Apollonius of Tyana | |
|---|---|
 A wandering philosopher, probably representing Apollonius of Tyana, who lived a part of his life inCrete and died there. Found inGortyn (late 2nd century AD), now inHeraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete. | |
| Born | c. AD 15 (disputed)[1] |
| Died | c. AD 100 (aged c. 85) |
| Occupation(s) | Sage,orator,philosopher |
| Known for | Divination,miracle-work |
Apollonius of Tyana (Ancient Greek:Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ Τυανεύς;c. AD 15 – c. 100[2]) was a Greekphilosopher andreligious leader from the town ofTyana, Cappadocia inRoman Anatolia, who spent his life travelling and teaching in theMiddle East,North Africa andIndia. He is a central figure inNeopythagoreanism and was one of the most famous "miracle workers" of his day.
His exceptional personality and hismystical way of life, which was regarded as exemplary, impressed his contemporaries and had a lasting cultural influence. Numerouslegends surrounding him and accounts of his life are contained in the extensiveLife of Apollonius. Many of the ancient legends of Apollonius consist of numerous reports aboutmiracles that he was said to have performed as awandering sage with hislifelong companionDamis.
He wastried for allegedly having usedmagic as a means ofconspiring against the emperor; after hisconviction and subsequentdeath-penalty, his followers believed he underwentheavenly ascension.[3] Most modern scholars of antiquity agree that Apollonius existed historically.[4][5]
Apollonius was born into a respected and wealthyaristocratic Greek household.[6][7] His primary biographer,Philostratus the Elder (c. 170 – c. 247), places himc. 3 BC – c. AD 97, however, the Roman historianCassius Dio (c. AD 155 – c. 235) writes that Apollonius was in his 40s or 50s in the 90s AD, from which the scholarMaria Dzielska gives a birth year of about AD 40.[1]
The earliest and by far the most detailed source is theLife of Apollonius of Tyana, a lengthy, novelistic biography written by thesophistPhilostratus at the request of empressJulia Domna, wife ofSeptimius Severus. She died in AD 217,[8] and he completed it after her death, probably in the 220s or 230s AD. Philostratus's account shaped the image of Apollonius for posterity. To some extent it is a valuable source because it contains data from older writings that were available to Philostratus butdisappeared later on. Among these works are an excerpt (preserved byEusebius) fromOn Sacrifices, and certain alleged letters of Apollonius. The sage may have actually written some of these works, along with the no-longer extantLife ofPythagoras.[9] At least two biographical sources that Philostratus used are lost: a book by the imperial secretaryMaximus describing Apollonius's activities in Maximus's home city ofAegaeae inAeolis and a biography by a certainMoiragenes. There also survives, separately from the life by Philostratus, a collection of letters of Apollonius, but at least some of these seem to be spurious.[10]
One of the essential sources Philostratus claimed to know are the "memoirs" (or "diary") ofDamis, anacolyte and companion of Apollonius. Some scholars claim that the notebooks of Damis were an invention of Philostratus,[11] while others think it could have been a real bookforged by someone else and naively used by Philostratus.[12] Philostratus describes Apollonius as a wandering teacher of philosophy and miracle-worker who was mainly active inGreece and Asia Minor but also traveled toItaly,Spain, andNorth Africa, and even toMesopotamia,India, andEthiopia. In particular, he tells lengthy stories of Apollonius entering the city ofRome in disregard of emperorNero's ban on philosophers, and later on being summoned, as a defendant, to the court ofDomitian, where he defied the emperor in blunt terms. He had allegedly been accused of conspiring against the emperor, performinghuman sacrifice, and predicting a plague by means ofmagic. Philostratus implies that upon his death, Apollonius of Tyanaentered heaven.[13]
How much of this can be accepted as historical truth depends largely on the extent to which modern scholars trust Philostratus, and in particular on whether they believe in the reality of Damis. Some of these scholars contend that Apollonius never came toWestern Europe and was virtually unknown there until the 3rd century AD, when Empress Julia Domna, who was herself from theprovince of Syria, decided to popularize him and his teachings in Rome.[14] For that purpose, so these same scholars believe, she commissioned Philostratus to write the biography, in which Apollonius is exalted as a fearless sage with supernatural powers, even greater thanPythagoras. This view of Julia Domna's role in the making of the Apollonius legend gets some support from the fact that her sonCaracalla worshipped him,[15] and her grandnephew emperorSeverus Alexander may have done so as well.[16]
Apollonius was also a well-known figure in theIslamic world, being referred to by the nameBalinus.[17][a]
With the exception of theAdana Inscription from the 3rd or 4th century AD,[18] little can be derived from sources other thanPhilostratus.
TheAdana Inscription has been translated by C.P. Jones as: "This man, named after Apollo, and shining forth from Tyana, extinguished the faults of men. The tomb in Tyana (received) his body, but in truth, heaven received him so that he might drive out the pains of men (or: drive pains from among men)." It is thought to have been brought fromCilicia, perhapsAegae (Cilicia). However, Miroslav Marcovich translates part of the text as: "Sure enough, Apollonius was born in Tyana, but the full truth is that he was a heaven-sent sage and healer, a new Pythagoras."[19]
According to James Francis, "the most that can be said ... is that Apollonius appears to have been a wanderingascetic/philosopher/wonderworker of a type common to the eastern part of the early empire."[20] What we can safely assume is that he was indeed aPythagorean and as such, in conformity with the Pythagorean tradition, opposed animal sacrifice and lived on a frugal, strictly vegetarian diet.[21] A minimalist view is that he spent his entire life in the cities of his nativeAsia Minor (Turkey) and of northernSyria, in particular his home town of Tyana,Ephesus,Aegae andAntioch,[22] though the letters suggest wider travels, and there seems no reason to deny that, like many wandering philosophers, he at least visited Rome. As for his philosophical convictions, we have an interesting, probably authentic fragment of one of his writings (On sacrifices), in which he expresses his view that God, who is the most beautiful being, cannot be influenced by prayers or sacrifices and has no wish to be worshipped by humans, but can be reached by a spiritual procedure involvingnous (intellect), because he himself is pure nous, and nous is the greatest faculty of humankind.[23]
Philostratus implies on one occasion that Apollonius hadextra-sensory perception (Book VIII, Chapter XXVI). When emperorDomitian was murdered on 18 September AD 96, Apollonius was said to have witnessed the event in Ephesus "about midday" on the day it happened in Rome, and told those present "Take heart, gentlemen, for the tyrant has been slain this day ...". Both Philostratus and renowned historianCassius Dio report this incident, probably on the basis of an oral tradition.[24] Both state that the philosopher welcomed the deed as praiseworthytyrannicide.[25]
Philostratus devoted two and a half of the eight books of hisLife of Apollonius (1.19–3.58) to the description of a journey of his hero toIndia. It's possible that the sage of Tyana indeed traveled to India, and it's also "entirely plausible" that he was attributed with this journey even before Philostratus.[26]
According to Philostratus'Life, en route to the Far East, Apollonius reached Hierapolis Bambyce (Manbij) in Syria (notNineveh, as some scholars believed), where he met Damis, a native of that city who became his lifelong companion.Pythagoras, whom theNeo-Pythagoreans regarded as an exemplary sage, was believed to have traveled to India. Hence such a feat made Apollonius look like a good Pythagorean who spared no pains in his efforts to discover the sources of oriental piety and wisdom. As some details in Philostratus' account of the Indian adventure seem incompatible with known facts, modern scholars are inclined to dismiss the whole story as a fanciful fabrication, but not all of them rule out the possibility that the Tyanean actually did visit India.[27] Philostratus has him meetPhraotes, the Indo-Parthian king ofTaxila, a city located in northern Ancient India in what is now northernPakistan, around AD 46. And the description that Philostratus provides of Taxila comports with modern archaeological excavations at the ancient site.[28]
What seemed to be independent evidence showing that Apollonius was known in India has now been proven a forgery. In twoSanskrit texts quoted by Sanskritist Vidhushekhara Bhattacharya in 1943[29] he appears as "Apalūnya", in one of them together with Damis (called "Damīśa"), it is claimed that Apollonius and Damis were Western yogis, who later on were converted to the correctAdvaita philosophy.[30] Some have believed that these Indian sources derived their information from aSanskrit translation of Philostratus' work (which would have been a most uncommon and amazing occurrence), or even considered the possibility that it was really an independent confirmation of the historicity of the journey to India.[31] Only in 1995 were the passages in the Sanskrit texts proven to be interpolations by a late 19th-century forger.[32]
Several writings and many letters have been ascribed to Apollonius, but some of them are lost; others have only been preserved in parts or fragments of disputed authenticity.Porphyry andIamblichus refer to a biography of Pythagoras by Apollonius, which has not survived; it is also mentioned in theSuda.[33] Apollonius wrote a treatise,On sacrifices, of which only a short, probably authentic fragment has come down to us.[34]
Philostratus'Life and the anthology assembled byJoannes Stobaeus contain purported letters of Apollonius. Some of them are cited in full, others only partially. There is also an independently transmitted collection of letters preserved in medieval manuscripts. It is difficult to determine what is authentic and what not. Some of the letters may have been forgeries or literary exercises assembled in collections which were already circulated in the 2nd century AD.[citation needed] It has been asserted that Philostratus himself forged a considerable part of the letters he inserted into his work; others were older forgeries available to him.[35]
In the 2nd century the satiristLucian of Samosata was a sharp critic of Neo-Pythagoreanism. After AD 180 he wrote a pamphlet wherein he attackedAlexander of Abonoteichus, a student of one of Apollonius's students, as acharlatan and suggested that the whole school was based onfraud.[36] From this we can infer that Apollonius really had students and that his school survived at least until Lucian's time. One of Philostratus's foremost aims was to oppose this view. Although he related various miraculous feats of Apollonius, he emphasized at the same time that his hero was not a magician but a serious philosopher and a champion of traditional Greek values.[37]
When EmperorAurelian conducted his military campaign against thePalmyrene Empire, he captured Tyana in AD 272. According to theHistoria Augusta he abstained from destroying the city after having a vision of Apollonius admonishing him to spare the innocent citizens.[38]
In Late Antiquitytalismans made by Apollonius appeared in several cities of theEastern Roman Empire, as if they were sent from heaven.[39] They were magical figures and columns erected in public places, meant to protect the cities from afflictions. The great popularity of these talismans was a challenge to the Christians. Some Byzantine authors condemned them as sorcery and the work of demons, others admitted that such magic was beneficial; none of them claimed that it didn't work.[40]
In theWestern Roman Empire,Sidonius Apollinaris was a Christian admirer of Apollonius in the 5th century. He produced aLatin translation of Philostratus'sLife, which is lost.[41]
During the medieval period, a number of works related toHermetic philosophy andmedieval European magic were falsely attributed to Apollonius of Tyana which spanned the Greek, Arabic, and Latin traditions.
In the Greek tradition, there isThe Book of Wisdom (Greek:Biblos Sophias) which isa twelfth-century astrological magic book that dates to the fifth century but survives only as late as the fifteenth century.[clarify]The Book of Wisdom may also have survived in the Latin and Arabic traditions as having been published and distributed as a series of short separate tracts or chapters under a variety of different titles.[42]
In the Latin tradition, there is theGolden Flowers (Flores Aurei) which is a thirteenth-century book of angelic magic which supposedly contains Apollonius' select extracts and prayers from the mythical and lostBook of Flowers of Heavenly Teaching (Liber Florum Caelestis Doctrinae) compiled by King Solomon. TheGolden Flowers was later compiled with its own derivative text called theNew Art (Ars Nova) which would later become known asThe Notory Art (Ars Notoria). TheNotory Art explains that Apollonius of Tyana is the spiritual successor to King Solomon's angelic magic; for this reason,The Notory Art is often classified as belonging to the Pseudo-Solomonic corpus of magical literature. Another pseudepigraphal Latin work attributed to Apollonius of Tyana is the lostOn Making Angelic Things (De Angelica Factura orDe Angelica Factione) cited by the Italian university professorCecco d'Ascoli in his commentary on the Sphere of the Cosmos byJohn de Sacrobosco. Another falsely attributed work isOn the Seven Figures of the Seven Planets (Liber De Septem Figuris Septem Planetarum) which describes the sevenmagic squares attributed to the seven classical planets.
In the Arabic tradition, Apollonius of Tyana is called the "Master of the Talismans" (Sahib at-tilasmat) and known as Balinus (or, Balinas, Belenus, or Abuluniyus).[a] The ninth-centuryBook of Balinas the Wise: On the Causes, or, the Book of the Secret of Creation (Kitab Balaniyus al-Hakim fi'l- 'llal, Kitab Sirr al-khaliqa wa-san 'at al-tabi'a) expounds upon the origins of the cosmos and its causes in six chapters and narrates the story of how Apollonius entered the crypt ofHermes Trismegistus to discover theEmerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina) which became a foundational text ofalchemy. In this way, Apollonius of Tyana becomes the philosophical and alchemical successor to Hermes Trismegistus. Another Arabic book falsely attributed to Apollonius is theTreatise on Magic (Risalat al-Sihr) cited within theGreat Introduction to the Treatise on Spirits and Talismans which was translated byHunayn ibn Ishaq (al-Mudkhal al-Kabir ila 'ilm af 'al al-Ruhaniyat waw Talassimat). TheTreatise on Magic might be the same work under its Latin titlesDe Hyle andDe Arte Magica as cited by Cecco d'Ascoli.[43]
Beginning in the early 16th century, there was great interest in Apollonius in Europe, but the traditional ecclesiastical viewpoint prevailed, and until theAge of Enlightenment the Tyanean was usually treated as a demonic magician and a great enemy of the Church who collaborated with the devil and tried to overthrow Christianity.[44]
Eliphas Levi made three attempts to raise the shade of Apollonius of Tyana by occult ritual, as described in his textbook on magicDogme de la magie (1854).[45]
TheTablet of Wisdom, written byBahá'u'lláh, the founder of theBaháʼí Faith, names "Balinus" (Apollonius) as a great philosopher, who "surpassed everyone else in the diffusion of arts and sciences and soared unto the loftiest heights of humility and supplication."[46] In another text Baháʼu'lláh states that he "derived his knowledge and sciences from theHermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed him made their philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and statements".[47]
Edward Bulwer-Lytton refers to Apollonius inThe Last Days of Pompeii andZanoni as a great master of occult power and wisdom.
Apollonius appears inGustave Flaubert's novelThe Temptation of Saint Anthony, where he tempts the titular saint with divine wisdom and the power to perform miracles. As a miracle worker and neo-Pythagorean philosopher, the character of Apollonius is used as a bridge between the two sections of the book covering the temptations of human sages and the temptations of the gods.
Apollonius of Tyana is a major character inSteven Saylor'shistorical novelEmpire, which depicts his confrontation with the harsh EmperorDomitian. Apollonius is shown confounding the Emperor (and many others) in quick-witted dialogue, reminiscent ofSocrates. The book's plot leaves ambiguous the issue of whether Apollonius possessed true magical power or that he was able to usesuggestion and other clever tricks.
Avram Davidson'sscience fiction novelMasters of the Maze has Apollonius of Tyana as one of a select group of humans (and other sentient beings) who had penetrated to the center of a mysterious "Maze" traversing all of space and time. There he dwells in eternal repose, in company with theBiblical Enoch, the ChineseKing Wen andLao Tze, the 19th-century BritonBathurst, and various other sages of the past and future, some of themMartians.
InThe Circus of Dr. Lao (1935) byCharles G. Finney, Apollonius appears in the employ of Dr. Lao's circus and brings a dead man back to life. Apollonius of Tyana is one of the 7 circus characters portrayed by Tony Randall in the 1964 filmThe Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. This character does not have any philosophical context, rather he is a sideshow attraction similar to a fortune-teller who, besides being blind, has been blessed with clairvoyance. While he always speaks the truth, ugly or not, about the future, he is accursed with an ironic fate – nobody ever believes what he says.
In television, Apollonius of Tyana was portrayed byMel Ferrer inThe Fantastic Journey episode entitled "Funhouse". Apollonius was banished centuries ago to a time zone by the gods for opposing them. When the time zone travelers led by the 23rd century healer and pacifist named Varian arrive at a seemingly abandoned carnival, Apollonius intends to lure them into his funhouse of horrors so that he can possess the body of one of the travelers and escape his eternal imprisonment.
Keats' poemLamia mentions and discusses Apollonius.
InGuillaume Apollinaire's poem "Zone," fromAlcools, Apollonius is depicted with other figures historical and mythological, "floating around the first aeroplane."
Comparisons between Apollonius and Jesus became commonplace in the 17th and 18th centuries in the context of polemic about Christianity.[48] Several advocates of Enlightenment,deism and anti-Church positions saw him as an early forerunner of their own ethical and religious ideas, a proponent of a universal, non-denominational religion compatible withreason. These comparisons continued into the 20th century.
Apollonius was born around 2 AD in Tyana (modern-day Bor in southern Turkey), in the Roman province of Cappadocia. He was born into a wealthy and respected Cappadocian Greek family, and received the best education, studying grammar and rhetoric in Tarsus, learning medicine at the temple of Aesculapius at Aegae, and philosophy at the school of Pythagoras.
Philostratus likewise emphasizes the pure Greek origin of Apollonius. He calls Tyana "a Greek city in the region of..."
