262 P H I 
PHILOSTOR'GIUS, a learned ecclefiaftical liiftorian in 
the fourth century, was born at a village in Cappadocia, 
about the year 368. His father, who was a follower of 
Eunotnius, married into an Homoufian family ; but foon 
made a convert of his wife, and (lie fucceeded in bringing 
over her relations to the fame principles. In thefe prin¬ 
ciples Philoftorgius was educated; or, in other words, 
he was taught to believe that the Son, in his efience, was 
unlike and inferior to the Father. When he was in the 
twentieth year of his age, he went to Conftantinople, in 
order to acquire literary improvement under the molt 
celebrated profefTors in that city; and that he was an 
attentive and diligent (Indent may be inferred from evi¬ 
dences which his remains difcover of no common profi¬ 
ciency in philofophy, natural hiitory, geography, aftro- 
nomy, poetry, and medicine. He wrote an “Ecclefiaftical 
Hiitory,” in twelve books, containing the detail of affairs 
from the commencement of the Arian controverfy, or 
about the year 300, to the year 425, when it w'as pub- 
lifhed. This work he drew up in the fpirit of a zealous 
Arian, treating in it the Catholics and Semi-Arians with 
exceftive feverity, and dilcovering a glaring prejudice in 
favour of his own party. Aetius he commended as the 
greateft man who ever lived ; and, when extolling Eufe¬ 
bius of Nicomedia, Theophilus the Indian, and other 
Arian hilltops, he expofed himfelf to the charge of credu¬ 
lity and fuperftition by fpeaking of them as eminent for 
working miracles, as well as for piety of life and conver- 
fation. Yet his hi dory will be found to contain impor¬ 
tant and ufeful matter relating to the date of the church 
and ecclefiaftical antiquities during the period to which 
it refers. This yvork, as will naturally be imagined, was 
condemned and profcribed by the Catholic party, who 
were fo a Clive in fupprefling it, that no entire copy of it 
has reached modern times. In Photius’s Codex, however, 
large extra&s from it are preferved, which were firft pub- 
liftied at Geneva, by James Godfrey, in the original Greek, 
accompanied with a Latin verfion, notes, and long difler- 
tations, 1643, 4th. In 1673, the learned Henry de Valois, 
having collated the original wfith different manufcripts, 
corredfed the text, and given a new tranflation of the 
whole, publifhed thefe extracts at Paris, together with 
the ecclefiaftical hiltories of Eufebius, Socrates, Sozomen, 
Theodoret, &c. 3 vols. folio, followed by a fupplement of 
additional fragments from Suidas, and other authors. 
This edition w'as reprinted at Cambridge in 1720, by 
William Reading, in 3 vols. folio, with additional 
notes and illuftrations by the editor and other learned 
critics. Fabricii Bill. Grac. vol. vi. Cave's Fiji. Lit. 
vol. i. 
PHILOS'TORGY, /. [from the Gr. (piXw, to love, 
and rcgyri , a natural affeCtion.] The love of children to 
parents; the love of parents to children; natural affec¬ 
tion. Scott. 
PHILOS'TRATUS (Flavius), an ancient Greek fc- 
phift. He wrote the life of Apollonius Tyanenfis, aud 
fome other things which have come down to our time. 
Eufebius againft Hierocles calls him an Athenian, becaufe 
he taught at Athens ; but Eunapius and Suidas always 
fpeak of him as a Lemnian ; ar.d he hints, in his Life of 
Apollonius, that he ufed to be at Lemnos when he was 
young. He frequented the fchoois of the fophifts ; and 
he mentions his having heard Damianus of Ephefus, 
Proclus Naucratilas, and Hippodromus of Larifla. This 
feems to prove that he lived in the reign of the emperor 
Severus, from 193 to 212, when thofe fophifts flourifhed. 
He became known afterwards to Severus’s wife Julia 
Augufta, and was one of thofe learned men whom this 
philofophic emprefs had continually about her. It was 
by her command that lie wrote the Life of Apollonius of 
Tyana, as he relates himfelf in the fame place where he 
informs us of his connexions with that learned lady. 
Suidas and Hef) chius fay that he was a teacher of rhetoric, 
firft at Athens and then at Rome, from the reign of 
P H I 
Severus to that of Philippus, who obtained the empire 
in 244. 
Philoftratus’scelebrated work is his Life of Apollonius; 
which has erroneoufty been attributed to Lucian, becaufe 
it has been printed with fome of that author’s pieces. 
Philoftratus endeavours, as Cyril obferves, to reprefent 
Apollonius as a wonderful and extraordinary perfon ; 
rather to be admired and adored as a god, than to be con- 
fidered as a mere man. Hence Eunapius, in the preface 
to his Lives of the Sophifts, fays that the proper title of 
that work would have been, “The Coming of a God to 
Men and Hierocles, in his book againft the Chriftians 
which was called P/iilakthes, and which was refuted by 
Eufebius in a work ftill extant, among other things drew 
a comparifon between Apollonius and Jefus Chrift. It 
has always been fuppofed that Philoftratus compofed his 
work with a view to diferedit the miracles and doctrines 
of our Lord, by fetting up other miracles and other doc¬ 
trines againft them; and this fuppofition may be true; 
but that Apollonius was really an impoftor and magician 
may not be fo certain. He may, for what we know, have 
been a wife and excellent perfon-; and it is remarkable, 
that Eufebius, though he had the word opinion of Phi- 
loftratus’s hiftory, fays nothing ill of Apollonius. 
The works of Philoftratus, however, have engaged the 
attention of critics of the firft clafs. Graevius had inten¬ 
ded to have given a corrcCf edition of them, as appears 
from the preface of Meric Cafaubon to a diifertation upon 
an intended edition of Homer, printed at London in 1658, 
8vo. So had Bentley, who defigned to add a new Latin 
verfion of his notes; and Fabricius fays that he faw the 
firft (beet of Bentley’s edition printed at Leipfic in 16-91. 
Both thefe defigns were dropped. A very exact and 
beautiful edition was publiftied at length at Leipfic, 1709, 
in folio, by Olearius, profefior of the Greek and Latin 
tongues in that univerfity ; who has proved himfelf per¬ 
fectly qualified for the work he undertook, and fhown all 
the judgment, learning, and induftry, that are required 
in an excellent editor. 
At the end of Apollonius’s Life there are 95 letters 
which go under his name. They are nor, however, 
believed to be his; the ftyle of them being very aft’eCfed, 
and like that of a fophift, while they bear in other refpefls 
all the marks of a forgery. Philoftratus fays that he faw 
a collection of Apollonius’s letters in Hadrian’s library 
at Antium, but had not inferted them all among thefe. 
They are ftiort, and have in them little elfe than moral 
fentences. The “ Lives of the Sophifts” contain many 
things which are to be met with no-where elfe. The 
“ Heroics” of Philoftratus are only a dialogue between a 
vinterof Thracian Cherfonefus and. a Phoenician, in which 
the former draws characters of Homer’s heroes, and repre- 
fents feveral things differently from that poet ; and this 
upon the faith of Protefilaus’s ghoft, who had lately 
vifited his farm, which was not far from the tomb of this 
hero. Olearius conjectures, with much probability, that 
Philoftratus’s defign in this dialogue was fecretly to cri¬ 
tic i fe fome things in Homer, which he durft not do openly 
on account of the great veneration then paid to him, and 
for fear of the odium which Zoilus and others had incurred 
by cenfuring him too freely. The “ leones” are elegant 
deferiptions and illuftrations of fome ancient paintings 
and other particulars relating to the fine arts ; to which 
Olearius has fubjoined the defeription of fome ftatues by 
Calliftratus; for the fame reafon that he (ubjoined Eufe- 
bius’s book againft Hierocles to the Life and Letters of 
Apollonius, namely, becaufe the fubjeCls of thefe refpee- 
tive works are related to each other. The laft piece is a 
collection of Philoftratus’s “ Letters;” but fome of thefe, 
though it is not eafy to determine which, were written 
by a nephew to our Philoftratus, of the fame name, as 
w'ere alio the laft eighteen in the book of Images. This 
is the reafon why the title runs not Philojirati, but Phi- 
lojhatorum quaJuperfunt omnia. 
There 
