Page:Apollonius of Tyana - the pagan Christ of the third century.pdf/96

Rh resemblance to Christ, is not a Pythagoras endowed with a second youth. The real truth of the matter will probably be found to lie between the two suggestions.

Why did not Philostratus seek his own ideal in the person of that venerable philosopher whose fame was so great and whose character was so unimpeachable? Probably because he was anxious to leave Christianity no ground of superiority whatever, and because he found, with his royal mistress, that Pythagoras was too old, too far removed from the events, the institutions, and the ideas of the period. The imperial policy and Pythagoras were inconsistent with each other and could not co-exist. He chose, therefore, to bring another Pythagoras to life in a form which was calculated to fall in with the views of the times in which he wrote. The powerlessness of the Alexandrians to resuscitate their own revered patron shows that on this point at least Philostratus and Julia Domna had been very clear-sighted, whilst their own powerlessness to gain belief in their transformed magician proves that they attempted an impossibility. The