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Will the real Gentile God Stand Up—Part II!
Was Apollonius of Tyana the Real Jesus?
Just less than 2,000 years ago (according to Jewish/Christians tradition) Jesus was in Egypt. He had hired himself as a servant on account of his poverty. At the same time in Cappadocia (now central Turkey) a young man contemporary with Jesus was making a name for himself as a miracle maker, his name was Apollonius of Tyana (God 1, in part I). For almost the entire 1st century CE, nothing is mentioned about Jesus, He is absent from the writers of that century. We only see the writings of Jesus merging after the death of Apollos or Apollonius of Tyana, the most famous philosopher and miracle worker of his day. Nobody was his equal, not even the Christian saviour, Jesus. Whose followers are said to have mimicked the life, works of Apollonius?
Jesus’ similarities to Apollonius of Tyana are undeniable. Apollonius of Tyana is said to have been a neo-Pythagorean philosopher, miracle worker, teacher and traveller. Some compare him to Jesus Christ. In fact, many agnostic and atheistic scholars, as well as other freethinkers, believe that some portions of the Gospels of Jesus Christ are actually modelled on the adventures of Apollonius. Quite possibly, due to the lack of historical evidence for Jesus as depicted in the Gospels – some believe him to have actually been the Jesus Christ. Apollonius of Tyana may have been dropped in favour of Jesus Christ when the Christians decided who to believe was the true son of God. The story is controversial, but to some scholars it is provable?
Apollonius in the New Testament
I Corinthians 1:11-12: ” . . . It has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided?”
I Corinthians 3:4-6: “For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ and another, ‘I belong to Apollos,’ are you not merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.”
I Corinthians 3:22-23: ” . . . Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.”
I Corinthians 4:6: “I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters, so that you may learn through us the meaning of the saying, ‘Nothing beyond what is written,’ so that none of you will be puffed up in favour of one against another.”
I Corinthians 16:12: “Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but he was not at all willing to come now. He will come when he has the opportunity.”
A Christian apologist, born about 100 CE, was said to have asked: ‘How is it that the talismans of Apollonius have power over certain members of creation, for they prevent, as we see, the fury of the waves, the violence of the winds, and the attacks of wild beasts. And whilst Our Lord’s miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius are most numerous, and actually manifested in present facts, so as to lead astray all beholders?’—Justin Martyr, Quæstiones et responsiones ad orthodoxos, XXiV
Roman historian, who composed a profane history in the Latin language, refers to Apollonius as “that most renowned philosopher,” and thought that, “like Pythagoras and Socrates, he was a privileged mortal who lived assisted by a familiar genius.”—Ammianus Marcellinus (325‑391).
The same Roman historian also wrote: “no wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their deadly hatred of one another.”
—Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330-c. 395 CE) Roman antiquities, bk. XXII, Ch. 5
Medieval writer Nicetas tells us of bronze doors at Byzantium which bore inscribed extracts from the Book of Rites, a lost work of Apollonius, and that these doors were melted down in order to destroy so-called non-Christian beliefs which had persisted around the teachings of Christians.
The scholar Mead on what Eusebius of Caesarea aka The Liar has to say on the matter of Apollonius:
Eusebius admits that Apollonius was a wise and virtuous man, but denies that there is sufficient proof that the wonderful things ascribed to him ever took place; and even if they did take place, they were the work of “dæmons,” and not of God. The treatise of Eusebius is interesting; he severely scrutinises the statements in Philostratus and shows himself possessed of a first-rate critical faculty. Had he only used the same faculty on the documents of theChurch, of which he was the first historian, posterity would have owed him an eternal debt of gratitude. But Eusebius, like so many other apologists, could only see one side; justice, when anything touching Christianity was called into question, was a stranger to his mind, and he would have considered it blasphemy to use his critical faculty on the documents which relate the “miracles” of Jesus. Still, the problem of “miracle” was the same, as Hierocles pointed out, and remains the same to this day.[G.R.S Mead (1901), Apollonius of Tyana The Philosopher Explorer and Social Reformer of the First Century AD., pp. 13/14]
What do you say?
Cofion
Article URL : https://breakingnewsandreligion.online/discuss/