In the early fourth century AD, Christianity encountered one of the most serious intellectual challenges it would face before its legalization. This challenge did not come from rumor, satire, or popular mockery. It came from a Roman governor who believed that Christianity could be undone by reasoned comparison rather than brute denial.

That governor was Hierocles, active around AD 303 to 305 during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. Hierocles served as a provincial governor first in Bithynia and later in Egypt, regions with large and growing Christian populations. He was trained in Neoplatonic philosophy and played an active role in enforcing the Great Persecution that began in AD 303.

Hierocles did not argue that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. He did not deny that Christians claimed Jesus performed miracles. Instead, he argued that Christians had fundamentally misunderstood what miracles meant and had wrongly elevated Jesus to divine status.

If miracles justified honor, Hierocles claimed, then pagan philosophy already possessed a superior figure.

That figure was Apollonius of Tyana.

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Apollonius of Tyana and the Pagan Alternative

Apollonius of Tyana was a first century philosopher, generally dated to approximately AD 15 to 100. He followed a strict Pythagorean discipline, practiced radical asceticism, and traveled widely throughout the eastern Roman world. His reputation as a wise man endured long after his death.

More than a century later, his life was written by Philostratus, a Greek sophist composing under the Severan emperors. Philostratus wrote The Life of Apollonius between approximately AD 217 and 238 at the request of Julia Domna, the wife of Emperor Septimius Severus. The work presents Apollonius as a divinely favored sage who heals the sick, casts out demons, foretells future events, and even raises a girl from death.

Yet Philostratus is careful throughout the biography to deny that Apollonius should be regarded as divine. After describing Apollonius receiving extraordinary admiration, Philostratus writes:

“Apollonius accepted none of the honors that were offered him, nor would he allow himself to be thought more than human, saying that wisdom was a gift of the gods, but that godhead itself belonged to them alone.”
Life of Apollonius 8.7, written circa AD 220

Elsewhere, when rumors spread that Apollonius possessed supernatural status, Philostratus places these words in his mouth:

“I am a man, and I know the things that belong to men.”
Life of Apollonius 7.38

Apollonius is therefore portrayed as a philosopher endowed with remarkable insight and power, but never as an object of worship. He teaches wisdom, rebukes excess, and models discipline, yet consistently deflects cultic devotion. This distinction lies at the heart of Hierocles’ argument.

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Hierocles’ Challenge to Christian Worship

Around AD 303, Hierocles composed a work known as The Lover of Truth. Although the book itself is lost, its contents are preserved in extended form by Christian authors who responded directly to it, especially Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea.

According to Eusebius, writing between approximately AD 312 and 325, Hierocles argued that Apollonius performed extraordinary deeds equal to or greater than those attributed to Jesus, yet was never worshiped as a god. Eusebius summarizes the argument as follows:

“Apollonius, though he accomplished many remarkable deeds, was never thought worthy of divine honors, while Jesus, who performed nothing of the same kind, is worshiped by Christians as God.”
Eusebius, Against Hierocles, written circa AD 312

The argument was carefully constructed. Hierocles conceded miracle claims. He conceded moral seriousness. What he rejected was the legitimacy of worship. In his view, Christians had irrationally crossed the boundary between admiration and deification.

The force of the challenge was not whether Jesus did powerful works, but whether such works justified calling him Lord.

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Lactantius and the Question of Moral Purpose

Lactantius responded to Hierocles while the persecution was still active. Writing between approximately AD 303 and 311, Lactantius composed The Divine Institutes as a sustained defense of Christianity addressed to educated pagans. He had been trained in rhetoric and was well acquainted with philosophical argument.

Lactantius did not deny that Apollonius performed wonders. Instead, he dismantled the assumption that miracles alone established divine authority.

He writes:

“It is not by the performance of miracles that a man is proved to be righteous or divine, since even magicians are accustomed to do wonderful things. The question is to what end these works are directed and what teaching they support.”
Divine Institutes 5.3

For Lactantius, the decisive issue was moral transformation. He presses this point with a series of pointed questions:

“What doctrine did Apollonius deliver that freed men from vice? What law did he establish that restrained lust, greed, pride, and cruelty? What people did he reform or what nation did he renew?”
Divine Institutes 5.3

Lactantius then contrasts this with the ministry of Christ, whose works were consistently joined to ethical renewal:

“Christ did not heal to amaze, but to save. He restored sight not to astonish the crowd, but to bring men to righteousness. His power was joined to justice, his signs to truth, and his works to the reform of life.”
Divine Institutes 4.13

The contrast is not subtle. Apollonius demonstrates personal discipline. Christ produces transformed communities. Apollonius instructs individuals. Christ reshapes moral life on a social scale.

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Eusebius and the Question of History

Eusebius of Caesarea responded to Hierocles with an entire treatise titled Against Hierocles, written around AD 312 to 313. Eusebius’ response is notable for its historical rather than devotional focus.

He challenges Philostratus’ biography on methodological grounds, noting the distance between the events and their written account. Eusebius writes:

“Philostratus composed his narrative many years after the events, relying upon unnamed and unverifiable sources, weaving together tales more suited to dramatic entertainment than to the discipline of history.”
Against Hierocles 1

Eusebius observes that the stories surrounding Apollonius grow more elaborate as time passes, a common marker of legendary development. By contrast, he argues that the Christian writings were published while eyewitnesses and hostile observers were still alive.

He states:

“The accounts concerning Jesus were published while many who had witnessed the events were still living, among both friends and enemies, and they were tested not in peace but under persecution.”
Against Hierocles 2

For Eusebius, the issue is not which story is more inspiring, but which is better grounded in historical testimony.

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The Moral Divide That Could Not Be Bridged

At this point, the comparison collapses under its own weight. Even within Philostratus’ account, Apollonius never produces a movement marked by moral transformation on a broad scale. He attracts admirers, students, and patrons, but he does not create communities defined by sacrificial love, sexual restraint, care for the poor, or forgiveness of enemies.

By contrast, Christian writers from the first and second centuries repeatedly describe a moral revolution that extended far beyond individual discipline. Christians abandoned infanticide, rejected sexual exploitation, cared for widows and orphans, redeemed abandoned children, and formed communities that crossed ethnic and social boundaries.

This difference explains why no one worshiped Apollonius. His life did not demand ultimate allegiance. His teaching did not claim authority over sin, judgment, or the destiny of humanity. Even his biographer carefully avoids such claims.

Eusebius presses this point with biting clarity:

“If Apollonius was so great, where are his temples? Where are his altars? Where are the men who endured torture and death rather than deny him?”
Against Hierocles 3

Christians, by contrast, were willing to suffer and die not for an abstract philosophy, but for a person whom they believed had authority over life and death. Their worship was not the product of wonder, but of conviction rooted in transformed lives.

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Power That Astonishes and Power That Converts

Hierocles believed Christianity could be dismantled by comparison. He assumed that once miracles were stripped of their mystique, worship would collapse. What he failed to understand was that Christianity never grounded worship in spectacle alone.

The early Christian response made a distinction that remains decisive. Power that astonishes is common. Power that converts is rare. Apollonius demonstrated personal discipline and philosophical insight, but his life did not generate a moral reordering of the world. Christ’s life, teaching, death, and resurrection claims did.

The early church did not deny that others worked wonders. It denied that wonders without moral authority, historical grounding, and transformative power deserved worship. Christians were not impressed merely by displays of power. They were persuaded by a figure whose authority produced humility, repentance, charity, and endurance under suffering.

That is why Apollonius remains a figure preserved in literary biography, while Jesus of Nazareth became the center of a movement that reshaped moral life across the Roman world.

Hierocles asked the right question, but he underestimated the answer.

Who deserves worship?

The early church answered not with spectacle, but with lives transformed at great cost. That answer has not lost its force.