LUCIUS, the name of three popes.

Lucius I., whose pontificate of about eight months (253-54) fell between those of Cornelius and Stephen I., had been one of the presbyters who accompanied Cornelius when he withdrew from Rome. After his own election also he appears to have lived for some time in exile, but ultimately to have been permitted to return. No facts of his official life have been recorded, but he is referred to in several letters of .Cyprian as having been in agreement with his predecessor Cornelius in preferring the milder view on the question as to how the penitent lapsed should be treated. The manner of his death is uncertain; according to some accounts he was decapitated. In the Catalogus Liberiamιs and in the Catalogus Corbeiensis he is said to have been pope for more than three years; but there can be no doubt of the correctness of the statement of Eusebius, that his pontificate was of less than eight months’ duration. Like all the early popes he has been canonized in the Church of Rome; and he is commemorated as a martyr on March 4.

Lucius II. (Gherardo de Caccianimici), a Bolognese, succeeded Celestine II. on March 4, 1144. Soon after his accession the people of Rome chose a patrician, for whom they claimed the temporal sovereignty; Lucius at the head of the oligarchical party appealed to arms, and perished in an attempt to storm the Capitol on February 25, 1145. He was succeeded by Eugenius III....