Apollonius of Tyana
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Apollonius of Tyana (Greek: Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ
Τυανεύς; ca. 15?–ca. 100? AD) was a Greek Neopythagorean
philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of
Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Little is certainly known about
him. Being a first century orator and philosopher around the
time of Christ, he was compared to Jesus of Nazareth by
Christians in the fourth century and by various popular
writers in modern times.
Life dates
Apollonius's dates are uncertain. His primary biographer,
Philostratus the Elder (c.170–247 CE) places him c. 3 BCE to
97 CE. Others agree that he was roughly a contemporary of
Jesus of Nazareth. Charles P. Eells[5] states that his date
of birth was three years before Jesus, whose date of birth
is also uncertain. However, Philostratus, in his Life of
Apollonius of Tyana, places him staying in the court of King
Vardanes I of Parthia for a while, who ruled between c.40–47
CE. Apollonius began a five year silence at about the age of
20, and after the completion of this silence travelled to
Mesopotamia and Iran. Philostratus also mentions emperors
Nero, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, and Nerva at various
points throughout Apollonius’ life. Given this information,
a timeline of roughly the years 15–98 CE can be established
for his adult life.
Sources
By far the most detailed source is the Life of Apollonius of
Tyana, a lengthy, novelistic biography written by the
sophist Philostratus at the request of empress Julia Domna.
She took her own life in 217 CE, and he completed it after
her death, probably in the 220's or 230's CE. Philostratus’
account shaped the image of Apollonius for posterity and
still dominates discussions about him in our times. To some
extent it is a valuable source because it contains data from
older writings which were available to Philostratus but
disappeared later on. Among these works are an excerpt
(preserved by Eusebius) from On sacrifices, and certain
alleged letters of Apollonius. The sage may really have
written some of these works, along with the no-longer extant
Biography of Pythagoras. At least two biographical sources
that Philostratus used are lost: a book by the imperial
secretary Maximus describing Apollonius’ activities in
Maximus' home-city of Aegaeae in Cilicia, and a biography by
a certain Moiragenes. There also survives, separately from
the LIfe by Philostratus, a collection of letters of
Apollonius, but at least some of these seem to be spurious.
One of the essential sources Philostratus claimed to know
are the “memoirs” (or “diary”) of Damis, an acolyte and
companion of Apollonius. Some scholars believe the notebooks
of Damis were an invention of Philostratus, while others
think it was a real book forged by someone else and used by
Philostratus. Philostratus describes Apollonius as a
wandering teacher of philosophy and miracle worker who was
mainly active in Greece and Asia Minor but also traveled to
Italy, Spain and North Africa and even to Mesopotamia,
India, and Ethiopia. In particular, he tells lengthy stories
of Apollonius entering the city of Rome in disregard of
emperor Nero’s ban on philosophers, and later on being
summoned, as a defendant, to the court of Domitian, where he
defied the emperor in blunt terms. He had allegedly been
accused of conspiring against the emperor, performing human
sacrifice, and predicting a plague by means of magic.
Philostratus implies that upon his death, Apollonius of
Tyana underwent heavenly assumption.
How much of this can be accepted as historical truth
depends largely on the extent to which modern scholars trust
Philostratus, and in particular on whether they believe in
the reality of Damis. Some of these scholars contend that he
never came to Western Europe and was virtually unknown there
till the third century AD when empress Julia Domna, who was
herself from the province of Syria, decided to popularize
him and his teachings in Rome. For that purpose, so these
same scholars believe, she commissioned Philostratus to
write the biography, where Apollonius is exalted as a
fearless sage with supernatural powers, even greater than
Pythagoras. This view of Julia Domna's role in the making of
the Apollonius-legend gets some support from the fact that
her son Caracalla worshiped him, and her grandnephew emperor
Severus Alexander may have done so as well.
Apollonius was also a known figure in the medieval
Islamic world as described later in this article.
Historical facts
Little can be derived from sources other than Philostratus.
Hence if we dismiss Philostratus’ colorful stories as
fiction, the figure of the historical Apollonius appears to
be rather shadowy. As James Francis put it, "the most that
can be said...is that Apollonius appears to have been a
wandering ascetic/philosopher/wonderworker of a type common
to the eastern part of the early empire." What we can safely
assume is that he was indeed a Pythagorean and as such, in
conformity with the Pythagorean tradition, opposed animal
sacrifice, and lived on a frugal, strictly vegetarian diet.
A minimalist view is that he spent his entire life in the
cities of his native Asia Minor and of northern Syria, in
particular his home town of Tyana, Ephesus, Aegae, and
Antioch, though the letters suggest wider travels, and there
seems no reason to deny that, like many wandering
philosophers, he at least visited Rome. As for his
philosophical convictions, we have an interesting, probably
authentic fragment of one of his writings (On sacrifices)
where he expresses his view that God, who is the most
beautiful being, cannot be influenced by prayers or
sacrifices and has no wish to be worshipped by humans, but
can be reached by a spiritual procedure involving nous,
because he himself is pure nous and nous is also the
greatest faculty of humankind.
Miracles
Philostratus implies on one occasion that Apollonius had
extra-sensory perception (Book VIII, Chapter XXVI). When
emperor Domitian was murdered on September 18, 96 AD,
Apollonius was said to have witnessed the event in Ephesus
"about midday" on the day it happened in Rome, and told
those present "Take heart, gentlemen, for the tyrant has
been slain this day...". The words that Philostratus
attributes to him would make equal sense, however, if
Apollonius had been informed that the emperor would be
killed at noon on Sept. 18th. Both Philostratus and renowned
historian Cassius Dio report this incident, probably on the
basis of an oral tradition. Both state that the philosopher
welcomed the deed as a praiseworthy tyrannicide.
Journey to India
Philostratus devoted two and a half of the eight books of
his Life of Apollonius (1.19–3.58) to the description of a
journey of his hero to India. According to Philostratus'
Life, en route to the Far East, Apollonius reached
Hierapolis Bambyce (Manbij) in Syria (not Nineveh, as some
scholars believed), where he met Damis, a native of that
city who became his lifelong companion. Pythagoras, whom the
Neo-Pythagoreans regarded as an exemplary sage, was believed
to have travelled to India. Hence such a feat made
Apollonius look like a good Pythagorean who spared no pains
in his efforts to discover the sources of oriental piety and
wisdom. As some details in Philostratus’ account of the
Indian adventure seem incompatible with known facts, modern
scholars are inclined to dismiss the whole story as a
fanciful fabrication, but not all of them rule out the
possibility that the Tyanean actually did visit India.
What seemed to be independent evidence showing that
Apollonius was known in India has now been proved to be
forged. In two Sanskrit texts quoted by Sanskritist
Vidhushekhara Bhattacharya in 1943[22] he appears as
"Apalūnya", in one of them together with Damis (called
"Damīśa"), it is claimed that Apollonius and Damis were
Western yogis, who later on were converted to the correct
Advaita philosophy. Some have believed that these Indian
sources derived their information from a Sanskrit
translation of Philostratus’ work (which would have been a
most uncommon and amazing occurrence), or even considered
the possibility that it was really an independent
confirmation of the historicity of the journey to India.
Only in 1995 were the passages in the Sanskrit texts proven
to be interpolations by a modern (late 19th century) forger
.
Writings
Several writings and many letters have been ascribed to
Apollonius, but some of them are lost; others have only been
preserved in parts or fragments of disputed authenticity.
Porphyry and Iamblichus refer to a biography of Pythagoras
by Apollonius, which has not survived; it is also mentioned
in the Suda. Apollonius wrote a treatise On sacrifices, of
which only a short, probably authentic fragment has come
down to us.
Philostratus’ Life and the anthology assembled by John
Stobaeus contain purported letters of Apollonius. Some of
them are cited in full, others only partially. There is also
an independently transmitted collection of letters preserved
in medieval manuscripts. It is difficult to determine what
is authentic and what not. Some of the letters may have been
forgeries or literary exercises assembled in collections
which were already circulated in the 2nd century AD. It has
been asserted that Philostratus himself forged a
considerable part of the letters he inserted into his work;
others were older forgeries available to him.
Impact
Antiquity
In the second century the satirist Lucian of Samosata was a
sharp critic of Neo-Pythagoreanism. After 180 AD he wrote a
pamphlet where he attacked Alexander of Abonoteichus, a
student of one of Apollonius’ students, as a charlatan, and
suggested that the whole school was based on fraud. From
this we can infer that Apollonius really had students and
that his school survived at least till Lucian’s time. One of
Philostratus’ foremost aims was to oppose this view;
although he related various miraculous feats of Apollonius,
he emphasized at the same time that his hero was not a
magician, but a serious philosopher and a champion of
traditional Greek values.
When emperor Aurelian conducted his military campaign
against the Palmyrene Empire, he captured Tyana in 272 AD.
According to the Historia Augusta he abstained from
destroying the city after having a vision of Apollonius
admonishing him to spare the innocent citizens.
In Philostratus’ description of Apollonius’ life and
deeds there are a number of similarities with the life and
especially the claimed miracles of Jesus. Perhaps this
parallel was intentional, but the original aim was hardly to
present Apollonius as a rival of Jesus. However, in the late
third century Porphyry, an anti-Christian Neoplatonic
philosopher, claimed in his treatise Against the Christians
that the miracles of Jesus were not unique, and mentioned
Apollonius as a non-Christian who had accomplished similar
achievements. Around 300, Roman authorities used the fame of
Apollonius in their struggle to wipe out Christianity.
Hierocles, one of the main instigators of the persecution of
Christians in 303, wrote a pamphlet where he argued that
Apollonius exceeded Christ as a wonder-worker and yet wasn’t
worshipped as a god, and that the cultured biographers of
Apollonius were more trustworthy than the uneducated
apostles. This attempt to make Apollonius a hero of the
anti-Christian movement provoked sharp replies from bishop
Eusebius of Caesarea and from Lactantius.[32] Eusebius wrote
an extant reply to the pamphlet of Hierocles, where he
claimed that Philostratus was a fabulist and that Apollonius
was a sorcerer in league with demons. This started a debate
on the relative merits of Jesus and Apollonius that has gone
on in different forms into modern times.
In Late Antiquity talismans made by Apollonius appeared
in several cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, as if they
were sent from heaven. They were magical figures and columns
erected in public places, meant to protect the cities from
afflictions. The great popularity of these talismans was a
challenge to the Christians. Some Byzantine authors
condemned them as sorcery and the work of demons, others
admitted that such magic was beneficial; none of them
claimed that it didn’t work.
In the Western Roman Empire, Sidonius Apollinaris was a
Christian admirer of Apollonius in the 5th century. He
produced a Latin translation of Philostratus’ Life, which is
lost.
Islamic world and Baha’i
Apollonius was a known figure in the medieval Islamic world.
In the Arabic literature he appears as Balīnūs (or Balīnās
or Abūlūniyūs). Arabic-speaking occultists dubbed him "Lord
of the talismans" (Ṣāḥib aṭ-ṭilasmāt) and related stories
about his achievements as a talisman-maker. They appreciated
him as a master of alchemy and a transmitter of Hermetic
knowledge. Some occult writings circulated under his name;
among them were:
the Kitāb Sirr al-ḫalīqa (Book on the Secret of
Creation), also named Kitāb al-῾ilal (Book of the Causes)
the Risāla fī ta�ṯīr ar-rūḥānīyāt fī l-murakkabāt (Treatise
on the influence of the spiritual beings on the composite
things)
al-Mudḫal al-kabīr ilā risālati aṭ-ṭalāsim (Great
introduction to the treatise on the talismans)
the Kitāb ṭalāsim Balīnās al-akbar (Great book of Balinas’
talismans)
the Kitāb Ablūs al-ḥakīm (Book of the sage Ablus)
Medieval alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan's Book of Stones
According to the Opinion of Balīnās contains an exposition
and analysis of views expressed in Arabic occult works
attributed to Apollonius.
There were also medieval Latin and vernacular
translations of Arabic books attributed to “Balinus”.
The Tablet of Wisdom written by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder
of the Bahá'í Faith, names "Balinus" (Apollonius) as a great
philosopher, who "surpassed everyone else in the diffusion
of arts and sciences and soared unto the loftiest heights of
humility and supplication."
Modern era
In Europe, there has been great interest in Apollonius since
the beginning of the 16th century, but the traditional
ecclesiastical viewpoint still prevailed. Till the Age of
Enlightenment the Tyanean was usually treated as a demonic
magician and a great enemy of the Church who collaborated
with the devil and tried to overthrow Christianity. On the
other hand, several advocates of Enlightenment, deism and
anti-Church positions saw him as an early forerunner of
their own ethical and religious ideas, a proponent of a
universal, non-denominational religion compatible with
Reason. In 1680, Charles Blount, a radical English deist,
published the first English translation of the first two
books of Philostratus' Life with an anti-Church
introduction. Voltaire praised Apollonius.
As in Late Antiquity, comparisons between Apollonius and
Jesus became commonplace in the 17th and 18th centuries in
the context of polemic about Christianity. In the Marquis de
Sade's "Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man", the
Dying Man compares Jesus to Apollonius as a false prophet.
Some Theosophists, notably C.W. Leadbeater, Alice A. Bailey,
and Benjamin Creme, have maintained that Apollonius of Tyana
was the reincarnation of the being they call the Master
Jesus. In the 20th century, Ezra Pound evoked Apollonius in
his later Cantos as a figure associated with sun-worship and
a messianic rival to Christ. Pound identifies him as Aryan
within an anti-semitic mythology, and celebrates his solar
worship and aversion to ancient Jewish animal sacrifice. In
the Gerald Messadié's "The man who became god", Apollonius
appears as a wandering philosopher and magician of about the
same age as Jesus. The two of them supposedly met. French
author Maurice Magre also wrote about Apollonius in his
little known book Magicians, Seers, and Mystics.
In fiction
Apollonius appears as a fictional character in the 1935
novel The Circus of Dr. Lao and its 1964 film adaptation, 7
Faces of Dr. Lao. In these, Apollonius works in the circus
as a fortune-teller, who is under a curse — he sees the
future, but can only speak the exact truth, thus seeming to
be cruel and hateful. He is blind and weary after many years
of predicting disappointment for his clients.
The plot of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's 1948
fantasy novel The Carnelian Cube hinges on a magical
artifact passed down by Apollonius.
In the 1975 work The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Apollonius
appears in discussion with Abbie Hoffman.
Apollonius appears as a fictional character in the 1977
television series The Fantastic Journey in the seventh
episode named Funhouse. In this episode, Apollonius attempts
to take possession of the scientist Willaway in a funhouse
but is thwarted by Varian, "a man from the future possessing
awesome powers".
Apollonius appears as a fictional character in the 1996
short story "The Garden of Tantalus" by Brian Stableford,
which combines two of the accounts from Life of Apollonius
of Tyana and removes the mystical aspects, turning it into a
detective story. The narrator, Menippus from the account of
Apollonius and the lamia, blames Damis for making Apollonius
a magician by elaborating on what little of the story he
knew. The story was published in Classical Whodunnits
(1996).
