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.”