OT 



LUCIFER. 



LUCRETIUS. 



corning faith, and lo some short epistles ; but none of thcgo hive 

 come down to us, with the exception of a few fragment*. 



There haa been considerable dispute among critics respecting 

 Lociao's belief in the Trinity. From the manner in which bo is 

 spoken of by most of the Trinitarian Fathers, and from no censure 

 being passed upon his orthodoxy by Jerome and Athanasius, it has 

 been maintained that he must have been a believer in the Catholic 

 doctrine of the Trinity ; but on the other hand Epiphanius, in hi* 

 'Anchoret' (xxxv., TO!, it, p. 40, D), speaks of tho Lucianists and 

 Arians as one sect; and Philoatorgiua (who lived about 425, and wrote 

 an account of the Ami) controversy, of which considerable extracts 

 are preserved by Photius) expressly says that Eusebius of Nicomedia 

 and many of the principal Arians of the 4th century were disciples of 

 Lucian. It is probable that Lucian's opinions were not quite orthodox, 

 since lie is said by Alexander (in Theodoret, 'Hist. EccL,' i., c. 4, p. 15, 

 B) to have been excluded from the Catholic Church by three bishops 

 in succession, for advocating the doctrines of Paul of Samosata. It is 

 however usually supposed that he returned to the Catholic communion 

 before his death. 



LUCIFER, bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia, is principally known in 

 ecclesiastical history for refusing to hold any communion with the 

 clergy who had, during the reign of Constautius, conformed to the 

 Arian doctrines, although it bad been determined in a synod at Alex- 

 andria in 352 to receive again into the church all the Arian clergy who 

 openly acknowledged their errors. In consequence of the decision of 

 the synod at Alexandria, Lucifer eventually left the Catholic church, 

 and his followers are spoken of by ecclesiastical writers as a distinct 

 sect under the name of Luciferians. The number of this sect was 

 always inconsiderable : Theodoret says that it waa extinct in his time. 

 ('Hist. EccL,' Hi., c. 5, p. 128, D.) Their opinions however excited 

 considerable attention at the time when they were first promulgated, 

 and were advocated by several eminent men ; among others by 

 Faustinas, Marcellinus, and Hilarius. Jerome wrote a work in refuta- 

 tion of their doctrines, which is still extant. 



Augustine remarks, in his work on Heresies (c. IxxxL), that tho 

 Luciferians held erroneous opinions concerning the human soul, which 

 they considered to be of a carnal nature, and to be transfused from 

 parents to children. 



Lucifer is acknowledged by Jerome and Athanasius to have been 

 well acquainted with the Scriptures, and to have been exemplary in 

 private life ; but he appears to have been a man of violent temper and 

 groat bigotry. Being banished from Sardinia by Conetantius in conse- 

 quence of his opposition to the Arian doctrines, he resided for many 

 years in Syria ; but after the death of this emperor he returned to his 

 diocese, where he died about 3TO. 



The writings of Lucifer were published by Tillet, Paris, 1563 : they 

 consist of 'Two Books addressed to the Kmperor Constantius in 

 defence of Athanasius ; ' 'On Apostate Kings ; ' 'On the Duty of 

 having no Communion with Heretics ; ' ' On the Duty of dying for 

 the Son of God ; ' ' On the Duty of showing no Mercy to those who 

 sin against God ; ' and a short Epistle to Florentine. 



LUCl'LIUS, CAIUS, was bom at Suesea Aurunca (Sessa), a town in 

 the north-western part of Campania, B.C. 148. He belonged to the 

 equestrian order, and by the female side was grand-uncle to Pompey 

 the Great In his sixteenth year Lucilius served, together with 

 Murius and Jugurtha, under Scipio Africanus at the siege of Xumantia. 

 (Velleius, ii. 9, 4.) He is said to have died B.C. 103 in his forty-sixth 

 year ; but the expression of Horace (' Sat.' ii. 1, 34), in which Lucilius 

 is called 'old' (senex), seems to imply, as Mr. Clinton has remarked 

 (' Fast HelL,' vol. iii. p. 135), that he lived to a later date ; though to 

 tb is it has been plausibly answered that the term 'old' may have 

 refeience to the remote period at which he wrote. 



Lucilius is expressly said by Horace ('Sat'i. 1, 61) to have been 

 the first writer of Roman satire ; by which we must not understand 

 that no Itouiau writer had composed any satirical compositions before 

 him, since the satires of Ennius and others arc frequently mentioned 

 by ancient authors ; but that Lucilius was the first who constructed 

 it on those principles of art which were considered in the time of 

 Horace as essential requisites in a satiric poem. The satires of Lucilius 

 were very popular eveu in the Augustan age ; and to his writings some 

 of the most eminent satirists of antiquity Horace, Juvenal, and 

 I'ersius appear to have been indebted in no small degree for many 

 of their most striking thoughts and expressions. 



In addition to his satires, which were divided into thirty books, 

 Lucilius also wrote a comedy entitled ' Numularius,' epodes, and 

 hymns, none of which are extant with the exception of a few frag- 

 ments from his satires, which were collected and published by R. and 

 H. Stephens in their 'Fragmenta Poetarum Veterum Latinorum,' 

 Paris, 1564, and again, separately, by Douza, Leyden, 1597; they are 

 also included in Mattuiro's ' Corpus Poet Lat.,' London, 1713. Scanty 

 as these fragments are, they enable us to form some idea of the style 

 of Lucilius, which appears to have been distinguished by great energy 

 and power of expression, but to have been deficient in elegance and 

 cli-arncss. Horace compares his poetry to a muddy stream, and com- 

 plains that his versification was rugged and uncouth (' Sat' i. 4, 8-11) ; 

 but Quintilian ('Inst Or.,' i. 1) on the other hand maintains that 

 Horace has not given a fair estimate of the poetry of Lucilius, and 

 that his Entires were distinguished by great learning and abundance of 



wit Pliny (' Proef. Hist. Nat.'), Cicero (' De Orat,' i. 16 ; ii. fl), and 

 Gellius (' N. A.,' xviii. 5), also speak in high terms of the stylo of 

 LuciliiH. Juvenal (L 20) calls him ' Magnus Aurunca) alumnus.' 



Lucilius attacked vice with such severity that Juvenal (L 165) speaks 

 of the guilty as trembling at the vehemence of his rebukes. H did 

 tot however confine hia satires to the vices of mankind in general, 

 but also attacked private individuals, like the writers of the old 

 comedy among the Greeks, and among other persons, contemporary 

 and preceding poets, as Kuniu*, Ciecilius, Pacuvius, Accius, f.c. 

 [GelL, ' N. A.,' xvii. 21.) The powerful protection of Scipio and Lirliu*, 

 with whom he was on the most intimate terms of friendship illur., 

 ' Sat.' ii. 1, 70-75), enabled him also to attack with impunity some of 

 the most eminent political characters in Rome ; among whom we find 

 the names of Quintus Opimius, conqueror of Liguria, Cxcilius Mrtel- 

 lus, and Cornelius Ititfu*, who was at that time Princeps Senatus. 



LU'CIUS I. succeeded Cornelius in 252 as Bishop of Rome. Little 

 is known of him ; he survived his election only a few months ; some 

 say he wag banished, others that he died a martyr. He was succeeded 

 by Stephen I. 



LU'CIUS II. succeeded Celestinus II. in 1144, and being wounded 

 by a stone thrown at him in an affray of the people of Hume, died 

 shortly after, and was succeeded by Eu.'eniua III. 



LU'CIUS III., CARDINAL UBALDO, a nutive of Lucca, was electe 1 by 

 the cardinals after the death of Alexander III. in 1181, and was con- 

 secrated at Velletri, the people of Rome being opposed to him. He died 

 in 1185, shortly after having an interview with the Emperor Frederic 

 Barbarossa at Verona. He was succeeded by Urban 111. 

 LUCRETIA. [BRUTCS, M. J.] 



LUCRETIUS, with his full name TITUS LUCRETIUS CARUS, 

 was born B.C. 95, and died B.O. 52, in the forty-fourth year of hia age. 

 We possess no particulars respecting his life, but he appears to have 

 been born at Rome, was probably of equestrian rank, and is said to 

 have put an end to his own life. 



The poem of Lucretius, entitled ' De Rerum Natura ' (' On the 

 Nature of Things '), is in six books, and contains a development of the 

 physical and ethical doctrines of Epicurus. Notwithstanding the 

 nature of the subject, which gave the poet little opportunity for those 

 descriptions of the passions and the feelings which generally form the 

 chief charm in poetry, Lucretius has succeeded in imparting to his 

 didactic and philosophical wurk much of the real spirit of poetry; 

 and if he had chosen a subject which would have afforded him greater 

 scope for the exercise of his powers, he might have been ranked among 

 the first of poets. Even in tho work which has come down to us we 

 find many passages which are not equalled by tho beat lines of any 

 Latin poet, and which, for vigour of conception and splendour of diction, 

 will bear a comparison with the best efforts of the pot- ts of any age and 

 country. In no writer does tho Latin language display its majesty and 

 stately grandeur so effectively as in Lucretius. There is a power and 

 an energy in his descriptions which we rarely meet with in the Latin 

 poets ; and no one who has read his invocation to Venus at the 

 beginning of the poem, or his beautiful picture of the busy pursuits of 

 men at the commencement of the second book, or the progress of the 

 arts and sciences in the fifth, or his description of the plague which 

 devastated Athens during the Peloponnesian w ar at the close of the sixth, 

 can refuse to allow Lucretius a high rank among the poets of antiquity. 



The object of Lucretius was to inculcate the great doctrine of 

 Epicurus, so frequently misunderstood and misrepresented, that it is 

 the great object of man's life to increase to tho utmost his pleasures, 

 and to diminish to the utmost his pains ; and since the happiness of 

 mankind was chiefly prevented in his opinion by two things, super- 

 stition or a slavish fear of the gods and a dread of death, he endeavours 

 to show that the gods take no interest in and exerciae no control over 

 the affairs of mankind, and that the soul is material and perishes with 

 the body. In the first three books he developes the Epicurean tenets 

 respecting the formation of all things from atoms which existed from 

 all eternity, and also maintains the materiality of the soul, which he 

 supposes to be compounded of different kinds of air inhaled from the 

 atmosphere ; in the fourth book he inquires into the origin of sense 

 and perception, and the nature and origin of dreams, which leads to a 

 long digression on the folly and miseries of unlawful love ; in the fifth 

 lie gives an account of the origin and laws of the world, and describes 

 the gradual progress of mankind from a state of nature to civilisation, 

 as well as the origin and progress of the arts and sciences ; and in the 

 sixth he attempts to account for a number of extraordinary phenomena, 

 such as waterspouts, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and pestilential 

 diseases. 



The poetry of Lucretius does not appear to have been highly esti- 

 mated by the majority of his countrymen. Ovid certainly speaks of 

 it in the highest terms ('Amor.,' xv. 23); but Quiutiliun mentions 

 him rather slightingly (' Just. Oral.,' x. 1) ; and Cicero does not praise 

 him without considerable reservation ('Epist. ad Quint.,' ii. 11). The 

 nature of his subject, and the little taste which the llomans in general 

 manifested for speculations like those of Lucretius, may perhaps account 

 for his poetry being estimated be low its real merits. 



The best editions of Lucretius are by Lambinus, whose commentary 

 is very useful, 1563-70 ; Havtrcamp, 1725 ; Waketield, 1796-U7; Eich- 

 stiidt, 1801; and Forbiger, 1823. The 'De Rerum Natura' has been 

 translated into most European languages : the translations most worthy 



