great comic poet, he had recourse to raillery and satire to accomplish the great objects he had in view. His study was human character in all its varieties, and the times in which he lived furnished ample materials for his observation. INIany of his picttures, though drawn from the circumstances of his own days, arc true for ev- ery age and country. As an instance of this, we men^ tion the essay entitled On those icho serve the Great for Hire. If he sometimes discloses the follies and vices of mankind too freely, and occasionally uses expressions which are revolting to our ideas of morality, it should be recollected that every author ought to be judged by his standard of religion and morality. The charac- ter of Lucian's mind was decidedly practical ; he was not disposed to believe anything without sufficient evi- dence of its truth, and nothing that was ridiculous or absurd escaped his raillery and sarcasm. The tales of the poets respecting the attributes and exploits of the gods, which were still firmly believed by the common people of his age, were especially the objects of his sat- ire and ridicule in his dialogues and in many other of his works. That he should have attacked the Chris- tians in common with the false systems of the pagan religion will not appear surprising to any one who con- siders that Lucian probably never took the trouble to inquire into the doctrines of a religion which was almost universally despised in his time by the higher orders of society, who did, indeed, A-isit with ridicule all re- ligious belief. Says Gibbon (Harpers' edit, i, 30), " AVe may be well assured that a writer conversant with the world would never have ventured to expose the gods of his country to public ridicule had they not already been the objects of secret contempt among the pol- ished and enlightened orders of society." Yolaterra- nus, indeed, affirmed, but without stating his authority, that Lucian apostatized from Christianity, and was ac- customed to say he had gained nothing by it but the corruption of his name from Lucius to Luciauus. So also the scholiast on the rereyrhms calls him Trapaj3d- 7-?;c, while the scholiasts on the T'e?-(B Hisiorice and oth- er pieces frequently apostrophize him in the bitterest terms, and make the most far-fetched and absurd charges against him of ridiculing the Scriptures. These accusa- tions of blasphemy, however, coukl be made only against an apostate, and such, it is now well established, Lucian was not. Born of pagan parents, he led the life of a pagan philosopher of the '2d centurj-, when, as Gibbon tells us, " the ingenious youth who, from every part, resorted to Athens, and the other seats of learning in the Roman empire, were alike instructed in everj^ school to reject and to despise the religion of the multitude" (i, 3G). Lucian is no more amenable to the charge of blasphemy than Tacitus or any other profane author, who, from ignorance of the Christian religion, has been led to vilify and misrepresent it. The charge might be urged with some color against Lucian if it could be shown that he was the author of the dialogue entitled Philopatris. A sneering tone pervades the whole piece, which betrays so intimate a knowledge of Christianity that it could hardly have been written but by one who had been at some time within the pale of the Church. Some eminent critics, and among them Fabricius {Bib- lioth. Grcpca, v, 340 [ed. Harles]), have held Lucian ac- countalile for this production, but it is now pretty gener- ally admitted not to be from his pen. (Compare Gesner, De ^-Etate et A uctore PhilopatruHs, in which it is shown that the piece could not have been Lucian's; and many considerations are brouglit forward which render it very probable that the work was composed in the reign of Julian the Apostate. Compare Keander, Church His- tory, ii, 89, note 5.)
The works of Lucian may be divided into, I. Ehe- TORICAL. — Xltpl -ov ii'VTTviuv, Somnium scu ]'ita Luci- ani: 'HpoCoTOQ, Herodotus sive Aetion; Ztvttc. Zeuxis sive Antiochus ; 'Api.wrici]C, Ilarmonides ; "Ekv^^q rj Y[pfV£evo(;, Srytha ; 'l—iriac i) BaXapiiov, Hipjiias seu Balneum; HpoaXa/Xirt 0 Awi'vaoc, Bacchus ; llpoaXa-
LUCIAN
540
LUCIAN