The life of St Lucian the Martyr
They crossed to Gaul and scattered to their fields: Dionysius toward Paris, others into Spain, and Lucian, with the priest Maximian and the deacon Julian, went on into Belgium.
He lived hard, taking almost nothing to eat in a day, and was gentle and glad with everyone he won, so that in time nearly all the towns of that country had turned to Christ through him. When persecution reached them he gathered his people, told them not to be afraid, and withdrew with his two companions to a hilltop to keep teaching until soldiers came for them. Maximian and Julian would not sacrifice and were beheaded first. Lucian, accused of sorcery, answered only that he served the true God, and under the beating that followed he kept saying he would never stop praising Christ in his heart and on his lips. Then he too was beheaded. The Church keeps, as part of this same tradition, that a light shone over his body afterward, and that he rose, took up his own head, and carried it across the river to the place he had chosen to be buried, where he lay down and was at peace. Historians who have studied the record note that its chronology cannot be verified and regard much of the story as a later legendary composition, written to give the see of Beauvais an apostolic founder. The Church has nonetheless kept Lucian's memory, and the substance of this account, for many centuries.
