tears of Heraclitus, I, on the other hand, shal! begin mine with the laugh of Democritus.' He then laughed so heartily that few of us could refrain from joining with him. Then turning himself towards the audience, What,' said he, 'can I do but laugh when I hear such ridiculous speeches, and see a set of reverend grey-beards ready to dance on their heads in honour of a contemptible and rascally fellow? But that you may know what kind of an idol this is who is going to burn himself, give ear a little to me, as I am well acquainted with his life and manners; and, moreover, have made diligent inquiry into it amongst those who have had reason to know him but too well. This famous work of nature, this model for Polycletus, no sooner arrived at man's estate than he was caught in adultery at a certain place in Armenia, where he was obliged to jump out at a window after he had received a severe drubbing: not to mention his debauching a beautiful girl, whose parents he bribed with three thousand denarii not to carry him before the governor of Asia." § 9. "These freaks, and a great many of the same kind, I shall pass over, as the clay was yet rude and uninformed, not as yet wrought up into an image of perfection; but what he did to his father must be taken notice of. You have all, I doubt not, heard how he strangled the old man whom he would not permit to live beyond his sixtieth year. When the crime was divulged he banished himself, and wandered about from place to place." § 10.

The person here called Theagenes, who bawled in praise of Jesus, and who bitterly went in the prospect of his death, seems to mean the evangelist John, the friend of his bosom, and to whose Gospel

"Let not your

Lucian has an evident allusion. hearts be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me....I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one cometh to the Father but through me....If I go and prepare a place for you, I will again return and take you to myself....I will not leave you orphans, I will return to you." These, and the other pathetic words which our Lord for the last time addressed to his disciples, supplied the materials of the above mock representation. "But now, alas! this noble image must go from men to the gods, and leave us wretched orphans all behind him."

The reader will be surprised to find that such things as are contained in the preceding paragraph could be imputed even by his bitterest enemies to the blessed Jesus. But in truth the account is allegorical. Lucian comprehends the Gospel as well as its author under the terms Peregrinus or Proteus ; and he applies to Christ personally what is to be understood metaphorically of his religion. It is in reference to the diffusion of Christianity in foreign countries that the writer calls him Peregrinus. Many of the Gnostics, there is reason to believe, altered and corrupted the Gospels in their possession: and their enemies hence took an opportunity to say that the Christians, as if they were drunk, continually changed the records of their faith. This is the circumstance which Lucian has in view when he stigmatizes the Saviour under the title of Proteus*. This unravels the meaning of our author where he says that Peregrinus killed his fa

* Proteus had the power of changing himself into every shape, Ovid. Met. lib. 8.730. Od. 4.417. And the giving of this name to Christ is grounded, I doubt not, on his transfiguration on the mount. Matt. xvii. 2.

ther. When Christ taught the Gospel, he abolished for ever what we now call Judaism: and after the Jewish religion became extinct, Christianity, its offspring, was diffused over the world.

Moses taught the principles of Christianity, though he sketched it in a ruder form, and blended it with grosser elements. Jesus brought it to perfection, making it to consist of a few simple but sublime moral truths, and separating it from all external ordinances. Of this Lucian seems aware; and hence he asserts that Peregrinus was rude and uninformed, nor as yet wrought into an image of perfection. Accordingly, the adultery said to be committed by Proteus in Armenia, and his jumping out at a window, after receiving a severe drubbing, is a fiction founded on the conduct of Joseph, of Moses in the court of Pharaoh, the sufferings of the Israelites, and their departure from Egypt.

The proposal made by Pilate to release our Lord when apprehended and brought before his tribunal, seems to be the circumstance which gave birth to the following fiction: "Peregrinus, however, was set at liberty by the governor of Syria, a man of learning and a lover of philosophy, who withal well knew the folly of the man; and that he would willingly have suffered death for the sake of that glory and reputation which he would have acquired by it: thinking him, however, not worthy of so honourable an exit, he let him go." § 14.

Christianity, we have seen, was soon after the death of Christ received by the Jews in Egypt, though we may well suppose they debased it by the prejudices and rites to which they had been previously devoted. This mixture of Judaism with the Gospel on one hand and of paganism on the other, which in a cen

tury or two afterwards ended in the complete establishment of monkery and superstition, is thus licentiously ridiculed by our author: "After this he set out on a third expedition against Egypt, and visited Agathobulus; there he shaved one half of his head, rubbed his face over with mud, and, in the midst of a great multitude, whipped himself with a rod, or suffered any body else to whip him as long as they pleased. These and many other freaks still more extraordinary he played for some time." 17.

Our Lord appears from the commencement of his ministry to have foreseen his death, and to have met it with the most steady resolution. He repeatedly forewarned his disciples that he was soon to be crucified: at first only distinctly hinting at the violent fate that awaited him. See Matt. ix. 15. But as the event drew nigh, he explicitly apprized them of it. From that time Jesus began to tell his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders or chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised on the third day." Matt. xvi. 21. See also xvii. 22. This important circumstance in the history of our Lord is thus travestied by Lucian: "At the next Olympiad Peregrinus produced a discourse, composed during the four intervening years, in praise of the man who brought the water, with an apology for his own conduct; but at length growing into disrepute he was taken but little notice of, for all his tricks were now obsolete; and having nothing new to amuse them with, or by which he could acquire fame, he thought at last of this funeral pile, and accordingly gave out amongst the Grecians that he should burn himself upon it in a very short time: for this purpose he

[Chap. 10. began immediately to dig the ditch, bring the wood, and prepare every thing with wonderful fortitude and magnanimity. But true bravery, in my opinion, is shown by patiently waiting for death, and not in flying from life; or, if he must die, why not depart by some other means, so many thousands as there are, and not by fire, and with all that tragical preparation! If he was so fond of flame, as being more in the Herculean style, why could not he have chosen some secret woody mountain, where he might have gone and burned himself in silence alone, or accompanied only by his Theagenes, by way of a faithful Philoctetes? But he must needs do it at the Olympic games, and in a full assembly, roasting himself as it were on the stage; not but it is a death which, by Hercules, he long since deserved, if parricides and atheists are worthy of it. In this respect he was rather late; he should have been roasted long ago in Phalaris's bull, and not have perished in a moment; for I have often heard this is the shortest way of dying, as it is only opening the mouth, catching the flame, and expiring immediately: but he has fallen upon this expedient, I suppose, because it is grand and magnificent for a man to be burned in a sacred ground where no corpse can be buried. You all, no doubt, remember him who wanted to be immortal, and could find no other way of becoming so but by setting fire to the temple of Diana at Ephesus. This man, such is his love of glory, is ambitious of the same fate.' § 21, 22.

"He tells us that he does it to serve mankind, to teach them to despise death, and suffer the most cruel torments. But I would ask one question of Would you wish to have male

you, not of him: