LUCIAN (d. 312), Christian martyr, was born, like the famous heathen writer of the same name, at Samosata. His parents, who were Christians, died when he was twelve. In his youth he studied under Macarius of Edessa, and after receiving baptism he adopted a strictly ascetic life. Settling at Antioch when Malchion was master of the Greek school he became a pres byter, and is regarded as the founder of the theological school of Antioch. He is represented as the connecting link between Paul of Samosata and Arius. Indeed, on the deposition of the former (A.D. 268) he was excluded from ecclesiastical fellowship by three successive bishops of Antioch, while Arius seems to have been among his pupils (Theodoret, Hist. Eccl. i. 3, 4). He was, how ever, restored before the outbreak of persecution, and the repu tation won by his high character and learning was confirmed by his courageous martyrdom.
Lucian was carried to Nicomedia before Maximin Daza, and persisting in his faith perished on Jan. 7, 312, under torture and hunger, which he refused to satisfy with food offered to idols. His defence is preserved by Rufinus (ix. 6; on Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ix. 9). His remains were conveyed to Drepanum in Bithynia, and under Constantine the town was founded anew in his honour with the name of Helenopolis, and exempted from taxes by the emperor (A.D. 327) (see Chron. Pasch., Bonn ed., p. 527). Here
in 387, on the anniversary of his death, Chrysostom delivered the panegyrical homily from which, with notices in Eusebius, Theodoret and the other ecclesiastical historians, the life by Jerome (Vir. Ill. cap. 77), but especially from the account by S. Metaphrastes (cited at length in Bernhardy's notes to Suidas, s.v. voOthet), the facts above given are derived. See also, for the celebration of his day in the Syriac churches, Wright, Cat. of Syr. MSS. p. 283.
Jerome says that Lucian wrote Libelli de fide and several letters, but only a short fragment of one epistle remains (Chron. Pasch., ed. Dindorf, i. 516). The authorship of a confession of faith ascribed to Lucian and put forth at the semi-Arian synod of Antioch (A.D. 341) is questioned. Lucian's most important literary labour was his edition of the Greek Old Testament corrected by the Hebrew text, which, according to Jerome (Adv. Ruf. ii. 77), was in current use from Constantinople to Antioch. That the edition of Lucian is represented by the text used by Chrysostom and Theodoret, as well as by certain extant mss., such as the Arundelian of the British Museum, was proved by F. Field (Prol. ad Origenis Hexapla, cap. ix.).
See generally, A. Harnack's art. in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyk. vol. xi., and for "remains" Routh, Rel. Sac. iv. 3-17.