INTRODUCTION

...images of the gods in his private shrine, established there, as objects of his veneration, statues of Alexander the Great, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, Abraham, and Christ. This story, however, in no way contradicts the statement of Eusebius, and it is a pity that this significant caution by the latter has been disregarded by Christian writers of the last three centuries. They have almost unanimously adopted an utterly unwarranted view: that Philostratus intended his Life of Apollonius as a counterblast to the Christian gospels.

The best scholars of the current generation oppose this view, for they realize that demoniac possession was a common feature in the ancient world, and that an exorcist who drove demons out of afflicted people by using threats and the invocation of mysterious names was a figure just as familiar in old Pagan society as he was in the early Church.

We read that wherever Apollonius traveled, he visited temples and attempted to reform the cults he found in practice. His reform seems to have consisted of denouncing the practice of animal sacrifice as derogatory to the gods, and trying to persuade the priests to abandon it. In this respect, he prepared the ground for Christianity and was working along the same lines as many Christian missionaries.