The Works of Lucian of Samosata, Vol. 4

The test of a religion, however, is not the form it takes in a virtuous mind, but the effects it produces on those of another sort. Lucian applies the test of results to both the religion usually so-called and its philosophical substitute. He finds both wanting. The test is not a satisfactory one, but it is being applied by all sorts and conditions of men to Christianity in our own time; so is the second test—that of inherent probability—which he uses alongside the other upon pagan theology. It is this that gives his writings, even apart from their wit and fancy, a special interest for our own time. Our attention seems to be concentrated more and more on the ethical, as opposed to the speculative or dogmatic aspect of religion; just such was Lucian’s attitude towards philosophy.

Some minor points of similarity may be briefly noted. As we read the Anacharsis, we are reminded of the modern prominence of athletics; the question of football versus military drill is settled for us; light is thrown upon the question of conscription; we think of our commissions on national deterioration, and the schoolmaster’s wail over the athletic "Frankenstein’s monster" A reference to Mary Shelley's novel, meaning a creation that escapes the control of its creator. which, like Eucrates in The Liar, he has created but cannot control. The "horsy talk in every street" of the Nigrinus calls up the London newsboy with his cries of "All the winners." We think of palmists and spiritualists in the police courts as we read of Rutilianus and the Roman nobles consulting the impostor Alexander. This sentence reads like the description of a modern man of science confronted with the supernatural: "It was an occasion for a man whose intelligence was steeled against such assaults by skepticism and insight, one who, if he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been perfectly certain that, though this escaped him, the whole thing was a lie and an impossibility."