SHORT STUDIES. 
his studies there when St. Paul as a little boy was 
first running about the streets. "The life in Tarsus 
being too luxurious for Apollonius’s aspirations, he 
became a water-drinker and a vegetarian, and be- 
took himself as a recluse to the temple of Asculapius 
at Ay, Asculapius, as the god of healing, and 
therefore the most practically useful, had become the 
most popular of the heathen divinities. He alone 
»f them was supposed to remain beneficently active, 
and even to appear at times in visible form in sick- 
rooms and by sick-beds. Apollonius’s devotion to 
Asculapius means that he studied medicine, On 
the death of his father he divided his property 
among the poor, and after five years of retirement he 
travelled as far as India in search of knowledge, 
Ho discoursed with learned Brahmins there, and 
same home with enlightened ideas, and with some 
skill in the arts of the Indian jugglers. With these 
two possessions he began his carcer as a teacher in 
the Roman Empire. He preached his new religion, 
and he worked miracles to induce people to believe 
in him. He was at Rome in Nero’s time, when 
Simon Magus and St. Peter are said to have been 
there. Perhaps tradition has confused Apollonius 
with Simon Magus or Simon Magus with Apollonius, 
In the conyulsions which followed Nero’s murder,