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.[41] Of books distinctly dedicated to the subject the works of the Abbé Dupin[42] and of de Tillemont[43] are bitter attacks on the Philosopher of Tyana in defence of the monopoly of Christian miracles; while those of the Abbé Houtteville[44] and Lüderwald[45] 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.[46]
Nevertheless, Bacon and Voltaire speak of Apollonius in the highest terms,[47] and even a century before the latter the English Deist, Charles Blount,[48] 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,[49] 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 mist.
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).[50] 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 saw 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 Mönckeberg, 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.