Page:Lucian (IA lucianlucas00collrich).pdf/182

172 Peregrinus, impostor if he were, we seem to be reading but another version of that of St Paul—of the "prayer that was made of the Church" for him—of the good Philemon and Onesiphorus, who "ministered to him in his bonds," and those of "the chief of Asia who were his friends." The whole passage, brief as it is, bears token of having been penned by a writer who, if not acquainted with the tenets and practices of the Christians of those days from personal observation and experience, had at least gained his information from some fairly accurate source.

Such a passage was sure to exercise the criticism of Christian scholars, and very conflicting theories have been set up as to its interpretation, as bearing upon the author's own relations and feelings towards Christianity. Some over-ingenious speculators, reading it side by side with his bitter satire on the accepted theology of Paganism, have fancied that they saw in it evidence that Lucian himself was a Christian—in disguise. That after boldly and openly attacking Polytheism, and exhibiting it in the most grotesque caricature, he cautiously, as one treading on perilous ground, and still in a tone of half-banter, opens to his readers a half-view of the new philosophy whose ideal republic is a grander scheme than Plato's—the "simple people," the leading features of whose polity are "universal brotherhood" and "community of goods."

Such a view was tempting, no doubt, to a clever scholar, from the very paradox which it involved. But, except as a paradox, it is hard to conceive its