Apollonius of Tyana

[deviadah]

Apollonius of Tyana, or Balinas (Balínús) as the Arabs called him and also what I prefer, is an important hermetic figure and should not be ignored. I hope we can in this thread look into his teachings, and perhaps even discuss if he was - as it has been speculated - the true Jesus Christ.

The myth, to get it down in a very short passage, is as follows:

Thoth --> Hermes --> Balinas

Balinas is thus viewed as the third incarnation!

Bahá'u'lláh writes in his Lawh Basít al-Haqíqat (Tablet on the Uncompounded Reality):

After him [Hermes] Balínús derived his knowledge and sciences from the Hermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed him made their philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and statements.

In The Emerald Tablet of Jabir ibn Hayyan he pops up at the beginning because the legend goes that he possesed the original tablet (having found it in a cave):

Balinas mentions the engraving on the table in the hand of Hermes, which says:
Truth! Certainty! That in which there is no doubt!
That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above, working the miracles of one.

The best account on Balinas is the following book (the site that hosts the book also contains a large bulk of information and writings on this elusive character):

The Life of Apollonius by Flavius Philostratus (this book escaped the burning of the Alexandrian Library)

Thoughts on this guy?

[carabric]

I use to believe he was a real person, but after digging a little deeper I think of him as the creation of Philostratus. If ever anything from the diary of Damis were to resurface, then I'd probably retract my opinion. But the Monkey Christ as he was called, is still very interesting, especially the lengths many early Christians went to- to suppress any and all comparisons with their newly forming religion. It's not to say it didn't all fall solely upon Philostratus's shoulders seeing as how there was record of Apollonius before hand...but he definitely brought it to a mythical proportion. If I were to guess, I'd suggest that the origin of Apollonius would have proliferated from the Pythagorean school itself and though the school vanished the myth carried on. However I have nothing that backs this other then a gut feeling, and since almost everything from the Pythagorean school has been lost through time I suppose we'll never know. Regardless he's still very interesting, though I don't think he was Jesus Christ anymore then I think Jesus was ever a flesh and blood real person.