42. He was followed by crowds when entering Alexandria, like Christ when entering Jerusalem.
43. Was crucified amidst a display of divine power.
44. He rose from the dead.
45. Appeared to his disciples after his resurrection.
46. Like Christ, he convinced a Tommy Didymus by getting him to feel the print of the nails in his hands and feet.
47. Was seen by many witnesses after his resurrection, and was hailed by them as the "God Incarnate," "the Lord from Heaven."
48. He finally ascended back to heaven, and now "sits at the right hand of the Father," pleading for a sinful world.
49. When he entered the temple of Diana, "a voice from above was heard saying, 'Come to heaven."
50. Accordingly he was seen no more on earth only as a spirit
The reader will observe that the foregoing list of analogies, drawn from the history of Apollonius, as furnished us by his disciple Damos and his biographer Philostratus, are found also, in almost every particular, in the history of Jesus Christ. And the list might have been extended. It is declared, "A beauty shone in his countenance, and the words he uttered were divine," which reminds us of Christ's transfiguration. And his "staying a plague at Ephesus" revives the case of Christ stilling the tempest on the waters. Now, the question very naturally arises here, How came the histories of Apollonius and Christ to be so strikingly alike? Was one plagiarized from the other? As for the miraculous history of Apollonius being reconstructed from that of Jesus Christ, as some Christians have assumed, there is not the slightest foundation for such a conclusion, as the following facts will show, viz.:—