at Puteoli;[357]--these, with other particulars of a
similar cast, evidence a history modelled after the narrative of the
Evangelists. Expressions, moreover, and descriptions occur, clearly
imitated from the sacred volume. To this we must add[358] the rhetorical
colouring of the whole composition, so contrary to the sobriety of
truth;[359] the fabulous accounts of things and places interspersed
through the history;[360] lastly, we must bear in mind the principle,
recognised by the Pythagorean and Eclectic schools, of permitting
exaggeration and deceit in the cause of philosophy.[361]

* * * * *

After all, it must be remembered, that were the pretended miracles as
unexceptionable as we have shown them to be absurd and useless--were
they plain interruptions of established laws--were they grave and
dignified in their nature, and important in their object, and were there
nothing to excite suspicion in the design, manner, or character of the
narrator--still the testimony on which they rest is the bare word of an
author writing one hundred years after the death of the person
panegyrized, and far distant from the places in which most of the
miracles were wrought, and who can give no better account of his
information than that he gained it from an unpublished work,[362]
professedly indeed composed by a witness of the extraordinary
transactions, but passing into his hands through two intermediate
possessors. These are circumstances which almost, without positive
objections, are sufficient by their own negative force to justify a
summary rejection of the whole account. Unless, indeed, the history had
been perverted to a mischievous purpose, we should esteem it impertinent
to direct argument against a mere romance, and to subject a work of
imagination to a grave discussion.

FOOTNOTES:

[274] Olear. ad Philostr. i. 12.

[275] By Lord Herbert and Mr. Blount.

[276] Philostr. i. 3.

[277] Philostr. i. 2, 3.

[278] His work was called [Greek: Logoi Philaletheis pros Christianous]'
on this subject see Mosheim, _Dissertat. de turbata per recentiores
Platonicos Ecclesia_, Sec. 25.

[279] Philostr i. 17, vi. 11.

[280] Philostr. i. 7.

[281] Ibid. i. 8.

[282] Ibid. i. 13.

[283] Ibid. i. 14, 15.

[284] Brucker, vol. ii. p. 104.

[285] Philostr. i. 16.

[286] See Olear. _praefat. ad vitam._ As he died, U.C. 849, he is usually
considered to have lived to a hundred. Since, however, he