Eutyches

ON ST. EUTYCHES, OR EUTYCHUS, DISCIPLE OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST AND OF THE APOSTLE PAUL,

At the end of the first century or the beginning of the second.

HISTORICAL-CRITICAL DISQUISITION.

Eutyches, disciple of St. John the Evangelist and of the Apostle Paul (St.)

BY G. C.

§ I. Whether the Saint of this day is distinct from his namesake, of whom our predecessors formerly treated.

Our Papebroch, on the XXVIII day of May, treated of St. Eutychius, or Eutyches, martyr and bishop of Melitene in Lesser Armenia, Papebroch distinguishes two St. Eutychuses, whom he thinks distinct from the Saint of this day bearing the same name, as he there notes, in volume VI of that month, page 734, in these words: The Canon which is sung to him by the Greeks makes him, at the very outset and elsewhere, a disciple of the Apostles; which, although it is common to him with St. Eutyches the disciple of Saints John the Evangelist and Paul — to whom plainly the same distich is chanted, and who is honored in the same Lesser Armenia on the XXIV of August — nevertheless, because it was in a different city, namely Sebaste, and because that other is said to have died a confessor, we distinguish this one, who is set forth as a hieromartyr, from the other, though not without fear lest a note of time may have passed wrongly from the one to the other.

[2] As to the title of hieromartyr, the Greeks likewise attribute it to our present St. Eutychus in the Great Menæa, whom others suspect to be the same, where on the XXIV day of August they announce him thus: Τοῦ ἁγίου ἱερομάρτυρος Ἐυτυχοῦς, μαθητοῦ τοῦ ἁγίου Ιὠάννου τοῦ θεολόγου. That is: Of St. Eutyches, hieromartyr, disciple of St. John the Theologian. Then, after the solemn Office with which they celebrate the feast of this St. Eutyches, they repeat almost the same announcement in this manner: Τῷ αὐτῷ μηνὶ, κδ᾽, μνήμη τοῦ ἁγίου μάρτυρος Ἐυτυχοῦς μαθητοῦ τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰωάννου τοῦ θεολόγου, καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου ἀποστόλου Παύλου. That is: In the same month, on the XXIV day, the memory of St. Eutyches the martyr, disciple of St. John the Theologian and of St. Paul the apostle. To this last announcement are subjoined the same two verses which on the XXVIII day of May are reported in the Menæa concerning St. Eutychius, prelate of Melitene, and which Papebroch explained in the same place. These things, and others to be reported below, favor the identity of the two Saints; and therefore perhaps Castellain, on the XXIV day of August, at the announcement of the Roman Martyrology rendered into French, asks in the margin whether the present St. Eutychus is the same as the one whom the Greeks honor on the XXVIII day of May.

[3] But if we consult the elogia or summaries of the Acts which the Greeks relate concerning the present St. Eutychus, whose opinion the Basilian Menology favors, he seems to be distinct from the other martyr of the same name, and to have ended his life tranquilly in his own country without martyrdom or violent death. Certainly the Menology of the emperor Basil, which was published at Urbino in the year 1727 in Greek and Latin, and was here and there supplemented by the editors from other sources, has on the XXIV day of August the following concerning our Saint of Sebastopolis: Eutychius, martyr of Christ, born at Sebastopolis, out of desire for Christ, having sent word back to his country and his parents, withdrew to John the Theologian and became his disciple; imitating his virtue, he was filled with the grace of God, and, moved by divine zeal, he overthrew the strongholds of error, leveled the shrines of idols with the ground, and converting unbelievers to Christ, baptized them. But after the passing of the Theologian, departing to St. Paul, he suffered along with him bonds, torments, and scourgings; and being cast also into a furnace, when rain came down and extinguished it, he came out unharmed; and being given over to wild beasts to be devoured, he received no hurt from them. Thence, led by an angel of God, he journeys to Ephesus, and having revisited the flock of his master, he betook himself again to his own city, where, full of days, he rested. Now some things fall to be noted concerning this elogium.

[4] which was supplemented from other sources, In the first place, we do not find that elogium on this day in the Synaxary of Grottaferrata, which was gathered from the Basilian Menology, and part of which we published in Greek after the first volume of August, page 663 and following. Whence we suspect that it was taken from some other Greek Menology, which we could wish the Roman editors had distinctly indicated. These latest editors do indeed note, in the preface before the first part of the Basilian Menology, that, because certain leaves of the ancient codex had been torn away, they added some days copied from the printed Menæa and rendered into Latin. But this elogium must have been excerpted from elsewhere, since it does not accurately agree with the printed Menæa, as will become manifest below from their Latin rendering. But from whatever source that elogium came, we observe two difficulties occurring in it, and we attempt to discuss them.

[5] in which we discuss some difficulties, The first is that this Saint is at the beginning of the elogium named a martyr, and at the end is said to have returned to his native country and there to have rested full of days, or to have passed to the world above by a natural death — whereas for the most part only those are called martyrs who shed their blood for the Christian faith, or expire from the torments and wounds inflicted upon them. But these things can be reconciled if the title of martyr be taken less strictly, and be attributed also to those who suffered torments or bonds for the Christian faith, although they afterward escaped them. Hence St. Eutychus can in a wider sense be called a martyr, in that he endured bonds and scourgings for the name of Christ, and afterward escaped unharmed from the flames and the wild beasts, as is narrated in the compendium of the Acts reported above.

[6] which present themselves, Thus St. John the apostle is numbered among the choirs of martyrs by Gregory of Nyssa in his second panegyric of St. Stephen, which Lorenzo Alessandro Zacagni, prefect of the Vatican library, published at Rome in the year 1698 among the Collectanea of Ancient Monuments, volume 1, page 340 — even though at Rome he came unharmed out of the cauldron of boiling oil or water, as we there read: for among fair judges of things, as St. Gregory there subjoins, martyrdom is estimated not from the issue of the passion, but from the desire of a freely choosing will. Hence also St. Augustine, in sermon 106 On Divers Matters, chapter 4, or in the Plantin edition of Antwerp, volume 10 of his Works, page 579, speaks thus: For because the passion was wanting to John the apostle, it does not follow that a mind prepared for passion could be wanting. He did not suffer, but he could have suffered. God knew his readiness; just as the three children were sent into the fire to be burned, not to conquer. Shall we deny that they were martyrs, because the flame could not burn them? Question the fires: they did not suffer. Question the will: they were crowned. From these things it is plain in what sense our Saint may be called a martyr.

[7] The second difficulty consists in this, that St. Eutychus is said by the editor of the Menology, after the passing of St. John (in Greek is read μετα δὲ τὴν μετάστασιν τοῦ Θεολόγου), to have departed to St. Paul the Apostle: for if the Greek word μετάστασις in this place signifies death or exile — in which sense it is rather often taken — the chronology does not hold together, since St. Paul was crowned with martyrdom long before the exile or the death of St. John. Nor does the Latin word transitus remove this difficulty, which likewise is sometimes taken for death or decease. The Latin translator therefore ought to have explained his mind more clearly. Since, however, the Greek word μετάστασις can also signify a transposition or a change, we are willing to interpret the Greek author of this elogium kindly, and we will gladly take that word for some pilgrimage or apostolic expedition of St. John, after which St. Eutychus could have departed to St. Paul the apostle.

[8] We shall not so easily reconcile the printed Menæa of the Greeks, but we can reconcile the Greek Menæa neither with themselves, which manifestly contradict themselves. Take a specimen of this contradiction from their ecclesiastical Office, in which today they recite that St. Eutychus, after enduring bonds and scourgings and after overcoming flames and wild beasts, was at last beheaded, and that he was borne up to the heavens by his own blood as by a divine chariot. Now hear and weigh what in the same place they narrate in his elogium in this manner: This man, full of the grace of God, attached himself to St. Paul the apostle. Then, having set out for Tomi to preach the Gospel, he overthrew the temples of the idols and endured bonds and stripes. Being long afflicted in prison, he there received bread from heaven. He was cast into the fire and given as food to wild beasts, one of which, speaking with a human voice, astounded them all. After overcoming all these things, being led and comforted by an angel, he returned to his native Sebaste, in which, full of days, he rested in the Lord. Let the Greeks combine, if they can, this safe return of St. Eutychus to his country and his peaceful death there with the above-mentioned striking off of his head. Let them also remember to prove the prodigious speech of those wild beasts, which they rather often bring in in their Menæa: for without more certain testimony we shall relegate such incredible portents to the fables of Æsop, in which the beasts converse.

[9] Meanwhile let us consult the Latin Martyrologists, who announce the same Saint as a confessor. nor with the Latin Martyrologies, Among them Galesini, on the XXIV day of August, adorns him with this elogium: In Greece, St. Eutychius, disciple of blessed John the Evangelist, who for the sake of preaching traversed many provinces, and by his divine prayer overthrew the temples of the idols; who, being thrust into prison, beaten with stripes, and set in the fire, was delivered by God from every peril, and, illustrious for the glory of his holy and wondrous deeds, fell asleep in the Lord. A like elogium of the same Saint, without the place of his death, is read in the present Roman Martyrology, abridged thus: On the same day, St. Eutychius, disciple of blessed John the Evangelist, who for the preaching of the Gospel endured prisons, stripes, and fires in many regions, and at length rested in peace. Galesini and Baronius, in their notes on these announcements, indicate the Greek monuments from which they seem to have drawn this account of the Saint. But how shall we reconcile those Latin announcements with the title of hieromartyr and with the punishment of beheading mentioned above, which the printed Menæa ascribe to this present St. Eutychus, unless we say roundly that the Greeks are at war with themselves, or have shamefully blundered in asserting the martyrdom of this Saint?

[10] and the principal arguments, For this reason our suspicion returns that one and the same Saint has been wrongly doubled; and therefore we shall here more accurately weigh the arguments which

favor or oppose the identity of the two. In the ecclesiastical Office of St. Eutychius, which the Greeks celebrate in the printed Menæa on the XXVIII day of May, in our volume VI of that month, page 734, that Saint is said to have been most diligently instructed by the Apostles of Christ, and to have advanced to extreme old age. On the following page he is again thus praised: Filled with divine faith and grace, O glorious one, thou didst preach the saving word together with the Apostles, scattering the thickest darkness of impiety. This age suits also our Saint of today; and from it is it plain that Galesini erred, who on the XXVIII day of May deferred the martyrdom of the former Eutychius to the times of the emperor Gordian.

[11] which favor the identity of the two Saints, In the same canon or Office of the Menæa no word is said of the native country of that St. Eutychius, nor of the arena of his martyrdom, nor of his episcopal dignity, although this announcement is appended to it: Τῷ αὐτῷ μηνὶ, κή, τοῦ ἁγίου ἱερομάρτυρος Ἐυτυχοῦς, ἐπισκόπου Μελιτηνῆς. That is: In the same month, on the XXVIII day, of St. Eutyches, hieromartyr, bishop of Melitene. Then follow two Greek verses in which the name of Eutyches or Eutychius is frigidly played upon, as our Papebroch, in volume VI of May, page 734, sufficiently explained. But those same verses recur in the Menæa on the XXIV day of August, and are again applied to our Saint of today. For the rest, in the Basilian Menology, in the Slavo-Russian, and in the Roman Martyrology on the XXVIII day of May there occurs no mention of St. Eutyches or Eutychius, bishop of Melitene; although on the XXIV day of August the annual memory of our St. Eutychus is celebrated in these monuments — so that those Martyrologists seem to have acknowledged only one famous Saint of that name. The first among the Latin Martyrologists, so far as we know hitherto, was Galesini, who, doubtless following the Menæa or the more recent Greeks, on the XXVIII day of May announced St. Eutychus, bishop of Melitene, and on the XXIV of August our Saint of today, with a distinct elogium. All these things, maturely considered, support the confusion or the identity of the two Saints. But let us now bring forward what opposes this identity.

[12] and those which oppose it, In the first place, the printed Menæa of the Greeks celebrate these two Saints of the same name on different days with a singular and distinct ecclesiastical Office. On the XXVIII day of May they indicate that the bishop of Melitene accomplished his martyrdom in the water, as is gathered from these words of the Office: Being sunk in the sea, O blessed Eutyches, thou didst drown myriads of the enemy… Being shut up with hands bound and cast into the deep, thou didst therein receive a happy end. Thy ways became known, O glorious one, in the waters, in which, prudently ending thy life, thou didst suffocate, O wise martyr, the proud tyrant with all his army… Preaching the Word that has no beginning, O Eutyches, thou wast put into a sack as into an ark, and, given over to the deep, thou didst come to the harbor of salvation… As an oblation thou didst deliver up thy soul, O blessed one, to God, obtaining indeed a divine end in the midst of the waters, and afterward being set beside the torrent of delight. Since from these repeated praises of the Saint the manner of his martyrdom is abundantly established, we should like to learn by what authority Galesini changed that manner of death, and on the XXVIII day of May announced the same Saint thus: At Melitene, St. Eutychius, bishop and martyr, who, under the emperor Gordian, being tortured with various punishments for religion's sake, was at last struck with the axe and received the heavenly crown. But if that bishop of Melitene had undergone martyrdom under the emperor Gordian, the distinction of the two Saints would be clear. But this is a gross anachronism of Galesini, as we have shown above.

[13] Further, the Greek Menæa on the XXIV day of August suggest other tokens of distinction, we set before the learned reader, which we shall now briefly observe. First, the Menæa assert that the native place of the present St. Eutychus was Sebaste, which the Menology of Basil calls Sebastopolis. Now there are various cities of this name in the East, as may be seen everywhere in the geographers. Secondly, there is deep silence about the episcopal dignity of the Saint of today, which nevertheless they expressly and by name attribute to the other St. Eutychus. Thirdly, they assign a kind of martyrdom different from the other's drowning, since in the Office of the present St. Eutychus they say that his head was struck off — although in this matter they err and contradict themselves, as we showed above. Fourthly, they adorn the memory of our Saint of today with a certain hexameter verse, which is also reported in the Græco-Muscovite Ephemerides on the XXIV day of August in this manner:

Εἰκάδι, Ἔυτυχε, ἀμφεκάλυψε λίθος σε τετάρτῃ.

Eutyches, the four-and-twentieth day lays thee in stone.

We suspect that there is here an allusion to the stone or marble tomb of St. Eutyches, in which perhaps his sacred body was laid on the XXIV day of August.

[14] Finally, the greatest disparity between the two Saints appears in the end of their life: and we submit it to his judgment. for the bishop of Melitene, enclosed in a sack and sunk in the sea, underwent martyrdom for the Christian faith, as we reported above from his own Office. But the present St. Eutychus, after entering upon various contests for the name of Christ and undergoing many labors, returned at last to his country, and there, full of merits and of years, peacefully fell asleep in the Lord, as we read in the Menology of Basil and in the elogium of the Menæa mentioned above. The one, therefore, will properly have to be called a martyr, and the other a confessor — unless someone contend that the Greek compilers of the Menæa confounded everything, and rashly doubled the Office of one and the same Saint, which is not to be presumed without manifest reason. Here the learned reader has the chief arguments of the difficulty proposed, so that he may pass judgment upon this intricate controversy, which we leave free to him; and we proceed to another question.

§ II. Whether the Saint of this day is the same as that young man whom, having died from a fall, St. Paul the Apostle recalled to life at Troas.

St. Paul restored a certain Eutychus to life, St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 20, narrates the following: But we sailed from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came to them at Troas in five days, where we abode seven days. And on the first day of the week, when we were come together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, being to depart on the morrow, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. And there were many lamps in the upper chamber where we were gathered together. And a certain young man named Eutychus, sitting on the window-sill, being oppressed with a heavy sleep, as Paul discoursed long, was carried away by sleep and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And when Paul had gone down to him, he laid himself upon him; and embracing him he said: Be not troubled, for his soul is in him… And they brought the youth alive, and were not a little comforted. Here you see that the young man whom the holy Apostle Paul restored to life is named Eutychus.

[16] whom Rader conjectures to be the Saint of today. From this similarity of name our Rader conjectures that this young man is not distinct from our present St. Eutychus, and on this day, in his manuscript observations on the Greek Menæa, having cited the text of St. Luke, he sets forth his conjecture in these words: Him then Paul raised again to life, who seems afterward to have followed Paul, and, when Paul was taken, to have followed John. It is indeed a conjecture, not a contentious assertion, though to my mind very nearly certain: for the name agrees; and the young man heard him with others discoursing far into the night of heavenly things and of the faith; and, being killed by a fall, was recalled to life by the same. What wonder if he afterward always clung to him as to a second parent? There is indeed nothing wonderful in this attachment; but we greatly wonder that our St. Eutychus, a citizen of Sebastopolis — as he is called in the Basilian Menology and in the Greek Menæa — should have come to Troas to hear the holy Apostle Paul disputing or preaching concerning the faith. To us, therefore, it appears more likely that this Eutychus, the young man whom St. Paul raised from death, was an inhabitant or a neighbor of Troas.

[17] Tamayo eagerly seizes upon this conjecture, Rader was at liberty to set forth his conjecture candidly for the learned to examine. But certain Spanish fabulists have thrust this upon us as a certain opinion, and, attempting to deceive the unwary, have placed the martyrdom of this Eutychus in Spain, to the greater glory of their own country. Among these Juan Tamayo de Salazar, on the XXIV day of August in his Spanish Martyrology, confidently announces him after his manner thus: At Tela among the Vaccæi in Spain, St. Eutychius the martyr, who, having first attached himself to Paul, and after his being taken from among the living, seeking afterward the teaching of John the Apostle, deserved as a disciple to hear his doctrine; and being sent by him to preach to the nations, traversed innumerable provinces, until, coming to the Spains, he there fell asleep, crowned with martyrdom. Who would not believe that a leaf of the Sibyl is here being recited to us?

[18] Nevertheless Tamayo, distrusting himself, or perhaps conscious of his own imposture, calls to his aid the Pseudo-Dexter, and relying on his Pseudo-Dexter, who in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 112, number 4, fables thus: St. Eutychius, disciple of St. Paul, who while he was preaching was cast down from a window and recalled to life (and who followed St. John the Evangelist), having suffered at Tela among the Vaccæi, and completed his martyrdom in Spain, passes gloriously to the Lord. Then the Pseudo-Dexter, in the same fabulous Chronicle of his, at the year of Christ 299, invents the following concerning the public cult or famous veneration of that martyr: At Tela in Spain, near Palencia, a very strong city of the Vaccæi, the famous memory of the most holy Eutychius the martyr. But to this earlier and this later testimony of the Pseudo-Dexter we give equal credit — that is, none at all — since we have already often manifestly detected his frauds.

[19] Nevertheless Tamayo, relying on this oracle, sets forth to us in the same place his Acts, in the Spanish Martyrology he mingles the Acts of this Saint although he confesses that they were gathered by no one; and, intent upon his own purpose, he mixes together various deeds in this manner: Eutychius, born at Troas, a city of Achaia, when he was reaching the flower of youth, upon hearing the fame of Paul the Apostle, who was preaching the faith of the Gospel to the peoples throughout that region, was greatly vexed to hear his doctrine (perhaps the obscure writer meant to say, was held by a great desire). When, behold, Paul, coming from Corinth to Troas, began to dispute with the more learned and to compose a discourse in which he might teach the true faith of Christ and his divinity. Eutychius, drawn on by the desire of seeing the Apostle, entered hesitantly the house where the discourse was to be held, and climbing to a place which opportunity allowed, began there, out of curiosity, to hear the doctrine of Paul.

[20] But when the hour of the deep night, the very lengthy discourse of the Apostle, gathered from various authors, and the weariness of the young man drew on sleep, being utterly overpowered by its force, he fell down from the third loft.

Then with mournful outcry \ rang* The halls; a pitying throng ran together with frequent groaning To see the place which, sorrowful with a bitter death, Was about to bring forth gladness.

The unexpected issue of which event breaking off the discourse of the Apostle, he leapt forth out of the house, and finding Eutychius dead, laid himself upon him, and embracing him said to the bystanders: Be not troubled, for his soul is in him. Then the bystanders brought the young man and found him alive;

who, cleaving thereafter to Paul, became his disciple and inseparable companion. But at length, when Paul had been taken from among the living, he followed John the Evangelist and became his disciple, and being made a preacher of the Gospel word, traversed the regions of almost the whole world, in which, for the preaching of the faith, he endured prisons, stripes, and fires; and at last he came to Spain, where finally, being seized at the city of Tela and brought before the tribunal of the governor, and persevering in the confession of Christ, he accomplished his martyrdom and rendered his spirit to God; whose memory endured for many succeeding centuries. This most holy man therefore fell asleep on the IX Kalends of September, in the year CXII.

[21] These things Tamayo, heaping up promiscuously from the Acts of the Apostles, from the Latin Martyrologies, and he contradicts himself. and partly out of his own brain, was so intent upon the honor of his own country that, contrary to his intention, he most sharply distinguished this young man Eutychus, whom he wished to confound with his other namesake, from the present St. Eutychus: for when at the beginning of the Acts he asserts that that young man Eutychus was born at Troas, a city of Achaia, he was ignorant, or did not notice, that the Saint of this day bearing the same name is in the Basilian Menology and the Greek Menæa said to have been born in the city of Sebastopolis, and consequently is distinct from the other. Finally that Spanish Martyrologist, after mingling and confounding the Acts of two Eutychuses, which he adorned with superfluous words, ridiculously excuses their brevity in this manner: We have been able to take the Acts thus gathered into a brief epilogue because the forgetfulness of writers or the interval of time by no means permitted us anything longer. Nor should we linger upon the character of the martyrdom: for although some maintain that the holy Man departed \ not as a martyr but as a confessor, others contend that he was taken away by martyrdom; to whose opinion, on the authority of Dexter, we adhere.* I myself far prefer the authority of the Basilian Menology and of the Roman Martyrology to the fictions of the Pseudo-Dexter, and from their testimony I judge it more probable that the present St. Eutychus, after various contests for the faith, at last died in peace.

[22] But Nicolás Antonio explodes the credit of that Martyrologist, Since it does not please me to dispute any longer with this Spanish Martyrologist or with Francisco Bivar, the expositor of Dexter, I set against the whole cohort of fabulists a sound-headed Spanish writer, namely Nicolás Antonio of Seville, who in his Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus, book 7, chapter 7, number 114, paints Juan Tamayo in these colors: Juan Tamayo, to begin here, was a diligent and laborious man, and made use of the remarkable abundance of books which was always at his hand in the celebrated library of the Inquisitor General; yet he did not bring to his writing all the gifts which are looked for in a historian, especially a sacred one: for, to pass over his ignorance of the Latin tongue, which betrays itself in almost every line — I do not say of elegant and fitting speech, for which some praise might be due, but at least of correct speech and free from solecisms, on which point I can appeal to anyone who even stammers Latin words — he gave himself wholly into the arms of the authors lately forged in the Toledan workshop, who filled all his pages and all the spaces of his otherwise most illustrious lucubrations with intolerable and enormous trifles and fables, so that without these a work vast in bulk (he means the Spanish Martyrology, as is plain from elsewhere) and swollen to six volumes would for the greater part have shrunk to a just size. Then he shows that he published writings fraudulently forged under the names of the ancients, and thus lent aid to other fabulists of the same flour, whom in his Bibliotheca he here and there detects and explodes.

[23] and in his posthumous manuscripts Moreover the aforesaid Nicolás Antonio, in his posthumous manuscripts — part of which, kindly communicated to us by the most ample and most Reverend Don Adrian Coninck, a kinsman of the author, I transcribed at Madrid in the year 1721 — shows by many examples that the Pseudo-Dexter writes barbarously and faultily, whereas St. Jerome praises the true Dexter for his elegance and hints that he was Ciceronian. Then Nicolás weaves, in the order of the months, a whole catalogue of those Saints who, being recorded without a place of martyrdom or of death, were wrongly adjudged to Spain by the Pseudo-Dexter or his fellow soldiers with ridiculous affectation. Among these he reckons the present St. Eutychus, who is reported in the Roman Martyrology without a certain place of death, and on whose occasion he assails the Pseudo-Dexter in these words: What then should a man of the most uncontrollable greed do, but, after his custom, carry home and claim for himself the merchandise set out in the midst, on account of which he knew he could be sued by no action or interdict?

[24] Finally, after citing the twofold text of the Pseudo-Dexter this very fable concerning that Eutychus, which we gave above, in the first of which that young man of Troas is said to have been cast down and to have fallen from the window of the third loft, the same Spanish censor thus refutes the impostor: There are two points here in which the notable deceiver wished to deceive the credulous. The first, that Eutychius, the young man of the province of Troas, whom Paul the Apostle restored to life when he fell headlong from the window of the third loft — not CAST DOWN (as the flower and marrow of Latium speaks — the Ciceronian Dexter, I mean) — as is related in the twentieth chapter of the Acts, is the same as the Eutychius, disciple of John the Evangelist, praised by the Greeks. If it were so, the Greeks would not be ignorant of it, since to them alone his deeds are otherwise known. Nor could you easily say that so remarkable a miracle in the history of Eutychius was wrapped in silence or lost from memory.

[25] Moreover the accounts of Dexter and of the Greeks differ very much. The Greeks say that he suffered many things, but that he was delivered by God from every peril, as Galesini speaks out of their sources, and that he fell asleep in the Lord; but Dexter writes that he completed his martyrdom. suffered in Spain, he refutes by name. The second point falsely stated is that this Eutychius, the disciple of John, was slain at Tela in Spain for the confession of the true faith. Among other things, the notice of the place was wanting; besides, he is said to have journeyed in many regions. Why not also into the heart of Spain? And not only to have journeyed, but even to have been slain? This was the handle and occasion of the lie. At length Nicolás Antonio sets forth the controversy, agitated between Tamayo and Bivar, concerning another St. Eutychius, whom Usuard and other ancient Martyrologists announce in Spain on the XI day of December, and prudently concludes his censure in these words: But let us now withdraw hence (for it is shameful to quibble further about other matters), content with Eutychius, the true honor of the Spains, who consecrates the eleventh day of December by his memory. We too here put an end to this historical-critical disquisition, at the beginning of which we placed in the margin, by conjecture, the death of the Saint of this day at the end of the first century or the beginning of the second.

\ read boatu*. \ perhaps exstitisse or excessisse*.