apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

344 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
But second only to the voice of these churches stands the testimony
of a wholly different writer. Lucian, the pagan satirist, was born
at Samosata in Syria, and is stated to have practised as an advocate
in Antioch. He travelled far and wide. Among
other countries he
visited those parts of Asia Minor— Ionia and Bithynia
— v/here the Christians
were most numerous. Though he wrote purer classical Greek
than any writer of his time, his native tongue was Syriac. His satire
spared nothing in heaven or earth. Among
the chief butts of his
ridicule was one whom he represented as the typical charlatan, halffanatic,
half-impostor — Peregrinus, surnamed Proteus from his frequent
transformations of character'. The self-immolation of this person at
the Olympian games in a.d. 165 made him famous throughout the world.
This incident is the main feature in Lucian's satire De Morte Peregrini,
which appears to have been written soon after the event. There
seems to be no ground for doubting
the historical character of this
incident"; but the accessories of the story are open to more question.
Lucian apparently takes Peregrinus as a peg on which he hangs in turn
different forms of charlatanry, or of what seems to him to be such.
Two types more especially are brought prominently forward — the two
which would especially strike the mind of Lucian as the most bizarre
developments of life which prevailed on any noticeable scale in his
day. Peregrinus is represented as first a Christian and then a Cynic.
There was superficial resemblance enough between the two to render
this combination, which seems altogether incongruous to us, quite
natural in the eyes of Lucian's heathen contemporaries ^ Whether
Peregrinus ever was a Christian or not, we have no means of ascer-
1
The passages are quoted above, p. monotheism and opposition to idolatry in
137. The tract of J. Bernays on this the Cynics as a point of contact. In their
satire, Lucian 71. die Kyniker, Berlin practice of public disputation and preach-
1879, should be read, though it deals ing also they resembled the Christians,
only incidentally with Lucian's views of Origen c. Cels. iii. 18 (quoted by Bernays,
the Christians. p. 93) demands the same immunity
-
It is however doubted by Baur Die for the Christians in this respect which
drei erstat Jahrhunderte p. 396. was accorded to certain Cynics {tQv Ki/-
•^
The resemblance is noted by Aris- vikuv rives drjfjioffig. Trpds roiis Traparvyxdtides
Oj>. II. p. 402, who speaks of the vovras diaXeyofxivoLJ. The picture which
Cynics as rots ip t-q UaXaiffTLvy dvaae^icn Dion Chrysostom {Orat. 8, p. 276 sq,ed.
wapairXijCLOL roi/s rpoirovs, a passage Reiske) draws of Diogenes disputing and
quoted by Bernays (p. 39) but it may declaiming at the Isthmian games conbe
questioned whether Jews are not in- tains not a few touches which enable ; us
tended here rather than Christians. to realize the attitude of S. Paul at the
Bernays (p. 31) remarks on the strict same place and on a similar occasion.