Inevitably this ironic treatment of the great philosophies of Greece produced a storm of criticism. This was answered by Lucian in an apology of sorts under the title _The Resurrected or The Fisherman_. In it the satirist under the pseudonym of Frankness faces his accusers. For up from the dead, led by a militant Socrates, come to Athens Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle and other phantoms to execute worthy dooms on the worst of maligners. Frankness by rhetoric and argument averts stoning or crucifixion and secures a fair trial, presided over by Philosophy, who is attended by Truth, Investigation and Virtue. After Diogenes makes the speech for the prosecution, Frankness replies in defense of himself—and Lucian! He wins a unanimous verdict for acquittal by his claim that he auctioned off, not the great philosophers who now prosecute him, but base impostors who imitate them. Syllogism now acts as herald and calls from Athens to court all the philosophers to defend themselves. Frankness by promising largess secures a crowd of them, Platonists, Stoics, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Academics. When Philosophy announces that they are to be tried as impostors by herself, Virtue and Truth, they all disappear in wild rout. To get them back, Frankness now becomes a fisherman and, with bait of gold, hooks and hauls back the craven cheats. The head of each school disowns his imitators and the discarded are thrown down over the cliffs. Finally Philosophy dismisses the court with an injunction to Frankness to keep investigating philosophers in order to crown the true and brand the false. The genial tone of _Philosophies for Sale_ has entirely vanished in the essay on _The End of Peregrinus_. The influence of New Comedy and of Menippus with their ironic raillery is superseded by Aristophanic denunciation. Bitter mockery, cruel derision are loosed upon one creed, the Cynic. Lucian directs his vituperation against the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus, whose career had been meteoric. In his early life he was converted to Christianity, and even went to prison for his faith. Later, beliefs of India so possessed him that he immolated himself at Olympia just after the Olympic games of A.D. 165. Such self-sacrifice by cremation had been consummated at Susa by Calanus before Alexander the Great and by Zarmarus after initiation into the mysteries at Athens in the presence of Augustus. Lucian saw only one possible interpretation of Peregrinus’ self-sacrifice, desire for notoriety, but there have been many critics of this motivation as Harmon points out:[302] “Lucian believes himself to be exposing a sham, whose zeal was not at all for truth but only for applause and renown. Many notable modern critics, including Zeller, Bernays, Croiset, and Wilamowitz, dissent from his interpretation, discerning in the man an earnest seeker after truth; for to them thirst for glory is not an adequate explanation of his final act.”