Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

248 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMfollowed out from before his birth to after his death,and the narrative of his actions is the exhibition ofhis religion. But as the whole Greek and Romanhistory does not furnish us with a single instanceof a man who spent his life in going about teachingand doing good, so the whole Greek and Romanliterature before Philostratus does not furnish uswith a single example of an attempt to convey asystem of religious teaching in the form of biography.There are indeed two instances, one before and oneafter Christ, of men whose life furnishes a point ofresemblance with the life here assigned to Apollonius.The one is Socrates, inquiring and discussing with allmen at Athens ; the other is Epictetus, who devoteshimself to philosophic teaching with a select circleof disciples. And in both these instances theirfriends and pupils have put together books whichcontain some of their conversations. ut neitherthe conversations of Socrates as recorded by Xenophon,nor those of Epictetus by Arrian, come up to the designof Philostratus. That design, as it reveals itselfby internal evidence, seems to have been to supply tothe Hellenic religion and civilisation a person as itsbearer and representative in the same manner as theChristians had such a bearer and representative inChrist. Thus Philostratus, carefully abstaining fromany mention of Christ or the Christian Church, tacitlyimitates what he ignores. ut likewise his imitation istwofold. The first and very remarkable imitation is thathis book purports to set forth the life of a religiousteacher, whose doctrine is unfolded by his acts. In thisit has for its only adequate prototype the life of Christcontained in the four Gospels. The second imitationis not less noteworthy. The character which he