taken the account from the other; moreover, he is well
known to be of a credulous turn of mind, and far from averse from
recording marvellous stories.

Let us now turn to the statement of Philostratus; it will be found to
form as strong a contrast to the simplicity and dignity of the Gospel
narratives, as the dabbling in politics, which is so marked a feature in
Apollonius, differs from the conduct of Him who emphatically declared
that His kingdom was not of this world.

"He was conversing," says Philostratus, "among the groves attached
to the porticoes, about noon, that is, just at the time when the
event was occurring in the imperial palace; and first he dropped
his voice, as if in terror; then, with a faltering unusual to him,
he described [an action], as if he beheld something external, as
his words proceeded. Then he was silent, stopping abruptly; and
looking with agitation on the ground, and advancing up three or
four of the steps, 'Strike the tyrant, strike!' he cried out, not
as drawing a mere image of the truth from some mirror, but as
seeing the thing itself, and seeming to realize what was doing;
and, to the consternation of all Ephesus, for it was thronging
around while he was conversing, after an interval of suspense,
such as happens when spectators are following some undecided action
up to its issue, he said, 'Courage, my men, for the tyrant is
slaughtered this day--nay, now, now.'"[337]

Only an eye-witness is warranted to write thus pictorially; Philostratus
was born 86 years after Apollonius's death.

5.

2. But it is almost superfluous to speak either of the general character
of his extraordinary acts, or of the tone and manner in which they are
narrated, when, in truth, neither Apollonius nor his biographer had any
notion or any intention of maintaining that, in our sense of the word
"miracle," these acts were miracles at all, or were to be referred to
the immediate agency of the Supreme Being. Apollonius neither claimed
for himself, nor did Philostratus claim for him, any direct mission from
on high; nor did he in consequence submit the exercise of his
preternatural powers to such severe tests as may fairly be applied to
the miracles of Christianity.

Of works, indeed, which are asserted to proceed from the Author of
nature, sobriety, dignity, and conclusiveness may fairly be required;
but when a man ascribes his extr