Part 2

We see, then, that around the name of this philosopher gathered, as time went on, a mass of more or less incredible miraculous tradition. And, as happens too often in such cases, the real work of this great religious reformer was lost sight of amid this accumulation of legend that impressed the popular eye, which was too dull to appreciate or understand the deeper significance of the life-work and esoteric teaching of the sage. Orthodox religion in the Roman Empire had indeed at this time fallen into very much the same sort of discredit as orthodox Christianity has among ourselves to-day. Two definite attempts were made to resuscitate these old religions of Greece and Rome by reviving the understanding of the essential spiritual truths which they enshrined; the first by Apollonius of Tyana, who was above all else a reformer of the ancient Greek religion from within, and the other, an abortive one three hundred years later, by Julian the so-called Apostate. These classical faiths were, however, too much overlaid with mythological stories of an unedifying character ever again to recover their ascendancy over the popular imagination, and the ascetic life and esoteric interpretation which appealed to the isolated religious communities which Apollonius visited in his extensive travels throughout the countries bordering the Mediterranean, and as far east as Persia and India, could not in their very nature make a popular appeal to the average man. We see now that the triumph of Christianity was due to the universality of its appeal, and that however uncertain the issue of the struggle of the contending faiths appeared at the time, that issue was never really in doubt. The ascetic philosopher worked for the little public to whom the life of self-denial and esoteric truth are all in all, and to whom the world and the pursuits of the ordinary citizen take a place of minor importance. The “friend of publicans and sinners,” “who was in all things tempted like as we are,” was able to “draw all men unto him” by a compelling force such as the austere discipline and profound philosophy of Apollonius could never command. Jesus of Nazareth, in short, triumphed—and there is a profound significance in this fact—because mankind in the realisation of his true humanity forgot that he was accounted a God. The life of Apollonius was so far removed from anything the average man could comprehend that the world lost sight of the wisdom and deep spirituality of his teaching, in amazement at a worker of miracles so far beyond human ken that he came to be reckoned even a manifestation of Deity.

We are not, however, justified in supposing that it was primarily to his miracle-working powers that Apollonius owed his reputation among his contemporaries. It was rather as the wise man who had more knowledge and experience of the world than those around him, whose judgment was sounder and more unbiased by personal considerations than other men’s, and whose high spirituality kept him aloof from all considerations of private gain or private interest, that Apollonius was regarded by the men of his own day. Later tradition which invested him with all kinds of miraculous achievements served to dim the halo round a great name. The foremost men of his time in thought and action, the Emperors Vespasian, Titus, and many others, did not come to consult Apollonius because he was some master magician. We do not in effect ask advice of a man in our hour of need because he can do the vanishing trick in a court of law, or pull rabbits out of his hat when there are no rabbits to pull, or do any of the marvellous performances which strike the vulgar with amazement. We seek rather the advice of one whose judgment is saner and whose knowledge of the world is greater than that of his fellows. It was for this reason that the wisest of the Roman Emperors came to consult Apollonius by preference with regard to the great task with which they were entrusted, when they had all the highest intellects in the Roman Empire from which to choose.

The account of Titus’s first meeting with the Tyanian sage is of some interest, and not without its humorous side. Apollonius, who was already acquainted with his father, sent greetings to Titus, after the suppression of the Jewish insurrection, saying in characteristic manner, “Whereas you have refused to be proclaimed for success in war and for shedding the blood of your enemies, I myself assign to you the crown of temperance and moderation because you thoroughly understand what deeds really merit a crown.” Titus thoroughly appreciated the compliment, and was not to be outdone by the other’s courtesy. “On my own behalf,” he replied, “I thank you no less than on behalf of my father, and I will not forget your kindness. For although I have captured Jerusalem, you have captured me.”

After Titus had been appointed to share his father’s responsibilities in the government of the Empire he did not forget Apollonius, and when he was in Tarsus wrote to the sage begging him to come and see him.

When he had arrived [says the narrative], Titus embraced him, saying, “My father has told me by letter everything in respect of which he consulted you; and lo! here is his letter, in which you are described as his benefactor and the being to whom we owe all that we are. Now though I am only just thirty years of age, I am held worthy of the same privileges to which my father only attained at the age of sixty. I am called to the throne to rule, perhaps before I have learnt myself to obey, and I therefore dread lest I am undertaking a task beyond my powers.” Thereupon Apollonius, after stroking his neck, said (for he had as stout a neck as any athlete in training), “And who will force so sturdy a bull-neck as yours under the yoke?” “He that from my youth up reared me as a calf,” answered Titus, meaning his own father, and implying that he could only be controlled by the latter, who had accustomed him from childhood to obey himself. “I am delighted then,” said Apollonius, “in the first place, to see you prepared to subordinate yourself to your father, whom without being his natural children so many are delighted to obey, and next to see you rendering to his court homage in which others will associate yourself. When youth and age are paired in authority, is there any lyre or any flute that will produce so sweet a harmony and so nicely blended? For the qualities of old age will be associated with those of youth, with the result that old age will gain in strength and youth in discipline.”

The records of Apollonius’s pithy sayings are very numerous and give a better insight into the man’s character than the startling achievements with which he is so commonly credited. Once, when staying at Smyrna, he complimented the inhabitants on their zeal for letters and philosophy and their numerous activities, urging them to take pride rather in themselves than in the beauty of their city, for “although they had the most beautiful of cities under the sun, and although they had a friendly sea at their doors, nevertheless it was more pleasing for the city to be crowned with men than with porticoes and pictures, or even with gold in excess of what they needed.” “For,” he said, “public edifices remain where they are and are nowhere seen except in that particular part of the earth where they exist, but good men are conspicuous everywhere and everywhere talked about, and so they can magnify the city the more to which they belong in proportion to the numbers in which they are able to visit any part of the earth.” And again, when visiting the monument to Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylæ, he was enthusiastic in admiration for the Greek leader, and on coming to the mound where the Lacedemonians were said to have been overwhelmed by the arrows which the enemy rained upon them, he heard his companions discussing with one another which was the loftiest peak in Hellas, the topic being suggested, apparently, by the sight of Mount Oeta which rose before their eyes. Accordingly ascending the mound, he said, “I consider this the loftiest of all, for those who fell here in defence of freedom raised it to a level with Oeta and carried it to a height surpassing many mountains like Olympus.” On another occasion when, on arriving at Athens, and meeting with an enthusiastic reception at the hands of the people, he proposed to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, the hierophant showed jealousy of Apollonius’s great reputation, which he felt put his own into the shade, and was reluctant, accordingly, to admit so formidable a rival. He therefore made the excuse that Apollonius was a wizard and had dabbled in impure rites, and that he could not in consequence consent to initiate him. Apollonius, however, was fully equal to the occasion, and retorted, “You have not yet mentioned the chief head of my offending, which is that knowing as I do more about the initiatory rite than you do yourself, I have nevertheless come for initiation to you as if you were wiser than I am.” The attitude of the crowd was so hostile to the hierophant, on discovering his rejection of their honoured guest, that he found it advisable to change his tone. But Apollonius preferred to postpone his initiation till a later occasion, and, it is said, foretold the name of the successor who was destined to initiate him four years after.

Of many men who have led a deeply spiritual life and sacrificed everything for the sake of the pursuit of a spiritual ideal, it is recorded that they were wild and profligate in youth. Such was the case with St Francis of Assisi, and Apollonius’s contemporary, the zealous Saul of Tarsus, led a changed life from the moment of his conversion. Indeed it has been said, referring doubtless to such instances, that “the greater the sinner the greater the saint.” This saying, however, is by no means applicable to Apollonius. From his earliest days his choice was made clear. He came of a family which was at once wealthy and well-connected, and in addition to this he was endowed by nature with exceptional abilities and a remarkable memory, while the beauty of his person excited universal admiration. Every temptation, therefore, which fortune could offer, might, one would have thought, have led him to choose the path of worldly success. From the age of fourteen, however, he abandoned all idea of the pursuit of pleasure and devoted himself to discovering among the numerous Greek philosophies of the day some school of thought which would enable him to live up to his own ideals. Finally he adopted the system of Pythagoras, but was not content to receive it in the sense of accepting its doctrines and not living the life, after the manner of his teacher, Euxenus. Accordingly when Euxenus asked him how he would begin his new mode of life, he replied, “As doctors purge their patients.” “Hence” (says G. R. S. Mead, in his Biography), “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 the ether in the soul, and destroyed the composure of the mind.” In addition to this, he went barefoot, let his hair grow long, and wore nothing but linen.

On the death of his father, when he was twenty years of age, he inherited a considerable fortune, which was left to him to share with his elder brother, a dissolute young man of three-and-twenty. When his brother had run through his share of the patrimony, he endeavoured (successfully as it appears) to rescue him from his vicious life, and made over to him half his own share of the inheritance. Having distributed the major part of the remainder among his relatives, he merely retained for himself a bare pittance.

Before starting on his missionary activities—he was probably by far the greatest traveller of his time—he took the vow of silence for five years. After this, he travelled from place to place making the acquaintance of temple priests and heads of the religious communities, endeavouring always 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 being devoted to those who were followers of the inner life. _Public_ instruction in ethics and practical life he never gave until after the middle of the day, “for,” he said, “those who live the inner life should on day’s dawning enter the presence of the gods, spending the time till midday in giving and receiving instructions in holy things.” His Indian expedition, from which his friends and disciples endeavoured to dissuade him, he undertook, as he stated, on the advice of his inner monitor, starting his perilous undertaking entirely alone, and so continuing until he made the acquaintance of Damis at Nineveh.

There is some doubt as to the date of Apollonius’s birth, but an allusion by Philostratus makes it appear that he was quite a young man at the time of his Indian expedition, and as he apparently did not commence his five years’ vow of silence till after he came of age, we must assume that he was somewhere between twenty-six and thirty at the commencement of this undertaking. Treadwell dates the Indian travels as from 41 to 54 A.D. If this is approximately accurate we may assign his birth-date to the second decade of the first century of the Christian era. Assuming this to be the case, he was presumably over eighty years old at the time of his death, which occurred about 98 A.D. Damis had been his almost inseparable companion from the time when he first met him at Nineveh. It seems to have been a case of something akin to “love at first sight,” for the Assyrian was seized at once with an enthusiasm for the nobility of Apollonius’s character, which was blent with a natural and even dog-like affection. At the last, however, his companion was not with him, and there is some mystery as to the exact place and occasion of his death. He sent Damis away when the expected time approached, on the pretext of entrusting him with a confidential letter to the Emperor Nerva, so that it may be said of him, as it was of Moses, “No man knoweth his burial place unto this day.”

Apollonius had never reason to regret his Indian travels. He became deeply imbued with the metaphysical ideas of the Brahmins, and was in the habit ever after of extolling their spiritual philosophy as the fountain-head of all the profounder truths of Western religion. As to Damis’s record of Apollonius’s sojourn with the Indian Philosophers, we have only Philostratus’s garbled account to guide us, and the quotation of Apollonius’s cryptic observation, “I saw men dwelling on the earth and yet not on it; defended on all sides, without any defence; and yet possessed of nothing but what all possessed.” It may be well to quote the interpretation of this saying given by Mr Mead. “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.” There are a good many references in the conversations with Apollonius to the belief in Reincarnation, which was of course an essential tenet of Pythagorean philosophy, and he himself averred that in his previous life he was a man of no consequence, to wit, a ship’s pilot. A letter ascribed to him, whether rightly or wrongly, has some interesting observations on this subject.

“Why has this false notion,” he asks, “of birth and death” (_i.e._, that they are real and not illusory in character)—“why has this false notion remained so long without being refuted? Some think that what has happened through them they have themselves brought about. They are ignorant that the individual is brought to birth _through_ parents, not _by_ parents. Just as a thing produced through the earth is not produced from it. The change which comes to the individual is nothing that is caused by his visible surroundings, but rather a change in the one thing which is in every man.”

The portrait of Apollonius which has been handed down through many generations has become blurred and disfigured beyond recognition, and it seemed therefore well to give, even if in but a brief outline, such a sketch as might convey a juster idea of the philosopher whose friendship the greatest men of his day considered it their highest honour to enjoy, the man who chose the path of sanctity at a time of life when others choose “the primrose path of dalliance,” who chose Wisdom for her own sake and Truth for the sake of Truth.

The world holds no record of a long life lived more nobly, of a more undaunted courage in confronting the tyrant, of a more unflinching tenacity of purpose, of a more single-minded devotion to a high ideal. His boyhood’s choice, the inspiration of his manhood, the beacon-light of his latest years—to follow in the footsteps of that Form, so austere in the simplicity of her loveliness, “whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all whose paths are peace.”[3]

Footnote 1:

_Philostratus_, Book IV, chapter xlv. I am indebted to Dr Conybeare’s translation, published by Messrs Heinemann, for this and some other quotations. The book is a very useful one, the Greek and English being given side by side.

Footnote 2:

I am indebted to G. R. S. Mead’s work, _Apollonius of Tyana, The Philosopher-Reformer of the First Century A.D._ (London: T. P. S.), for these particulars.

Footnote 3:

“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom. Length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace” (Prov. iii. 13, 16, 17).

II PLOTINUS

The problem of the origin of the universe is one with which every religion in a certain sense claims to deal; but it is a problem only of the most recondite sphere of metaphysics, while religions generally, in order to ensure their success, make appeal to popular sympathy and endeavour to bring down the truths which they enshrine to the intellectual level of the masses of mankind. To put abstruse truths into simple language is an impossibility. They can, however, be conveyed by a species of symbolism, or presented in an allegorical form which will be interpreted in one sense by the vulgar and in another by the philosopher or the religious initiate. The communication of these hidden truths has been represented in the case of most religions as a definite revelation from a higher plane; but whatever claim is made as to their origin, they are at least put before the rank and file of the faithful as dogmas to be accepted unhesitatingly as a vital element of the orthodox religion of the time or country. Such dogmas in their crude form, it is needless to say, have never made appeal to the high philosophical intelligence of the day. Under the autocratic regime of persecuting Christianity during the Middle Ages of Europe, Christian dogma was indeed accepted nominally by great intellects, but it was accepted under duress and with a reservation, and subject to such interpretations of its inner meaning as might commend themselves to the mental standpoint of their professor. The men of highest intellect were compelled to express the faith that was in them in the most guarded language, and if they failed to do so they were only too liable to share the fate of Galileo, or—worse still—of Giordano Bruno. The sole exception to this rule is to be found in Oriental countries, such as India, where religion, whether Brahmin or Buddhist, has assumed a less dogmatic form, and has found it possible accordingly to assimilate and identify itself with philosophical speculations of the profoundest and most abstruse character, without any sense of incongruity or doing violence to its own specific tenets. It is true that Mohammedanism appears to contradict this, but it must be remembered that the religion of Mohammed was in the nature of a foreign importation and not indigenous to Indian soil.

Thus it came about that the philosophers of early Greece and Rome were almost invariably avowed sceptics as regards the popular religious beliefs of their time, though in spite of this, with the sole exception of Socrates, they were allowed to preach their doctrines openly in the market place without let or hindrance. Thus, too, the triumph of Christianity brought it eventually into open antagonism with philosophic thought. In this case, however, the dogmatic and intolerant character of the creed suffered no rival schools of opinion, and accordingly, within 200 years of the date at which it was established by Constantine as the recognised religion of the Roman Empire, the Athenian schools of philosophy were forcibly suppressed by Justinian.[4] For some two and a half centuries before this latter date Neoplatonism in one form or another had dominated the intellectual world of philosophy. It had superseded the materialistic philosophies of earlier Rome and Greece, and even before the time of Constantine, the Stoic and Epicurean schools of thought had already ceased to appeal to the inquiring spirit of the time. When, after a thousand years of intervening barbarism, under the influence of the Renaissance movement, men began to turn their attention once more to classic scholarship and classic philosophy, it was to Plato, mainly as interpreted by his successor and follower, Plotinus, that the leading spirits of the day turned in search of a solution of those problems of life which were once more pressing for interpretation, after the intellectual death in life of the Dark Ages, following the break-up of the Roman Empire. Christianity, indeed, had its metaphysics—for every religion is bound, in a sense, to explain its Divinity to its devotees—but they were the bastard metaphysics of the Athanasian Creed, the expression of a political compromise drawn up to satisfy the warring sects of Christendom. Far different was the effort of Plotinus, who sought not only to solve the riddle of the sphinx, but to express in language intelligible to his hearers the solution of the profoundest mysteries of the universe. How far he succeeded in doing so is yet in dispute to the present day. At least the basis of his philosophy still remains as an attempted approximation to the truth which forms the groundwork for the efforts of every new seeker after spiritual enlightenment.