A more horrible miracle would be hard to find! If the author were Christian, he certainly would have been accused of slandering paganism. But Philostratus is a militant pagan, resolved to defend the religion of his ancestors. He obviously viewed the murder of the beggar as able to lift up the morale of his coreligionists, to reinforce their resistance to Christianity. From the standpoint of public opinion, his calculation was sound. His book was so successful that Julian the Apostate put it back into circulation in the fourth century, as he made his last attempt to save paganism.
