Lucopetrians is the name given to a sect of fa- natics and ascetics who believed in a double Trinity, rejected marriage, scorned all external forms of worship, and adopted absurdly allegorical interpretations of Scrip- ture. They were believed to have had as their founder an ecclesiastic by the name of Lucopetrus, but the prob- ability is that Lucopetrus is a nickname, and it is said to have been given to a person called Peter, who prom- ised to appear on the third day after his death, and who was called Wolf- Peter or Lucopetrus afterwards, because the devil on that day appeared to his followers in the shape of a wolf. See Bogomiles; Messaliaxs.
Lucretius, Titus Carus, a noted Roman poet, de- serves a place here as the exponent of Epicurianism, He flourished some time towards the opening of the 1st century, but of his life we know almost nothing with certainty, as he is mentioned merely in a cursory man- ner in contemporary literature. St. Jerome, in his trans- lation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, gives the date of his birth as B.C. 95 (according to others, 99), but he does not specify the source from which his statement is de- rived. It is alleged, further, that he died by his own hand, in the 44th year of his age, having been driven frantic by a love-potion which had been administered to him ; that he composed his works in the intervals of his madness, and that these works were revised by Cic- ero ; but all these statements rest on very insutficient authority, and must be received with extreme caution. His peculiar opinions rendered him specially obnoxious to the early Christians, and it is possible that the latter may have been too easily led to attribute to him a fate which, in its mysterious nature and melancholy termi- nation, was deemed but a due reward for the bold and impious character of his teachings. The great work on which his fame rests is De Rerum Natura, a philosoph- ical didactic poem in six books {editio jtrinceps, Brescia, about 1473; best editions by Wakefield [London, 179G, 3 vols. 4to, and Glasgow, 1813, 4 vols. 8vo], by Forbiger [Leips. 1828, 12mo], and by Lachmann [Berhn, 1850, 2 vols.]. English translations in verse by Creech [Lond. 1714, 2 vols. 8vo], Good [Lond. 1805-7, 2 vols. 4to] ; in prose by the Rev. J. S. Watson, M.A. [London, Bohn's Classical Librarj^ 1851, post 8vo]) — in large measure an exposition of the physical, moral, and religious tenets of Epicurus. See Epicukean Philosophy. "Regard- ed merely as a literary composition, the work of Lucre- tius stands unrivalled among didactic poems. The clear- ness and fulness with which the most minute facts of physical science, and tlie most subtle philosophical spec- ulations are unfolded and explained ; the life and inter- est which are thrown into discussions, in themselves re- pulsive to the bulk of mankind; the beauty, richness, and variety of the episodes whicli are interwoven with the subject-matter of the poem, combined with the ma- jestic verse in which the whole is clothed, render the De Rerum Natura, as a work of art, one of the rtiost perfect which antiquity has be(HK>athed to us" (Chambers, Cy- clop. s. v.). See Smith, Did. Class. Biog. s. v.
Lud (Heb. ic7. "TIP, derivation unknown; Sept.Aoi;5, but in Ezek. AvCoi ; Auth. Vers. " Lydia," in Ezek. xxx,
5), the name apparently of two nations. See Eth«
NOLOGY.
1. The fourth son of Shem (B.C. post 2513), and found- er of a tribe near the Assyrians and Aramteans (Gen. x, 22; 1 Chron. i, 17). According to Josephus (.1?;^ i, 6, 4), they were the Lydians ; in which opinion agree Eu- stathius, Eusebius, Jerome, and Isidore, and among mod- erns Bochart {Fhaleg, ii, 12) and Gesenius. On the con- trary, Michaelis {Spicileg. ii, 114 sq.) reads Till, and un- derstands the Indians (see also his Supj)hmeni,'^o. 1416; comp. Vater, Comment, i, 130). Lud would thus be rep- resented by the Lydus of the mj'thical period (Herod, i, 7). "The Shemitic character of the manners of the Lu- dim, and the strong Orientalism of the art of the Lj'dian kmgdom during its latest period and after the Persian conquest, but before the predominance of Greek art in Asia Minor, favor this idea ; but, on the other hand, the Egyptian monuments show us in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries B.C. a powerful people called Ruten or LuDEN, probably seated near Mesopotamia, and appar- ently north of Palestine, whom some, however, make the Assyrians. We may perhaps conjecture that the Lydians first established themselves near Palestine, and afterwards spread into Asia IMinor ; the occupiers of the old seat of the race being destroyed or removed by the Assyrians" (Smith). With the latter supposition, com- pare the apocrj'phal statement in Jutlith ii, 23. See Lydia.
2. One of the Hamitic tribes descended from Mizraim (Ludim, Gen. X. 13), apparently a people of Africa (per- haps of Ethiopia), sprimg from the Egyptians, and ac- customed to fight with bows and arrows (Ezek. xxvii, 10; xxx, 5; Isa.lxvi, 19, where they are associated with Cush and Phut ; comp. the Ludim, Jer, xlvi, 9, and the Phud and Lud of Judith ii, 23). Some have referred the name to the people of Luday, on the western coast of Africa, south of Morocco (see Michaelis, Spicileg, i, 259 sq. ; also Supipl. No. 1417) ; and combine with this the mention of a river Laud in Tangitanla (Pliny, v, 2). Others, as Bochart (Phaleg, iv, 56) and Gesenius (Com- ment, ad loc. Isa.), regard them as a branch of the Ethi- opians. Hitzig (^Comment, ad loc. Isa. and Jer.) thinks that the Libyans are intended (by an interchange of letters), but Nubia appears to be rather indicated by the scriptural notices. StiU more improbable is the suppo- sition of Forster (Ep, ad Michael, p. 13 sq.), that the in- habitants of the oases are intended, designated in Coptic by a term having some resemblance to Lud. The Ara- bic interpreters have Tanites ; the Targum of Jonathan renders inhabitants of the nome of Neut, The opinion of ]Michaelis (Siippl. No. 1418), that by the Ludim the prophets meant the Lydians, has lately been re-enforced by Gesenius {Thes. Neb. p. 746) with the remark that the Egyptians and Tyrians employed soldiers from Asia Minor in their armies (Herod, ii, 152, 154, 163; iii, 1). But the Egyptians, at least, had also mercenary troops from Africa, and the Asiatics referred to were only from Ionia and Caria. Rosellini (Monument, stor. Ill, i, 321 sq.) speaks of a province of Liidin, but the locality is uncertain. — Winer, s. v. See Ludiji.