Acts 2:45
42 They were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Reverential awe came over everyone, and many wonders and miraculous signs came about by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and held everything in common, 45 and they began selling their property and possessions and distributing the proceeds to everyone, as anyone had need. 46 Every day they continued to gather together by common consent in the temple courts, breaking bread from house to house, sharing their food with glad and humble hearts, 47 praising God and having the good will of all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number every day those who were being saved.
Lucian The Death of Peregrine 13
The Passing of Peregrinus13 In some of the Asiatic cities, too, the Christian communities put themselves to the expense of sending deputations, with offers of sympathy, assistance, and legal advice. The activity of these people, in dealing with any matter that affects their community, is something extraordinary; they spare no trouble, no expense. Peregrine, all this time, was making quite an income on the strength of his bondage; money came pouring in. You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on trust, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property. Now an adroit, unscrupulous fellow, who has seen the world, has only to get among these simple souls, and his fortune is pretty soon made; he plays with them.
Notes and References
"... Lucian goes on, like Aristides, to derive the passion for martyrdom from the original crucifixion and to declare that it is supported by the hope of eternal life. In his effort to make the pretensions of the apologist recoil upon the Church, he applies to the martyrs the epithet xaxobaCμove£ which he fixed upon Peregrinus at the beginning of his treatise. In the chapter already quoted Aristides goes on to protest that the Christians "do not desire the belongings of others (15.4); the satirist concludes that they despise all the goods of the world. We look after widows and o rphans, says the apologist (IS.7); Lucian does not forget them, for they are the dupes who attend Peregrinus in prison. This strange race, who, as Aristides avers, do not fornicate, bear false witness, steal or dishonour their fathers and mothers, arc almost created to be the butts of a charlatan who is guilty vf all these crimes. After all, it is Aristides who boasts that they never turn away strangers, and the dangers of a too credulous hospitality were mentioned in Christian homilies. (compare with Didache XI 1-6) The Syrian text of Aristides preserves a passage which might be said to tell the story of Peregrinus in miniature ..."
Edwards, M. J. Satire and Verisimilitude: Christianity in Lucian's "Peregrinus" (pp. 89-98) Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte Bd. 38, H. 1, 1989