As for Tredwell’s somewhat pretentious volume which, being in English, is accessible to the general reader, it is largely reactionary, and is used as a cover for adverse criticism of the Christian origins from a Secularist standpoint which denies at the outset the possibility of “miracle” in any meaning of the word. A mass of well-known numismatological and other matter, which is entirely irrelevant, but which seems to be new and surprising to the author, is introduced, and a map is prefixed to the title-page purporting to give the itineraries of Apollonius, but having little reference to the text of Philostratus. Indeed, nowhere does Tredwell show that he is working on the text itself, and the subject in his hands is but an excuse for a rambling dissertation on the first century in general from his own standpoint.
This is all regrettable, for with the exception of Berwick’s translation, which is almost unprocurable, we have nothing of value in English for the general reader,53except Sinnett’s shortsketch, which is descriptive rather than critical or explanatory.
So far then for the history of the Apollonius of opinion; we will now turn to the Apollonius of Philostratus, and attempt if possible to discover some traces of the man as he was in history, and the nature of his life and work.
Flavius Philostratus, the writer of the only Life of Apollonius which has come down to us,54was a distinguished man of letters who lived in the last quarter of the second and the first half of the third century (cir.175-245a.d.). He formed one of the circle of famous writers and thinkers gathered round the philosopher-empress,55Julia Domna, who was the guiding spirit of the Empire during the reigns of her husband Septimius Severus and her son Caracalla. All three members of the imperial family were students of occult science, and the age was preeminently one in which the occult arts, good and bad, were a passion. Thus the sceptical Gibbon, in his sketch of Severus and his famous consort, writes:
“Like most of the Africans, Severus waspassionately addicted to the vain studies of magic and divination, deeply versed in the interpretation of dreams and omens, and perfectly acquainted with the science of judicial astrology, which in almost every age except the present, has maintained its dominion over the mind of man. He had lost his first wife whilst he was governor of the Lionnese Gaul. In the choice of a second, he sought only to connect himself with some favourite of fortune; and as soon as he had discovered that a young lady of Emesa in Syria hada royal nativity56he solicited and obtained her hand. Julia Domna57(for that was her name) deserved all that the stars could promise her. She possessed, even in an advanced age,58the attractions of beauty, and united to a lively imagination a firmness of mind, and strength of judgment, seldom bestowed on her sex. Her amiable qualities never made any deep impression on the dark and jealous temper of her husband,59but in her son’s reign, she administered the principal affairs of the Empire with a prudence that supported his authority, and with a moderation that sometimes correctedhis wild extravagances. Julia applied herself to letters and philosophy with some success, and with the most splendid reputation. She was the patroness of every art, and the friend of every man of genius.”60
We thus see, even from Gibbon’s somewhat grudging estimate, that Domna Julia was a woman of remarkable character, whose outer acts give evidence of an inner purpose, and whose private life has not been written. It was at her request that Philostratus wrote the Life of Apollonius, and it was she who supplied him with certain MSS. that were in her possession, as a basis; for the beautiful daughter of Bassianus, priest of the sun at Emesa, was an ardent collector of books from every part of the world, especially of the MSS. of philosophers and of memoranda and biographical notes relating to the famous students of the inner nature of things.
That Philostratus was the best man to whom to entrust so important a task, is doubtful. It is true that he was a skilled stylist and a practised man of letters, an art critic and an ardent antiquarian, as we may see from his other works; but he was a sophist rather than a philosopher, and though an enthusiastic admirer of Pythagoras and his school, was so from adistance, regarding it rather through a wonder-loving atmosphere of curiosity and the embellishments of a lively imagination than from a personal acquaintance with its discipline, or a practical knowledge of those hidden forces of the soul with which its adepts dealt. We have, therefore, to expect a sketch of the appearance of a thing by one outside, rather than an exposition of the thing itself from one within.
The following is Philostratus’ account of the sources from which he derived his information concerning Apollonius:61
“I have collected my materials partly from the cities which loved him, partly from the temples whose rites and regulations he restored from their former state of neglect, partly from what others have said about him, and partly from his own letters.62More detailed information I procured as follows. Damis was a man of some education who formerly used tolive in the ancient city of Ninus.63He became a disciple of Apollonius and recorded his travels, in which he says he himself took part, and also the views, sayings, and predictions of his master. A member of Damis’ family brought the Empress Julia the note-books64containing these memoirs, which up to that time had not been known of. As I was one of the circle of this princess, who was a lover and patroness of all literary productions, she ordered me to rewrite these sketches and improve their form of expression, for though the Ninevite expressed himself clearly, his style was far from correct. I also have had access to a book by Maximus65of Ægæ which contained all Apollonius’ doings at Ægæ.66There is also a will written by Apollonius, from which we can learn how he almost deified philosophy.67As to the four books of Mœragenes68on Apollonius they do not deserveattention, for he knows nothing of most of the facts of his life” (i. 2, 3).
These are the sources to which Philostratus was indebted for his information, sources which are unfortunately no longer accessible to us, except perhaps a few letters. Nor did Philostratus spare any pains to gather information on the subject, for in his concluding words (viii. 31), he tells us that he has himself travelled into most parts of the “world” and everywhere met with the “inspired sayings”69of Apollonius, and that he was especially well acquainted with the temple dedicated to the memory of our philosopher at Tyana and founded at the imperial expense (“for the emperors had judged him not unworthy of like honours with themselves”), whose priests, it is to be presumed, had got together as much information as they could concerning Apollonius.
A thoroughly critical analysis of the literary effort of Philostratus, therefore, would have to take into account all of these factors, and endeavour to assign each statement to its original source. But even then the task of the historian would be incomplete, for it is transparently evident that Philostratus has considerably“embellished” the narrative with numerous notes and additions of his own and with the composition of set speeches.
Now as the ancient writers did not separate their notes from the text, or indicate them in any distinct fashion, we have to be constantly on our guard to detect the original sources from the glosses of the writer.70In fact Philostratus is ever taking advantage of the mention of a name or a subject to display his own knowledge, which is often of a most legendary and fantastic nature. This is especially the case in his description of Apollonius’ Indian travels. India at that time and long afterwards was considered the “end of the world,” and an infinity of the strangest “travellers’ tales” and mythological fables were in circulation concerning it. One has only to read the accounts of the writers on India71from the time of Alexander onwards to discover the source of most of the strange incidents that Philostratus records as experiences of Apollonius. To take but one instance out of a hundred, Apollonius had to cross the Caucasus, an indefinite name for the great system of mountain ranges that bound the northern limits of Āryāvarta. Prometheus was chained to the Caucasus, so every child had been told for centuries. Therefore, if Apollonius crossed the Caucasus, he must have seen those chains. And so it was, Philostratus assures us (ii. 3). Not only so, but he volunteers the additional information that you could not tell of what they were made! A perusal of Megasthenes, however, will speedily reduce the long Philostratian account of the Indian travels of Apollonius (i. 41-iii. 58) to a very narrow compass, for page after page is simply padding, picked up from any one of the numerous Indica to which our widely read author had access.72To judge from such writers, Porus73(the Rājāh conquered by Alexander) was the immemorial king of India. In fact, in speaking of India or any other little-known country, a writer in these days had to drag in all that popular legend associated with it or he stood little chance of being listened to. He hadto give his narrative a “local colour,” and this was especially the case in a technical rhetorical effort like that of Philostratus.
Again, it was the fashion to insert set speeches and put them in the mouths of well-known characters on historical occasions, good instances of which may be seen in Thucydides and the Acts of the Apostles. Philostratus repeatedly does this.
But it would be too long to enter into a detailed investigation of the subject, although the writer has prepared notes on all these points, for that would be to write a volume and not a sketch. Only a few points are therefore set down, to warn the student to be ever on his guard to sift out Philostratus from his sources.74
But though we must be keenly alive to the importance of a thoroughly critical attitude where definite facts of history are concerned, we should be as keenly on our guard against judging everything from the standpoint of modern preconceptions. There is but one religious literature of antiquity that has ever been treated with real sympathy in the West, and that is the Judæo-Christian; in that alone have men beentrained to feel at home, and all in antiquity that treats of religion in a different mode to the Jewish or Christian way, is felt to be strange, and, if obscure or extraordinary, to be even repulsive. The sayings and doings of the Jewish prophets, of Jesus, and of the Apostles, are related with reverence, embellished with the greatest beauties of diction, and illumined with the best thought of the age; while the sayings and doings of other prophets and teachers have been for the most part subjected to the most unsympathetic criticism, in which no attempt is made to understand their standpoint. Had even-handed justice been dealt out all round, the world to-day would have been richer in sympathy, in wide-mindedness, in comprehension of nature, humanity, and God, in brief, in soul-experience.
Therefore, in reading the Life of Apollonius let us remember that we have to look at it through the eyes of a Greek, and not through those of a Jew or a Protestant. The Many in their proper sphere must be for us as authentic a manifestation of the Divine as the One or the All, for indeed the “Gods” exist in spite of commandment and creed. The Saints and Martyrs and Angels have seemingly taken the places of the Heroes and Dæmons and Gods, but the change of name and change of view-point among men affect but little the unchangeable facts. To sensethe facts of universal religion under the ever-changing names which men bestow upon them, and then to enter with full sympathy and comprehension into the hopes and fears of every phase of the religious mind—to read, as it were, the past lives of our own souls—is a most difficult task. But until we can put ourselves understandingly in the places of others, we can never see more than one side of the Infinite Life of God. A student of comparative religion must not be afraid of terms; he must not shudder when he meets with “polytheism,” or draw back in horror when he encounters “dualism,” or feel an increased satisfaction when he falls in with “monotheism”; he must not feel awe when he pronounces the name of Yahweh and contempt when he utters the name of Zeus; he must not picture a satyr when he reads the word “dæmon,” and imagine a winged dream of beauty when he pronounces the word “angel.” For him heresy and orthodoxy must not exist; he sees only his own soul slowly working out its own experience, looking at life from every possible view-point, so that haply at last he may see the whole, and having seen the whole, may become at one with God.
To Apollonius the mere fashion of a man’s faith was unessential; he was at home in all lands, among all cults. He had a helpful word for all,an intimate knowledge of the particular way of each of them, which enabled him to restore them to health. Such men are rare; the records of such men are precious, and require the embellishments of no rhetorician.
Let us then, first of all, try to recover the outline of the early external life and of the travels of Apollonius shorn of Philostratus’ embellishments, and then endeavour to consider the nature of his mission, the manner of the philosophy which he so dearly loved and which was to him his religion, and last, if possible, the way of his inner life.
Apollonius was born75at Tyana, a city in the south of Cappadocia, somewhen in the early years of the Christian era. His parents were of ancient family and considerable fortune (i. 4). At an early age he gave signs of a very powerful memory and studious disposition, and was remarkable for his beauty. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Tarsus, a famous centre of learning of the time, to complete his studies. But mere rhetoric and style and the life of the “schools” were little suited to his serious disposition, and he speedily left for Ægæ, a town on the sea-coast east of Tarsus. Here he found surroundings more suitable to his needs, and plunged with ardour into the study of philosophy. He became intimate with the priests of the temple of Æsculapius, where cures were still wrought, andenjoyed the society and instruction of pupils and teachers of the Platonic, Stoic, Peripatetic, and Epicurean schools of philosophy; but though he studied all these systems of thought with attention, it was the lessons of the Pythagorean school upon which he seized with an extraordinary depth of comprehension,76and that, too, although his teacher, Euxenus, was but a parrot of the doctrines and not a practiser of the discipline. But such parrotting was not enough for the eager spirit of Apollonius; his extraordinary “memory,” which infused life into the dull utterances of his tutor, urged him on, and at the age of sixteen “he soared into the Pythagorean life, winged by some greater one.”77Nevertheless he retained his affection for the man who had told him of the way, and rewarded him handsomely (i. 7).
When Euxenus asked him how he would begin his new mode of life he replied: “As doctors purge their patients.” Hence he refused to touch anything that had animal life in it, on the ground that it densified the mind and rendered it impure. He considered that the only pure form of food was what the earth produced, fruits and vegetables. He also abstained from wine, for though it was made from fruit, “it rendered turbid theæther78in the soul” and “destroyed the composure of the mind.” Moreover, he went barefoot, let his hair grow long, and wore nothing but linen. He now lived in the temple, to the admiration of the priests and with the express approval of Æsculapius,79and he rapidly became so famous for his asceticism and pious life, that a saying80of the Cilicians about him became a proverb (i. 8).
At the age of twenty his father died (his mother having died some years before) leaving a considerable fortune, which Apollonius was to share with his elder brother, a wild and dissolute youth of twenty-three. Being still a minor, Apollonius continued to reside at Ægæ, where the temple of Æsculapius had now become a busy centre of study, and echoed from one end to the other with the sound of lofty philosophical discourses. On coming of age he returned to Tyana to endeavour to rescue his brother from his vicious life. His brother had apparently exhausted his legal share of the property, and Apollonius at once made over half of his ownportion to him, and by his gentle admonitions restored him to his manhood. In fact he seems to have devoted his time to setting in order the affairs of the family, for he distributed the rest of his patrimony among certain of his relatives, and kept for himself but a bare pittance; he required but little, he said, and should never marry (i. 13).
He now took the vow of silence for five years, for he was determined not to write on philosophy until he had passed through this wholesome discipline. These five years were passed mostly in Pamphylia and Cilicia, and though he spent much time in study, he did not immure himself in a community or monastery but kept moving about and travelling from city to city. The temptations to break his self-imposed vow were enormous. His strange appearance drew everyone’s attention, the laughter-loving populace made the silent philosopher the butt of their unscrupulous wit, and all the protection he had against their scurrility and misconceptions was the dignity of his mien and the glance of eyes that now could see both past and future. Many a time he was on the verge of bursting out against some exceptional insult or lying gossip, but ever he restrained himself with the words: “Heart, patient be, and thou, my tongue, be still”81(i. 14).
Yet even this stern repression of the common mode of speech did not prevent his good doing. Even at this early age he had begun to correct abuses. With eyes and hands and motions of the head, he made his meaning understood, and on one occasion, at Aspendus in Pamphylia, prevented a serious corn riot by silencing the crowd with his commanding gestures and then writing what he had to say on his tablets (i. 15).
So far, apparently, Philostratus has been dependent upon the account of Maximus of Ægæ, or perhaps only up to the time of Apollonius’ quitting Ægæ. There is now a considerable gap in the narrative, and two short chapters of vague generalities (i. 16, 17) are all that Philostratus can produce as the record of some fifteen or twenty82years, until Damis’ notes begin.
After the five years of silence, we find Apollonius at Antioch, but this seems to be only an incident in a long round of travel and work, and it is probable that Philostratus brings Antioch into prominence merely because what little he had learnt of this period of Apollonius’ life, he picked up in this much-frequented city.
Even from Philostratus himself we learn incidentally later on (i. 20; iv. 38) that Apollonius had spent some time among the Arabians, and had been instructed by them. And by Arabia we are to understand the country south of Palestine, which was at this period a regular hot-bed of mystic communities. The spots he visited were in out-of-the-way places, where the spirit of holiness lingered, and not the crowded and disturbed cities, for the subject of his conversation, he said, required “menand not people.”83He spent his time in travelling from one to another of these temples, shrines, and communities; from which we may conclude that there was some kind of a common freemasonry, as it were, among them, of the nature of initiation, which opened the door of hospitality to him.
But wherever he went, he always held to a certain regular division of the day. At sun-rise he practised certain religious exercises alone, the nature of which he communicated only to those who had passed through the discipline of a “four years’” (? five years’) silence. He then conversed with the temple priests or the heads of the community, according as he was staying in a Greek or non-Greek temple with public rites,or in a community with a discipline peculiar to itself apart from the public cult.84
He thus endeavoured to bring back the public cults to the purity of their ancient traditions, and to suggest improvements in the practices of the private brotherhoods. The most important part of his work was with those who were following the inner life, and who already looked upon Apollonius as a teacher of the hidden way. To these his comrades (ἑταίρους) and pupils (ὁμιλητάς), he devoted much attention, being ever ready to answer their questions and give advice and instruction. Not however that he neglected the people; it was his invariable custom to teach them, but always after mid-day; for those who lived the inner life,85he said, should on day’s dawning enter the presence of the Gods,86then spend the time till mid-day in giving and receiving instruction in holy things, and not till after noon devote themselves to human affairs. That is to say, the morning was devoted by Apollonius to the divine science, and the afternoon to instruction in ethics and practical life. After the day’s work he bathed in cold water, as did so many of the mystics ofthe time in those lands, notably the Essenes and Therapeuts (i. 16).
“After these things,” says Philostratus, as vaguely as the writer of a gospel narrative, Apollonius determined to visit the Brachmanes and Sarmanes.87What induced our philosopher to make so long and dangerous a journey nowhere appears from Philostratus, who simply says that Apollonius thought it a good thing for a young man88to travel. It is abundantly evident, however, that Apollonius never travelled merely for the sake of travelling. What he does he does with a distinct purpose. And his guides on this occasion, as he assures his disciples who tried to dissuade him from his endeavour and refused to accompany him, were wisdom and his inner monitor (dæmon). “Since ye are faint-hearted,” says the solitary pilgrim, “I bid you farewell. As for myself I must go whithersoever wisdom and my inner self may lead me. The Gods are my advisers and I can but rely on their counsels” (i. 18).
And so Apollonius departs from Antioch and journeys on to Ninus, the relic of the once great Nina or Nineveh. There he meets with Damis, who becomes his constant companion and faithful disciple. “Let us go together,” says Damis in words reminding us somewhat of the words of Ruth. “Thou shalt follow God, and I thee!” (i. 19).
From this point Philostratus professes to base himself to a great extent on the narrative of Damis, and before going further, it is necessary to try to form some estimate of the character of Damis, and discover how far he was admitted to the real confidence of Apollonius.
Damis was an enthusiast who loved Apollonius with a passionate affection. He saw in his master almost a divine being, possessed of marvellous powers at which he continually wondered, but which he could never understand. Like Ānanda, the favourite disciple of theBuddha and his constant companion, Damis advanced but slowly in comprehension of the real nature of spiritual science; he had ever to remain in the outer courts of the temples and communities into whose shrines and inner confidence Apollonius had full access, while he frequently states his ignorance of his master’s plans and purposes.89The additional fact that he refers to his notes as the “crumbs”90from the “feasts of the Gods” (i. 19), those feasts of which he could for the most part only learn at secondhand what little Apollonius thought fit to tell him, and which he doubtless largely misunderstood and clothed in his own imaginings, would further confirm this view, if any further confirmation were necessary. But indeed it is very manifest everywhere that Damis was outside the circle of initiation, and this accounts both for his wonder-loving point of view and his general superficiality.
Another fact that comes out prominently from the narrative is his timid nature.91He is continually afraid for himself or for his master; and even towards the end, when Apollonius is imprisoned by Domitian, it requires the phenomenal removal of the fetters before hiseyes to assure him that Apollonius is a willing victim.
Damis loves and wonders; seizes on unimportant detail and exaggerates it, while he can only report of the really important things what he fancies to have taken place from a few hints of Apollonius. As his story advances, it is true it takes on a soberer tint; but what Damis omits, Philostratus is ever ready to supply from his own store of marvels, if chance offers.
Nevertheless, even were we with the scalpel of criticism to cut away every morsel of flesh from this body of tradition and legend, there would still remain a skeleton of fact that would still represent Apollonius and give us some idea of his stature.
Apollonius was one of the greatest travellers known to antiquity. Among the countries and places he visited the following are the chief ones recorded by Philostratus.92
From Ninus (i. 19) Apollonius journeys to Babylon (i. 21), where he stops one year and eight months (i. 40) and visits surrounding cities such as Ecbatana, the capital of Media (i. 39); from Babylon to the Indian frontier no namesare mentioned; India was entered in every probability by the Khaibar Pass (ii. 6),93for the first city mentioned is Taxila (Attock) (ii. 20); and so they make their way across the tributaries of the Indus (ii. 43) to the valley of the Ganges (iii. 5), and finally arrive at the “monastery of the wise men” (iii. 10), where Apollonius spends four months (iii. 50).
This monastery was presumably in Nepāl; it is in the mountains, and the “city” nearest it is called Paraca. The chaos that Philostratus has made of Damis’ account, and before him the wonderful transformations Damis himself wrought in Indian names, are presumably shown in this word. Paraca is perchance all that Damis could make of Bharata, the general name of the Ganges valley in which the dominant Āryas were settled. It is also probable that these wise men were Buddhists, for they dwelt in a τύρσις, a place that looked like a fort or fortress to Damis.
I have little doubt that Philostratus couldmake nothing out of the geography of India from the names in Damis’ diary; they were all unfamiliar to him, so that as soon as he has exhausted the few Greek names known to him from the accounts of the expedition of Alexander, he wanders in the “ends of the earth,” and can make nothing of it till he picks up our travellers again on their return journey at the mouth of the Indus. The salient fact that Apollonius was making for a certain community, which was his peculiar goal, so impressed the imagination of Philostratus (and perhaps of Damis before him) that he has described it as being the only centre of the kind in India. Apollonius went to India with a purpose and returned from it with a distinct mission;94and perchance his constant inquiries concerning the particular “wise men” whom he was seeking, led Damis to imagine that they alone were the “Gymnosophists,” the “naked philosophers” (if we are to take the term in its literal sense) of popular Greek legend, which ignorantly ascribed to all the Hindu ascetics the most striking peculiarity of a very small number. But to return to our itinerary.
Philostratus embellishes the account of the voyage from the Indus to the mouth of theEuphrates (iii. 52-58) with the travellers’ tales and names of islands and cities he has gleaned from the Indica which were accessible to him, and so we again return to Babylon and familiar geography with the following itinerary:
Babylon, Ninus, Antioch, Seleucia, Cyprus; thence to Ionia (iii. 58), where he spends some time in Asia Minor, especially at Ephesus (iv. 1), Smyrna (iv. 5), Pergamus (iv. 9), and Troy (iv. 11). Thence Apollonius crosses over to Lesbos (iv. 13), and subsequently sails for Athens, where he spends some years in Greece (iv. 17-33) visiting the temples of Hellas, reforming their rites and instructing the priests (iv. 24). We next find him in Crete (iv. 34), and subsequently at Rome in the time of Nero (iv. 36-46).
Ina.d.66 Nero issued a decree forbidding any philosopher to remain in Rome, and Apollonius set out for Spain, and landed at Gades, the modern Cadiz; he seems to have stayed in Spain only a short time (iv. 47); thence crossed to Africa, and so by sea once more to Sicily, where the principal cities and temples were visited (v. 11-14). Thence Apollonius returned to Greece (v. 18), four years having elapsed since his landing at Athens from Lesbos (v. 19).95
From Piræus our philosopher sails for Chios (v. 21), thence to Rhodes, and so to Alexandria (v. 24). At Alexandria he spends some time, and has several interviews with the future Emperor Vespasian (v. 27-41), and thence he sets out on a long journey up the Nile as far as Ethiopia beyond the cataracts, where he visits an interesting community of ascetics called loosely Gymnosophists (vi. 1-27).
On his return to Alexandria (vi. 28), he was summoned by Titus, who had just become emperor, to meet him at Tarsus (vi. 29-34). After this interview he appears to have returned to Egypt, for Philostratus speaks vaguely of his spending some time in Lower Egypt, and of visits to the Phœnicians, Cilicians, Ionians, Achæans, and also to Italy (vi. 35).
Now Vespasian was emperor from 69 to 79, and Titus from 79 to 81. As Apollonius’ interviews with Vespasian took place shortly before the beginning of that emperor’s reign, it is reasonable to conclude that a number of years was spent by our philosopher in his Ethiopian journey, and that therefore Damis’ account is a most imperfect one. In 81 Domitian became emperor, and just as Apollonius opposed thefollies of Nero, so did he criticise the acts of Domitian. He accordingly became an object of suspicion to the emperor; but instead of keeping away from Rome, he determined to brave the tyrant to his face. Crossing from Egypt to Greece and taking ship at Corinth, he sailed by way of Sicily to Puteoli, and thence to the Tiber mouth, and so to Rome (vii. 10-16). Here Apollonius was tried and acquitted (vii. 17—viii. 10). Sailing from Puteoli again Apollonius returned to Greece (viii. 15), where he spent two years (viii. 24). Thence once more he crossed over to Ionia at the time of the death of Domitian (viii. 25), visiting Smyrna and Ephesus and other of his favourite haunts. Hereupon he sends away Damis on some pretext to Rome (viii. 28) and—disappears; that is to say, if it be allowed to speculate, he undertook yet another journey to the place which he loved above all others, the “home of the wise men.”
Now Domitian was killed 96a.d., and one of the last recorded acts of Apollonius is his vision of this event at the time of its occurrence. Therefore the trial of Apollonius at Rome took place somewhere about 93, and we have a gap of twelve years from his interview with Titus in 81, which Philostratus can only fill up with a few vague stories and generalities.
As to his age at the time of his mysteriousdisappearance from the pages of history, Philostratus tells us that Damis says nothing; but some, he adds, say he was eighty, some ninety, and some even an hundred.
The estimate of eighty years seems to fit in best with the rest of the chronological indications, but there is no certainty in the matter with the present materials at our disposal.
Such then is the geographical outline, so to say, of the life of Apollonius, and even the most careless reader of the bare skeleton of the journeys recorded by Philostratus must be struck by the indomitable energy of the man, and his power of endurance.
We will now turn our attention to one or two points of interest connected with the temples and communities he visited.
Seeing that the nature of Apollonius’ business with the priests of the temples and the devotees of the mystic life was necessarily of a most intimate and secret nature, for in those days it was the invariable custom to draw a sharp line of demarcation between the inner and outer, the initiated and the profane, it is not to be expected that we can learn anything but mere externalities from the Damis-Philostratus narrative; nevertheless, even these outer indications are of interest.
The temple of Æsculapius at Ægæ, where Apollonius spent the most impressionable years of his life, was one of the innumerable hospitals of Greece, where the healing art was practised on lines totally different to our present methods. We are at once introduced to an atmosphere laden with psychic influences, to a centre whither for centuries patients had flocked to “consultthe God.” In order to do so, it was necessary for them to go through certain preliminary purifications and follow certain rules given by the priests; they then passed the night in the shrine and in their sleep instructions were given them for their healing. This method, no doubt, was only resorted to when the skill of the priest was exhausted; in any case, the priests must have been deeply versed in the interpretation of these dreams and in their rationale. It is also evident that as Apollonius loved to pass his time in the temple, he must have found there satisfaction for his spiritual needs, and instruction in the inner science; though doubtless his own innate powers soon carried him beyond his instructors and marked him out as the “favourite of the God.” The many cases on record in our own day of patients in trance or some other psychic condition prescribing for themselves, will help the student to understand the innumerable possibilities of healing which were in Greece summed up in the personification Æsculapius.
Later on the chief of the Indian sages has a disquisition on Æsculapius and the healing art put into his mouth (iii. 44), where the whole of medicine is said to be dependent upon psychic diagnosis and prescience (μαντεία).
Finally it may be noticed that it was the invariable custom of patients on their recovery torecord the fact on anex-vototablet in the temple, precisely as is done to-day in Roman Catholic countries.96
On his way to India Apollonius saw a good deal of the Magi at Babylon. He used to visit them at mid-day and mid-night, but of what transpired Damis knew nothing, for Apollonius would not permit him to accompany him, and in answer to his direct questions would only answer: “They are wise, but not in all things” (i. 26).
The description of a certain hall, however, to which Apollonius had access, seems to be a garbled version of the interior of the temple. The roof was dome-shaped, and the ceiling was covered with “sapphire”; in this blue heaven were models of the heavenly bodies (“those whom they regard as Gods”) fashioned in gold, as though moving in the ether. Moreover from the roof were suspended four golden “Iygges” which the Magi call the “Tongues of the Gods.” These were winged-wheels or spheres connected with the idea of Adrasteia (or Fate). Their prototypes are described imperfectly in the Vision of Ezekiel, and the so-called Hecatinestrophaliorspherulæused in magical practicesmay have been degenerate descendants of these “living wheels” or spheres of the vital elements. The subject is one of intense interest, but hopelessly incapable of treatment in our present age of scepticism and profound ignorance of the past. The “Gods” who taught our infant humanity were, according to occult tradition, from a humanity higher than that at present evolving on our earth. They gave the impulse, and, when the earth-children were old enough to stand on their own feet, they withdrew. But the memory of their deeds and a corrupt and degenerate form of the mysteries they established has ever lingered in the memory of myth and legend. Seers have caught obscure glimpses of what they taught and how they taught it, and the tradition of the Mysteries preserved some memory of it in its symbols and instruments or engines. The Iygges of the Magi are said to be a relic of this memory.
With regard to the Indian sages it is impossible to make out any consistent story from the fantastic jumble of the Damis-Philostratus romance. Damis seems to have confused together a mixture of memories and scraps of gossip without any attempt to distinguish one community or sect from another, and so produced a blurred daub which Philostratus would have us regard as a picture of the “hill” and a description of its “sages.” Damis’ confused memories,97however, have little to do with the actual monastery and its ascetic inhabitants, who were the goal of Apollonius’ long journey. What Apollonius heard and saw there, following his invariable custom in such circumstances, he told no one, not even Damis, except what could be derived from the following enigmatical sentence: “I saw men dwelling on the earth and yet not on it, defended on all sides, yet without any defence, and yet possessed of nothing but what all possess.” These words occur in two passages (iii. 15 and vi. 11), and in both Philostratus adds that Apollonius wrote98and spoke them enigmatically. The meaning of this saying is not difficult to divine. They were on the earth, but not of the earth, for their minds were set on things above. They were protected by their innate spiritual power, of which we have so many instances in Indian literature; and yet they possessed nothing but what all men possess if they would but develop the spiritual part of their being. But this explanation is not simple enough for Philostratus, and so he presses intoservice all the memories of Damis, or rather travellers’ tales, about levitation, magical illusions and the rest.
The head of the community is called Iarchas, a totally un-Indian name. The violence done to all foreign names by the Greeks is notorious, and here we have to reckon with an army of ignorant copyists as well as with Philostratus and Damis. I would suggest that the name may perhaps be a corruption of Arhat.99
The main burden of Damis’ narrative insists on the psychic and spiritual knowledge of the sages. They know what takes place at a distance, they can tell the past and future, and read the past births of men.
The messenger sent to meet Apollonius carried what Damis calls a golden anchor (iii. 11, 17), and if this is an authentic fact, it would suggest a forerunner of the Tibetandorje, the present degenerate symbol of the “rod of power,” something like the thunder-bolt wielded by Zeus. This would also point to a Buddhist community, though it must be confessed that other indications point equally strongly to Brāhmanical customs, such as the caste-mark on the forehead of the messenger (iii. 7, 11), the carrying of (bamboo) staves (daṇḍa), letting the hair grow long, and wearing of turbans (iii. 13). But indeed thewhole account is too confused to permit any hope of extracting historical details.
Of the nature of Apollonius’ visit we may, however, judge from the following mysterious letter to his hosts (iii. 51):
“I came to you by land and ye have given me the sea; nay, rather, by sharing with me your wisdom ye have given me power to travel through heaven. These things will I bring back to the mind of the Greeks, and I will hold converse with you as though ye were present, if it be that I have not drunk of the cup of Tantalus in vain.”
It is evident from these cryptic sentences that the “sea” and the “cup of Tantalus” are identical with the “wisdom” which had been imparted to Apollonius—the wisdom which he was to bring back once more to the memory of the Greeks. He thus clearly states that he returned from India with a distinct mission and with the means to accomplish it, for not only had he drunk of the ocean of wisdom in that he has learnt the Brahmā-vidyā from their lips, but he has also learnt how to converse with them though his body be in Greece and their bodies in India.
But such a plain meaning—plain at least to every student of occult nature—was beyond the understanding of Damis or the comprehension of Philostratus. And it is doubtless the mentionof the “cup of Tantalus”100in this letter which suggested the inexhaustible loving cup episode in iii. 32, and its connection with the mythical fountains of Bacchus. Damis presses it into service to “explain” the last phrase in Apollonius’ saying about the sages, namely, that they were “possessed of nothing but what all possess”—which, however, appears elsewhere in a changed form, as “possessing nothing, they have the possessions of all men” (iii. 15).101
On returning to Greece, one of the first shrines Apollonius visited was that of Aphrodite at Paphos in Cyprus (iii. 58). The greatest external peculiarity of the Paphian worship of Venus was the representation of the goddess by a mysterious stone symbol. It seems to have been of the size of a human being, but shaped like a pine-cone, only of course with a smooth surface. Paphos was apparently the oldest shrine dedicated to Venus in Greece. Its mysteries were very ancient, but not indigenous; they were brought over from the mainland, from what was subsequently Cilicia, in times of remote antiquity.
The worship or consultation of the Goddess was by means of prayers and the “pure flame of fire,” and the temple was a great centre of divination.102
Apollonius spent some time here and instructed the priests at length with regard to their sacred rites.
In Asia Minor he was especially pleased with the temple of Æsculapius at Pergamus; he healed many of the patients there, and gave instruction in the proper methods to adopt in order to procure reliable results by means of the prescriptive dreams.
At Troy, we are told, Apollonius spent a night alone at the tomb of Achilles, in former days one of the spots of greatest popular sanctity in Greece (iv. 11). Why he did so does not transpire, for the fantastic conversation with the shade of the hero reported by Philostratus (iv. 16) seems to be devoid of any element of likelihood. As, however, Apollonius made it his business to visit Thessaly shortly afterwards expressly to urge the Thessalians to renew the old accustomed rites to the hero (iv. 13), we may suppose that it formed part of his great effort to restore and purify the old institutions of Hellas, so that, the accustomed channels being freed, the life might flow more healthily in the national body.
Rumour would also have it that Achilles had told Apollonius where he would find the statue of the hero Palamedes on the coast of Æolia. Apollonius accordingly restored the statue, and Philostratus tells us he had seen it with his own eyes on the spot (iv. 13).
Now this would be a matter of very little interest, were it not that a great deal is made of Palamedes elsewhere in Philostratus’ narrative. What it all means is difficult to say with a Damis and Philostratus as interpreters between ourselves and the silent and enigmatical Apollonius.
Palamedes was one of the heroes before Troy, who was fabled to have invented letters, or to have completed the alphabet of Cadmus.103
Now from two obscure sayings (iv. 13, 33), we glean that our philosopher looked upon Palamedes as the philosopher-hero of the Trojan period, although Homer says hardly a word about him.
Was this, then, the reason why Apollonius was so anxious to restore his statue? Not altogether so; there appears to have been a more direct reason. Damis would have it that Apollonius had met Palamedes in India; that he was at the monastery; that Iarchas had one day pointed out a young ascetic who could “write without ever learning letters”; and thatthis youth had been no other than Palamedes in one of his former births. Doubtless the sceptic will say: “Of course! Pythagoras was a reincarnation of the hero Euphorbus who fought at Troy, according to popular superstition; therefore, naturally, the young Indian was the reincarnation of the hero Palamedes! The one legend simply begat the other.” But on this principle, to be consistent, we should expect to find that it was Apollonius himself and not an unknown Hindu ascetic, who had been once Palamedes.
In any case Apollonius restored the rites to Achilles, and erected a chapel in which he set up the neglected statue of Palamedes.104The heroes of the Trojan period, then, it would seem, had still some connection with Greece, according to the science of the invisible world into which Apollonius was initiated. And if the Protestant sceptic can make nothing of it, at least the Roman Catholic reader may be induced to suspend his judgment by changing “hero” into “saint.”
Can it be possible that the attention which Apollonius bestowed upon the graves and funeral monuments of the mighty dead of Greece may have been inspired by the circle of ideas whichled to the erection of the innumerable dāgobas and stūpas in Buddhist lands, originally over the relics of the Buddha, and the subsequent preservation of relics of arhats and great teachers?
At Lesbos Apollonius visited the ancient temple of the Orphic mysteries, which in early years had been a great centre of prophecy and divination. Here also he was privileged to enter the inner shrine or adytum (iv. 14).
The Tyanean arrived in Athens at the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and in spite of the festival and rites not only the people but also the candidates flocked to meet him to the neglect of their religious duties. Apollonius rebuked them, and himself joined in the necessary preliminary rites and presented himself for initiation.
It may, perhaps, surprise the reader to hear that Apollonius, who had already been initiated into higher privileges than Eleusis could afford, should present himself for initiation. But the reason is not far to seek; the Eleusinia constituted one of the intermediate organisations between the popular cults and the genuine inner circles of instruction. They preserved one of the traditions of the inner way, even if their officers for the time being had forgotten what their predecessors had once known. To restore these ancient rites to their purity, or toutilise them for their original object, it was necessary to enter within the precincts of the institution; nothing could be effected from outside. The thing itself was good, and Apollonius desired to support the ancient institution by setting the public example of seeking initiation therein; not that he had anything to gain personally.
But whether it was that the hierophant of that time was only ignorant, or whether he was jealous of the great influence of Apollonius, he refused to admit our philosopher, on the ground that he was a sorcerer (γόης), and that no one could be initiated who was tainted by intercourse with evil entities (δαιμόνια). To this charge Apollonius replied with veiled irony: “You have omitted the most serious charge that might have been urged against me: to wit, that though I really know more about the mystic rite than its hierophant, I have come here pretending to desire initiation from men knowing more than myself.” This charge would have been true; he had made a pretence.
Dismayed at these words, frightened at the indignation of the people aroused by the insult offered to their distinguished guest, and overawed by the presence of a knowledge which he could no longer deny, the hierophant begged our philosopher to accept the initiation. But Apollonius refused. “I will be initiated later on,” he replied; “hewill initiate me.” This is said to have referred to the succeeding hierophant, who presided when Apollonius was initiated four years later (iv. 18; v. 19).
While at Athens Apollonius spoke strongly against the effeminacy of the Bacchanalia and the barbarities of the gladiatorial combats (iv. 21, 22).
The temples, mentioned by Philostratus, which Apollonius visited in Greece, have all the peculiarity of being very ancient; for instance, Dodona, Delphi, the ancient shrine of Apollo at Abæ in Phocis, the “caves” of Amphiaraus105and Trophonius, and the temple of the Muses on Helicon.
When he entered the adyta of these temples for the purpose of “restoring” the rites, he was accompanied only by the priests, and certain of his immediate disciples (γνώριμοι). This suggests an extension to the meaning of the word “restoring” or “reforming,” and when we read elsewhere of the many spots consecrated by Apollonius, we cannot but think that part of his work was the reconsecration, and hence psychic purification, of many of these ancient centres. His main external work, however, was thegiving of instruction, and, as Philostratus rhetorically phrases it, “bowls of his words were set up everywhere for the thirsty to drink from” (iv. 24).
But not only did our philosopher restore the ancient rites of religion, he also paid much attention to the ancient polities and institutions. Thus we find him urging with success the Spartans to return to their ancient mode of life, their athletic exercises, frugal living, and the discipline of the old Dorian tradition (iv. 27, 31-34); he, moreover, specially praised the institution of the Olympic Games, the high standard of which was still maintained (iv. 29), while he recalled the ancient Amphictionic Council to its duty (iv. 23), and corrected the abuses of the Panionian assembly (iv. 5).
In the spring of 66a.d.he left Greece for Crete, where he seems to have bestowed most of his time on the sanctuaries of Mount Ida and the temple of Æsculapius at Lebene (“for as all Asia visits Pergamus so does all Crete visit Lebene”); but curiously enough he refused to visit the famous Labyrinth at Gnossus, the ruins of which have just been uncovered for a sceptical generation, most probably (if it is lawful to speculate) because it had once been a centre of human sacrifice, and thus pertained to one of the ancient cults of the left hand.
In Rome Apollonius continued his work of reforming the temples, and this with the full sanction of the Pontifex Maximus Telesinus, one of the consuls for the year 66a.d., who was also a philosopher and a deep student of religion (iv. 40). But his stay in the imperial city was speedily cut short, for in October Nero crowned his persecution of the philosophers by publishing a decree of banishment against them from Rome, and both Telesinus (vii. 11) and Apollonius had to leave Italy.
We next find him in Spain, making his headquarters in the temple of Hercules at Cadiz.
On his return to Greece by way of Africa and Sicily (where he spent some time and visited Ætna), he passed the winter (? of 67a.d.) at Eleusis, living in the temple, and in the spring of the following year sailed for Alexandria, spending some time on the way at Rhodes. The city of philosophy and eclecticismpar excellencereceived him with open arms as an old friend. But to reform the public cults of Egypt was a far more difficult task than any he had previously attempted. His presence in the temple (? the temple of Serapis) commanded universal respect, everything about him and every word he uttered seemed to breathe an atmosphere of wisdom and of “something divine.” The high priest of the temple looked on in prouddisdain. “Who is wise enough,” he mockingly asked, “to reform the religion of the Egyptians?”—only to be met with the confident retort of Apollonius: “Any sage who comes from the Indians.” Here as elsewhere Apollonius set his face against blood-sacrifice, and tried to substitute instead, as he had attempted elsewhere, the offering of frankincense modelled in the form of the victim (v. 25). Many abuses he tried to reform in the manners of the Alexandrians, but upon none was he more severe than on their wild excitement over horse-racing, which frequently led to bloodshed (v. 26).
Apollonius seems to have spent most of the remaining twenty years of his life in Egypt, but of what he did in the secret shrines of that land of mystery we can learn nothing from Philostratus, except that on the protracted journey to Ethiopia up the Nile no city or temple or community was unvisited, and everywhere there was an interchange of advice and instruction in sacred things (v. 43).
We now come to Apollonius’ visit to the “Gymnosophists” in “Ethiopia,” which, though the artistic and literary goal of Apollonius’ journey in Egypt as elaborated by Philostratus, is only a single incident in the real history of the unrecorded life of our mysterious philosopher in that ancient land.
Had Philostratus devoted a chapter or two to the nature of the practices, discipline, and doctrines of the innumerable ascetic and mystic communities that honeycombed Egypt and adjacent lands in those days, he would have earned the boundless gratitude of students of the origins. But of all this he has no word; and yet he would have us believe that Damis’ reminiscences were an orderly series of notes of what actually happened. But in all things it is very apparent that Damis was rather acompagnon de voyagethan an initiated pupil.
Who then were these mysterious “Gymnosophists,” as they are usually called, and whence their name? Damis calls them simply the “Naked” (γυμνοί), and it is very clear that the term is not to be understood as merely physically naked; indeed, neither to the Indians nor to these ascetics of uppermost Egypt can the term be applied with appropriateness in its purely physical meaning, as is apparent from the descriptions of Damis and Philostratus. A chance sentence that falls from the lips of one of these ascetics, in giving the story of his life, affords us a clue to the real meaning of the term. “At the age of fourteen,” he tells Apollonius, “I resigned my patrimony to those who desired such things, andnakedI sought theNaked” (vi. 16).106
This is the very same diction that Philo uses about the Therapeut communities, which he declares were very numerous in every province of Egypt and scattered in all lands. We are not, however, to suppose that these communities were all of the same nature. It is true that Philo tries to make out that the most pious and the chief of all of them washisparticular communityon the southern shore of Lake Mœris, which was strongly Semitic if not orthodoxly Jewish; and for Philo any community with a Jewish atmosphere must naturally have been the best. The peculiarity and main interest of our community, which was at the other end of the land above the cataracts, was that it had had some remote connection with India.
The community is called a φροντιστήριον, in the sense of a place for meditation, a term used by ecclesiastical writers for a monastery, but best known to classical students from the humorous use made of it by Aristophanes, who in The Clouds calls the school of Socrates, aphrontistērionor “thinking shop.” The collection ofmonasteria(ἱερά), presumably caves, shrines, or cells,107was situated on a hill or rising ground not far from the Nile. They were all separated from one another, dotted about the hill, and ingeniously arranged. There was hardly a tree in the place, with the exception of a single group of palms, under whose shade they held their general meetings (vi. 6).
It is difficult to gather from the set speeches, put into the mouths of the head of the community and Apollonius (vi. 10-13, 18-22), any precise details as to the mode of life of theseascetics, beyond the general indications of an existence of great toil and physical hardship, which they considered the only means of gaining wisdom. What the nature of their cult was, if they had one, we are not told, except that at mid-day the Naked retired to theirmonasteria(vi. 14).
The whole tendency of Apollonius’ arguments, however, is to remind the community of its Eastern origin and its former connection with India, which it seems to have forgotten. The communities of this particular kind in southern Egypt and northern Ethiopia dated back presumably some centuries, and some of them may have been remotely Buddhist, for one of the younger members of our community who left it to follow Apollonius, says that he came to join it from the enthusiastic account of the wisdom of the Indians brought back by his father, who had been captain of a vessel trading to the East. It was his father who told him that these “Ethiopians” were from India, and so he had joined them instead of making the long and perilous journey to the Indus itself (vi. 16).
If there be any truth in this story it follows that the founders of this way of life had been Indian ascetics, and if so they must have belonged to the only propagandising form of Indian religion, namely, the Buddhist.
After the impulse had been given, the communities, which were presumably recruited from generations of Egyptians, Arabs, and Ethiopians, were probably left entirely to themselves, and so in course of time forgot their origin, and even perhaps their original rule. Such speculations are permissible, owing to therepeatedassertion of the original connection between these Gymnosophists and India. The whole burden of the story is that they were Indians who had forgotten their origin and fallen away from the wisdom.
The last incident that Philostratus records with regard to Apollonius among the shrines and temples is a visit to the famous and very ancient oracle of Trophonius, near Lebadea, in Bœotia. Apollonius is said to have spent seven days alone in this mysterious “cave,” and to have returned with a book full of questions and answers on the subject of “philosophy” (viii. 19). This book was still, in the time of Philostratus, in the palace of Hadrian at Antium, together with a number of letters of Apollonius, and many people used to visit Antium for the special purpose of seeing it (viii. 19, 20).
In the hay-bundle of legendary rigmarole solemnly set down by Philostratus concerning the cave of Trophonius, a small needle of truth may perhaps be discovered. The “cave” seems to have been a very ancient temple or shrine, cut in the heart of a hill, to which a number of underground passages of considerable length led. It had probably been in ancient times one of the most holy centres of the archaic cult of Hellas, perhaps even a relic of that Greece of thousands of yearsb.c., the only tradition of which, as Plato tells us, was obtained by Solon from the priests of Saïs. Or it may have been a subterranean shrine of the same nature as the famous Dictæan cave in Crete which only last year was brought back to light by the indefatigable labours of Messrs. Evans and Hogarth.
As in the case of the travels of Apollonius, so with regard to the temples and communities which he visited, Philostratus is a most disappointingcicerone. But perhaps he is not to be blamed on this account, for the most important and most interesting part of Apollonius’ work was of so intimate a nature, prosecuted as it was among associations of such jealously-guarded secrecy, that no one outside their ranks could know anything of it, and those who shared in their initiation would say nothing.
It is, therefore, only when Apollonius comes forward to do some public act that we can get any precise historical trace of him; in every other case he passes into the sanctuary of a temple or enters the privacy of a community and is lost to view.
It may perhaps surprise us that Apollonius,after sacrificing his private fortune, could nevertheless undertake such long and expensive travels, but it would seem that he was occasionally supplied with the necessary monies from the treasuries of the temples (cf.viii. 17), and that everywhere he was freely offered the hospitality of the temple or community in the place where he happened to be staying.
In conclusion of the present part of our subject, we may mention the good service done by Apollonius in driving away certain Chaldæan and Egyptian charlatans who were making capital out of the fears of the cities on the left shores of the Hellespont. These cities had suffered severely from shocks of earthquake, and in their panic placed large sums of money in the hands of these adventurers (who “trafficked in the misfortunes of others”), in order that they might perform propitiatory rites (vi. 41). This taking money for the giving instruction in the sacred science or for the performance of sacred rites was the most detestable of crimes to all the true philosophers.