The Date of the Martyrdom of Lucian of Antioch

Abstract

The influential priest and teacher Lucian of Antioch suffered martyrdom during the great ‘Persecution’ set in train by the emperor Diocletian in late February 303, which was finally ended in Asia Minor, the Syrian region and Egypt in the late spring and summer of 313. Lucian was executed in Nicomedia on 7 January: both the place and the day are attested by unimpeachable evidence, including the ancient editor's note on a homily in praise of Lucian delivered by John Chrysostom (PG 50, 519-526 [CPG 4346]), the early martyrology preserved in a Syriac manuscript written in Edessa in 411 (PO 10/1, 12,1 Nau), and the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (ActaSS Nov. II/2, Brussels 1931, 29). The year of Lucian's martyrdom, however, is not explicitly attested and must be inferred from the fact that he was tried and condemned to death by a Roman emperor who was in Nicomedia at the time. Since Lucian can hardly have suffered martyrdom as early as January 305, when Diocletian was certainly in Nicomedia, the only possible years between 303 and 313 when Lucian can have been tried by an emperor in that city immediately before execution on a 7 January are 311 and 312. The majority of modern scholars have plumped for the later of these two years, dating the death of Lucian to 7 January 312. But the earlier date of 7 January 311 argued by Baronius has occasionally been adopted, as by Friedrich Loofs and Karl Baus, while Michael Slusser has recently set out a detailed argument in its favour. Lest Slusser's case be accepted by default, the case for 7 January 312 will here be set out. It is totally compelling.