Lucernariuni (Xvxi'ni^i'a), a name given to the evening service of the ancient Church, because ere it began it was usually dusk, and the place had to be lighted up with lamps. See Bingham, Antiqu. Chris- tian Church, bk. xiii, ch. ix, § 7. See Hours ; Vesi>ers.
Lucia, St., a Roman Catholic saint of the 3d or the beginning of the 4th centur\-, is said to have been of a noble Sicilian family. Her legendary history is as fol- lows. Having gone on a pilgrimage with her mother to the grave of St, Agatha for the restoration of the lat- ter's liealth,'she resolved to become a nun. Her mother assented, but a young man whom she was engaged to marr\-. angry at her resolution, denounced her as a Cliristian. Slie acknowledged the truth of the charge
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when brought before the judges, and was condemned to enter a brothel ; but when Paschasius gave the order to •take her thence it was foimd impossible to move her from the spot, even though yokes of oxen were employed to draw her. Paschasius now attempted to burn her, and had boiling pitch and oil poured on her, but in vain ; he then ran her through with a sword, when she proph- esied the downfall of Diocletian, the death of iMaximian, and the arrest and death of Paschasius, She died after partaking of the body of the Lord, and on the spot a church was afterwards erected. Her life is contained in Laurentius Servius's Dt irrohaiis Sanctorum historiis, Dec. 13, and in a number of martj'rologues, but it has often been attacked as spurious even by Eomanists, and is therefore not fomid in the A eta Sanctorum. She is commemorated on Dec. 13. — Herzog, Real-Encykloj). viii, 49(3 ; Wetzer imd Welte, Klrcken-Lexikon, s. v.
Lucian (Aoy/ctaj'of), a celebrated Greek rhetori- cian, the Voltaire of Grecian literature, was born at Sa- mosata, a city on the west bank of the Euphrates, in the Syrian province of Commagene. We possess no particulars respecting his life on which any reliance can be placed except a few scattered notices in his own writuigs. From these it appears that he was bom about the latter end of Trajan"s reign (A.D. 53-117), that he lived under both the Antonines, and died about the end of the 2d century. His parents, who Avere in humble circumstances, placed him with his maternal uncle, a sculptor, in order to learn statuary ; but he soon quitted this trade, and applied himself to the study of the law. He afterwards practiced at the bar in Syria and Greece ; but, not meeting with much success in this profession, he resolved to settle in Gaul as a teacher of rhetoric, where he soon obtained great celebrity and numerous scholars. He appears to have remained in Gaul till he was about fort}-, when he gave up the profession of.rhet- oric, after having acquired considerable wealth. During the remainder of his life we tind him travelling about from place to place, and visiting successively Blacedonia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, and Bithynia. The greater part of his time, however, was passed in Athens, where he lived on terms of the greatest intimacy with I'l mo- nax, a philosopher of great celebrity, and where he prob- ably wrote most of his works, which principally consist of attacks upon the religion and philosojjhy of his age. Towards the latter part of his life he held a lucrative public office in Egypt, which was bestowed upon him by the emperor Commodus. The account of his being torn to death by dogs for his attack on the Christian re- ligion rests on no credible authority, and ivas probably invented by Suidas, who appears to have been the ear- liest to relate it.
The writings of Lucian, in the form of dialogue, are in a remarkably pure and elegant Greek style, free from the false ornaments and artificial rhetoric which char- acterize most of the writings of his contemporaries. Modern critics have usually given him his full meed of praise for these excellences, and have also deservedly admired the keenness of his wit, his great talent as a writer, and the inimitable ease and flow of his dialogue ; but they have sehlom done him the justice he deserves. They have either represented him as merely a witty and amusing writer, but without any further merit, or else they have attacked him as an immoral and infidel author, whose only object was to corrupt the minds of his readers, and to throw ridicule upon all religion. But these opinions appear to us to have arisen from a mis- taken and one-sided view of the character of Lucian, and an intent to utterly ignore the peculiarities of the period in which he flourished. He seems to us to have endeavored to expose all kinds of delusion, fanaticism, and imposture; the quackery and imposition of the priests, the folly and absurdity of the superstitious, and especially the solemn nonsense, the prating insolence, and the immoral lives of the pliilosoithical charlatans of his day (see his A/craiider). Lucian may, in fact, be regarded as the Aristophanes of his age, and, Uke the