50 Human Levitation. [January, 
himself having written with any view, as Dr. Newman says, 
“of rivalling’”’ the Christian marvels. None of his trans- 
lators (including Berwick, a clergyman) have believed they 
detected any such aim, and it seems clear that this courtly 
professional bookmaker could have seen no documents of 
the despised sect, or some trace of allusion would be found. 
All his marvels imitate, on the contrary, tales current of 
Pythagoras ; and most are either childish, obje¢tless, or 
such as elude any real test—witch-finding, communicating 
by whispers with birds and animals ; when imprisoned with 
Damis, drawing his leg out of the fetter, and then putting 
it in again, &c. But there are two that Dr. Newman thinks 
resemble Scripture miracles in forcing themselves into the 
history ‘‘as a component part of the narrative ’—the first 
being the alleged cause of his acquittal when on trial before 
Nero ,for the crime the latter had invented, of philosophising 
in Rome. His accuser, Tigellinus, coming to unroll the 
bill of indiétment, found only a blank paper (which may 
have been a miracle or may not). The other is the latest 
and most» detailed point of his whole public career. He 
surrendered similarly before Domitian, who had revived the 
ediét banishing philosophers (among whom the apostle 
John seems to have been reckoned) not only from Rome, 
but from the Continent. The trial attra€ted great notice, 
the grandest tribunal being used, and decorated as for a 
festival; but it ended sooner than was expected, by the 
emperor acquitting him, only adding that he must be de- 
tained for a private interview that he desired after the day’s 
business. ‘The aged prisoner, with thanks, briefly declined 
the honour, unless the emperor could detain both his soul and 
body. The former no human power could; no, nor, unless the 
gods willed it, even his body. He added a line of Homer, 
wherein Apollo says, ‘‘ you cannot put me to death, for I 
am not liable thereto ;” and on these words, vanished from 
the court; on the same afternoon as suddenly surprising 
his friends Damis and Demetrius, while talking of him in a 
grotto at Puteoli. One other such levitation occurs many 
years earlier, when at Smyrna he was crowded by sick 
persons, and by deputations inviting him to various cities. 
The Ephesians sent begging him to stay a_ pestilence; 
whereon, thinks his biographer, he designed to imitate his 
great master’s passage from Italy into Sicily, for on replying 
‘“Yes; let us go at once,” immediately he was at Ephesus. 
Dr. Newman, who does not mention this prodigy, thinks its 
sequel, the staying of the plague, “the best authenticated 
of his professed miracles, being attested by the erecting of 
oe AEF 
