LUCIAN OF ANTIOCH, St. — A priest of the Church of Antioch, martyred in hatred of the faith at Nicomedia on 7 January 312.
There are abundant sources on him, but not all are pure, nor always consistent. They do, however, agree in attributing to L. extensive learning, great zeal for the study of Scripture, and many years of teaching, which attracted numerous and devoted pupils from all over the East; illustrious bishops of the principal sees of Asia emerged from his school. From it also came what was L.’s most lasting 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 New Testaments, which in antiquity and in modern times has borne his name.
As regards the Old Testament, whether L., as the sources affirm, knew Hebrew or made use of others’ assistance, it is certain that in this recension the Greek version of the Sacred Books was corrected according to a Hebrew text often different from, or differently understood than, that of the rabbinic tradition, and frequently better. 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 moderns, exaggerate by accepting without great caution the special readings attributed to L. They are preserved in a relatively small number of manuscripts, whose provenance is textually guaranteed by their conformity with the commentaries or citations of the Antiochene Fathers, such as Diodorus of Tarsus, John Chrysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia.
As regards the New Testament, matters go somewhat differently. The ancient testimonies to a recension elaborated by L. are not so numerous or incontestable. The great majority of the surviving manuscripts have transmitted a text which, in opposition to several other branches of the tradition, shows evident, especially in the Gospels, the literary characteristics of the Lucianic recension of the Old Testament. It is precisely this text that is found in the writers of the Antiochene Church. It enjoyed the widest diffusion in manuscripts and printed editions until the 19th century.
It is not certain that L. left any original writings. Jerome (De viris illustribus, 77) mentions, but with a cautious “feruntur,” some small treatises on the faith and brief letters to various persons. Of a letter from L. from Nicomedia to the Antiochenes, the Chronicon Paschale (PG 92, 689) has preserved a few lines.
The little treatises on the faith may be related to the Symbol of the Council of Antioch at the Encænia (PG 26, 721-24; PL 10, 502-504), presented precisely as L.’s, and to the apologetic discourse which Rufinus inserts into the account of the trial and martyrdom of L. in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius (CB, 9, 11, pp. 813-815).
Some obscurity surrounds the person and doctrine of L. It is certain that his pupils were the first champions of Arianism. It is not equally certain that L. participated in the heresy of Paul of Samosata, or that during the three immediate successors to him in the see of Antioch he was excluded from Catholic communion, a claim made about a “Lucian” by Alexander of Alexandria in Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History (PG 82, 601). If there was error, it was repaired by the remainder of L.’s activity and washed away by his glorious martyrdom. The Greek Church honors him as a martyr (formerly on 7 January, for centuries on 16 October), and as such he is also included in the Roman Martyrology on 7 January; St. John Chrysostom delivers a splendid encomium upon him (PG 50, 519-526).