"everything, and nothing." A new god or a new superstition more or less made not much impression on the popular mind. The very feeling to which St Paul appeals at Athens, their readiness to adopt even an "unknown God," is evidence of a latitudinarianism in such matters which at once gave hope of toleration, and opened a dreary prospect of indifference. And indifference was, no doubt, the feeling with which the Christians were widely regarded, unless when by some misrepresentation of their doctrines they were denounced as plotters against the throne or the life of the reigning emperor, and the populace was hounded on against them, as in more modern times against the Jews, as atheists, sorcerers, and enemies of the state.
The attitude of Lucian towards Christianity has been the subject of more discussion than that of any other heathen writer. He has written an account of the self-immolation of one Peregrinus or Proteus, about whose character and antecedents the learned are not quite agreed. If Lucian's history of him is to be trusted, he was a Hellespontine Greek, who, after a youth of great profligacy, had, either from conviction or more probably for selfish ends, become a Christian, had held high office in the Church, and attained a position of great influence in the body, combining the pretensions of a Cynic philosopher with those of a Christian priest. He had even suffered for his professed faith, and been imprisoned by the governor of Syria. But this imprisonment Lucian thinks he purposely sought in order to obtain notoriety, which object the governor was aware of, and disappointed him by
