CONCERNING ST. EUTYCHIUS, SUBDEACON, MARTYR AT ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT.
YEAR 356
CommentaryEutychius, Subdeacon, Martyr at Alexandria in Egypt (St.)
How great were the storms of most savage persecutions by which the Alexandrian Church was tossed, together with its Bishop Athanasius constantly fighting against the Arians, no one can be ignorant The Alexandrian Church vexed on account of Athanasius, who has never read the books of Athanasius himself; or any writers at all who have treated of those times. These however, although they were always fierce, had certain enormous waves by which it was so shaken that it would necessarily have been utterly destroyed, had it not been founded on the rock. For first indeed, Gregory was sent from Antioch and opposed to Athanasius, who had been acquitted at Rome, around the year 342: Gregory, I say, that one who, because of a similar name by which copyists nearby were often led astray, is called George in the books of Athanasius and in the letters of Pope Julius to the Antiochenes and of Athanasius to the orthodox, which contain much about his intrusion and the cruelties exercised on that occasion. under the intruded Gregory, This Gregory, after being deposed in the year 347, died about ten months after hearing the legates of the Council of Sardica at Antioch, and his death was followed by a certain brief but deceptive peace, with Athanasius restored for a time. For because Athanasius did not cease to defend the true faith against the Arian one, he did not in turn cease to be continually harassed by its enemies until the year 356, when, having escaped from the slaughter perpetrated by the general Syrianus on the 5th before the Kalends of February within a church, he was again driven to flight and hiding, and and then under George, once more full power was given to the wolves to rage against the sheep of Christ. Then toward the end of Lent, George, a Cappadocian like the former Gregory, was thrust into the Alexandrian See and violently inducted by Heraclius the Count, who had as accomplices in his impiety Cataphronius the Prefect of Egypt, and Faustinus, Catholic in name but not in fact. How horrible the savagery of these men was against all the orthodox, Athanasius himself partially relates, partly in the Apology which he wrote about his flight, partly in a more extended narrative which he directed to those leading the solitary life, which has a prefixed letter addressed to them, and seems to be lacking its proper beginning, perhaps to be repeated from the preceding second Apology. In this narrative one can read how those ministers of impiety whom we mentioned, stirred up young men of the marketplace and worshippers of idols, she suffers most harshly. to invade churches and stone the people by the Emperor's command: namely those who had gathered at the churches on Wednesday, having rejected communion with George. And they indeed on the following day, that is on the fifth day of Holy Week, began the tragedy, and did the things which Athanasius there relates at length and with grief.
Then, as the same relates in his Apology on Flight, After the week of Easter one could see virgins thrust into prison, Bishops led bound by soldiers, the homes of orphans and widows plundered, Christians seized by night, and the brothers of Clergy summoned to danger in place of their brothers. In sum (the words are again those of the same author to the Solitaries) they were so fierce and bitter toward all, that they were called by everyone butchers, murderers, wicked informers, criminals, and anything rather than Christians, Eutychius beaten, the Arians that is: inasmuch as imitating the Scythians, they seized Eutychius the Subdeacon, a man who served the church well: whom first they had scourged with whips unto death, then had the dying man sent to the mines: and not to just any mine, but to that which is called Phaeno, in which a man condemned for homicide cannot survive beyond a very few days: and what is more savage, while being dragged to the mines, he dies: without even a few hours being granted for the treatment of his wounds, they immediately deported the man to the mine,
declaring that if this were done, all would be in fear and would associate with them. But he, having been carried not far, since he was too weak to be brought to the mine, died on the journey from the pain of his wounds, and thus died with joy, possessing the glory of Martyrdom.
He was certainly worthy to be read as inscribed in all the Calendars of the Saints. Inserted in the Roman Martyrology, But because in such great perturbation of the Church no one took care to record the day of his passion and death, nor could anything certain about it be gathered from the account of Athanasius, and the relics of his sacred body were not subsequently revealed and exalted with due honor; he remained deprived of the fitting honor of worship, until Cardinal Baronius, revising the Roman Martyrology, ascribed him to this day with these words: At Alexandria, of the holy Martyrs Eutychius and others, who in the time of Constantius under George the Arian Bishop were slain by the sword for the Catholic faith. And Eutychius indeed, by what manner of death he completed his martyrdom, we have already read in the very words of Athanasius: although the day of his death is unknown: but why he was assigned to this day we do not see: since in that year the Paschal feast fell on the 7th of the Ides of April, and so the beginnings of this cruel tyranny must be deferred to the 4th day of the same month: indeed, if you consider the text of Athanasius, it will almost seem to you to judge that these things were perpetrated even much later, and not long before the feast of Pentecost.
About his companions moreover, what shall we say, and indeed those slain by the sword? Let us hear Athanasius himself writing to the Solitaries. 4 orthodox similarly beaten after him, When the people humbly interceded with their prayers for Eutychius, they had four good and freeborn men seized again, among whom was Hermias who was washing the feet of pilgrims; whom the general (namely Sebastianus, named a little before as the first among the persecutors) had beaten with many blows and thrown into prison. There the Arians, more cruel than Scythians, after seeing that they had not yet been killed by the floggings, began to remonstrate with the general, and threatened to write to the eunuchs that he was not flogging them according to their wishes. and wasted in prison: Terrified by their words, he began again to have the men flogged: but they who were being beaten, knowing well why they were being beaten and by whom they had been falsely accused, said nothing else but that they were being flogged for the truth: We do not communicate, they said, with heretics; beat us as you please, God will judge you for these things. The impious wished them to perish and die in prison: but the people of God, knowing the opportune time, interceded for them; so that after about seven days or more they were released from there.
These things are there, and somewhat later: What they did to the Priests and Deacons, the clergy unworthily treated, and how they drove them into exile under the general and the judges, and dragged out their friends by military force, led by Gorgonius who beat them with blows; and how they tore apart the limbs and members of all, and what is the height of cruelty, even of the dead, with the greatest savagery, is beyond what words can express. But what further? They banished the Bishops who had grown old in the Clergy and spent many years in the Episcopate, Bishops banished: of whom Ammonius to the upper Oasis; Muius, Psenosiris, Nilammon, Plenius, Marcus, and Athenodorus to the Ammonian region, looking for nothing other than that they should perish wandering in desert places; having no pity on those who labored with poor health; so that those who could scarcely bear the journey because of their weakness were carried on litters, with funeral equipment following behind because of their illness: certainly one of their number died, and they did not even permit his corpse to be returned to his own people. And from this it is that they thrust Dracontius the Bishop into the solitude around Clysma, Philo to Babylon, Adelphius to Psinabla of the Thebaid, and Hierax and Dioscorus to Soene; also Ammonius, Agathus, Agathodaemon, Apollonius, Eulogius, Apollo, Paphnutius, Gaius, Flavius, veteran Bishops; and Ammonius, Heraclides, and Psaim, themselves also Bishops, they drove into flight: and some they consigned to stone quarries, others they pursued, desiring to remove them from the midst, and many others they tore apart.
After these he mentions certain laypersons and sacred Virgins treated more cruelly, but more concisely and briefly than in the Apology, Virgins stripped and beaten, where he also expresses the very time of the carnage in these words: In the week after the sacred Pentecost the people went to the cemetery to pray, because they abhorred communion with George. When that most wicked man of all learned this, he instigated the commander of the troops, Sebastianus, a Manichaean by sect, to use force and arms. Therefore he, with a military force, with hostile weapons, some carrying drawn swords, others bearing bows, made an attack on the people, and finding few praying there (for most, as it was the time of day, had departed), he committed such deeds as were fitting for one who had lent his ear to such men. For he brought Virgins close to the flames of a burning pyre and drove them to confess the Arian religion. When he saw them unconquered there, 40 laymen flogged: he stripped their bodies, and thus beat them on the face, so that for a long time after they could scarcely be recognized by their own. But forty men whom he seized he lacerated in a new manner: for with palm rods still retaining their thorns, he so beat their backs that some, repeatedly treated in vain by doctors because of the thorns that clung more tenaciously, and others not enduring the treatment, died. All the rest then, as many as they had seized, they banished to that part of Egypt called the Great Oasis: and the bodies of the dead they would not give even to their own, and held them unburied secretly at the pleasure of their council. From Egypt moreover and Africa they drove these Bishops into flight and exile; some of these died, Ammonius, Maius, Gaius, Philo, Hermes, Plenius, Psenosiris, Pelammon, Agathus, Anagamphus, Marcus, Ammonius and another Mark of the same name, Dracontius, Adelphius, Athenodorus; and the Priests Hierax and Dioscorus: whom they seized with such bitterness that some died on the road, some in exile, with more than thirty Bishops driven into flight.
And these things it pleased us to relate thus at length in this place; lest we should seem to have rashly departed from the authority of the Roman Martyrology by adding no companions in martyrdom to Eutychius; since not only, no one slain by the sword: has Athanasius, who alone could have taught us about these, never mentioned them, but also from his entire narrative we do not certainly know that any at all were slain by the sword. This second reason for our account was that those of whom there is no distinct record in the Ecclesiastical Calendars should not be entirely passed over by us; but that it might be known that at the same time when Eutychius suffered, if not on the same day and in the same manner, very many confessors of piety of both sexes and orders existed; of whom many sealed their confession with their own death, brought on by torments or hardships endured: among whom there rightly comes to be named Secundus the Priest, whom the pseudo-Bishop of Pentapolis at Barca, Secundus trampled to death. bearing a similar name but dissimilar life, also called Secundus, and his accomplice in the conspiracy Stephanus, who did not obey them, trampled to death with their feet and killed. He, when he was being killed, imitating the Holy One, spoke thus: Let no one avenge me before the judge; I have an avenger, the Lord Jesus, for whose name I suffer these things. But they on the contrary, showing no pity for the man speaking thus, nor having any reverence for the day, trampled the man to death on the very day of Pentecost, namely on May 25: for Athanasius inserts this into the preceding narratives relating to the year 356.
Think now of similar things during the first persecution under Gregory, intruded fourteen years before: As many were previously vexed under Gregory, for besides the many unworthy things done against the churches and altars of God, You could see, he says, Priests and laymen dragged to court, Virgins torn from their company and hauled before the tribunals of the Governor and thrown into prison, others fined for the treasury, others beaten with scourges: the ministers of sacred things and virgins barred from receiving bread. Meanwhile that excellent George (Gregory, I mean), imitating Caiaphas with Pilate, raged against the pious worshippers of Christ. Certainly on the very day of Good Friday (when the Passover was being celebrated on April 11) he entered a certain church with the general and the Governor of the pagans, and especially on Easter Day, 34 seized in church. and learning of the hatred of the people, who abhorred his violent entry, he offered himself as the author and persuader to the most cruel Governor, that at that very hour thirty-four virgins and matrons and freeborn men should be publicly beaten with scourges and thrown into chains: among whom a certain virgin, more studious and holding the Psalter in her hands, was similarly flogged, and the book was indeed torn from her by the executioners, and she was confined in prison with the others.
Thus far Athanasius in his Letter to the Orthodox, consonant with other of his and Pope Julius's writings, on which we do not wish to dwell longer, since Baronius has sufficiently clearly proved that this letter of Athanasius was composed about the intrusion of Gregory, not of George.