A man from Cyrene (a city in North Africa) who is listed among the prophets and teachers in Antioch (Acts 13:1). He may have been among the Jewish Christians from Cyprus and Cyrene. These were the men who preached to the Gentiles in Antioch in the face of persecution (11:19–21). People have tried to identify him as Luke, the author of Acts, or as the Lucius mentioned in Romans 16:21. But these attempts have been unsuccessful.
→ View encyclopedia entryA Jewish Christian (compare Romans 9:3). He was one of the companions of the apostle Paul who sent greetings to those in Rome (16:21). The fact that this Lucius was Jewish makes it doubtful that he could be the same person as Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and Acts. An early Christian writer named Origen suggested they were the same person. But Luke was most likely a gentile (non-Jewish), as shown in Colossians 4:12–14.
Lucius
This term has multiple meanings in the Bible:
From Tyndale Bible Dictionary, adapted by Mission Mutual. CC BY-SA 4.0.