CONCERNING SAINT EUTYCHIUS, ROMAN MARTYR.
CommentaryEutychius, Martyr at Rome (S.)
I. B.
[1] Saint Eutychius, restored to the Roman Martyrology from ancient monuments, as Baronius testifies in his Annotations to the Martyrology, received this eulogy: "At Rome, Saint Eutychius, Martyr, who completed an illustrious martyrdom and was buried in the cemetery of Callistus, whose sepulchre Pope Saint Damasus adorned with verses." These verses survive in the church of Saint Sebastian, at the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way, engraved on a marble tablet, which we give here from Baronius:
Eutychius the Martyr — the cruel commands of the tyrant, And the executioners' thousand devices of harm alike, That he could overcome, the glory of Christ made manifest. After the squalor of the prison, a new punishment comes upon his limbs: Fragments of broken pottery are spread, lest sleep might come. Twelve days pass; sustenance is denied. The Saint is cast into a pit; blood washes clean all The wounds that the fearsome power of death had inflicted. In sleep-bringing night, visions trouble the mind; A hiding place reveals where the limbs of the innocent one are held. He is sought, found, venerated; he nourishes and provides all things. Damasus has set this forth: venerate the worthy sepulchre.
Ferrarius expressed the same in prose in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, where he interprets "pit" as a well filled with the blood of Martyrs.
[2] Because his Acts have perished, it may perhaps be doubted whether this is not the same as Saint Eutychius the Priest, who is mentioned in the Acts of Saint Secundus the Martyr on June 1. For when the torturers, who had cast Saint Secundus bound to a rock into the Tiber at Ameria, on their return to Spoleto encountered a fierce bear, eight of them were killed by it. The rest barely escaped, crying out: "Truly this man is a worshipper of the great God." And saying this, they came to Blessed Eutychius the Priest, where he lay hidden in concealment; and casting themselves at his feet, they begged him with tears that they might be worthy to be baptized by him. To them he replied: "Only believe in Christ our Lord, and whatever evil you have ever done will be forgiven you through the faith of His baptism." And so, water having been brought, twelve persons of both sexes were baptized by Blessed Eutychius the Priest at the same hour; and departing to their homes, they gave thanks to God with great joy. So far the Acts. But nowhere in the Martyrologies is there mention of that Blessed Eutychius. Perhaps he had withdrawn to the Spoleto region to hide; and from there he was either seized and taken to Rome for torture, or returned of his own accord and found occasion for martyrdom under Maximian, under whom Saint Secundus also is said to have been crowned.
[3] The body of Saint Eutychius, says Baronius, was translated from the said cemetery of Callistus to the basilica of Saint Lawrence, called "in Damaso," near the Theatre of Pompey. Octavius Pancirolus, in his Hidden Treasures of the Blessed City, region 12, church 3, writes that it is preserved under the high altar there. In the index of Relics he testifies that one of his arms exists in the church of Saint Lucia in Silice, or in Orphea.