medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Herewith some medieval images of Lucian of Antioch (there are of course other Sts. Lucian). Some indicate a death by drowning, a legendary detail recurring in his synaxary notices. A homily in Lucian's honor by St. John Chrysostom (BHG 998) shows that in late fourth-century Antioch his feast was kept on 7. January. That is also where Lucian of Antioch is entered in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and the ninth-century historical martyrologies of Florus of Lyon, St. Ado of Vienne, and Usuard of Saint-Germain that were ancestral to the Roman Martyrology. In the Metaphrastic Menologion and in the Synaxary of Constantinople he is entered under 15. October.
a) Lucian of Antioch in prison and (second scene) his martyrdom by drowning as depicted in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 115):
http://tinyurl.com/nm98xmz
b) Lucian of Antioch (almost certainly) as depicted in a perhaps late thirteenth-century fresco in the ex-chiesa abbaziale di San Mauro at San Mauro sulla Serra in Sannicola (LE) on Apulia's Salentine peninsula:
http://tinyurl.com/2g7us2g
http://tinyurl.com/2789zur
c) Lucian of Antioch's martyrdom by drowning (bottom register at lower left; above, St. Sabinus of Catania; at right, St. Longinus the Centurion) as depicted in an October calendar composition in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church of St. George at Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/7mbk7l8
d) Lucian of Antioch's martyrdom by drowning as depicted in an October calendar scene in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/28us2xk
e) Lucian of Antioch's martyrdom by the sword as depicted (at lower right) in an earlier fourteenth-century set of miniatures from Thessaloniki (betw. 1322 and 1340) for the Great Feasts (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol. 13r):
http://tinyurl.com/mt7j8gy
f) Lucian of Antioch on trial as depicted in a mid-fifteenth-century copy (betw. 1447 and 1455) of Giovanni Colonna's _Mare historiarum_ (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 4915, fol. 252r):
http://tinyurl.com/q54addv
Best,
John Dillon
On 01/07/15, Matt Heintzelman wrote:
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> During the persecution of Maximinus Daia, Lucian was arrested at Antioch and sent to Nicomedia, where he endured many tortures over nine years of imprisonment. He was twice brought up for examination, and both times defended himself ably and refused to renounce his Christian faith.
> His death is uncertain. He might have been starved to death. Another, more likely, possibility is that he was beheaded. The traditional date ascribed to his execution is January 7, 312, in Nicomedia. There is a late tradition of uncertain origin that he had been drowned in the sea and that his body was returned to land by a dolphin. (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_of_Antioch)
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