ON ST. EUTHALIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR,
AT LENTINI IN SICILY,
About the middle of the third century.
CommentaryEuthalia, virgin and martyr, at Lentini in Sicily (St.)
J. S.
Papebroch, in volume 11 of May, in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of the holy martyrs of Lentini, Alphius, Philadelphus, The Saint's cult among the Latins and Cyrinus, page 503, teaches on what occasion the names of various Sicilian saints were inscribed in the Roman Martyrology under the pontificate of Paul V, and ecclesiastical offices for them composed and permitted. Among them is St. Euthalia, whose memory the said Martyrology celebrates on the XXVII of August in these words: In Sicily, at Lentini, of St. Euthalia the virgin, who, being a Christian, was cut down with the sword by her brother Sermilianus and passed to her Spouse. Carlo Antonio Conversano, in the Ethereal Glory of Lentini, at the XXVII of August, adds the following concerning the Saint's cult: She is venerated with a proper Office, under a double rite, in our own city and in the cities and towns of the district. I do not review more of the Latin martyrologists; but I observe only that the Saint's brother, who is called Sermilianus in the Roman Martyrology and in the Greek Menæa, is commonly named Servilianus by more recent writers, as he is called in the fabulous Acts of SS. Alphius, Philadelphus, and Cyrinus.
[2] The printed Menæa of the Greeks have a longer eulogy at the day XXVII of August, and among the Greeks: eulogy: which Cardinal Sirleti rendered into Latin at the same day, in the Menology of the Greeks, in this manner: On the same day, the commemoration of the holy martyr Euthalia. She was in Sicily, having a Gentile mother who suffered from an issue of blood, and who was cured by the holy martyrs Alphius, Philadelphus, and Quirinus. Believing therefore in Christ, she was baptized with her daughter Euthalia; but as she had a son named Sermilianus, she was detained by him that she might be hanged up (the Menæa read πρὸς τὸ ἀποπνιγῆναι, that is, that she might be strangled) because she had believed in Christ; but she, drawn out of her son's hands by a maidservant, escaped. Euthalia, moved by this deed, reproaching that abominable man on her mother's behalf, heard from her brother himself: Are you too a Christian? Assuredly, said that holy Virgin, and for Christ himself I will gladly die. Hearing which, that profane man stripped her and beat her violently (ἐμάστιξε, that is, scourged her with rods) and handed her over to one of his servants to be violated. But she, having prayed to God, struck the servant blind: which when the wicked Sermilianus saw, he cut off her head. In this eulogy is contained everything concerning the Saint that is in any measure worthy of credit.
[3] Fabulous Acts already published: the time of the martyrdom. Longer Acts of St. Euthalia are given by Ottavio Gaetani in the Lives of the Sicilian Saints, volume 1, page 76 and following. They are taken from the fourth part of the Acts of SS. Alphius, Philadelphus, and Cyrinus, which Papebroch in the aforesaid Commentary, number 16, showed to have been written more recently and to be stained with many fables. Yet he published that part also, from page 537, for the reasons indicated at number 17. It is therefore not necessary to repeat these here, or to worry them further. But now, under what persecution St. Euthalia suffered cannot be determined with certainty, much less in what year precisely. That Alphius and his companions suffered under Decius, some more recent writers believe; and the eulogy given above hints that St. Euthalia was crowned with martyrdom not long after that time. Gaetani in the margin notes the year 257, to which he assigns St. Euthalia's martyrdom: but his whole proof is drawn from the fabulous Acts. One may therefore consult what Papebroch argued concerning the time of the martyrdom of St. Alphius and his companions, page 505, from which it will be permissible to conjecture that the Saint suffered not long after the middle of the third century, perhaps in the reign of Valerian.