Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

252 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMlonius is therefore directed to subdue this tyranny ofthe body. His notion of evil is physical ; the notionof the body overmastering the high and pure natureof the soul. His notion of good is, the subduing thebody to the control of the soul. Thus the work ofthe wise man in the world corresponds to the work ofthe Demiurge in chaos, to reduce everything to theorder of reason. This he must do, first in himself,then in those around him, and finally in the commonwealth.It is this idea consistently carried out whichmakes the Pythagorean philosophy.From all this we see how far Philostratus and hishero are removed from approaching the Christiannotion of sin. They would not even understand theconception of a purely immaterial spirit who was inrebellion against God. The soul, according to them,became liable to evil by its contact with matter, becameevil so far as it was ruled by the matter which concernedit, that is, its own body; whilst in itself it wasidentical in quality, not in quantity, with the onesupreme nature. And when the soul exerted this,its original power, the man became wise, divine, oreven god. The doctrine of the pre-existence, post-existence, and transmigration of souls is evidently anessential part of such philosophy, which is as evidentlyat the bottom pure pantheism.Thus the similarity between the picture of Apol-lonius, as drawn by Philostratus, and that of Christ inthe Gospels, to which we have alluded, is merely external.Beneath it lies the most absolute antagonism.This may be further illustrated by pointing out thatthe opposition to the tyranny of Nero and Domitianoccupies in the life of Apollonius the place which oppositionto the tyranny of sin takes in the life of Christ.