ON ST. EUSIGNIUS, MARTYR,
AT ANTIOCH.
His cult among the Greeks and Latins, eulogies, examination of the Acts.
Under Julian the Apostate.
CommentaryEusignius, Martyr at Antioch (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
That most blessed and — beyond the age of a hundred and ten years, which he is said to have lived — mighty Champion of Christ He is inscribed in the Greek Calendars with a eulogy obtains the dignity of public veneration both in the Latin and in the Greek Calendars, as may be seen in the great printed Menaea of the Greeks, in the Sirletian Menology, in the Synaxary from the Menology collected by order of the emperor Basil; in the Typicon of St. Sabas, in the Arabic-Egyptian Martyrology, in the Slavo-Russian Menology of Sparwenfeld, and in the illustrated August of the Muscovites, which is had before volume I of May, page XXXIX. From the Greek eulogies we bring forward that which we gave in Greek in the said Synaxary at the end of the first volume of the month of August, and which we translate into Latin thus: Eusignius, martyr of Christ, was indeed from great Antioch, but was commander of the army of Constantius, who was the father of Constantine the great. And when he had survived down to Julian the Apostate, being seized as a Christian, he was led to examination. And after
he had rebuked the Apostate, because, having left the true God, he had gone over to empty idols as to gods, he was stretched out for the scourges; and being grievously tortured and worn out with blows (for he was a hundred and ten years old), he was thrown into prison: and after some days, being cast out of prison, when he stood again before the Apostate, he was compelled indeed to deny Christ and to sacrifice to idols: and when he could not be induced to it, but rebuked the tyrant anew, his head is cut off with the sword; and thus he consummated his martyrdom, having obtained an unfading crown and eternal life.
[2] The Slavo-Russian, the Sirletian, and the printed Menaea also report him as having suffered under Julian; but they do not express the arena of his martyrdom; and the eulogies of those last two nearly agree with the one which I have just given. The said Menaea sing thus to the Martyr: and with verses; as also in the Roman Martyrology.
They cut down Eusignius, the friend of Christ, Who cries out even to the stroke, "Christ is my worship." On the fifth Eusignius' head was mingled with the dust.
They cut off the head of Eusignius, Christ's friend, Who cries "I adore Christ" until he falls. On the fifth the head of Eusignius is mingled with dust.
On the credit of the said documents I have announced the Saint at Antioch, and under Julian the Apostate; to which add the Roman Martyrology, which has thus: At Antioch, of St. Eusignius, a soldier, who, being in his hundred and tenth year, when he reproached Julian the Apostate with the faith of Constantine the Great, under whom he had served, and rebuked him as a deserter of his ancestral piety, was by that same man ordered to be beheaded.
[3] The time of the martyrdom. Baronius in volume 4 of the Annals at the year 362 makes mention of him, and attaches his martyrdom to that year. And indeed, since Antioch was the deadly theatre of Julian's barbarous cruelty, on the testimony of St. Gregory Nazianzen, volume 1, oration 3, page 91 of the Paris edition of the year 1609; and since the same emperor came to Antioch in the year 362 and entered it at the end of the month of July, as may be seen in Pagi in the Baronian Critique at the said year, number 4; and since finally Antioch as the arena of the martyrdom, and our Saint's name, are noted in the sacred calendars on this V day of August; it follows from these things thus set down and admitted that St. Eusignius was one of the first victims there in place and time slain by Julian's order. But what help would you hope for toward illustrating our Martyr's deeds from his Acts? Which, because they are apocryphal and fabulous, deserve no credit, as will be made plain from the following observations.
[4] We have them in Greek from the ancient Vatican Manuscript codex 866, folio 356, The Acts with this opening: "In the consulship of Agno and Julian, Constantine the Caesar was slain, and Julian the transgressor was reigning, and he was staying in the palace of Antioch." That is: Under the consulship of Agno and Julian, Constantine Caesar was slain, and Julian the transgressor (or Apostate) reigned. And he was dwelling in the palace of Antioch. The copy of the Acts in Lambeck, in the Commentaries on the Imperial Library of Vienna, book 8, page 103, reads thus: "In the consulship of Arbetio and Diocletian, Constantine Caesar, the son of the holy and great Constantine, was slain, and Julian began to reign." Under the consulship of Arbetio and Diocletian, Constantine Caesar, son of the holy and Great Constantine, was slain, and Julian began to reign. There are moreover added in that copy the following, of which it will be enough to give the Latin version: And Julian began to reign on the eighth of the Ides of November (or the sixth day of November). And he was dwelling in the palace of Antioch. How many and how gross errors in so small an opening! As regards our copy: Julian succeeded not Constantine but the emperor Constantius in the year 361 of the common era, in the consulship of Taurus and Florentius, by the common consent of the writers. Nor does it help if for "Constantine" you write "Constantius"; for since "Caesar" is added, he would have to be Constantius Gallus; but he had died already in the year 354. Of the palace of Antioch we shall speak presently.
[5] The praised Lambeck, from page 104, observes concerning the opening of his copy as ill-arranged, that Arbetio, who was consul in the year of Christ 355, did not have Diocletian as colleague, but Lollianus. Then, that for "Constantine" one must read "Constantius," who was Caesar and was also called Gallus. Besides, that the slaying of Constantius Gallus the Caesar happened in the year of Christ 354, in the consulship of the emperor Constantius for the seventh time and of Constantius Gallus himself, Caesar, for the third; but that Julian was created Caesar in the year 355, Arbetio and Lollianus being consuls. Finally, that it is utterly false that Julian, after he had been raised to that dignity, thereafter dwelt in the palace of Antioch and assailed the Christian religion with open insult. The aforesaid author on page 107 chastises the fabulous Acts of St. Eusignius on this ground, that there is inserted into them, and indeed under the very person of St. Eusignius narrating, a most lying fable concerning the birth of Constantine the Great, the emperor, from an illegitimate union of Constantius Chlorus, while he was still a tribune of soldiers, with Helena in a certain public inn; and that this same most shameless fable is adopted also by Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chapter 18; and that therefore it is at length and solidly refuted by the most Eminent Cardinal Baronius, Ecclesiastical Annals, volume 3, under the year of Christ 306. Then Lambeck from page 108 subjoins in Greek and Latin the drama of that little fable, put together from a linked heap of falsities and absurdities.
[6] Lambeck also brands with censures, from page 113, the passages of this fictitious pseudo-Eusignian history by a fictitious fable-monger where mention is made of Eustochius as the author of that narrative. The first of which is given there from the Greek text thus: But a certain Eustochius, a deacon of the city of Antioch, being a kinsman of St. Eusignius, a pious man and fearing God, was following the Martyr secretly, having compassion on the holy old man's chains. But the blessed Old man called him nearer to himself, and exhorting him said: I know, my lord Eustochius, deacon, servant of Christ, that Julian, since he himself has apostatized and fallen away from Christ, will try to compel me also to sacrifice to idols, inasmuch as he will exercise his idolatrous fury more severely especially at Caesarea; but I, even if ten thousand times I must die for Christ's name, not only am not saddened or shaken, but even rejoice on that account. But this one thing I grieve at, that the emperor has forbidden my Acts to be written, so that I may seem to have passed my life basely. I ask therefore your piety that, if it be possible, without the tyrant's knowledge, you hire for pay some one of the notaries who may write down the things which have passed between me and the emperor, so that hereafter some Christian at some time, coming upon those Acts of mine, may thence receive profit and may come to Christ.
[7] written But Eustochius answering said to him: Only strengthen yourself, and show yourself a man for confessing our Lord Jesus Christ before Julian's tribunal, and for enduring martyrdom; but about the future Acts be not solicitous. For I will take care that your Acts be written with all diligence. Therefore strengthen yourself and act manfully, renewing your youth like an eagle. Thus far there. But the other passage, where the same Eustochius is brought in speaking of himself, is given in the same place from page 114, from the end of the whole history: I therefore, the sinner Eustochius, who am also a kinsman of the holy and blessed Eusignius, following him from the beginning, have written without any addition these his Acts, which also our bishop, the holy Basil, when he had diligently read them through, placed in the library. He also gathered the relics of that same holy Martyr, and laid them away in a shrine dedicated to them. And St. Eusignius consummated his martyrdom on the fifth day of the month of August, while among the heathen Julian the Apostate reigned, but among us our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom be glory, etc. What is it to be inept, if this is not? Let us go on with Lambeck, page 115.
[8] If anyone should now ask here why this supposititious History was fabricated and published under the name of a certain Eustochius rather than of some other, under the name of a certain Eustochius. the answer is easy and ready: that the reason for this seems to be that under the emperor Constantius, son of the emperor Constantine the Great, there flourished a certain Eustochius, a Cappadocian by nation, but by profession a sophist and historiographer, whom Suidas mentions in his Greek Lexicon in these words, rendered thus from the Greek text which Lambeck also adduces: Eustochius, a Cappadocian sophist, wrote in the time of the emperor Constantius (so, he advises in the notes, one must read for "in the time of Constans") the antiquities of Cappadocia and of the other nations. The true but unknown author of that supposititious History therefore believed that the name of that Eustochius could excellently be accommodated to this fable, because St. Eusignius consummated his martyrdom at Caesarea in Cappadocia, and that indeed under the emperor Julian, who immediately succeeded the emperor Constantius. But concerning the place of the martyrdom and the emperor under whom it happened, see above, numbers 2 and 3. From these observations of a learned man, therefore, it becomes evident of what sort the Acts of St. Eusignius are, a copy of which he had before him, and how deservedly our Vatican ones are not here committed to the press, since they are of such bran. Nor does it matter that in volume I of May, page 236, it was said that these Acts would be brought to light in their own time; since that matter, being too premature, was not then perhaps sufficiently weighed. Certain other things I have at hand against the fictitious narrative of that most insipid fable-monger; but I forbear them, since what has been said is more than enough. I have in hand a slip which bears this title: "Memoirs and martyrdom of St. Eusignius." In the margin is noted "From codex 819, folio 208," of the Vatican library, so far as I gather from what, after the words of the opening and a few other things, Papebroch adds: We have omitted to note more, because, some pages having been read, it was established that the Life was abridged from the former one, some lines being omitted here and there; but that it narrated most things in almost the same words, some a little more briefly: which accordingly smacks of the same bilge as the former.