Blui

Could someone give me some information on Lucian?

Ive been debating with a Christian whom claims a Martyr Lucian said something to the effect of an archive mentioning "Look into your annals; there you will find that in the time of Pilate, when Christ suffered, the sun was obscured, and the light of the day was interrupted with darkness".

Of course he googled 'historical evidence for Jesus' and took it from a bible website verbatim, the website doesnt cite the reference.

But it gets stranger since ive heard of a saint lucian, and ive heard of a Lucian who was a satirist, of the satirist there is some evidence, but of the saint there is none i can find apart from simple Church tradition.

But their both claimed to be born from Samosata, are they the same person?

Oh, the debate was about the eclipse happening when Jesus was crucified, i already know it cant happen since this was during the full moon of the passover.

Ben C Smith

I have no idea whether the Christian Lucian (martyred early in century IV, I think) uttered words such as those, but the Christian plea to pagans to consult their own archives, or at least the mention of pagan texts including information on Jesus or the early Christians, was quite common. Examples include Tertullian in Apology 5.3; 21.24a and Justin Martyr in Apology 1.35.8-9 and two other places.

The content of your quote above, about the crucifixion phenomena, sounds much like the standard Christian interpretation of Thallus and Phlegon, the works of both of whom are lost to us. (But the last comment in your post hints that you are already familiar with one or both of these.)

The pagan satirist Lucian is a different fellow, but he did write about Christ and the Christians.

Ben.

Blui

Yes, ive been debating already about Thallus whom was mentioned by Africanus, and of Phlegon as well.

Neither of them mention Jesus, although Africanus implies Thallus was talking about that.

Phlegon, as Eusebius quotes him, talks about some eclipse that happened to have happened around 30AD, and some eaerthquake in Bythnia or other.

As to Lucian, its just hard for me to debate that quote seems it seems to be, from what i can find, neither sourced or referenced as to its origin, from the Christian websites.

And information of the saint seems to be sketchy at best.

It just seems strange their, apparently, born from the same place, which leads me to believe that either that satirist was the saint or they got confused.

andrewcriddle

Rufinus in his expanded Latin version of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History has an apology attributed to Lucian the martyr.

Its genuiness is uncertain and it does not appear to be available online, but it is possible that this is where the passage comes from.

See
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/201/2010291.htm

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

I have finally got hold of the Latin text from Rufinus of the Apology attributed to Lucian.

It is the source of the quote. the Latin reads Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

Good stuff Andrew -- thank you.

Roger Pearse