“NEVER GRACE SOMEONE ILLITERATE
BECAUSE FOOLS NEVER GRANTED BY PROUD”

Writer: Yavuz İşçen
May 2009

Pythagoras doctrine
Apollonius (BC 4- AC 1), whose ancestors were founders of Tyana, was a member of a rich and sophisticated family. It is known that he was well educated. By the influence of his family, when he was 16 years old he went to Tarsus for education and studied in Pythagoras school. The school, giving semi religious education based on numerical mystics and philosophy, was established by Pythagoras (BC 580-504), the great, world famous philosopher with Pythagorean theory and brought the word mathematic in our vocabulary.
After finishing his studies, Apollonius of Tyana traveled to many important centers such as Iran, Egypt, India, Athens, Rome and Ephesus. At these centers he confabulated sometimes with emperors, sometimes with the locals, ecclesiastics, philosophers and sages. In the length of time, he became famous healing and magic adept of the 1st century.

Queen Julia Domna highlights Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana was remembered once again around a hundred years after his death, during the period of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (193-211). Queen Julia Domna (170-217) was the wife of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. The Queen had a wise and strong character. She nominated Flavio Flastro of Athens, one of the most famous writes and elocutionist of the period, to write autobiography of Apollonius of Tyana by examining the whole documents of Empire archives. The hidden aim of this action was to prevent the quick outspread of Christianity in Rome. Julia Domna was trying to stop the evolution of Christianity by gathering people around a character who was close to polytheism, instead of Jesus of Christ. Apollonius of Tyana was the best choice for this plan because he was coming from paganism background, known as a healer and it was believed in that he had miracles. The writer Flavio Flastro worked on the book for 6 years and on 217 he finished the book named as “Life of Apollonius”. But Julia Domna was died during the year she received the book. Therefore the chance of the book’s reaching its hidden aim was collapsed from the very beginning.

First Ecumenical Meeting: The Consul of İznik and Extension of Christianity
As Constantine (311-337) became the Emperor of Roma he aimed to create a new state and a new state religion. Therefore he declared that he would be protecting the Christians who were tortured until that time. This declaration has a very important impact on the extension of Christianity. In order to reach the aim he gathered a consul in İznik on the year of 325. 230 bishops, selected from every region of the Empire, participated in this consul. He was aiming to keep the Church under the control of government. For this, the consul was nominated to write down a standard Bible in Greek. Except the government’s Bible, the rest was destroyed and forbidden. At the same time, a dense attack towards pagan believes and traditions were started. Apollonius of Tyana was affected by these attacks as well. His books were burned, his temples were destroyed and his sculptures and busts were demolished.

Was Jesus Really Alive?
At this point it is posited that some miracles and stories of Apollonius of Tyana were appropriated to Jesus Christ in the new version of Bible. Moreover, there is a saying that Jesus never lived and he was a virtual personality created based on the personality of Apollonius of Tyana. It is better that we leave the discussions to the experts of this topic. If we continue with Apollonius of Tyana, we see that he was forgotten after this period and after 1176 years later he was remembered again by the help of the book named “Life of Apollonius” prepared by the Queen Julia Domna. I think, I do not need to say that Catholic Church did not like the book which was printed in Venice in the year of 1501. Since 1501 until today, almost 300 books were written about Apollonius of Tyana, various theses were created about Christianity and the discussions outlasted until today.

Note: This article has been published in Peribacası Cappadocia Culture and Publicity Magazine, May 2009 issue. It is under protection of the copyrights of the magazine. No part of this article may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by electronic, mechanical or other means without prior permission from the owner. www.cappadociaexplorer.com