mountainman

In the fourth century Eusebius makes it clear that the very first comparison between the historical person Apollonius of Tyana and the new testament figure of Jesus had just been written (Hierocles).

According to a reasonably objective view of the history of antiquity, if both these figures where historical, such an historical comparison should surely have been expected to have been instanced by some writer or another in the 200 years from say 100 CE to 300 CE.

Why was Eusebius the first to write a treatise CONTRA? Here then is my question for all those who subscribe to a Historical or a Mythological Jesus theory:

Why was nothing written in the intervening two centuries of the comparison between the two figures? Has anyone ever asked this very question before, and what answers (if any) were provided.


It should be noted that in the absence of any explanation for the above lack of comparison between Apollonius and Jesus (100-300CE) is perfectly explained by those class of theories which are based on a fictional Jesus postulate, and that such fiction was written circa 324 CE.

If Constantine added the tribe of christians to the literature of antiquity he most certainly could have been implicated in the massive program of deletion of the books written by, the biographies written about, the temples and shrines dedicated to, and the living (generational based) memory of Apollonius of Tyana (the author of [among other books] 'On Sacrifice') quoted by Eusebius.

In concluding, perhaps there is a good explanation of the following question, and if you have one, I would be very interested to read it here:

Why was nothing written in the intervening two centuries (100-300CE)
of the comparison between Apollonius and Jesus?


Best wishes,


Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au/essenes

Chris Weimer

More importantly, why should we have expected a comparison?

mountainman

For the same reason that (in theory) Hierocles wrote his parallel comparison. Said reason being of sufficient consideration that Eusebius felt compelled to write a voluminous and exhaustive refutation of the literature of Philostratus; and that this Eusebian treatise accompanied "as an antidote to the poison" the emergent republication of Philostratus for many centuries.

Why should we have expected Hierocles to make a parallel?
That he made the (literary) parallel is apparently historically accepted.
The reasons why he wrote were - as you know - not preserved.





Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au/essenes

Chris Weimer

But that doesn't explain why we should expect a comparison before Hierocles?

mountainman

I should expect that two hundred years is sufficient time for one of the hagiographers of either party to be aware of the other, and to have written at least one line of literature in which any parallel is encapsulated.

Comparison (parallel) surely is a standard practice of literacists, ancient or modern, by which they define their stance with respect to existent frames of references in the wider world?

Both parties generated literature (Apollonius wrote a few books, letters, etc and had hagiographies written about him; Jesus wrote a letter to Agbarus and had hagiographies written about him; and supposedly lots of letters between his bishops) over the two hundred years from say 100 CE to 300 CE

Therefore I find it reasonable to expect a comparison to have been made earlier than it supposedly did, and find it difficult to account for the fact that it would appear than it had to wait for 200 years to occur to a literary mind (of that time as evidenced by what was written during that 200 years), rather than "relatively immediately".




Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au