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58 doctrine, both of which were progressing wonderfully at that time, by the exhibition on the opposite side of that shallow representation of a miraculous science, holiness, and virtue. He invented a character in imitation of Christ, and introduced almost all the incidents in the life of Jesus Christ into the history of Apollonius in order that the Pagans might have no cause to envy the Christians; by doing which he inadvertently enhanced the glory of Christ, for by falsely attributing to another the real character of the Saviour, he gave to the latter the praise which is His just due, and indirectly held Him up to the admiration and praise of others."

Again in the eighteenth century the Deists renewed the attacks made of old by Hierocles. Resting their arguments on the undeniable similarity between the Christ of the Gospels and Apollonius of Tyana, they maintained that both histories were equally apocryphal. In 1680, Charles Blount, an English Deist, pushed this dilemma still further, and said that we must either admit the truth of the miracles of Apollonius as well as those of Jesus