Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

208 THK FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMremarkable work, which sets forth this idea in thedetail of what pretends to be the veracious biographyof a Neopythagorean philosopher. In this we shallfind that what Plutarch, Dio, Maximus, Celsus also,and many others had taught in bits, is exhibited fulllength and clothed in flesh and blood as the birth, education,discipline, travels, labours, sufferings, triumph,and death of an actual man. The reformation of theheathen religion which we have hitherto followed infragmentary "* disclosures is embodied in an exampleand illustrated by a hero.Such was the thought of that great patroness ofliterature and philosophers, the Empress Julia Domna,the wife of Septimius Severus, at the beginning of thethird century. She commissioned Philostratus, one ofthe ornaments of her learned Court, to carry it out,and the life of Apollonius of Tyana which we nowpossess is the result. The occasion of writing thiswork is told us by its author. " There was/' he says,a certain man named Damis, who was well readin philosophy, a citizen of the ancient Ninus, whobecame one of the disciples of Apollonius, and wrotethe account of his travels, wherein he set down hisopinions, discourses, and predictions. A person nearlyallied to Damis introduced the Empress Julia to aknowledge of his memoirs, which till then were notknown, and as I was a part ^B of her circle, for sheencouraged all literary works, she commanded me totranscribe these commentaries, and pay particularattention to the style and language, for the narrativeof the Ninevite was plain but not eloquent. Toassist me in the work I was fortunate in procuringthe book of Maximus, the ^Egean, which contained allthe actions of Apollonius at ^Egas, and a transcript of