Soul Invictus

I'd actually just heard of Apollonius as of recent. I was wondering if anyone cared to begin a discussion about this figure. At least he seems to have an authentic verifiable place in history. I'm wondering if the HJ-JMers here are familiar with the theory that Jesus' story was patterned after this man. I'm doing my own bit of history research to find any connections or similarities, however I wanted to see if to see if anyone here was familiar with him or this idea.

Peter Kirby

A brief bibliography is found here:

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/...pollonius.html

Anyone who is semi-serious in studying the matter of Apollonius (and whatever connection or comparison there might be to Jesus) should obtain the Loeb edition of his biography at a university library. It *is* out of copyright, but nobody has yet placed the whole thing online. If anyone is interested in helping to transcribe the work and place it online, please contact me, as I could give advice and provide hosting&traffic to the transcription.

One thing to observe is that the biography of Philostratus was written in the third century. So it is not tenable to maintain that the four Gospels were written with knowledge of Philostratus' work. The way to make the Gospels dependent on Apollonius is to imagine that the stories of Apollonius were based in fact and known in that way to the evangelists. But what would justify us in regarding the particular stories about Apollonius to be factual? The same issue of methodology raises its head in the case of Apollonius of Tyana.

And there I think is the greatest value of comparing Apollonius and Jesus: providing a place to test out our methodology, in the sand box of Philostratus instead of the theologically charged arena of the New Testament. For mythologues, why would you regard any story about Apollonius to be based in history? For historicists, why would you regard some stories about Apollonius to be fiction?

best,
Peter Kirby

Layman

Just to add to the fun is the possibility that Philostratus was familiar with the Gospels and/or their portryals of Jesus.

Vorkosigan

Yes, apparently he draws heavily on some of the noncanonical legends about Paul to build Apollonius. I am agnostic on the issue of Apollonius existence, myself.

Vorkosigan

Peter Kirby

Here is some work on the historical Apollonius:

http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollon...llonius07.html

A plague on all who doubt the reality of the mighty man from Tyana, established by indisputable methodology! You twist the evidence and steamroller the sources because you do not wish to allow a smidgin of historicity to Apollonius followers. But no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Apollonius. Your anti-historical bias is clear to all, and you only embarrass yourselves with each word you use to argue against the historical Apollonius. Besides, even if you could convince me that Philostratus was a liar who built up Apollonius from a mish-mash of Jewish and Christian parallels, that would do nothing to negate the power of the Apollonius who lives in my heart! Doubts about the historical existence of Apollonius point to the corrupting influence of the fall, which has even noetic effects, and must lead ultimately to a denial of all reality and an upheaval of every social institution we hold dear. I shall pray for you that you may open your heart to the truth.

In His Grip,
Peter Kirby