A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Lucifer lived in the fourth century, and was famous for his extraordinary virtues and abilities. He was deputed by the pope to the emperor Constantius, and procured the calling of a council at Milan in the year 355, by which he himself, and the rest of the orthodox prelates, who defended Athanasius, were condemned to banishment. He was recalled from his exile by the emperor Julian, in 361, when, coming to Antioch, where the church was extremely divided between the followers of Euzoius the Arian, and of Meletius and Eustathius, orthodox bishops, he, to put an end to the schism, ordained Paulinus bishop, whom neither of the orthodox parties approved. Eusebius of Vercelli, whom the Council of Alexandria had sent to heal the divisions, extremely disapproved this ordination; whereupon Lucifer, who was of an inflexible spirit, broke off communion with him and the other prelates, and retired to Sardinia, where to his death he persisted in his separation, and, by this means, gave birth to a schism, which caused a great deal of mischief to the Church. It continued to the end of the reign of Theodosius the Great, after which time authors make little or no mention of it.

LUKE, ST., THE EVANGELIST’S DAY. A festival of the Christian Church, observed on the 18th of October.

St. Luke was born at Antioch, and professed physic. It is not agreed whether he was, by birth, a Jew, or a heathen. Epiphanius, who makes him to be one of the seventy disciples, and consequently a Jew, thinks he was one of those who left Jesus Christ upon hearing these words, “He who eateth not my flesh, and drinketh not my blood, is not worthy of me;” but that he returned to the faith upon hearing St. Paul’s sermons at Antioch. Some authors suppose he was Cleopas’s companion, and went with him to Emmaus, when Jesus Christ joined them.

St. Luke accompanied St. Paul in his several journeys; but at what time they first came together is uncertain. Some think he met St. Paul at Antioch, and from that time never forsook him. Others believe they met at Troas, because St. Luke himself says, “immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, from Troas.”

Some think he survived St. Paul many years, and that he died at eighty-four years of age: but where, authors are not agreed. Achaia, Thebes in Bœotia, Elea in the Peloponnesus, Ephesus, and Bithynia, are severally named as the place of his death. Nor are authors better agreed as to the manner of it. Some believe he suffered martyrdom; and the modern Greeks affirm he was crucified on an olive-tree. Others, on the contrary, and among them many of the moderns, think he died a natural death.

LUKE’S, ST., GOSPEL. A canonical book of the New Testament. Some think it was properly St. Paul’s Gospel, and that when St. Paul speaks of his Gospel, he means what is called St. Luke’s Gospel. Irenæus says only, that St. Luke digested into writing what St. Paul preached to the Gentiles; and Gregory Nazianzen tells us, that St. Luke wrote with the assistance of St. Paul.

This evangelist addresses his Gospel, and the Acts of the Apostles, to one Theophilus, of whom we have no knowledge; many of the ancients have taken this name, in an appellative sense, for any one who loves God.

LUTHERANS. Those Christians who follow the opinions of Martin Luther.

This sect took its rise from the just offence which was taken at the indulgences (see Indulgences) which, in 1517, were granted by Pope Leo X., to those who contributed towards the finishing St. Peter’s church, at Rome. It is said, the pope at first gave the princess Cibo, his sister, that branch of the revenue of indulgences which were collected in Saxony; that afterwards these indulgences were farmed out to those who would give most for them; and that these purchasers, to make the most of their bargain, pitched upon such preachers, receivers, and collectors of indulgences, as they thought proper for their purpose, who managed their business in a scandalous manner. The pope had sent these indulgences to Prince Albert, archbishop of Mentz, and brother to the Elector of Brandenburg, to publish them in Germany. This prelate put his commission into the hands of John Tetzel, a Dominican, and an inquisitor, who employed several of his own order to preach up and recommend these indulgences to the people. These Dominicans managed the matter so well, that the people eagerly bought up all the indulgences. And the farmers, finding money come in very plentifully, spent it publicly in a luxurious and libertine manner.

John Staupitz, vicar-general of the Augustines in Germany, was the first who took occasion to declare against these abuses; for which purpose he made use of Martin Luther, the most learned of all the Augustines. He was a native of Eisleben, a town of the county of Mansfeld, in Saxony; and he taught divinity at the university of Wittemberg. This learned Augustine mounted the pulpit, and declaimed vehemently against the abuse of indulgences. Nor did he stop here; he fixed ninety-five propositions upon the church doors of Wittemberg, not as dogmatical points which he himself held, but in order to be considered and examined in a public conference. John Tetzel, the Dominican, immediately published 106 propositions against them, at Frankfort upon the Oder; and, by virtue of the office of inquisitor, ordered those of Luther to be burnt; whose adherents, to revenge the affront offered to Luther, publicly burnt those of Tetzel at Wittemberg. Thus war was declared between the Dominicans and Augustines, and soon after between the Roman Catholics and the Lutheran party, which from that time began to appear openly against the Western Church.