September 21, 2024

—We have our late night comedians like Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel, men who make their living through laughter, sarcasm and sometimes the outright mockery of others. We have these men. The Greeks had Lucian.

—Our late night guys love to lambast politicians. Their guy, Lucian, preferred to ridicule superstition, the paranormal and religion. Writing sometime around the middle of the second century A.D., Lucian’s pen took careful aim at Christianity.

—In his work, The Death of Peregrine, Lucian retells the story of this man named Peregrine who lived during his formative years with a community of Christians in Palestine. After being eventually expelled from the group, Peregrine turned to Cynic philosophy and eventually took his own life at the Olympic Games of 165 A.D. Amidst all the drama of Peregrine’s life and death, Lucian took the opportunity in this satirical work to mock Christianity for denying the gods of Greece. Among other things Lucian ridiculed Christians for believing that they become brothers and sisters following their spiritual conversion and also that they will live forever.

—So, why is this work by Lucian so important? Because here’s yet another very early reference to Jesus, to his crucifixion and to his worship by Christians who believed him to be God. Lucian may have laughed it all off without a second thought, but in so doing he unwittingly strengthened the now undeniable fact that Jesus truly existed.

—Daniel McCabe