Apollonius The Savior Flashcards
BEFORE HE WAS BORN, his mother had a visitor from heaven who told her that her son would not be a mere mortal but in fact would be divine. His birth was accompanied by unusual divine signs in the heavens. As an adult he left his home to engage on an itinerant preaching ministry. He went from village to town, telling all who would listen that they should not be concerned about their earthly lives and their material goods; they should live for what was spiritual and eternal. He gathered a number of followers around him who became convinced that he was no ordinary human, but that he was the Son of God. And he did miracles to confirm them in their beliefs: he could heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead.
At the end of his life he aroused opposition among the ruling authorities of Rome and was put on trial. But they could not kill his soul. He ascended to heaven and continues to live there till this day. To prove that he lived on after leaving this earthly orb, he appeared again to at least one of his doubting followers, who became convinced that in fact he remains with us even now. Later, some of his followers wrote books about him, and we can still read about him today. But very few of you will have ever seen these books. And I imagine most of you do not even know who this great miracle-working Son of God was. I have been referring to a man named Apollonius, who came from the town of Tyana. He was a pagan—that is, a polytheistic worshiper of the many Roman gods—and a renowned philosopher of his day. His followers thought he was immortal. We have a book written about him by his later devotee Philostratus.
Savior vs Savior:
Philostratus’s book was written in eight volumes in the early third century, possibly around 220 or 230 CE. He had done considerable research for his book, and his stories, he tells us, were largely based on the accounts recorded by an eyewitness and companion of Apollonius himself. Apollonius lived some years after a similar miracle-working Son of God in a different remote part of the empire, Jesus of Nazareth. Later followers of these two divine men saw them as being in competition with one another. This competition was part of a bigger struggle at the time between paganism—the forms of religion supported by the vast majority of everyone who lived in antiquity, who embraced a variety of polytheistic religions—and Christianity, a newcomer on the religious scene, which insisted that there was only one God and that Jesus was his Son. Christian followers of Jesus who knew about Apollonius maintained that he was a charlatan and a fraud; in response, the pagan followers of Apollonius asserted that Jesus was the charlatan and fraud. Both groups could point to the authoritative written accounts of their leader’s life to score their debating points.
Apollonius: Generally it is agreed that he was a Pythagorean philosopher—that is, a proponent of the views of the fifth-century BCE Greek philosopher Pythagoras. He lived during the second half of the first century (Jesus lived during the first half). Apollonius traveled through the eastern parts of the Roman empire as a moral and religious preacher. He often lived in temples and was free with his advice to religious and city officials. He had numerous pupils and was well received among many of the Roman elite in the places where he stayed. He was especially concerned that people abandon their rampant materialism and live for what mattered, that is, the affairs of the soul.
For the current study, what is more important than the life of the historical Apollonius is the set of legends that sprang up about him and that were widely believed among people of the time. His great philosophical insights eventually led many people to assume that he could not have been a mere mortal, but that he was himself a god striding the earth. Just over a century after his death, Apollonius was awarded a holy shrine in his home city of Tyana, dedicated by none other than the Roman emperor Caracalla, who ruled from 198 to 217 CE. We are told that the emperor Alexander Severus (222–235 CE) kept an image of Apollonius among his various household gods. And the emperor Aurelian (270–275 CE), an ardent worshiper of the Sun God, also revered him as divine.
The story of Apollonius’s birth, as recounted in Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana, is particularly worth our consideration. The “annunciation” story is both like and unlike the story earlier found in the Gospel of Luke (1:26–38). When Apollonius’s mother was pregnant with him, she had a vision of a divine being, the Egyptian god named Proteus, renowned for his great wisdom. When she asked who her child would be, the god answered, “Myself.” The birth was similarly miraculous. The mother was told to go with her servant girls into a field, where she fell asleep on the grass, only to awake to the sound of swans flapping their wings. She prematurely then gave birth. The local people said that a bolt of lightning appeared in the sky at just that moment, and just as it was about to strike the earth, it “hung poised in the air and then disappeared upwards” (Life of Apollonius 1.5). The people concluded: “No doubt the gods were giving a signal and an omen of his brilliance, his exaltation above earthly things, his closeness to heaven, and all the Master’s other qualities” (1.5). This sign is obviously different from a star that led a group of wise men to a child, but it is in the same celestial ballpark. The local people concluded that Apollonius was, in fact, the Son of Zeus.
At the end of his life Apollonius was brought up on charges before the emperor Domitian. Among other things, he was accused of receiving the worship that is due only to the gods. Again, the parallels to the story of Jesus are patent: he too was brought before officials (in his case, the leaders of the Jews and then the Roman governor Pilate) and was said to have entertained exalted views of himself, calling himself the Son of God and the king of the Jews. In both cases the officials were persuaded that these claims of self-exaltation were a threat to the well-being of the state, and for both men, readers were assured that in fact these self-claims were completely justified.
Here again, the parallels to the stories of Jesus are clear: at the end of his life Jesus caused a disturbance in a temple, he was arrested and brought up on charges, and after leaving this earthly realm he ascended to heaven, where he continues to live.
As a philosopher Apollonius taught that the human soul is immortal; the flesh may die, but the person lives on. Not everyone believed him. But after he departed to heaven he appeared in a vision to a follower who doubted him. Apollonius convinced this follower that he was still alive and was still present among them. Jesus too, of course, appeared to his disciples after his resurrection and convinced them, including doubting Thomas, of his ongoing reality and life in heaven.
Apollonius and Jesus: Modern scholars have debated the significance of the obvious connections between Jesus and Apollonius, but it is not merely a recent debate. In the early fourth century CE, a pagan author named Hierocles wrote a book called The Lover of Truth that contained a comparison between these two alleged Sons of God and celebrated the superiority of the pagan version. We no longer have the book in its entirety. But some years after it was written, it was explicitly refuted in the writings of the fourth-century church father Eusebius—sometimes known as the “father of church history” because he was the first to produce a history of Christianity from the time of Jesus up to his own day. Another of Eusebius’s books was directed against Hierocles and his celebration of Apollonius. Luckily for us latter-day readers, Eusebius quotes in places the actual words of his opponent. Near the outset of his book, for example, Hierocles wrote: In their anxiety to exalt Jesus, they run up and down prating of how he made the blind to see and worked certain other miracles of the kind. … Let us note, however, how much better and more sensible is the view which we take of such matters, and explain the conception which we entertain of men gifted with remarkable powers. … During the reign of Nero there flourished Apollonius of Tyana … [who] worked any number of miracles, of which I will omit the greater number and only mention a few. (Life of Apollonius 2)2
Before Christianity had become more powerful. Apollonius and Jesus were seen as competitors for divine honors: one a pagan worshiper of many gods, the other a Jewish worshiper of the one God; one a promoter of pagan philosophy, the other the founder of the Christian religion. Both of them were declared to be God on earth, even though they both were also, obviously, human. In a sense, they were thought of as divine men.3 What is striking is that they were not the only two. Even though Jesus may be the only miracle-working Son of God that people know about today, there were lots of people like this in the ancient world. We should not think of Jesus as “unique,” if by that term we mean that he was the only one “like that”—that is, a human who was far above and very different from the rest of us mere mortals, a man who was also in some sense divine. There were numerous divine humans in antiquity. As will become clear, I’m not dealing with whether or not they were really divine; I’m saying that’s how they were understood. Recognizing how this could be so is the first step in seeing how Jesus came to be thought of in these terms. But as we will see, Jesus was not originally thought of in this way—any more than Apollonius was during his lifetime. It was only after his death that the man Jesus came to be thought of as God on earth. How did that happen? The place to start is with an understanding of how other humans came to be considered divine in the ancient world.
Apollonius was explicitly refuted in the writings of the fourth-century church father Eusebius—sometimes known as the “father of church history” because he was the first to produce a history of Christianity from the time of Jesus up to his own day. Another of Eusebius’s books was directed against Hierocles and his celebration of Apollonius.
In other words, Eusebius wrote out Apollonius as savior and wrote in Jesus as the genuine savior. Most other writings about Apollonius were burned/destroyed during the 700 years of the DARK AGES.
Reference for previous deck cards on Apollonius, Bart D. Ehrman’s book, “How Jesus became God.
