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Subject: APOLLONIUS 1 THE REAL CHRIST

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Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 07:15:55 +0200



= Apollonius the Nazarene Part 1: The Historical Apollonius Versus the Mythical Jesus By: Dr. R. W. Bernard, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. =A0 In the year 325 A.D. was perpetrated one of the most collosal frauds and = deceptions in the annals of history. This was the date of the Council of = Nicea, whose task it was to create a new religion that would be acceptabl= e to Emperor Constantine, who, at the time, was engaged in the bloody per= secution of those communists and pacifists of ancient times who were know= n as early Christians. What made Constantine, in the midst of his inhuman= massacre of these defenseless and despised people, suddenly take over th= eir religion and become its staunchest protagonist, is one of the enigmas= of history which has never before been elucidated. On this point, Revill= e, a Catholic apologist; writes: = "The acknowledged triumph of Christianity during the reign of Constantine= has always been considered one of the unaccountable revolutions and one = of those historical surprises which, unconnected as they seem to be with = any phenomena of the past might almost seem miraculous. One longs to find= out by what process the human mind passes so rapidly from a contemptuous= and utter denial of the teachings of Christianity to an interest and avo= wed sympathy for the doctrines of the new creed...It was in the fourth ce= ntury, immediately after the most violent persecutions, that Christianity= , though embraced and professed by a minority only, succeeded in attainin= g to a commanding position in matters both social and political." = Aware that the old religion of Rome was in a state of advanced decay and = was daily losing its hold on the people, while the persecuted cult of the= Essenes, or early Christians, in spite of all the efforts to suppress it= through the most bloody and inhuman means, continued to thrive and win t= he increasing respect of the masses, the Church Fathers, themselves previ= ously pagans whose hands were stained with the blood of those from whom t= hey stole their religion, saw that by adopting Christianity (in a revised= form) they could take advantage of the popular prestige created by the m= artyrdom of the early Christian saints, and at the same time win the supp= ort of Constantine, who, in being converted to the Christian faith, could= cover up his own past crimes, gain increased public favor and extend and= consolidate his empire. = In order to make the previously despised cult of the Essenes, or early Ch= ristians, acceptable to Constantine, emperor of Rome - the Church Fathers= had to remove from its teachings certain doctrines which they knew were = objectionable to him. Chief among these was the prohibition against the u= se of meats and wines, which was a cardinal doctrine of early Essene Chri= stianity. It was for this reason that the churchmen at Nicea found it nec= essary to remove from the Gospels these objectionable doctrines, for they= knew that Constantine loved the red meats and flowing wines of his midni= ght revels too much to be willing to accept a religion which required fro= m its adherents complete abstinence from these indulgences, as early Esse= ne Christianity did. To accomplish this, certain "correctors" were appoin= ted, whose task it was to rewrite the Gospels, omitting all that pertaine= d to vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol. The Church Fathers had an= additional reason to do this - for they t! ! hemselves had no desire to make such a radical change in their own living= habits. = That the original Gospels were rewritten and altered at the Council of Ni= cea is indicated by the following statement by Archdeacon Wilberforce, wh= o writes: = "Some are not aware that, after the Council of Nicea, A.D. 325, the manus= cripts of the New Testament were considerably tampered with. Prof. Nestle= , in his `Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek Testament,' = tells us that certain scholars, called `correctores,' were appointed by t= he ecclesiastical authorities, and actually commissioned to correct the t= ext of the Scripture in the interest of what was considered orthodoxy." = Commenting on this statement, Rev. G. J. Ouseley, in his "Gospel of the H= oly Twelve," writes: = "What these `correctores' did was to cut out of the Gospels with minute c= are, certain teachings of our Lord which they did not propose to follow -= - namely, those against the eating of flesh and taking of strong drink --= and everything which might serve as an argument against Flesh eating, su= ch as the accounts of our Lord's interference on several occasions, to sa= me animals from ill-treatment." = There is evidence to indicate that not only were the original doctrines o= f early Essene Christianity radically changed at the Council of Nicea and= replaced by others entirely different, but that the MAN whose life was a= n embodiment of the original doctrines was likewise replaced by another m= an who exemplified the new doctrines. The name of the second man, who was= not a vegetarian and who did not prohibit the killing of animals, was Je= sus Christ, who was put in the place of Apollonius of Tyana, the historic= al world teacher of the first century. = The first act of the Church Fathers, after they created their new religio= n and its messiah, neither of which existed previously, was to burn all b= ooks they could lay their hands on, especially those written during the f= irst few centuries, which made no mention of Jesus and which referred to = Apollonius as the spiritual leader of the first century, realizing as the= y did that such books, if they were not destroyed, constituted a dangerou= s menace to the survival of their deception. It was for this reason that = the churchmen took such great pains to burn the ancient libraries, includ= ing the famous Alexandrian Library with its 400,000 volumes, which was bu= rnt to the ground by edict of Theodosius, when a Christian mob destroyed = the Serapeum where the scrolls and manuscripts were kept. = However, the churchmen failed to their purpose, for prior to its burning = which they foresaw, the librarians of the Alexandrian Library had secretl= y removed from it some of the most precious volumes, which they carried e= astward for safety. = Among the works which were thus saved from the flames of the Alexandrian = Library, the one which has created the most widespread and long-continued= discussion was the "Life of Apollonius of Tyana," written by Flavius Phi= lostratus at the beginning of the third century A.D. As if by irony fate,= this book - which of all books burnt in the Alexandrian Library, was one= of the most dangerous - was preserved down through the centuries, resist= ing all attempts to destroy it. The reason why this book was so much drea= ded by the churchmen was because, while it made no mention whatsoever of = the existence of Jesus or of Christianity, it presented Apollonius of Tya= na as the universally acclaimed world teacher of the first century, rever= enced from one end of the Roman Empire to the other, by everyone, from th= e lowest slave to the Emperor himself. = No book ever written has aroused by heated argument over a longer period = of time than this biography by Philostratus. From the early centuries of = our era, when Hercules and Eusebius first started it, until the days of B= lount, Voltaire and the Deists, the controversy raged unabated. For Philo= stratus, in his book described a character, born in the very year of the = birth of Christ, who, in every respect, was the equal, if not the superio= r, of the Christian messiah. = W. B. Wallace, writing on "The Apollonius of Philostratus," calls Philost= ratus's biography a "pagan counterblast to the gospel of Galilee, represe= nting a Greek saviour as an alternative to the Semitic one." (Westminster= Review, July-Dec. 1902). Furthermore, the main events of the lives of bo= th men were so closely parallel that the reader cannot help but conclude = that if Jesus is not a fictitious imitation of Apollonius, then Apolloniu= s must be an imitation of him, since it would be highly improbable for tw= o such similar men to have been born the same year and to have such simil= ar biographies. = F. A. Campbell, in his `Apollonius of Tyana,' writes: = "The birth of Apollonius is assigned to the year 4 B.C. But as everybody = knows, the current computation of the beginning of the Christian era is i= ncorrect, and the first year of our Lord ought to be dated four or five y= ears earlier. If the Apollonian and Christian nativities both belong to t= he same year, the coincidence is entitled the more attention than it has = received." = "Thankful Tyana, like ungrateful Nazareth, had nursed a prophet of blamel= ess life, of miraculous power, of super-abundant loving-kindness, and of = heroic virtue. Both Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus of Nazareth were born i= n the same lustrum, if not the same year. Both Tyana's babe and Bethlehem= 's were said to have sprung from a divine Father and a human mother, and = both of these holy ones drew their first breath amid gracious portents an= d supernatural singings. Nor were these the only parallels in the memoirs= of the Tyanean and the Nazarene. = "Orthodox Christians had been accustomed to affirm boldly the finality of= Mary's son; but, like a bolt from the blue, here was Philostratus opposi= ng himself to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and offering an alternative Me= ssiah." = Also it is strange that, though they were both supposed to be the greates= t men of their age, they did not know of each other's existence. And sinc= e there is absolutely authentic historical evidence of the existence of A= pollonius, but not a shred of genuine proof of the existence of Jesus, we= must conclude that if one of these figures is fictitious and an imitatio= n of the other, it is Jesus who is the fiction and Apollonius the histori= cal personage. Concerning the existence, or rather, the non-existence, of= Jesus, Tschendorf writes: = "Author after author, volume after volume, of the life of Christ may appe= ar until the archives of the universe are filled, and yet all we have of = the life of Jesus is to be found in Matthew's gospel. Not a single person= specially associated with Jesus impinges history." = In Taylor's "Diegesis," [1829, Oaknam, England] we read: = "We have investigated the claims of every document possessing a plausible= claim to be investigated which history has preserved of the transactions= of the First century and not so much as a single passage, purporting to = have been written at any time within the first hundred years, can be prod= uced to show the existence of such a man as Jesus Christ or of such a set= of men as could be accounted to be his disciples." = Commenting on this statement by Taylor, J. M. Roberts, in his "Antiquity = Unveiled," [1892; Oriental Publishing Co., Philadelphia] writes: = "On the other hand we have abundant proof that Jesus Christ is founded on= the known life of Apollonius of Tyana, the earthly existence of whom has= never been questioned, to which is added passages from the lives of vari= ous personage, and teachings concerning the mythical gods of other lands.= The Prometheus of the Greeks was the character which suggested the cruci= fixion (also the crucifixion of Chrishna in Christosite traditions.) The = Eleusinian mysteries suggested the "Last Supper" and these together with = doctrines of ancient sun worship were gathered and represented to be a hi= story of the events connected with the life of the Christian Jesus. (Prom= etheus on the crag, suffering for the good of mankind, suggests Jesus on = the cross, changing Prometheus for Jesus and the Sythian crag for the cro= ss.) = "In the first chapter of Matthew the geneology of Jesus is given as the t= wenty-eighth generation from David down through Joseph to Christ. In the = third chapter of Luke the same geneology is given as being the forty-thir= d generation from Christ through Joseph to David. This is a very remarkab= le oversight on the part of the translators, for if there was anything th= ey could agree on, it is in regard to the descent of Christ. = "All the Christians that ever lived or ever will live will find their ide= al Jesus but a phantom -- a myth. They can chase it as a child would a bu= tterfly through a meadow on a summer's afternoon, and it will elude their= grasp. The Christian Jesus is nothing more than the Chrishna of the Hind= us." = No contemporary writers who lived at the time when Jesus is supposed to h= ave lived make mention of him; though forged allusions to Jesus occur in = the books of Livy and Josephus. In his "History of the Jews," written in = the First century, at a time when Jesus would have enjoyed his greatest p= opularity among the Jews if he had existed, though pages and pages are de= voted to persons of no importance whatever and who would have been forgot= ten forever had not Josephus mentioned them, there is not a single mentio= n of Jesus in the original edition. On this point, Dr. Edmond B. Szekely,= in his "Origin of Christianity, writes: = "There is not a word, or better, there is no longer a word in the works o= f Flavius Josephus about the Messiah, the Christ crucified by Pontius Pil= ate, except for a crude interpolation, quite obviously false...The silenc= e of Josephus is not due to disdain or studied neutrality." = In an eighth century Slavonic edition of Josephus's book, such an interpo= lation occurs, referring to a certain Jesus, son of Joseph, and which cov= ers only a passing paragraph, the brevity of which clearly reveals its fr= audulent origin, for, if Jesus were mentioned at all, much more space wou= ld have been devoted to him. And coincident with such interpolations of e= arly authors, occurred the censorship of all books making reference to Ap= ollonius, whose name was omitted or abbreviated. (Thus, in the original P= auline Epistles, which, we have reason to believe, originally had Apollon= ius as their central figure and were written by him, his name is abbrevia= ted to "Apollos" and "Pol" (Paul.) = That Apollos (conceded by no less an authority than the Encyclopedia Brit= annica to be an abbreviation of Apollonius) was the real author of the Ep= istle to the Hebrews, falsely attributed to Paul, was the opinion of Mart= in Luther and other eminent scholars. = And if Apollonius wrote some of the so-called Pauline Epistles, there is = a possibility that he may have written others, AND, IN FACT, ALL). = Plutarch, the eminent biographer, who lived between 46 and 120 A. D. woul= d certainly have made mention of Jesus if he had existed, since he wrote = when Jesus's fame would have been at its height. Yet in the voluminous wo= rks of Plutarch, not a single reference to any such man as Jesus can be f= ound. Although Plutarch's miscellaneous writings make mention of or allud= e with unerring certainty to nearly every religious and ethical opinion o= f his time, he is absolutely silent on the subject of Christianity and co= ncerning the existence of Jesus. Though he knew the utmost detail of the = lives of great men who lived centuries ago, we could hardly believe that = Plutarch could have been entirely unaware of the existence of such a grea= t man as Jesus who lived only a few years previously. This is all the mor= e surprising because the provinces of Bithynia and Pontus, where Plutarch= lived, were only a few day's journey from Boetia, where, if we may belie= ve Christian writers, the proselytes of Ch! ! ristianity were swarming at the time. = But while Plutarch belonged to a different race and was born after his al= leged crucifixion, Philo, a Jew, who lived at exactly the same time in th= e first part of the first century, and who visited the Essenes and wrote = about them, should, and above all others, have made mention of Jesus, who= , if he had lived, would undoubtedly have been the leader of this sect. Y= et not one word is found in Philo's writings concerning the existence of = Jesus, any more than is there one word in the original edition of the "Hi= story of the Jews" of Josephus. Nor did any other writer in the first cen= tury mention Jesus. They did not because he did not yet exist. He was fir= st born three centuries later, created by the churchmen at Nicea, in thei= r effort to find an alternative messiah, more pleasing to Constantine and= the Romans, to be put in the place of Apollonius. = That the early Christians themselves, and not only the Pagans, were ignor= ant of the existence of any such man as Jesus, has been clearly proven by= the catacomb researches of Eisler, a student of early Christian archaeol= ogy. In his work, "Orpheus the Fisher," Eisler shows that no representati= ons can be found among the catacomb inscriptions that depict Jesus, the c= ross or the crucifixion. Instead, a Greek figure is represented as the le= ader of the sect, a vegetarian and friend of animals, depicted either und= er the fig - of Orpheus playing his lyre and surrounded by friendly anima= ls, or as the Good Shepherd (Hermes) carrying a lamb around his neck. The= se representations obviously refer to Apollonius whose cardinal teachings= consisted of vegetarianism and the abolition of animal sacrifices. Eisle= r's findings were further verified by Lundy, who, in his "Monumental Chri= stianity," a work on early Christian archaeology, likewise reports the en= tire absence of any reference in the catac! ! omb inscriptions to Jesus or a crucified saviour, in whose place is found= the familiar Greek figures of Orpheus and the Good Shepherd, who are rep= resented as friends of animals. = The closest original that can be found of the Jesus of the New Testament = is a rabbi named Jehoshua Ben Pandira, who lived about a century B. C. In= his "Life of Jehoshua," Dr. Franz Hartman states that this illegitimate = child of a Jewish maiden, Stada, and a Roman soldier, Pandira, who is men= tioned in the Talmud, was the original Jesus. He was referred to as a rab= bi of not very great importance, who studied the mysteries in Egypt, and = who was put to death by stoning after an attempted crucifixion. = Seeking a substitute for Apollonius, the Church fathers seized upon Jehos= hua, and changing his name to that of the Druid sun god, HESUS, and shift= ing the date of his birth forward a century, he was transformed into Jesu= s. On this subject, Manly Hall writes: "It is very possible that the earl= y Church Fathers, seeking desperately for a concrete human being on which= to hang the fabric of their faith, picked Jehoshua Ben Pandira as the ne= arest parallel to be found among the Jewish rabbins. Armed with this smal= l fragment of history, they proceeded to correlate the two; building in a= little here; and removing same contradictory fragment there, until, lo, = and behold, the 'King of Kings' is a Nazarene, in spite of the popular op= inion that nothing good can come out of Nazareth. = "This Further explains why Helena, the mother of Constantine, within thre= e hundred years after the death of Jesus, was unable to find in all of Je= wry any man who had even heard of him. According to the story, she finall= y came upon one aged man who claimed to have heard that Jesus had lived. = He took her to an old Roman execution field where the excavation revealed= a number of crosses. When the whole matter had been settled to every one= 's satisfaction, Constantine, to show his extreme veneration, had one of = the passion nails pounded into a bit for his horse. = "The most perplexing and comparatively unsolved mystery with which the Ch= ristian theologian is faced is the almost complete lack of historical evi= dence concerning the life of Christ. If we accept a few palpable forgerie= s, our knowledge of the life of Christ is based principally upon the acco= unts given in the Gospels... The gravest doubts exist as to the authorshi= p of the gospels of the New Testament. The Encyclopedia Brittannica ackno= wledges not only these doubts, but admits that there is no proof of any k= ind that the Gospels were written by the men whose names have been affixe= d to them in more recent time." = In 1894, there appeared a remarkable book written by J. M. Roberts entitl= ed "Antiquity Unveiled," in which evidence was presented to prove that no= such man as Jesus of Nazareth ever lived, but the name was adopted by th= e framers of Christianity to cover the identity of Apollonius of Tyana wh= ose teachings and mode of life they purloined and made use of as a model = upon which to construct their system." He adds: "The world has the uncont= rovertible testimony that Christianity is of spurious origin and the most= consummate piece of plagiarism in human history." = In sharp contrast with the scarcity, or rather the absence of information= regarding Jesus, is the abundance of reliable historical data available = concerning Apollonius of Tyana, who, during the first century, enjoyed un= iversal fame from one end of the Roman empire to the other, being honored= by all. More than seventeen temples were dedicated to him in various par= ts of the empire. Nearly a dozen Roman Emperors held him in awe and rever= ence. (The Roman emperors; Vespasian, Titus and Nerva, were all, prior to= their elevation to the throne, friends and admirers of Apollonius, while= Nero and Domitian regarded the philosopher with dismay.) The Emperor Sep= timus Severus (A.D. 193-211 erected a statue to him in his gallery of dei= ties in the Pantheon, while his son, Emperor Caracella, honored his memor= y with a chapel or monument. = Lampridus, who lived in the third century, further informs us that the Em= peror Alexander Severus (A. D. 222-235) placed a statue of Apollonius in = his labarium side by side with one of Orpheus. = It was the wife of Septimus Severus, the empress Julia Domna who commissi= oned the philosopher, Philostratus, a member of a circle of writers who c= ollected around her, to write the life of Apollonius of Tyana, based on m= anuscripts in her possession, chiefly the memoirs of Apollonius's discipl= e and traveling companion, Damis, in addition to records preserved in dif= ferent cities where Apollonius was held in esteem -- from temples whose l= ong-disused rite he restored, from traditions, from epistles of Apolloniu= s addressed to kings and sophists and from his letters -- of which the Em= peror Hadrian had made a collection which he deposited in his palace at A= ntium. (Julia Domna, known as the philosopher-empress because she was sur= rounded by men of letters and philosophers and dispensed enlightened patr= onage to thought and learning, was the daughter of Bassiamus, priest of t= he sun at Emesa in Syria. Philostratus was a member of a group of famous = writers and thinkers who gathered around h! ! er. She was a woman of high intelligence and remarkable purity of charact= er, living in seclusion and devoting her time to literature and philosoph= y in her extensive library. As in the case of Sappho, a woman of egually = exemplary morality, she was falsely defamed by the scribes of the same ch= urchmen who were later responsible for the brutal murder of Hypatia. Thes= e three greatest women of antiquity, together with Joan of Arc, the great= est woman of modern times, were all victims of a criminally jealous male = clerical fraternity. = Another biography of Apollonius was written by Soterichur of Oasis during= the reign of Diocletian, but is non-existent, having been destroyed by t= he Christians together with other ancient writings referring to him. Stil= l another biography was written by Moeragenes, which was likewise lost. = Though written in the early part of the third century A.D., Philostratus'= s biography of Apollonius of Tyana was not permitted to be publish.ed in = Europe until the year 1501, when Aldus printed the first Latin edition to= appear in Europe. This was followed by an Italian and French translation= , but it was not until 1680 that the first English translation was made b= y Blount, an English Deist. = Blount's notes on the book raised such an outcry that, in 1693, the book = was condemned by the church and its further publication forbidden. (Conce= rning the effects of Blount's translation; Campbell, in his "Apollonius o= f Tyana," writes: "Fierce passions were let loose. Sermons, pamphlets and= volumes descended upon the presumptious Blount like fireballs and hailst= ones and his adversaries did not rest until the authorities had forbidden= him to print the remaining six books of his translation.") = In his notes, Blount pointed out that, "we must either admit the truth of= the miracles of Apollonius as well as those of Jesus, or, if the former = were untrue, there would be no better ground to believe in the latter." A= century later Blount's notes were translated into French by the Encyclop= edists. However, a century before Blount - Voltaire, Le Grand d'Aussy, Ca= stillon and other French Deists wrote to the same effect, considering Apo= llonius as a far more authentic historical figure than Jesus, and fully h= is equal in every respect and as worthy of performing miracles if such we= re possible. (Francis Bacon also spoke of Apollonius in the highest terms= =2E In Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" - which some have attributed to B= acon's authorship - appeared a quotation from Philostratus's biography of= Apollonius to which Keats later referred in a footnote in his "Lamia.") = Blount, however, had translated only the first two books of Philostratus'= s work (there were eight in all, the remaining six remaining unpublished)= ; and it was not until 1809 that the first complete English version was m= ade by Edward Herwick. (In his preface of his work entitled "The First Tw= o Books of Philostratus Concerning the Life of Apollonius to which Tyaneu= s, written originally in Greek, and now published in English," Blount, in= self-protection, and obviously expressing opinions the opposite of what = he really believed, humbly described his book as "no more than a bare nar= rative of the life of a philosopher, not of a new Messiah, or any ways in= opposition to the old; no, Philostratus does not anywhere so much as men= tion the name of Christ. And if one Heathen Writer (Heirocles) did make a= n ill sue of this history, by comparing Apollonius with Christ, what is t= hat to Philostratus, who never meant nor designed it so, as I can anywher= e find? However Eusebius hath already conf! ! uted Hierocles, which confutation I had intended to have annexed to Philo= stratus as an antidote." = "The whole translation I have already finished, and had proceeded thus fa= r as you see in my illustration, when I found the alarm was given in all = parts what a Dangerous Hook was coming out; such a book as would unmask a= ll practical atheists, which (they being the greater number of men, might= therefore prove of pernicious consequence to the public. Above all, the = Popish Clergy thought themselves chiefly concerned herein, who are so zea= lously revengeful and malicious, that I feared it is might fare with me a= s it did with poor Esop, (who notwithstanding he had broken jests upon se= veral great kings and potentates without being punished for the same, yet= only speaking against the priests of Delphos cost him his life.) = "Wherefore, if the Clergy would have Apollonius esteemed a Rogue and a Ju= ggler, that being risen from the dead, he is one of the principal fomente= rs of this Popish Plot; or that there never was any such man as Apolloniu= s, with all my heart, what they please. For I had much rather have him de= cried in his reputation than that some grave Cardinal, with his long bear= d, and his excommunicative 'Ha', should have me burnt for a heretic.") = Herwick's volume became so rare that in 1907, two London book dealers of = world-wide reputation searched and even advertised in vain for a copy. Th= is indicates how well the ecclesiastical suppression of this dreaded book= had succeeded. And while today scarcely a person can be found, even amon= g the most educated, who even heard the name of Apollonius of Tyana, much= less knew anything about him, according to Campbell, "There was a day wh= en the name of Philostratus and Apollonius of Tyana was on every educated= Englishman's tongue," even though sectarian prejudice against Apollonius= characterizes every writer prior to the nineteenth century. The populari= ty of Apollonius in ancient times stands in sharp contrast to his almost = complete oblivion today. = That Apollonius, a mere man, should rival Jesus, a god, in so many import= ant respects, in the eyes of the churchmen constituted an important reaso= n to suppress Philostratus's book, since it tended to belittle the dignit= y of their savior. That Philostratus composed his "Life of Apollonius of = Tyana" as a pagan counterblast to the Christian gospels is an opinion whi= ch has been held by reputable scholars both before and after Blount's day= =2E (This opinion, which has been widely held by Christian writers, is ev= idently false, since Christianity as we know it did not exist at the time= when Philostratus wrote, for he makes no mention of Jesus or of Christia= nity. In spite of this fact, the book has always been held with the great= est suspicion; and, even after the Renaissance, when it was introduced in= to Europe, Aldus hesitated for a time before he gave the right to publish= it, at last resolving to do so, but adding to the text a reply by Eusebi= us to Hierocles' criticism of Christianity, ! ! in which he opposed the Apollonian to the Christian miracles, thereby, as= he expressed it, giving "the antidote with the poison.") = Thus, the Bishop of Avranches, writing in the seventeenth century, expres= sed this view as follows: "Philostratus seems to have made it his chief a= im to deprecate both the Christian faith and Christian doctrine, both of = which were progressing wonderfully at that time, by the exhibition on the= opposite side of that shallow representation of a miraculous science, ho= liness and virtue. He invented a character in imitation of Christ, and in= troduced almost all the incidents in the life of Jesus Christ into the hi= story of Apollonius, in order that the pagans might have no cause to envy= the Christians by doing which he inadvertently enhanced the glory of Chr= ist, for by falsely attributing to another the real character of the Savi= or, he gave to the latter the praise which is His just due, and indirectl= y held Him up as the admiration and praise of others." = Tredwell, in his "Sketch of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana," writes: = "From the time that disputes began concerning the Christian religion, Chr= istians have charged Philostratus with having appropriated the events and= miracles contained in Matthew's gospel to adorn his life of Apollonius o= f Tyana, and the pagans have made countercharges of plagiarism against th= e writer of this gospel. Upon the earlier accounts of Apollonius these ch= arges have been held to be of sufficient importance to meet with efforts = of refutation from eminent Christians; even as late as our day, Rev. Albe= rt Reville did not think it beneath his dignity nor his great learning, t= o attempt in 1866 a refutation of `this great and monstrous infidel sland= er.' He attempted to show in a little book bearing the title of `Apolloni= us the Pagan Christ of the Third Century' (meaning the first century) tha= t Philostratus had borrowed leading facts from the Gospel of Matthew. Mir= aculous phenomena were related almost identical with that record by Matth= ew in his gospel of Jesus Christ. And whil! ! e Jesus is said to have been casting out devils in Galilee, Apollonius wa= s, according to a tradition quite as trustworthy, rendering mankind a sim= ilar service in Greece. Such was the opinion of Catholic writers on the s= ubject; and, according to Daniel Huet, this statement by the Bishop of Av= ranches `ever since that time has had great weight with all thoughtful mi= nds.'" = ******* =
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