In the second half of the second century, with the single exception of Celsus, few of the cultivated classes of the Roman Empire paid more than a superficial attention to Christianity. Fronto, the friend of Marcus Aurelius, is said to have written against it, but nothing is certainly known of his book. Marcus Aurelius himself, Epictetus, Galen, and the ora- for Aristides mention the Christian religion only in passing. Nor did the great satirist Lucian think it necessary to take special notice of it. Only twice-cursorily in the Alexander and more at length in the Peregrinus Proteus--does he deal with the subject; but the interest of his account for modern times has led to frequent exaggeration of the interest which the topic had for him. His attitude toward Christianity has been represented in every possible light, from a fanatical hatred to a secret friendship. Still, Lucian's description of the Christians in the Peregrines is actually one of the most interesting and instructive accounts of the early Christians which have been preserved from a pagan pen.
The Peregrines is a satire aimed at the Cynics, and more particularly, as Bernays has shown, at the contemporary Cynic philosopher Theagenea. This school, among whom a considerable proportion of unworthy elements existed, was antis. The pathetic to Lucian. He was specially Peregrines. stirred up to this attack by the exaggerated admiration of Peregrines expressed by the baser sort of Cynics, as well as by some of a higher class. Lucian had known the man personally; and when Theagenes, his closest associate, began to make a name for himself in Rome, the satirist felt that it was time to take the field. His work, addressed to the Platonist Cronies, gives an account of the life and death of Peregrines, whom he calls, on grounds of personal knowledge, a common criminal. On reaching manhood, Peregrines was, according to him, convicted of adultery and suitably punished in Armenia; then seduced a boy, and saved himself from the vengeance of the parents only by a money payment; and finally, in his birthplace, Parion on the Hellespont, murdered his father to get possession of his inheritance. Suspicion attaching to him he was forced to flee, and after considerable wandering came to Palestine or possibly to Antioch. Here he became acquainted with the Christians, insinuated himself into their fellowship, and became a respected teacher. He was imprisoned as a Chris. tian, but was released by the governor of Syria and returned to Parion, where he was able to meet the charge of parricide only by surrendering his portion of the inheritance, fifteen talents, to his fellow citizens. He had appeared there in the dress of a Cynic, but on his further journeys he was received and supported by the Christians as one of their own. Falling into discredit with them (Lucian thinks on account of eating forbidden meats), he
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A brief investigation of the historical basis for this story is now in order. There is no reason to doubt the existence of a Cynic philosopher named Peregrinus Proteua. The oldest notice of him is possibly that of Aulus Gellius~ (xii. 11), 3. Historical who met him at Athens and speaks Basis 'well of him. His remarkable suicide of the is mentioned by Athenagoras (" Apol Peregrinus. ogy," xxvi.; ANF, ii. 143), Tertullian (Ad martyraa, iv.; ANF, iii. 695), and Eusebius (Chron. ad ann. 2181; Marcus Aurelius, v.), as well as by Philostratua (Vine sophistarum, II., i.) and Ammianus Marcellinus (XXIX., i. 39); there is no doubt that it caused a great sensation. A column was erected to him in his birthplace, and was supposed to be the seat of an oracle. Eusebius gives the date of his death as 165 A.D., and there is no reason to question this, or Lucian's statement that it was at the fourth Olympic meeting which he attended. The banishment from Rome would then fall at latest in 152-153; and the Christian episode between 140 and 150. That Tatian and the later apologists say nothing of his having been a Christian for a time is not surprising, even if they knew it. It is most unlikely that Lucian invented it; but it is, on the other hand, not probable that he got his details at first hand. Zahn's theory that he intended his account of the Cynic's death as a parody of Christian martyrdom will not hold. The whole point of the work, as directed against Cynicism, would be lost; and though Lucian knows that the Christians willingly give up their lives for their faith, so far from using this to explain the act of Peregrines, he contrasts their sincere self-sacrifice with the mingled fear of death and mania for notoriety which he attributes to Peregrines. Assuming the main facts-that Peregrinus was for a time a Christian, and as such was imprisoned, but afterward released, and that he later abandoned Christianity, it is worth while to see what Lucian knew of Christianity and what his judgment of it was, taking his sketch as a document belonging to about 170 and relating primarily to Syrian Christianity.
The Christians are, then, a religious association in which a man crucified in Palestine is venerated. He has brought into life "new mysteries," and as the first lawgiver of the sect has convinced his followers that, when they have renounced the old gods and begun to worship him and live according to his laws, they are to consider them 4. Lucian's selves as brothers. They are per Knowledge suaded that they are immortal, where of Chris- fore they despise death and meet it tianity. cheerfully and voluntarily. They con sider all temporal goods as of small im portance and hold them in common. They adhere closely to each other, and take incredible pains when any interest of the community is in question, considering it a general calamity when a brother is imprisoned. When Peregrinus was in prison, " very early in the morning aged widows and or phan children might be seen waiting near the place, and the leading men among them gained over the guards that they might pass the night with him.
Many meals were sent in to him, their holy writings were read . . . even from the cities of the province of Asia came certain who were sent by the Chris tians in the name of their communities, to aid, de fend, or comfort him." Every detail in this account might be paralleled in Christian literature from the first epistle of Clement to Tertullian, De jeiunio, and the detail of the envoys from the cities of Asia Minor is confirmed by the epistles of Igna tius-though there is not the slightest evidence of any direct employment by Lucian of Christian sources. The fact is simply that Lucian has named the essential characteristics of the Christian body as they presented themselves to a clear-sighted, disinterested observer, thus strengthening the evi dence presented by Christian writers. So far from relying on Christian documents, Lucian does not seem to know the Christian writers of the second century; the prisoner in Syria has as little in com mon with Ignatius as the death of Peregrinus has with the martyrdom of Polycarp. While one can not assert positively that Lucian never read a line of a Christian author, the proof that he did is not forthcoming. For all this, his knowledge of Chris tianity is not so "vague and superficial" as Keim would have us believe. He brings none of the cus tomary charges against the Christians, not even that of hostility to the empire. Christianity seems to be in his eyes a harmless movement. He con siders it, indeed, without any token of sympathy; but he, the accomplished mocker, does not mock at the simplicity of the Christians which the im postor turns to his account. He finds it of course absurd that they should adore the crucified " soph ist "; but their unshaken consciousness of brother hood under all trials and their contempt for death are mentioned only se characteristic differentiee.
And it is these very Christians who, outside of the cultivated city-dwellers and the Epicureans, are the only people in the world to detect the hollowness of the pretentious of the false prophet Alexan der of Abonoteichos; in fact, it is against them that the first denunciation of Alexander is uttered (Alexander, xxv., xxaviii.). In a word, in the Pero grinus, where he has poured out the fulness of his bitterest acorn upon the Cynics, he has contented himself with drawing an accurate picture of the Christians. It was not to be expected that he should set out to glorify them; what is remarkable
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Bibliography: Perhaps the beet edition of Lucian's works is by T. Hematerhuia and J. F. Reits, 3 vols., Amsterdam, 1743; a convenient one is by W. Dindorf, with Lat. transl., 3 vols., Paris, 1840; another is by F. Fritsohe, 3 vols., Rostock, 1884-82; and still another is in the Tauohnita series by C. H. Weise, 4 vols., Leipsic, 1887-77. There is an Eng. transl. by 'several hands, with life of Lucian by Dryden, 4 vols., London, 1711; one by T. Franeklin, 4 vols., ib. 1781 (of great merit); and one by H. W. Fowler, 4 vols., ib. 1905. A Fr. transl. of the works is by L. Humbert, 2 vols., Paris, 1898, and an excellent Germ. transl. is by Wieland, 8 vols., Leipsic, 1788-89. Consult: J. Bernays, Lucian und die Kyniker, Berlin, 1879; C. T. Keim, Ceisw, Zurich, 1882; J. M. Cotterill, Perepriwus Protew, Edinburgh, 1879 (claims it is a forgery, perhaps by Henry Stephens the Reformation printer); M. Croiset, Eesai sur la vie et ks auvrea de Lucien, Paris, 1982: w. R. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, u. 812-822, London, 1890: DCB, iii. 744-798. The editions and translations have notes and introductions, and often s life of the author.
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