Comedians like to make fun of religions and their adherents. Nothing new under the sun here. Lucian made fun of Christians, seers, philosophers and literati in the second century. The Week of the Classics with the theme 'Religion' is a great time to dive into that.
The Roman Empire in the second century had great prosperity and stability. Under a series of adoptive emperors, the Pax Romana, a long period of peace, was at its peak; the empire was going through its happiest period. Culturally, however, there was little to experience. There was one exception:Lucian (c. 120-c. 185). With his mocking commentary, this writer and satirist punctured the smug seriousness of his time.
Revelation
Lucian dared to poke fun at the spirit of the century. He came from Syrian Samosata, now Samsat in eastern Turkey. His native language was Aramaic. The Greek he became acquainted with as the lingua franca of the East was the Common Speech (koine dialektos), a kind of simplified Greek. It took him decades of schooling to master fourth-century BC Attic (the Greek of the early philosophers).
Contrary to what one might expect from a newcomer, he used his hard-won knowledge to mock the trends of his time. It all started with his vocation as a literary man. At a time that firmly believed in divine revelations in sleep, Lucian described how he himself had had such a dream. That was at the time when his father had apprenticed him to an uncle, an experienced sculptor. On the first day, Lucian spoiled a marble slab.
That night two women appeared in a dream. One had a messy haircut, her hands were covered with bunions, and she had her dress up. She was full of lime, "just like my uncle polishing stones." The other woman had a pretty face and an elegant appearance. Each of the two tried to win him over to the careers she represented, sculpture and rhetoric. The latter won with the glorious benefits she promised Lucian:education, moral qualities, prestige, public offices, and undying fame.
Lucian's mockery works here on all kinds of levels. Did the reader not believe that such a dream happened? Then he did not know his classics, says Lucian, because Xenophon was also instructed in his sleep by Zeus to help the ten thousand Greeks out of their plight (Anabasis 3,1,11). Of course, the reader also had to chuckle at Lucian's comparison with Heracles, who, according to myth, had stood at a crossroads and had to choose between Lady Virtue and Vice. Self-mockery is a scarce item in Antiquity.
Cult of the Word
Lucian also turned against the hollow rhetoric of his colleagues who wrote eulogies on all kinds of things. He parodied this stuff in Praise of the Fly. One of the means by which rhetoricians worked were fictitious speeches. Lucian made as a farce the Indictment of the letter S against the T. Philosopher Erasmus wrote his famous Praise of Folly after Lucian's example (1511).
Fame was also the controversy in the second century, in which the orator had to produce pleas for the accuser and the defendant in a made-up case. An example would be a law that grants a statue in the gymnasium to a tyrant slayer. In this case, the despot is killed by a woman. Another law prohibits images of women in the gymnasium.
In Lucian's Tyrantslayer someone enters the city fortress to kill a despot. He accidentally kills his son. He leaves his sword in the corpse. Moments later, the tyrant comes home, grabs the sword and kills himself with it. The tyrant-slayer now demands the legal reward. His plea begins with:"Two tyrants, gentlemen of the jury, I killed in one day." Yet he demands only one reward.
Old and new gods
It is a persistent misconception that the ancient Olympian gods were practically dead during this period, leaving Christianity filling a spiritual void. In several of his plays Lucian has them bicker in a very humane way. Even the new gods who made such a rise in his time do not escape his scorn. In a meeting of the gods, for example, the god Momus proposes to carry out a thorough cleaning of the gods' file. For example, what did that lord with the dog's head (Anubis) do on Olympus? And then the philosophical empty-heads had come up with all kinds of abstract deities such as Virtue, Nature and Fortune. For example, there was a threat of a shortage of nectar and ambrosial.
Zeus wants to put the proposal to a vote, but then balks:those strange bastards have meanwhile become the majority, so he has Hermes promulgate the law in a very undemocratic way. The story has another joke for insiders, because the Greek momos means scorn:Momus is itself a word that has become god.
A guru unmasked
Lucian's day was teeming with itinerant gurus, miracle workers, and prophets. This phenomenon made fun of Lucian in Alexander or the fake seer. Alexander gives oracles through a tame snake with a human mask. He can move the tongue in the mask through horse hair. On his authority, Alexander, for a fee, of course, provides answers to questions that people submitted in sealed notes. However, Alexander knows all kinds of tricks to break the seals. On the outside he writes the answers, which astonish the oracle seekers because they hit the question so well. Lucian describes that he makes it impossible for Alexander to violate the secrecy of the letter and gets crazy answers.
The rich elite also let themselves be taken in by the prophet of lies. At Alexander's direction, Marcus Aurelius throws two lions into the Danube to ensure success in the coming campaign against the Marcomanni. When the animals get to the other side, the natives beat the beasts, which they consider to be dogs, to death with clubs. The campaign is catastrophic.
A Christian charlatan
In Alexander the Christians were already mentioned:according to the prophet they were as godless as the Epicureans (followers of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC). Lucian's readers should therefore be aware of the existence of that sect. this was a condition of Peregrinus. Because of parricide on the run, Peregrinus ends up in Palestine. "It was then that he became acquainted with the strange teachings of the Christians." In no time he obtained a prominent position. "They appointed him their patron , coming in rank immediately after him whom they worship, the fellow who was crucified in Palestine."
Peregrinus is so conspicuous that he is arrested by the Roman authorities. Peregrinus hopes to become a martyr. "For evil spirits have convinced them that they will be completely immortal and always live, so that they despise death and spontaneously turn themselves in en masse." But the liberal governor does not grant him that pleasure and releases Peregrinus. After his unexpected release, Peregrinus makes a lot of wanderings. He spends some time in a hut outside Athens. He had already been expelled from the church by then for breaking a dietary law. Finally, he directs his spectacular self-immolation at the Olympics. Lucian witnessed this in astonishment.
Lucian, according to the Christians, got what he deserved for his scorn. According to the Byzantine encyclopedia of about 1000 compiled Suda Lucian was torn apart by dogs “because he raged against the truth. For in the Life of Peregrinus he attacks Christianity and the bastard blasphemes Christ himself. Therefore, for the moment he was adequately punished for his rage, but in the future he will share in the eternal fire with Satan.” For us Lucian is an important witness who, like a good comedian, unerringly points out the ridiculousness of his time.