyrian was seized at once with an enthusiasm for the nobility of Apollonius’s character, which was blent with a natural and even dog-like affection. At the last, however, his companion was not with him, and there is some mystery as to the exact place and occasion of his death. He sent Damis away when the expected time approached, on the pretext of entrusting him with a confidential letter to the Emperor Nerva, so that it may be said of him, as it was of Moses, “No man knoweth his burial place unto this day.”

Apollonius had never reason to regret his Indian travels. He became deeply imbued with the metaphysical ideas of the Brahmins, and was in the habit ever after of extolling their spiritual philosophy as the fountain-head of all the profounder truths of Western religion. As to Damis’s record of Apollonius’s sojourn with the Indian Philosophers, we have only Philostratus’s garbled account to guide us, and the quotation of Apollonius’s cryptic observation, “I saw men dwelling on the earth and yet not on it; defended on all sides, without any defence; and yet possessed of nothing but what all possessed.” It may be well to quote the interpretation of this saying given by Mr Mead. “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.” There are a good many references in the conversations with Apollonius to the belief in Reincarnation, which was of course an essential tenet of Pythagorean philosophy, and he himself averred that in his previous life he was a man of no consequence, to wit, a ship’s pilot. A letter ascribed to him, whether rightly or wrongly, has some interesting observations on this subject.

“Why has this false notion,” he asks, “of birth and death” (i.e., that they are real and not illusory in character)—“why has this false notion remained so long without being refuted? 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 man.”

The portrait of Apollonius which has been handed down through many generations has become blurred and disfigured beyond recognition, and it seemed therefore well to give, even if in but a brief outline, such a sketch as might convey a juster idea of the philosopher whose friendship the greatest men of his day considered it their highest honour to enjoy, the man who chose the path of sanctity at a time of life when others choose “the primrose path of dalliance,” who chose Wisdom for her own sake and Truth for the sake of Truth.

The world holds no record of a long life lived more nobly, of a more undaunted courage in confronting the tyrant, of a more unflinching tenacity of purpose, of a more single-minded devotion to a high ideal. His boyhood’s choice, the inspiration of his manhood, the beacon-light of his latest years—to follow in the footsteps of that Form, so austere in the simplicity of her loveliness, “whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all whose paths are peace.”

Footnote 1:

Philostratus, Book IV, chapter xlv. I am indebted to Dr Conybeare’s translation, published by Messrs Heinemann, for this and some other quotations. The book is a very useful one, the Greek and English being given side by side.

Footnote 2:

I am indebted to G. R. S. Mead’s work, Apollonius of Tyana, The Philosopher-Reformer of the First Century A.D. (London: T. P. S.), for these particulars.

Footnote 3: