Volume 1

A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood.

Date:: [between 1890 and 1899?]

Credit: A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

1084/1096 (page 1064)

$lib. vii. tit. 13; de Tironih is Leg. 22) releases certain persons in the proconsular province of Africa from payment of the tax known as aurum tironicum, a sum of money levied in lieu of the contingent of recruits to the legions which every province was liable to render. And these persons are denominated sacerdotales. The question,arises, what class of persons are denoted by this term ? There are two theories ; the one that the persons intended were heathen priests, who were obliged by their office to exhibit ludos to the people at great expense; whence the reason for their exemp- tion (Gothofred, Comment, in Cod. Theod. in loc.) The exhibition of ludi was no doubt a very expensive charge. But there appears to have been no kind of these games which the priests were bound to exhibit at their own expense (see Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antiq. s. v. Ludi), whilst those few in which they and not the aediles took the chief place, for the most part belong, as e.g. the Liberalia, to the class of feriae stativae, and entailed little trouble or expense in their celebration. Apart therefore from the difficulty of supposing a Christian emperor to be founding a special exemption for the benefit of the heathen priesthood, which the Christian clergy were not to share, the reasons adduced appear not to be conclusive. Tertullian {Apol. c. ix.) mentions incidentally the absolute prohi- bition by law of the sacrifices to Saturn through- out this very province of Africa, in the reign of Tiberius. The other theory, maintained by Petit ( Tornar. fyect ), regards the Christian bishops as being the persons thus exempted. It is hardly probable that bishops should be classed with the heathen priests under the common title sacerdotales, a course which both parties would have resented as an insult. And it is not clear what in the case of bishops could have been the “ majoribus expensis,” which are alleged as the reason for this exemption. Yet this is perhaps to be pre- ferred as the solution of an obscure question. [S. J. E.] LUGIDUS (Luanus), abbat of Cluainfert in Ireland, commemorated Aug. 4 (^Acta SS. Aug. i. 339). LUGLIUS and LUGLIANUS, brothers, martyred at Lillerium in Artois and Mondide- rium in Picardy, sec. vii., commemorated Oct. 23 [Acta SS. Oct. X. 117). [C. H.] I.UGO, COUNCIL OF {Lucense Concilium), held at Lugo, in Gallicia, by order of king Theodomir, A.D. 569, to lay down the bounds of the different sees in his dominions, with a view of curtailing any that were too large, which was accordingly done; Lugo thus itself becoming a metropolitan see. We find from the sees enumerated that his dominions ex- tended into Portugal. The last named is called thiit of the Britons, and had thirteen churches belonging to them, and one mon- astery, given to it. A second council is sup- posed, by Mansi and other.s, to have taken place A.D. 572: the only real foundation for it being, that Marlin, bishop of Braga, transmitted the collection of canons aj)proved at Braga that year in a letter to the metropolitan of Lugo, with this address: “ Xitigesio episcopo, vel uni- A'erso concilio Lucensis ecclesiae: ” which need not imply that any council was then sitting, or about to sit. (Mansi, ix. 815, et seq., with the later divisions appended there, and 845.) [E. S. F.] LUGUSTA, martvr in Africa, commemorated ]\lay 19 {Hieron. Mak.). [C. H.] LUKE, ST., THE EVANGELIST (in Art). [See Evangelists, I. 633.] Martigny refers to Borgia (Z)c Crnoe Veliterna, p. 133) fo.- an engraving of a brazen cross, prol ably of the 8th or 9th century, which bears on its extremities busts of the four evangelists in person, instead of the symbolic creatures. Here St. Luke, like the others, bears a closed book in one hand and points to it with the other. It has been supposed that the evangelists are also personally repre.sented on sarcophagi, as in that of Probus and Proba (Bottari, tav. xvi. ; and at pi. cxxxi. in } articular). In this last example, three figures hold the volume or roll, and stand in all probability for St. Matthew, St. John, and St. Mark. But the roll or book is fr 'quently placed in the hands of all or any of the a})ostles. However, in a sepulchral urn. No. 36, in the Museum of Art, the aj)ostles are represented with books rolled up, and the remaining four with them unfolded: the names are written on the rolls; St. Luke’s as lvcanvs. The non- apostolic evangelists are, however, seldom added to the number of the twelve. M. Perret (in Catacombes de Rome, vol. ii. pi. Ixvi.) pullishes a greatly damaged fresco from an arco.solium in the cemetery of Saint “Zoticus,” wherever that may be. However, the fresco represents four standing figures, each of whom has at his feet a ‘‘scrinium” full of rolls. The two letters MA are legible near one of them, which may be St. Matthew or St. Mark. St. Luke must be one of the others. He is also represented among the four evangelists in the mosaics of the baptisteries of Ravenna (Ciampini, Vet. Monumenta,ioh. Ixxii. a.d. 451). Four figures holding books cannot well be other than the writers of the Gospels, though Ciampini expre.sses some doubt as to the subject of the painting. The earliest representation of St. Luke as a painter is in the Menologium of Basil IL, A.D. 980. See D’Aginct)urt, Feinture, pi. xxxi., where the Virgin is sitting to him in a pleasant garden scene (perhaps on a house top), which reminds us of some of Fra Angelico’s works. [R. St. J. T.] LUKE, ST. [Lucas (1).] LULLUS, archbishop of Mainz, commemo- rated Oct. 16 (^Acta SS., Oct. vii. pt. 2, p. 1083). [C. H.] LUMINAUE. [Catacombs, I. 311.] LUMINOSA, virgin, at Papia or Pavia, in Italy, commemorated May 9 {Acta SS. May, ii. 46U). [0. H.] LUMINUM DIES. [Epiphany.] LUPATUS, martyr at Rome, commemorated Sept. 16 {Hieron. Mart.). [C. H.] LUPENTIUS, abbat of Catala unum (Chalons- sur-Marne), commemorated Oct. 22 (^Acta SS. Oct. ix. 609). [C. H-]$