Dr. Smith, or Mr. Jowett, the author of the article, very judiciously says--"We have purposely omitted the wonders with which Philostratus has garnished his narrative.... _Many of these are curiously coincident with the Christian miracles_--(the italics are our own). The proclamation of the birth of Apollonius to his mother by Proteus, and the incarnation of Proteus himself; the chorus of swans which sung for joy on the occasion, the casting out of devils, the raising the dead and healing the sick, the sudden disappearances and reappearances of Apollonius; his adventures in the cave of Trophonius, and the sacred voice which called him at his death--to which may be added his claim as a teacher, having authority to reform the world--cannot fail to suggest the parallel passages in the Gospel history." We learn, moreover, that the biographer was high in favour with Alexander Severus, and that Eusebius of Caesarea naively allows the truth of Philostratus' narrative in the main, with the exception of what is miraculous. None of the authors quoted seem to think of the adage--"Change but the names, and the same classes of wonders are a matter of faith to you." Surely it is as easy to credit the strange deeds of Proteus as those of Gabriel. Whether we choose to adopt the hypothesis that Apollonius was a rival of Jesus, that the Nazarene and Tyanean were independent of each other, that the evangelists took a hint from Damis, or Philostratus imitated Luke in more ways than one, we have still the fact that two different biographers, giving a history of the life of two contemporary individuals, assert that the birth of their respective heroes was announced by a divine being, who himself brought about the conception of the infant that, on arriving at maturity, was held to be divine. In writing thus, it will be distinctly understood that we draw no comparison between Jesus and Apollonius, but only between the authors who have undertaken their respective biography. Leaving this curious point, the next noteworthy one is that Philostratus records, that the Tyanean went through Assyria, Babylonia, and Bactria, to India, "where he met Jarchus, the chief of the Brahmins, and disputed with Indian gymnosophists _already versed in Alexandrian philosophy_." I have placed these last words in italics, to call attention to the apparent belief of the historian, that prior to his day there had been extensive religious communication between India and Greece--a point on which I have much insisted in a previous chapter. The Tyanean is said to have been five years upon his eastern journey. We have no idea where the Nazarene was during his youth and before he began his public career, and we cannot help regarding the omission to notice this part of his life as being blameworthy in the evangelists. Those who knew so much of Jesus at his conception, and about his birth and infancy, could surely, if they would, have informed us of his adult years.