call an absurdity the
religion or philosophy in which I was educated. Anaxalides, and
Clearagus, and Speusippus, his own nephew, assert it. Who should know
better than they?

_Timotheus._ Where are their proofs?

_Lucian._ I would not be so indelicate as to require them on such an
occasion. A short time ago I conversed with an old centurion, who was
in service by the side of Vespasian, when Titus, and many officers and
soldiers of the army, and many captives, were present, and who saw one
Eleazar put a ring to the nostril of a demoniac (as the patient was
called) and draw the demon out of it.

_Timotheus._ And do you pretend to believe this nonsense?

_Lucian._ I only believe that Vespasian and Titus had nothing to gain
or accomplish by the miracle; and that Eleazar, if he had been
detected in a trick by two acute men and several thousand enemies, had
nothing to look forward to but a cross--the only piece of upholstery
for which Judea seems to have either wood or workmen, and which are
as common in that country as direction-posts are in any other.

_Timotheus._ The Jews are a stiff-necked people.

_Lucian._ On such occasions, no doubt.

_Timotheus._ Would you, O Lucian, be classed among the atheists, like
Epicurus?

_Lucian._ It lies not at my discretion what name shall be given me at
present or hereafter, any more than it did at my birth. But I wonder
at the ignorance and precipitancy of those who call Epicurus an
atheist. He saw on the same earth with himself a great variety of
inferior creatures, some possessing more sensibility and more
thoughtfulness than others. Analogy would lead so contemplative a
reasoner to the conclusion that if many were inferior and in sight,
others might be superior and out of sight. He never disbelieved in the
existence of the gods; he only disbelieved that they troubled their
heads with our concerns. Have they none of their own? If they are
happy, does their happiness depend on us, comparatively so imbecile
and vile? He believed, as nearly all nations do, in different ranks
and orders of superhuman beings; and perhaps he thought (but I never
was in his confidence or counsels) that the higher were rather in
communication with the next to them in intellectual faculties, than
with the most remote. To me the suggestion appears by no means
irrational, that if we are managed or cared for at all by beings wiser
than ourselves (which in truth would be no sign of any great wisdom in
th