School of Antiochcondemned
Who he was
- Modern scholars normally consider Lucian of Antioch as the founder of the Theological School of Antioch.
- This School stood in opposition to the allegorism of that of Alexandrian.
- Lucian was the father of Arianism. Thus this heresy had its roots not in Alexandria, where it was first taught, but Antioch.
- He was transported from Antioch to Nicomedia, where the emperor then resided, made a noble confession of his faith before the judge and died under the tortures in prison (312).
- Evidently his strictly theological perspectives were heterodox, for Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia claimed to be his students, even calling themselves Lucianists. The association of Lucian with Paul of Samosata and later with his disciple Arius kept him under suspicion for his adoptionist Christology.
- The oldest document about Lucian’s teaching accuses him of being a successor to Paul of Samosata and the originator of the doctrine which soon became so notorious as Arianism. It is a letter written by Pope Alexander of Alexandria ten years after Lucian’s death.
What he wrote
- He accepted the pre-existence of Christ, but insisted that this had not been from all eternity.
- He was not a prolific writer.
- He was a Hebrew scholar known by his critical revision of the text of the Septuagint which was adopted by the greater number of churches of Syria and Asia Minor, and was highly esteemed.
- Jerome mentions that copies were known in his days as “exemplaria Lucianea,” but in other places he speaks rather disparagingly of the texts of Lucian.
- Lucian also extended his textual criticism to the New Testament but limited it most probably to the four Gospels.
- Jerome refers to his ‘small treatise on faith’ without referring to its contents.