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 and learned precious things, renews us by water." This has been explained as a confused reference to St Paul. But few who have studied Lucian's style and mind will question the conclusion of modern criticism that the Philopatris is the production of a different hand and of a later age. The real Lucian was no more an enemy of Christianity than he was a friend. He would never have called it, as Tacitus does, a detestable superstition. Having, apparently, only a slight and distant knowledge of it, he regarded it merely as one of those new philosophies or cults which illustrated the credulity of mankind. But he would have allowed that the hope associated with this enthusiasm was lofty, that the impulses which it fostered were amiable, and that the efforts which it could evoke were extraordinary. On the other hand, it did not appeal to his intellectual curiosity; evidently he had not felt moved to examine its doctrines more closely. From that point of view it interested him probably less than some of the philosophies which he had studied just enough to reject them.

It is Lucian's attitude as a detached and somewhat cynical observer that constitutes much of his value as a witness to the character of his age. His impartial satire—more often sportive than bitter—plays on the old popular faith that was decaying, on the new superstitions that blended themselves with it, and on the various schools of philosophy which divided the higher thought of the time, while not one of them was satisfactory to more than a limited