Apollonius of Tyana collection

Description

The life of Apollonius of Tyana, a renowned philosopher, ascetic, mystic, and magician, to whom many attributed a divine nature and whom many pagans of his time even promoted as a “rival equal” to Jesus Christ.

Philostratus’s work is the only surviving biography of Apollonius. He cites sources that are no longer extant today. It is an idiosyncratic blend of historiography, literature, and religious writing.

We know little about the life of Apollonius, who was born in Tyana and lived as a wandering philosopher, traveling mainly in the eastern territories of the Roman Empire (he may have traveled to Rome, though Philostratus’s account of his journey to India is widely disputed by many researchers today). He is considered a Neoplatonist and a follower of Pythagoras, and as a Pythagorean, he opposed animal sacrifice and lived on a simple, strictly vegetarian diet.

Later philosophers (from Porphyry and Hierocles to Enlightenment philosophers in the 17th century) regarded Apollonius as a miracle worker or as a proponent of a universal, non-religious ethics compatible with reason, comparing him to Jesus Christ.

Philostratus’s work illuminates this remarkable figure of the early Christian era.

Each volume includes the original ancient text, its translation into modern Greek, and an introduction and/or commentary.