ABSTRACT
J. A. Froude was a long tradition when he maintained that Lucian was 'doing the Church's business when he seemed most distant from it': his laughter condemned liars, charlatans and 'the impious theology of the established pagan religion'. Generalized attacks on Lucian were effectively fended off. The Renaissance reader showed that he enjoyed the happy marriage between Christian zeal and Lucianical laughter. The translators came from various Christian traditions: whatever else separated them, their enjoyment of Lucian brought them together. Lucian meant laughter. The Arabic philosopher Averroes, who blasphemes Christ; Pliny, 'who openly laughs at the immortality of the soul, the very basis of our religion'. Suetonius and Tacitus are both anti-Christian. The laughter that Lucian directed at the classical gods, pedants or charlatans readily lends itself to be adapted to mock popes, scholastic theologians, and monks, as well as the superstitious cult of saints and other accretions to evangelical doctrine.
