Roman Empire converts to faith of Apollonius of Tyana

The issue is that he seems too much like Jesus, but Jesus was far more popular. Why follow this guy but you can follow someone who basically said the same thing but won't tick off the peasants?
 
I just had this crazy idea of Apollonius being the Second Coming of Christ if his mission began after Jesus's death :)
 
Given that most of the details of Apollonius' alleged life come from a source written two centuries into the Christian era, it's quite probably that the "resume similar to Jesus" was the result of deliberate borrowing (to make Apollonius into a sort of pagan riposte to Jesus). Since we actually know very little about what Apollonius really did, we can't really say what would have happened had he proselytised more, or even if he could have proselytised. Apparently he was a Pythagorean, though, for what it's worth.
 
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