The charge had been frequently made that Apollonius came illegitimately by his wisdom and acquired it violently by magic. Philostratus would restore him to the ranks of true philosophers who gained wisdom by worthy and licit methods. He declares that he was not a wizard, as many suppose, but a notable Pythagorean, a man of broad culture, an intellectual and moral teacher, a religious ascetic and reformer, probably even a prophet of divine and superhuman nature. It is not now so generally held by Christian writers as it used to be that Philostratus wrote the _Life_ with the Gospel story of Christ in mind, and that his purpose was to imitate or to parody or to oppose a rival narrative to the Christian story and teaching. At no point in the _Life_ does Philostratus betray unmistakably even a passing acquaintance with the Gospels, much less display any sign of animus against them. Moreover, the Christian historian and apologist, Eusebius, who lived in the century following Philostratus and was familiar with his _Life_ of Apollonius, in writing a reply to a treatise in which Hierocles, a provincial governor under Diocletian, had compared Apollonius with Jesus, distinctly states that Hierocles was the first to suggest such an idea.[1128] Such similarities then as may exist between the _Life_ and the Gospels must be taken as examples of beliefs common to that age. [Sidenote: Apollonius charged with magic.] Apollonius was accused of sorcery or magic during his lifetime by the rival philosopher Euphrates. The four books on Apollonius written by Moeragenes also portrayed him as a wizard;[1129] and Eusebius in his reply to Hierocles ascribed the miracles wrought by Apollonius to sorcery and the aid of evil demons.[1130] Earlier the satirist Lucian described Alexander the pseudo-prophet as having been in his youth an apprentice to “one of the charlatans who deal in magic and mystic incantations, ... a native of Tyana, an associate of the great Apollonius, and acquainted with all his heroics.”[1131] [Sidenote: A confusion of terms]