Patron Saint of Extreme Zealots: Lucifer of Cagliari (+370)

 

LUCIFERUS I., bishop of Calaris (Cagliari), in Sardinia, a confessor whose dogmatic zeal was too intolerant for Athanasius or Jerome, and led him to renounce communion with Catholics of the purest orthodoxy as tainted by compliance with Arianism. The earliest mention of him is in a letter of pope Liberius, addressed to Eusebius of Vercellae. Moved by great anxiety about the efforts that were then being made (A.D. 354) to procure a condemnation of Athanasius by the Western bishops, Lucifer had come from Sardinia to Rome to consult with Liberius, and had offered to go as an envoy of the bishop of Rome to the emperor Constantius to ask him to summon a council. Liberius accepted the offer, and sent him, accompanied by the priest Pancratius and the deacon Hilarius, on a mission to the emperor. They took with them a letter to Constantius, and another to Eusebius, asking this zealous orthodox bishop to join them on their way and to do what he could to bring anti-Arian influence to bear on the emperor. The council was granted, and met at Milan in A.D. 354. The Arian party, supported by the emperor, was strong in it, and a proposal to condemn Athanasius was immediately brought forward; but it was resisted by Lucifer with such vehemence that the first day’s meeting broke up in confusion, and his opponents prevailed on the emperor to confine him in the palace. Some particulars of the subsequent history of this council are to be found in Lucifer’s writings, in Athanasius, Hist. Arian. ad Monachos, and in a Life of St. Dionysius of Milan (Bolland. May 25, pp. 46, 47). This life, though probably belonging to a much later date, gives details which have an air of genuineness. It is said that on the second day the people missed Lucifer, and asked where he was. Dionysius replied that he was shut up in the palace, but that Jesus Christ could not be prevented from being there with him. On the third day a letter was brought from Lucifer to Dionysius and Eusebius, and the people asked that it might be read to them. But the Arians raised such a clamour that the letter could not be heard till nightfall. On the fourth day three eunuchs came from the palace to ask what Dionysius and his friends desired of the emperor. They replied that they wished for liberty of discussion with the heretics, and for the restoration of Lucifer to their company. This latter request was granted, and Lucifer was received with joy both by the bishops and by the people.

The subsequent discussions of the council were held in the palace, and Constantius himself appears to have taken part in them. The proceedings were irregular and disorderly, and the end of some personal altercations between Lucifer and the emperor was that Lucifer was sent into exile. His banishment lasted from A.D. 355 to A.D. 361; and the greater part of this time he spent at Eleutheropolis in Palestine, where he was subject to the persecutions of the Arian bishop Eutychius. (See the petition to the emperor of Marcellinus and Justinus, two Luciferian priests, in Sirmond, Opera Varia, tom. i. p. 234.) It was during his banishment, and probably at Eleutheropolis, that his successive books or pamphlets on the controversy in which he was engaged were written. The following are the titles of them:—Pro sancto Athanasio Libri ii.; De Regibus Apostaticis; De non conveniendo cum Haereticis; De non parcendo in Deum delinquentibus; Moriendum pro Filio Dei. Lucifer addresses Constantius in these writings with a remarkable vigour of denunciation. It is evident that he courted persecution, and even martyrdom. He compares the emperor to the worst kings that ever reigned, and makes him out to be more impious than Judas Iscariot. And he sent his vehement invective by a special messenger to Constantius himself. Astonished at this audacity, the emperor ordered Florentius, an officer of his court, to send the book back to Lucifer and ask him if it were really his. The intrepid bishop replied that it was, and sent it back again. Constantius, on his part, must be allowed to have shewn magnanimity in leaving these violent effusions unpunished. There may however have been some additional hardship in the removal of Lucifer from Palestine to the Thebaid, where he remained till the death of Constantius in 361. Hearing of his arrival in Egypt, Athanasius wrote him a letter from Alexandria, full of praise and congratulations, asking him to let him see a copy of his work. After receiving and reading what his champion had written, Athanasius replied, and thanked him in a second letter. In this he is still more laudatory. He tells him that he was called the Elias of the age, that he was truly a Lucifer, who had brought the light of truth and placed it on a candlestick that it might give light to all; that he had proved the words of the Arians to be nothing but phantasy, and had taught that diabolic gnashing of teeth was to be trampled under foot.

Very soon after his accession, A.D. 361, Julian gave permission to the exiled bishops to return to their sees. Lucifer and Eusebius of Vercellae were both in the Thebaid, and Eusebius pressed his friend to come with him to Alexandria, where a council was to be held under the presidency of Athanasius, and where it was especially intended to take measures for the healing of a schism at Antioch. Lucifer, however, preferred to go straight to Antioch, sending two deacons to act for him at the council. Taking a hasty part in the affairs of the much divided church at Antioch, where the Catholic party was itself broken into two sections, the followers of Meletius and the followers of Eustathius, Lucifer ordained Paulinus, the leader of the latter section, as bishop of the church. When Eusebius arrived at Antioch, bringing with him the synodal letter of the council, and prepared to settle matters so as to give a triumph to neither party, he was distressed to find that he had been thus anticipated by the action of Lucifer. Unwilling to come into open collision with his friend, he retired immediately; Lucifer stayed, and declared that he would not hold communion with Eusebius or any who adopted the moderate policy of the Alexandrian council. By this council it had been determined that actual Arians, if they renounced their heresy, should be pardoned, but not invested with ecclesiastical functions; and that those bishops who had merely consented to Arianism under pressure should remain undisturbed. It was this latter concession which offended Lucifer, and he became henceforth the champion of the principle that no one who had yielded to any compromise whatever with Arianism should be allowed to hold an ecclesiastical office. In the ardour of his orthodoxy he separated himself not only from those who had thus yielded, but also from those who consented to the policy which Athanasius put forth in the name of the council of Alexandria (Rufinus, lib. i. cap. 30; Socrates, lib. iii. cap. 11).

After remaining some time at Antioch, Lucifer returned to Sardinia, and continued, it would seem, to occupy his see. Jerome (Chron.) states that he died in the year 371. To what extent he was an actual schismatic remains obscure. St. Ambrose remarks that “he had separated himself from our communion” (De Excessu Satyri, 1127, 47); and St. Augustine, “that he fell into the darkness of schism, having lost the light of charity” (Epist. 185, n. 47). But there is no mention of any separation other than Lucifer’s own repulsion of so many ecclesiastics; and Jerome in his dialogue against the Luciferians (§ 20) calls him beatus and bonus pastor. (See a quotation from the Mémoires de Trevoux in Ceillier, vol. iv. p. 247.)

The titles of Lucifer’s controversial pamphlets have already been given. They are marked by a peculiarly bitter and defiant treatment of Constantius, to whom they are addressed. The substance of them consists of appeals to Holy Scripture, and they contain a very large number of quotations from both Testaments. There are many variations from the received text in the passages quoted; but as it seems probable that Lucifer wrote them down from memory, the variations cannot be said to have any critical value. The first printed edition of the writings of Lucifer was that of Jean Tilly, Paris, 1568. They have been printed since in several collections, and will be found in Migne’s Patr. Lat. tom. xiii. The followers of Lucifer, if they ever formed a distinct organisation, disappeared in a few years. Jerome’s dialogue adv. Luciferianos purports to be the report of a discussion between an orthodox Christian and a Luciferian. The dialogue was written about 378, seven years after the death of Lucifer. Five or six years later an appeal was made to the emperor by the Luciferian presbyters. [FAUSTINUS (33).]

[J. Ll. D. (John Llewelyn Davies, M.A.)]

 

Source: A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, edited by William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D., and Henry Wace, B.D., D.D., Volume III, John Murray, Albemarle Street, London, 1882, pp. 749-751.