Lucian of Antioch

According to Suidas, Lucian was born at Samosata, Kommagene, Syria, to Christian parents, and was educated in the neighbouring city of Edessa, Mesopotamia, at the school of Macarius.

Eusebius of Caesarea notes his theological learning[3] and Lucian's vita (composed after 327) reports that he founded a Didaskaleion, a school.

Scholars following Adolf von Harnack see him as the first head of the School of Antioch, with links to later theologians Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, but that contention is unrecorded in the extant sources.

According to Alexander of Alexandria, he remained in schism during the episcopates of three bishops, Domnus, Timaeus and Cyril, whose administration extended from 268 to 303.

During the persecution of Maximinus Daia, Lucian was arrested at Antioch and sent to Nicomedia, where he endured many tortures over nine months of imprisonment.

Because Arius in a letter addressed Eusebius of Nicomedia as "sylloukianistes" ("Fellow-Lucianist"), Lucian's theology came to be associated with the Arian controversy.

In their opposition against the Homoian party supported by Emperor Constantius II, the Homoiousians claimed the legacy of Lucian and adopted the definition of 341 as their creed.

In the words of Philip Schaff: "The contradictory reports are easily reconciled by the assumption that Lucian was a critical scholar with some peculiar views on the Trinity and Christology which were not in harmony with the later Nicene orthodoxy, but that he wiped out all stains by his heroic confession and martyrdom".

The resulting manuscript was popular in Syria, Asia Minor, and Constantinople[7] and was later used by Chrysostom and the later Greek fathers, and which lies at the basis of the textus receptus.

Jerome mentions that copies of his work on the Greek Old Testament were known in his day as "exemplaria Lucianea" but in other places he speaks rather disparagingly of the texts of Lucian.