Lucius

Lucius is the name of two individuals in the New Testament. The first was Lucius of Cyrene, a Christian teacher or prophet at Antioch in Syria, mentioned first in the list of prophets and teachers from whom the Holy Spirit directed the church to set apart Barnabas and Paul for their first missionary journey (Acts 13:1). His Cyrenian origin connects him to the significant North African Jewish diaspora that produced other notable early Christians, including Simon of Cyrene who carried Jesus's cross (Mark 15:21).

The second was Lucius, a Jewish Christian kinsman (sungenes) of Paul who sent greetings to the Roman church in the closing chapter of Paul's letter (Rom. 16:21). He is listed alongside Timothy, Jason, and Sosipater, suggesting he was among Paul's colleagues in the Corinthian church from which Romans was written. Whether Lucius of Cyrene and this Lucius are the same person is uncertain; some have also proposed identifying one or both with Luke the Evangelist, whose Latin name Lukas is a shortened form of Lucanus related to Lucius, but this identification is speculative.