Sossianus Hierocles, governor of Bithynia and adviser of the emperor Dio­cletian, at the beginning of the "great persecution" of the Christians published his propagandistic writing under the title The Lover of Truth, in which he drew a comparison between Apollonius of Tyana and Christ. In the apologetic treatise of Eusebius of Caesarea Against Hierocles we find a statement, that this compari­son was something new in the hitherto existing attacks of the pagan intellectuals on Christianity and

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... anded a polemic response from the Christian part. Mod­ern studies regarding the works of Porphyry, famous enemy of the Christians and exponent of the Neo-Platonic philosophy, seem to indicate that even before Hie­rocles the personage of Apollonius was used in the anti-Christian polemics and was confronted with Christ. The present article try to explain, what the originality of Hierocles' comparison, testified by Eusebius, consisted in.