When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus' Vision for Authentic Christian Community by Hellerman Joseph H

Author:Hellerman, Joseph H. [Hellerman, Joseph H.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2009-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

The View from the Bleachers

In AD 165, a self-proclaimed philosopher named Peregrinus committed suicide in the presence of hundreds of onlookers by throwing himself on the flames at the Olympic Games. Peregrinus was a wandering soul who had bounced from one belief system to another trying to find himself. At one point in his spiritual pilgrimage he associated himself with a Christian community in Palestine. Peregrinus was initially sincere in his commitment to Jesus, and he became a recognized Christian leader in the area. He even suffered imprisonment for his activities as a follower of Jesus.

But after his release Peregrinus had a falling out with the Christians and went to Egypt where he studied under a Greek philosopher named Agathobulus. A lifestyle of itinerant philosophizing characterized the rest of Peregrinus's life, leading him through Italy and then on to Greece where he publicly took his life in AD 165.

Among those present at the Olympic Games that year was a pagan intellectual named Lucian. Lucian stood there in the crowd witnessing first hand Peregrinus's demise. He was not impressed. Nor did the reaction of the crowds to the sensational event set well with Lucian. Like several rock stars who have committed suicide in our own time, Peregrinus became something of a cult hero to a number of those who watched the fiery spectacle.

Such a response on the part of the public incensed Lucian, who considered himself to be a respectable representative of the philosophical academy. Perhaps Lucian was just a bit jealous of Peregrinus's postmortem notoriety. Whatever the case, Lucian was so turned off by all the hoopla resulting from the suicide that he wrote a whole treatise debunking Peregrinus both as a self-proclaimed philosopher and as a sensationalistic martyr.

In the course of his castigation of Peregrinus, Lucian discusses Peregrinus's fling with Christianity. Peregrinus was not the only object of Lucian's derision. Lucian also ridiculed the Palestinian Christians who were gullible enough to embrace Peregrinus in the first place. Most importantly, in the course of his narrative, Lucian provides some extremely valuable information about how an educated second-century pagan outsider viewed the Christian church.

Lucian utterly disdained the Christian movement. But he could not deny that the church functioned as a surrogate Mediterranean family. Here is Lucian's revealing description of the treatment Peregrinus received at the hands of the Palestinian Christians:

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