SOURCE: "The Satyricon and the Christian Oral Tradition," Greek, Roman & Byzantine Studies, Vol. 3, 1960, pp. 36-9.

In the following essay, Cabaniss contends that Petronius was familiar with the pre-literary Christian gospel and presents several passages from the Satyricon that he believes allude to it.

Several years ago I offered a tentative suggestion that some "minor, but nonetheless tantalizing, resemblances between the famous Milesian tale of the matron of Ephesus" in the Satiricon and the Biblical account of Christ's burial were the result of cynical and garbled use by Petronius of an oral version of the new Christian gospel which he may have heard, perhaps in Bithynia.² So modest was my proposal that I supposed there were no other resemblances. I now believe, however, that at several other points the oral version of the Christian tradition impinges upon Petronius's picaresque romance.

There are a few details of his life³ to...