Lucius of Britain - Sources

Sources

The first mention of Lucius and his letter to Eleuterus is in the Catalogus Felicianus, a version of the Liber Pontificalis created in the 6th century. Why the story appears there has been a matter of debate. In 1868 Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs suggested that it might have been pious fiction invented to support the efforts of missionaries in Britain in the time of Saint Patrick and Palladius. However, modern scholars follow the argument first proposed by Adolf von Harnack in 1904 that sees the story as a deriving from a scribal error substituting Britanio, referring to Britannia, for Britio, referring to Birtha or Britium in what is now Turkey. In 179 Birtha was ruled by the Christian-friendly Roman client king of Osroene whose full title was Lucius Aelius Megas Abgar IX.

The English monk Bede included the Lucius story in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, completed in 731. He may have gotten it from a contemporary who had been to Rome, such as Nothhelm. Bede adds the detail that Lucius' new faith was thereafter adopted by his people, who maintained it until the Diocletianic Persecution. Following Bede, versions of the Lucius story appeared in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, and in 12th-century works such as William of Malmesbury's Gesta pontificum Anglorum and the Book of Llandaff. However, the most influential was that in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae. Geoffrey's narrative emphasizes Lucius' virtues, and gives a detailed, if fanciful, account of the spread of Christianity during his reign. In this version, Lucius is the son of the benevolent King Coilus and rules in the manner of his father. Hearing of the miracles and good works performed by Christian disciples, he writes to Pope Eleuterus asking to join the flock. Eleuterus sends two missionaries, Fuganus and Duvianus, who baptize the king and establish a successful Christian order throughout Britain. They convert the commoners and flamens, turn pagan temples into churches, and establish dioceses and archdioceses where the flamens had previously held power. The pope is pleased with their accomplishments, and Fuganus and Duvianus recruit another wave of missionaries to aid the cause. Lucius responds by granting land and privileges to the Church. He dies without heir in AD 156, thereby weakening Roman influence in Britain.

Later traditions are mostly based on one of these accounts, probably including a medieval inscription at the church of St Peter upon Cornhill in Cornhill, London in the City of London. There he is credited with having founded the St Peter's in 179 AD.

Saint Lucius's feast day is on 3 December and he was canonized through the pre-congregational method.