Apollonius of Tyana
The Philosopher Explorer and Social Reformer
of the First Century AD
G. R. S. Mead (1901)
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Apollonius of Tyana (Greek: ca. 100 AD was
a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the
town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia
in Asia Minor. Little is certainly known
about him. Being a first century orator and
philosopher around the time of Christ, he
was compared to Jesus of Nazareth by Christians
in the fourth century and by various
popular writers in modern times.
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SECTION 16 - From His Letters
APOLLONIUS seems to have written many letters
to emperors, kings, philosophers, communities
and states, although he was by no means a
“voluminous correspondent”; in fact, the
style of his short notes is exceedingly concise,
and they were composed, as Philostratus says,
“after the manner of the Lacedæmonian scytale”
[This was a staff, or baton, used as a cypher
for writing dispatches. “A strip of leather
was rolled slantwise round it, on which the
dispatches were written lengthwise, so that
when unrolled they were unintelligible; commanders
abroad had a staff of like thickness, round
which they rolled their papers, and so were
able to read the dispatches.” (Liddell and
Scott’s Lexicon sub voc.) Hence scytale came
to mean generally a Spartan dispatch, which
was characteristically laconin in its brevity.]
(iv 27 and vii 35). It is evident that Philostratus
had access to letters attributed to Apollonius,
for he quotes a number of them, and there
seems no reason to doubt their authenticity.
Whence he obtained them does not inform us,
unless it be that they were the collection
made by Hadrian at Antium (viii 20).
That the reader may be able to judge of the
style of Apollonius we append one specimen
of these letters, or rather notes, for they
are too short to deserve the title of epistles.
Among these letters is found one of some
length addressed to Valerius, probably P.
Valerius Asiaticus, consul in A. D. 70. It
is a wise letter of philosophic consolation
to enable Valerius to bear the loss of his
son, and runs as follows: [Chaignet (A. É),
in his Pythagore et la Philosophie pythagoricienne
(Paris 1873, 2nd ed
1874), cites this as a genuine example of
Apollonius philosophy.]
“There is no death of anyone, but only in
appearance, even as there is no birth of
any, save only in seeming. The change from
being to becoming seems to be birth, and
the change from becoming to being seems to
be death, but in reality no one is ever born,
nor does one ever die. It is simply a being
visible and then invisible; the former through
the density of matter, and the latter because
of the subtlety of being - being which is
ever the same, its only change being motion
and rest. For being has this necessary peculiarity,
that its change is brought about by nothing
external to itself; but whole becomes parts
and parts become whole in the oneness of
the all. And if it be asked: What is this
which sometimes is seen and sometimes not
seen, now in the same, now in the different?—it
might be answered: It is the way of everything
here in the world below that when it is filled
out with matter it is visible, owing to the
resistance of its density, but is invisible,
owing to its subtlety, when it is rid of
matter, though matter still surround it and
flow through it in that immensity of space
which hems it in but knows no birth or death.
“But why has this false notion [of birth
and death] remained so long without a refutation?
Some think that what has happened through
them, they have themselves brought about.
They are ignorant that the individual is
brought to birth through parents, not by
parents, just as a thing produced through
the earth is not produced from it. The change
which comes to the individual is nothing
that is caused by his visible surroundings,
but rather a change in the one thing which
is in every individual.
“And what other name can we give to it but
primal being? ‘Tis it alone that acts and
suffers becoming all for all through all,
eternal deity, deprived and wronged of its
own self by names and forms. But this is
a less serious thing than that a man should
be bewailed, when he has passed from man
to God by change of state and not by the
destruction of his nature. The fact is that
so far from mourning death you ought to honour
it and reverence it. The best and the fittest
way for you to honour death is now to leave
the one who’s gone to God, and set to work
to play the ruler over those left in your
charge as you were wont to do. It would be
a disgrace for such a man as you to owe your
cure to time and not to reason, for time
makes even common people cease from grief.
The greatest things is a strong rule, and
of the greatest rulers he is best who first
can rule himself. And how is it permissible
to wish to change what has been brought to
pass by will of God? If there’s a law in
things, and there is one, and it is God who
has appointed it, the righteous man will
have no wish to try to change good things,
for such a wish is selfishness, and counter
to the law, but he will think that all that
comes to pass is a good thing. On! heal yourself,
give justice to the wretched and console
them; so shall you dry your tears. You should
not set your private woes above your public
cares, but rather set your public cares before
your private woes.
And see as well what consolation you already
have! The nation sorrows with you for your
son. Make some return to those who weep with
you; and this you will more quickly do if
you will cease from tears than if you still
persist. Have you not friends? Why! you have
yet another son. Have you not even still
the one that’s gone? You have!—will answer
anyone who really thinks. For ‘that which
is’ doth cease not - nayis just for the very
fact that it will be for aye; or else the
‘is not’ is, and how could that be when the
‘is’ doth never cease to be?
“Again it will be said you fail in piety
to God and are unjust. ‘Tis true. You fail
in piety to God, you fail in justice to your
boy; nay more, you fail in piety to him as
well. Would’st know what death is? Then make
me dead and send me off to company with death,
and if you will not change the dress you’ve
put on it, [That is his idea of death.] you
will have straightway made me better than
yourself.” [The text of the last sentence
is very obscure].
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