LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA (Λουκιανός). - Rhetorician and sophist, b. at Samosata (Syria) near the Euphrates around 125 A.D., d. ca. 190. He traveled throughout the Empire: Gaul, Italy and finally Egypt; he stayed for some twenty years in Athens (165-85), where he perfected himself in sophistry and in the use of the Greek language as a refined Atticist.
He wrote 82 short treatises on various subjects, in which he displayed his sarcastic wit against every form of theological belief and religious manifestation that he considered superstitious, but which were very much in vogue in his time. He favored the dialogic form, in which are written the Dialogues of the Gods, 26 in number, in which he holds up popular religiosity to ridicule; the Dialogues of the Dead (30), in which he satirizes the fame usurped by personages held to be illustrious; the Sea Dialogues (13), of a spirit akin to that of the dialogues of the gods; the Dialogues of the Courtesans, a mirror of the social life of the time. He was not an atheist, even though he was considered such for his unsparing freedom in theological matters, but certainly anti-mystical and an opponent of the many philosophasters against whom he wrote: The Fisherman, The Philosophers for Sale, Nigrinus, Symposium; and of the charlatans in the vein of thaumaturges and aretalogists whom he unmasked in Alexander or the False Prophet. There is no occasion to give notice of Lucian's entire output. Mention should be made of the Dream, in which he narrates his life; the Anacharsis, a most refined irony of the Greek educational system based on athletics; the True History, a satire of fantastic travel narratives beginning with that of Odysseus in the Odyssey; the How to Write History, likewise of elegantly satirical content. Against Christianity he did not have the violence and dialectical vigor of Celsus, but he placed its followers in an unsympathetic light, though not a hostile one, among the category of fanatics and almost of madmen. The Christian is depicted (De morte Peregrini) by a Cynic philosopher named Proteus who, after a scandalous life stained even by parricide, converts to Christianity and, given his ability, soon succeeds in becoming director of the assemblies of the Christians, in interpreting their sacred books, in writing some himself, so that he is held in the highest esteem by his fellow worshippers (alluding to Christ, Lucian affirms that he was a great man, crucified in Palestine because he introduced new mysteries into life). This esteem did not diminish even when Peregrinus was imprisoned for parricide; on the contrary, it procured him riches and faithful assistance, after his release from prison until the day when he was abandoned because he was seen tasting meats sacrificed to idols. Having returned to Cynicism, Peregrinus-Proteus put himself to death on a pyre he had prepared himself during the Olympic games, perhaps of 165. Apart from the picture of excessive credulity that the Christians present in regarding Peregrinus as a "new Socrates" and "a god," Lucian traces of them a profile that, in substance, corresponds to reality: use of sacred books and of assemblies, faith in immortality, brotherly love, mutual assistance, no accusation of turpitudes laid to their charge, contempt for death, readiness to disown those who do not put the precepts of the religion into practice. Many are the writings of Lucian considered spurious, but from this list must be excluded the De Syria Dea, which describes the sanctuary of Atargatis, the great divinity of his native region; while there is to be included the Philopatris, a Byzantine writing (it is known that Lucian was very much in vogue in the Byzantine age) from the era of the emperor Nicephorus Phocas (ca. 968), in which is described a dispute between a conservative (Triephon), who abhorred the Hellenistic rhetoric flourishing again in that era at Constantinople, and a defender of it (Critias).
In substance Lucian is a writer who did not go deeply into any of the subjects of which he speaks, satisfied only with presenting in vivid form a faithful painting of the customs of the time, with inexhaustible brio, abounding in witty jests, with skillful use of irony and satire, with profound contempt for all forms of superstition. It must nevertheless be observed, in this regard, that although he describes the Christians as inclined to religious fanaticism, he has traced of Christianity a brief profile that grasps some of its essential data.