LUCIANO of ANTIOCH, saint. — Priest of the Church of Antioch, killed in hatred of the faith at Nicomedia on 7 January 312.
The sources concerning him are copious, but not all are reliable, nor are they always in agreement. They do, however, concur in recognizing in L. extensive learning, great zeal for the study of the Scriptures, and many years of teaching, which attracted numerous and devoted students from throughout the East; distinguished bishops of the principal sees of Asia emerged from his school. From it also came what was L.’s most enduring work and his principal service to the Church, still appreciated by scholars today: a special recension of the Greek Bible, both of the Old and of the New Testament, which among the ancients and moderns bears L.’s name.
As regards the Old Testament, whether L., as the sources affirm, knew Hebrew, or availed himself of the assistance of others, it is certain that in this recension the Greek version of the Sacred Books was corrected on the basis of a Hebrew text often different from, or differently understood than, that of the rabbinic tradition, and evidently superior on many occasions. Hence the great value of the Lucianic recension of the Bible, especially in the historical books of the Old Testament; but one must not, with many modern scholars, exaggerate by accepting, without great caution, the readings peculiar to L. They are preserved in a relatively small number of manuscripts, whose provenance is reliably established by their textual character, namely, their conformity with the commentaries or quotations of the Fathers of the Church of Antioch, such as Diodore of Tarsus, St. John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theodoret.
For the New Testament, matters are somewhat different. The ancient testimonies to a recension prepared by L. are neither so numerous nor so indisputable. The great majority of the surviving manuscripts transmitted a text which, in contrast with several other branches of the tradition, displays evident literary characteristics, especially in the Gospels, of the Lucianic recension of the Old Testament. It is precisely the text found among the writers of the Church of Antioch. It enjoyed the widest circulation in manuscripts and printed editions until the nineteenth century. It is not certain that L. left any original writings. St. Jerome (De viris illustribus, 77) mentions, but with the prudent “feruntur,” some brief works concerning the faith and short letters to various persons. A few lines of a letter from L. at Nicomedia to the Antiochenes have been preserved by the Chronicon Paschale (PG 92, 689).
The Symbol of the Council of Antioch at the Encaenia (PG 26, 721-24; PL 10, 502-504), presented precisely as being by L., and the brief apologetic discourse that Rufinus inserts into the account of L.’s trial and martyrdom, in Eusebius’ Storia ecclesiastica (CB, 9, II, pp. 813-815), may have some connection with the treatises on the faith.
Some obscurity surrounds the person and doctrine of L. It is certain that his students boasted of being the first champions of Arianism. It is less certain that L. sided with the heretic Paul of Samosata, and that under his three immediate successors in the see of Antioch he was excluded from Catholic communion, which is what Alexander of Alexandria says of a certain Lucian in Theodoret, Storia ecclesiastica 1, 4 (PG 82, 901). If there was error, it was repaired by L.’s subsequent activity and washed away by his glorious martyrdom. The Greek Church honors him as a martyr (formerly on 7 January, for centuries now on 16 October), and as such he is also included in the Martyrologium Romanum on 7 January; St. John Chrysostom composed a splendid eulogy of him (PG 50, 519-526).