1823.] Who was ApoUonius ofTyana? 



about by appropriate missionaries, and 

 powerfully shook the ritual obser- 

 vances of that people, as well as some 

 of its spiritual doctrines. It is highly 

 probable, then, that Julia Domna, 

 who was an accomplished woman, 

 should have attended to the Christian 

 writers, should have been converted 

 by some Christian missionary, and 

 should have wished a life of such mis- 

 sionary to be drawn up at Rome, for 

 the instruction of the occidental pa- 

 gans. 



Septimius Severus, the husband of 

 Julia Domna, was apparently himself 

 a Christian. The account of his reli- 

 giosity, given by Lampridius, is thus 

 expressed : — " Usus vivendi eidem hie 

 fuit: primuni ut sifacultas esset, id est, 

 si non cum uxore cuhuisset, viatutinis 

 horis, in larario suo, in quo et divos 

 principes, sed optimos electos, et animas 

 sanctiores, in queis et Apollonium, et 

 quantum scriptor suorum temporum di- 

 cit, Christum, Ahrahamum, et Orpheum, 

 et hujuscemodi deos habebat, ac majorum 

 effigies, rem divinamfaciebat." In this 

 passage the name of Orpheus seems, 

 indeed, to indicate a yeneration for 

 pagan heroes ; but, when it is consi- 

 dered how easily a pagan historian 

 might be ignorant of the strange 

 names of Moses and Ezra, it is not 

 unlikely that Orpheus has been substi- 

 tuted for one of these ; and that all the 

 deceased worthies, to whom Septi- 

 mius paid asecret and select devotion, 

 were really saints of the Bible. At 

 least it is certain that Caracalla, the 

 son of Septimius and Julia, was 

 brought up a Christian ; that he took 

 Marcia, a Christian woman, for his 

 mistress ; and that, during his whole 

 reign, he more than tolerated, he pa- 

 tronised, the Christian party. 



That Julia Domna should have se- 

 lected Phiiostratus, a platonising pa- 

 gan and polytheist, to write the life of 

 a Christian missionary, ought not to 

 surprise, when it is considered, that 

 such persons had the ear of the lite- 

 rary world at Rome ; and that it was 

 there expedient for the imperial fa- 

 mily apparently to belong to the reli- 

 gion of the state, and rather to deno- 

 minate their personal persuasions a 

 philosophy than a religion. 



Now let us skim the narrative of 

 Phiiostratus. Apollonius, on his mo- 

 ther's side at least, seems to have 

 been born a Jew : Phiiostratus docs 

 not indeed say this ; but he makes the 



Monthly Mag. No. 379. 



113 



mother dream about Egyptian gods, 

 which proves that she was not a Greek 

 pagan. Tarsus was a city of Jews ; 

 and the medical colleges there import- 

 ed their professors from the Serapeum 

 of Alexandria, which under Ptolemy 

 Physcon became a Jew-university. 

 Apollonius is moreover stated to have 

 understood the language of the Cadu- 

 rians, that is, of the people of Jeru- 

 salem. The continent morality adopt- 

 ed by him during his youth is sympto- 

 matic of adhesion to the pharisaic 

 teachers of the Jews. He was edu- 

 cated for the profession of medicine, 

 and sent to study it at Tarsus. He 

 professed, moreover, to cure insanity 

 by casting out demons ; and miracles 

 of this class are repeatedly ascribed 

 to him. At Ephesus he commands 

 the stoning of the person who had 

 brought the plague into the city,— a 

 levitical form of punishment ; and the 

 theology, which is ascribed to his 

 braminical instructors, is pantheistic, 

 like that of Philo. All these things 

 are strongly symptomatic of Jewish 

 habits of opinion. 



The remarkable personal beauty of 

 Apollonius is stated to have drawn 

 the attention of the governor of Cilicia, 

 who was deposed for conspiring against 

 the Romans; the Asian Jews, from 

 religious sympathies, inclined to carry 

 the homage of their allegiance to the 

 Parthians. Apollonius then under- 

 took a journey; relinquished to his 

 brother a part of the family inheri- 

 tance, and visited Nineveh, wiiere he 

 hired a kind of servant, called Damia, 

 who wrote a legendary account of his 

 master, and who accompanied him to 

 Babylon, where the sovereign, possi- 

 bly through the recommendation of 

 the governor of Cilicia, received Apol- 

 lonius with distinction, partly on ac- 

 count of his philosophy and eloquence, 

 partly on account of his medical repu- 

 tation. 



Apollonius is made to approach 

 Rome during the reign of Nero; arid 

 he meets many terrified Pythagorean 

 philosophers flying from the persecu- 

 tion of that tyrant. Jews are fre- 

 quently designated among Roman 

 writers by the appellation of Pytha- 

 goreans ; and as it is not recorded of 

 Nero that he persecuted any pliiloso- 

 phic sect,' — but it is recorded that ha 

 persecuted the Christian sect, — this 

 must have been the class of Jews who 

 were flying in terror, and with whom 

 Q Apollonius 



