of legend. CHAPTER IV THE LAST PAGANS The eternal miracle of God is the unchangeable order of His providence in the harmonies of Nature; prodigies are derangements and are attributable only to degeneration in the creature. Divine miracle is thus a providential reaction for the restoration of the broken order. When Jesus cured the possessed He calmed them and suspended the marvels which they produced; when the apostles subdued the exaltation of the pythonesses they put an end to divination. The spirit of error is a spirit of agitation and subversion; the spirit of truth brings tranquillity and peace in its path. Such was the civilising influence of Christianity at its dawn; but those passions which are friends of disturbance did not, without a struggle, leave it in possession of the palm of easy victory. Expiring polytheism drew powers from the Magic of the old sanctuaries; to the mysteries of the Gospel it still opposed those of Eleusis. Apollonius of Tyana was set up as a parallel to the Saviour of the world, and Philostratus undertook to construct a legend on the subject of this new deity. Thereafter came the Emperor Julian, who would have been himself deified if the javelin which slew him had not also struck the last blow at Cæsarian idolatry. The enforced and decrepit rebirth of a religion which was dead in its forms was a literal abortion, and Julian, who attempted it, was doomed to perish with the senile offspring which he strove to bring into the world. This notwithstanding, Apollonius and Julian were two curious, even great personalities, and their history is epoch-making in the Annals of Magic. Allegorical legends were in fashion at that period. Those who were masters embodied their doctrine in their personality, and those who were initiated disciples wrote fables which combined the secrets of initiation. The history of Apollonius by Philostratus, too absurd if it be taken literally, becomes memorable when its symbolism is examined according to the data of science. It is a kind of pagan gospel, opposed to that of Christianity; it is a secret doctrine at large, and we are in a position to reconstruct and explain it.