Also 6, 8 Luciferan. [f. L. proper name Lūcifer (see below) + -IAN.]
A. adj. Of or pertaining to the sect founded by Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari in the fourth century, who separated from the Church because it was too lenient (as he thought) towards Arians who repented of their heresy.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 106. You, saith he, (speaking to the Luciferian hereticks) run away from the vain shaking of feathers, like the fearfull Harts.
1638. Chillingw., Relig. Prot., I. ii. § 36. While you thus inveigh against Luther, and charge him with Luciferian heresies.
1865. Lightfoot, Comm. Galat. (1874), 228. Hilary the Roman deacon … attached himself to the Luciferian schism.
B. sb. An adherent of this sect.
c. 1555. Life Bp. Fisher, in F.’s Wks. (E.E.T.S.), II. 135. Saint Jerom against Helvidius, Jovinianus, Vigilantius, and the luciferans.
1585. Fetherstone, trans. Calvin on Acts xix. 7. 458. No man thinks that the grace of the Spirit is annexed to such a ceremonie, as doeth Jerome against the Luciferians.
1681. Baxter, Answ. Dodwell, ii. 16. Novatians, Luciferians, Donatists … had all Orders in Episcopal Communion.
1797. W. Johnston, trans. Beckmann’s Invent., III. 406. In the altercation between a Luciferan and an Orthodox, he relates that an adherent of the schismatic Lucifer disputed.
1882–3. Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., II. 1358. As the Luciferians considered themselves the true and pure church, they utterly repudiated the name of a sect.
