ON ST. EUTHYMIUS,
WONDERWORKER AMONG THE GREEKS.
CommentaryEuthymius Wonderworker, among the Greeks (S.)
G. H.
[1] It is very difficult for us to rightly distinguish, when Saints of the same name often occur, and their Acts are not added, whether one and the same is repeatedly placed, or different ones are to be set up. We give an example in the proposed Euthymius the Wonderworker, who is celebrated on various days of April. The Greek MS. Synaxarium Parisian of the College of Clermont of the Society of Jesus Cult on April 2, begins thus the second day of April: "Memory of our holy Father and Wonderworker Titus: and the contest of our holy Father Euthymius the Wonderworker: and the contest of the holy Martyr Polycarp with his companions." Behold a threefold manner of proposing these Saints: of whom the first, Titus, has Memory, of whom we treated on the said April 2. He was a monk and Hegumen, and consecrated Priest, and fought against the heresies of the iconoclasts, and from the various miracles performed was called Wonderworker. About the third, namely St. Polycarp and his companions, we treated there, whose contest with martyrdom is set forth, which he suffered at Alexandria under Maximian. The one placed among these, Euthymius the Wonderworker, is both called our holy Father and his contest is indicated, as if he had fought heresies perhaps with St. Titus, and therefore had suffered prisons or
exile, and to be numbered among the Confessors of the faith.
[2] This Euthymius we referred among the Passed-over on the said day, and referred the reader to this April 18: and April 13. on which day in the same Clermont manuscript these things are read: "On the same day memory of our holy Father Euthymius the Wonderworker." All things are the same except the first word, since on the second day ἄθλησις, contest, is read, in this place μνήμη, memory. The same our holy Father Euthymius the Wonderworker is also reported by the Milan MS. Menaea of the Ambrosian library, marked with letter O no. 148 and letter N no. 378, likewise the Parisian MS. Menaea of the convent of the Fathers Preachers of the Congregation of St. Louis. In some it is referred to the preceding day.
[3] We doubted greatly at one time whether perhaps this was S. Euthymius the Great and Master of the solitary life in Palestine: whose Acts we explained very illustriously on January 20; but since he was not called by such solemn a name Wonderworker, we then indeed preferred to think them different; afterwards the Most Learned Custodian of the Vatican Library, Leo Allatius, almost certified this opinion to us, in his Diatribe de Simeonum scriptis p. 92, praising Gregory of Cyprus' Encomium on St. Euthymius, he seems to have been Bishop Bishop of the Madytans, Wonderworker, with this beginning: Ἐπιτιμᾷ δικαίως οἶμαι τῶν ἁπάντων οὐδένα, εἰ καθάπερ τινές: but in the index on p. 264 he calls Gregory of Cyprus Archbishop of Constantinople. That Gregory of Cyprus flourished under the Emperor Andronicus, died in the year of Christ 1290, from whose elegant pen we have the encomium of the holy Great-Martyr George, which we shall give on day 23; and it is credible that he adorned many other Saints with similar work. If what he wrote about this Bishop of the Madytans shall at some time come into our hands, it will be easier to judge about his age and death. Of the Madytans in the Hellespont. Μαδυτός, or Μάδυτα, a Hellespontian city, is named by Stephen on Cities: which under the aforesaid Andronicus, when before among the Metropolises attributed to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, it had held the 68th place, was moved back as far as 80; but in the time of Leo the Wise, who reigned one century after Andronicus the elder, it was reckoned the 69th See, as Aubert Miraeus writes in his Notitia Episcopatuum orbis book 1 and 3, from the Catalogues then made. It is probable that either the body or a notable part of the body was brought to Constantinople, which may have been an occasion for the Patriarch to write the said encomium; and so from the two days assigned above, one can be believed to be of the death, the other of the Translation.