LUITPRAND
550
LUKE
nistoria Longohardorum ; Anastasius,T'7te Ponfif.; Mu- ratori, Annales Script. Itul. ; lioefcr, Xouv. Hioff, Gener. vol. xxxii; Keichel, See oj' Rome in the Middle Ages, p. bi. sq. ; Milman, Hist. Lat. Christ, ii, 374 sq. (J. H.W.)
Luitprand, or Liutprand, a distinguished Italian historian, is supposed to have been born at Pavia about A.D. 920, of a noble family very high in favor at the court of king Hughes. Luitprand received a very good education, and was at an early age appointed deacon of the cathedral of Pavia. He soon after became chancel- lor of king Berengar, by whom he was, about 946, sent on a mission to Byzantium. After his return in 950, he fell under the displeasure of the king and of queen Willa, and retired to the court of Otho I of Germany. He re- mained there eleven years, learned the language of the country, and became acquainted with all the most dis- tinguished characters. In 958 he began, at the request of the bishop of Elvira, to write a history of his own age, and he continued this task until 962, when he re- turned to Otho m Italy. He was now at once appoint- ed bishop of Cremona, and was in 963 sent by Otho to pope John XII, ostensibly for the purpose of assuring the latter of the emperor's good will, but in reality to incite the Koman aristocracy against the pope. Shortly after, when the pope was accused before the Synod of Eome, Luitprand spoke against him in the name of the emperor. Two years afterwards Otho sent him again to Rome, together with the bishop of Spiers, to direct the pontifical election, a duty which he performed to the emperor's entire satisfaction. In 968 Luitprand went to Constantinople to negotiate a marriage between princess Theophania and the son of Otho, but herein he failed. In 971 he was sent, with some others, to renew negotia- tions for the same object, Nicephorus being dead ; but he died himself soon after, in the early part of 972. His works, which are of great value for the history of those times, are .-1 nfapodosis, begun at Frankfort-on-the-Mainc in 958, concluded in Italy in 962, a historical work, in which he seeks to revenge himself for the wrongs he had suffered, especially from Berengar and Willa: — Liber de rebus gestis Ottonis Magni imperatoris, an account of events from 960 to 964, ^vhich is the more valuable from the fact that Luitprand was an eyewitness and often an actor in all the occurrences he relates : — Relutio de Ivga- tione Constuntinopolituna of 968, very important for the information it contains on events and customs, and the best written of Luitprand's works. The Antapodosis and Historia Ottonis, of which the original jMS., partly in Luitprand's own handwriting, is preserved in the li- brary of Munich, were published at Antwerp (1640, fol.), and in several historical works of the Jliddle Ages, as in those of Reul)er and Du Chesne, and in the Scriptores of Muratori, vol. ii. The best edition of Luitprand's works is contained in Pertz, Monumentii, vol. iii, who has also published them separately. A German translation of the A ntapndosis was published by the baron of Osten- Sacken (Berlin, 1853), with an Introduction by Watten- bach. See Kopke, De Vita et Scriptis Liiitjjrandi (Berl. 1842,8vo); Vertz, Mo7ium. iii, 264; Wattenbach, Deufsch- lands GeschichtsquMen iiii Mittehdter (2d ed. Berl. 1866), p. 209 ; Contzen, Geschichtschreiber d. sdchsischen Kaiser- zeit, etc. (Regensb. 1837) ; Giesebrecht, Kaiserzeit, i, 740, 742 sq. ; Donniges, Otto I, p. 199 s(i. ; Niebnhr, SS. Byz. vol. xi. ; Martini, Ue. d. Geschichtschreiber Liudprand, in Benkschrift. d. Kun. A lead. d. Wissemch. of ]\Iunich, 1809, 1810 ; I locfcr, Xoni: Biog. Gmeride, xxxii, 219 ; Herzog, Real-EacyUop. viii, 442 ; Baxmann, Politik der Pdpste, vol. ii (see Index).
Luke, the evangelist, and author of the Acts of the Apostles. In the fnUowitig account of liimself and his Gospel we largely follow the articles in Kitto's and Smith's Dictionaries.
I. His Xdtne.—Thh, in the Greek fiirm, Aovkuc. is abbreviated from XovKavuc, the Grtecized representative of the Latin Lucanus, or AofwAtcic, Lucilius (comp. Silas iox Silranus; Annas for Annaiius ; Zenas ioi Zenodor us :
Winer, Gram. p. 115). The contraction of avoq into aq is said to be characteristic of the names of slaves (see Lobeck, De Substantiv. in aq exeuntibus, in Wolf, .1 nalect. iii, 49), and it has been inferred from this that Luke was of heathen descent (which may also be gathered from the implied contrast between those mentioned Col. iv, 12-14, and the oi tK -KtpiTOnriQ, ver. 11), and a libertus, or freedman. This latter idea has found confirmation in his profession of a physician (Col. iv, 14), the practice of medicine among the Romans having been in great meas- lu-e confined to persons of servile rank (Middleton, De Medicorinn npud Roman, degent. Condiiione). To this, however, there were many exceptions (see Smith, Diet. of Class. A ntiq. s. v. IMedicus), and it is altogether an in- sufficient basis on which to erect a theory as to the evan- gelist's social rank. So much, however, we may proba- bly safely infer from his profession, that he was a man of superior education and mental culture to the gener- ality of the apostles, the fishermen and tax-gatherers of the Sea of Galilee.