Luke

The holy Martyr Luke was one of the Christians of Carthage, in Roman Africa, who received the crown of martyrdom in the year 250, during the persecution of the emperor Decius. The Greek synaxarion commemorates him on 10 April, together with the holy Martyrs Terence, Africanus, Maximus, Pompeius and Theodore and their companions, a company of about forty sufferers.

The sources preserve nothing about Luke as an individual. His name appears in the list of the thirty-⁠nine Christians who suffered with Saint Terence, a list handed down by the Greek synaxaria, which also names Alexander, Zeno, Thomas, Elias, Titus, Timothy, Epaminondas, Miltiades and many others. What is known of him is the common story of the company.

Decius ordered every subject of the empire to offer sacrifice to the idols. Fortunianus, the governor of Africa, gathered the people in the city square, set out the instruments of torture in plain view and demanded that all, without exception, should sacrifice. Many were afraid and obeyed. Terence and the other Christians, however, boldly confessed their faith in Christ and exposed the emptiness of the idols.

The governor separated Terence, Africanus, Maximus and Pompeius from the rest and shut them in prison, while he tried to break the others by torture. They were savagely beaten and burned with red-⁠hot iron, and vinegar and salt were put on their wounds. The martyrs did not deny Christ. According to the synaxaria, when they were led into the pagan temple to sacrifice, they prayed to God, and the idols fell and the temple collapsed. Fortunianus then ordered them to be put to the sword. So Luke passed to the Lord together with his brothers in the struggle.

Terence and his three companions were afterwards kept in chains and left without food, and in the end they too were beheaded. The Christians took up their bodies and buried them with honour outside the city.

The Church commemorates all these martyrs of Carthage on 10 April, and the Greek synaxarion also keeps their memory on 28 October.