"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". Biblical text Lucian is credited with a critical recension of the text of the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament. The resulting manuscript was popular in Syria, Asia Minor, and Constantinople and was later used by Chrysostom and the later Greek fathers, and which lies at the basis of the textus receptus. However, Lucian took it upon himself to "fix" the manuscripts he received, saying he was correcting errors that had snuck in over time. He undertook to revise the Septuagint based on the original Hebrew. For this, he received criticism. 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. Jerome also wrote: "This (Testament) certainly differs in our language, and is led in the way of different streams; it is necessary to seek the single fountainhead. I pass over those books which are called by the name of Lucian and Hesychius, for which a few men wrongly claim authority, who anyway were not allowed to revise either in the Old Instrument after the Seventy Translators, or to pour out revisions in the New; with the Scriptures previously translated into the languages of many nations, the additions may now be shown to be false." In the absence of definite information it is impossible to decide the merits of Lucian's critical labors. The 6th century Gelasian Decree, a work of the Latin Western Church rather than the Greek Eastern Church where Lucian's work was more popular, contains a list of apocryphal books "to be avoided by Catholics" that includes "the Gospels which Lucianus forged."THE 'DECRETUM GELASIANUM DE LIBRIS RECIPIENDIS ET NON RECIPIENDIS' Modern scholars mark Lucianic rescensions with an L, to indicate that when variant readings arise, they may have been from Lucian's adjustments. Lucian integrated a number of important minuscule manuscripts of 3 Maccabees. Notes References Sources . Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers vol. III, ch LXXVII Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, Volume II: "Ante-Nicene Christianity. A.D. 100-325" Contains bibliography. Attwater, Donald and