There is an odd but very useful source on early Christianity that remains strangely unfamiliar to many historians of that topic. Even less known is the discussion by a totally unexpected nineteenth century source, which provides many insights that are still valuable.
In the late second century, the pagan satirist Lucian wrote the story of one Peregrinus, who died in the 160s. (He burned himself alive). Lucian presents Peregrinus as a Cynic, a rogue pseudo-philosopher who wanders from city to city, exploiting the gullible. For our purposes, there is a remarkable section when he is taken up by local Christians, who assume he has been persecuted for his faith in Christ. He lives very well off them until he moves on yet again. This is one of the few pagan sources of the period to mention Christians in any detail, even from a hostile point of view. (Some modern scholars treat Peregrinus’s Christian career much more seriously, and I’ll talk about those issues in a later post).
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