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Lucian on Jesus

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_of_Samosata (Born 125 AD) was a well-known http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_people satirist and traveling lecturer. More than eighty works bear his name. He mocks the followers of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus for what he views as their ignorance and credulity, although he does credit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christians with a certain level of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality. He is considered important to Christians for giving insight into the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus.^[1]

The Crucified Sophist[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lucian_on_Jesus&action=edit§ion=1]

Lucian describes the Christians in a passage from The Death of Peregrine. Jesus is not named.

The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. … You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains their contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property.^[2]