PHILOPATRIS, the title of a dialogue formerly attributed to Lucian, but now generally admitted to be spurious. The scene is laid at Constantinople. A certain Triephon, who has been con verted to Christianity by a bald, long-nosed Galilaean, who was carried up through the air into the third heaven (an evident allusion to St. Paul), meets a friend, Critias, who is in a state of great excitement. Triephon inquires the reason, and the invo cation of Zeus by Critias leads to a discussion on paganism and Christianity, in which all the gods proposed by Critias are re jected by Triephon, who finally suggests that Critias should swear by the Trinity. Critias goes on to relate how he had been intro duced to a gathering of pessimists, who predicted all kinds of disturbances in the empire and defeat at the hands of its enemies. The Philopatris was for a long time regarded as an attack upon Christianity, and assigned to the time of Julian the Apostate (em peror 361-363). Chronological indications led Niebuhr to ascribe
it to the reign of Nicephorus Phocas (963-969), a view now gen erally supported.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Editions by J. M. Gesner (1715) and C. B. Hase in the Bonn Corpus scriptorum hist. byz. (1828), vol. xi.; also included in Jacobitz's edition of Lucian (1839). See B. G. Niebuhr, "Veber das Alter des Dialogs Philopatris" in his Kleine historische Schriften, vol. ii. ; R. Crampe, Philopatris. Ein heidnisches Konventikel des siebenten Jahrhunderts zu Constantinopel (1894) ; C. Stach, who shows its late origin by linguistic tests, De Philopatride (Cracow, 1894) ; S. Reinach, Revue archeologique, vol. i. (1902) ; and, for further authorities, article by Von Dobschidtz in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopddie fur protestantische Theologie (1904) •