Lucian Alexander the False Prophet

Lucian Alexander the False Prophet Applying the ideas from Lucian's "Alexander the False Prophet" to today is not all that difficult. This report aims to just that; apply the observations of Lucian to modern day religion to see if there are possible comparisons. Surprisingly, the translated reading was easily understood and the points of Alexander's corruption seem clear. The book covered the career of 'Alexandros ho Pseudomantis' and is believed to have been written nearly a decade after the Prophet Alexander died; approximately a.D. 180.

The work is therefore an account of the Prophet of Asclepius at Abonoteichus in Paphlagonia and historians have placed Paphlagonia in the upper regions of today's Asia Minor. The story was motivated by Lucian receiving a request to give an account about the religious career of Alexander. Lucian's account was very scandalous and basically has condemned Alexander to remain forever in history as a religious swindler who simply purchased a large snake and then choose a group of people to scam.

The ploy, as described by Lucian, was that Alexander and his cronies planted bronze tablets, created fake talking serpents and claimed that his serpent had descended to earth from a godly past. Lucian detailed how well thought out the plan was and how Alexander used official looking documentation and even baby snakes thought to be hatched from goose eggs to carry out his deceitful objectives. In effect, the scheme hatched by Alexander entailed advertising agents, tainted government officials and lie after lie which in turn fooled everyone. As P.T.

Barnum pointed out, "There's one born every minute!" Why is the story of Lucian's Alexander important today? Unfortunately, there are very many similarities to modern day Christianity. Christianity has been shown to have borrowed many ideas from other pagan religions in its infancy so these correlations may or may not be coincidence. For example, Lucian detailed how Alexander's 'heavenly' serpent named Asclepius was literally "born twice, when other men are born but once." (Lucian: translated by Harmon, 1925:p.

195, 14) This important distinction about the snake was to show that the creature was godly. Almost everyone on the planet today has at one time or another been told of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What helped identify Jesus as the son of God may have been his ability to rise from the dead and thus be reborn. The foundation of Christianity, Jesus Christ's rebirth, sadly seems as an almost identical story to known religious scam established by Alexander as described by Lucian.

The fact is that the basic tenets are the same. There are other similarities. According to Lucian, Alexander took advantage of his followers by manipulating them - they were "swayed by two great tyrants, hope and fear." (Lucian: translated by Harmon, 1925:p. 185, 8) in general, humans can be made to believe just about anything. Even today, historical zealots in religions like Christianity are as easily manipulated by the church. A modern day example could be the outdated Roman Catholic philosophies on birth control and safe sex which clearly affects millions.

Birth control and the associated beliefs and sanctions by the Roman Catholic church may have been instituted as religious law so the spouses of priests a few hundred of years ago could not inherit the lands or fortunes when the priests died -- the church manipulated 'hopes and fears' of millions so they instead could inherit what rightfully belonged to the wives and children of dead priests. Alexander used an Oracle to usurp power from his followers.

"Even if the oracle was obscure, ambiguous, or unintelligible, they respected it." (Lucian: translated by Harmon, 1925: p. 205, 22) Following the oracle seemed a ridiculous notion to Lucian who called Alexander's followers various expletives such as idiots, dolts, fat-heads, and simpletons. But modern day man cannot criticize -- the fact that we as a nation base many of our modern decisions and rules on the United States Constitution and the legal process should make us look to Alexander's Oracle.

The foundation of the Constitution and our legal system are the Bible and the Ten Commandments. What would Lucian think of us and our failure to question.