ON ST. EUMENIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, AT ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT, FROM THE ETHIOPIAN CALENDARS,
IN THE YEAR 143.
CommentaryEumenius, bishop and confessor, at Alexandria in Egypt. (St.)
C. B.
The Alexandrian church in Egypt, from the fortieth year of the common era up to the hundred and seventy-ninth year, [The Saint, to whom the seventh place among the patriarchs of Alexandria is not unfittingly assigned,] as may be seen in the Chronological History of the patriarchs of Alexandria prefixed to volume 5 of June of our Work, was administered by patriarchs ten in number, all held by the Church as Saints; and the seventh place among these was held by him who in the Alexandrian History of the Coptic patriarchs, published by Ecchellensis in print at Paris in the year 1651, is called Eumenius. By Eusebius indeed, in the Chronicle of the Scaliger edition at the year 131, where he is called Hymenaeus, and in the Ecclesiastical History, book 4, chapter 5, where he is named Eumenes, he is related to have presided over the Alexandrian church only sixth in order; but that writer, although St. Mark was the first of all to hold the episcopate of the city of Alexandria, nevertheless does not number him among the Patriarchs of Alexandria, most probably for this reason, that he could seem to have been not so much a bishop bound to the one see of Alexandria as an Apostle, who illumined not Egypt alone but other regions besides with the light of the true faith; wherefore, since St. Mark nevertheless seems deservedly able to be counted with these, no otherwise than St. Peter with the Roman Pontiffs, the seventh place among the same patriarchs is not wrongly assigned to St. Eumenius.
[2] Would that the deeds of the Saint were as certainly known as this appears certain! But both the things which concern him and those which concern many other patriarchs of Alexandria are, for the most part, [is commemorated today in the Ethiopian Calendars, in which alone he is found, and is therefore given here.] in obscurity, the ancient records in which you might find them set down being lacking. Meanwhile, that Eumenius was raised to the patriarchate of Alexandria in the year 130, in the month of June, and departed from among the living in the year 143 on the seventh day of October, Du Sollier, in the praised Chronological History of the patriarchs of Alexandria, number 90 and the two following, first shows from Eusebius,
then recites the brief encomium with which the Saint is celebrated in the Ethiopian Hagiology, conceived chiefly in these words, "Hail to Eumenius, who chose good things and spurned evil, worthy to be established in the See of St. Mark at Alexandria," and finally subjoins: "We find nothing further concerning the illustrious deeds of this Patriarch (namely of St. Eumenius), intending to give more in their place if we obtain any from the Coptic Synaxaries or from elsewhere." The further things concerning Eumenius to be given in their place, which Du Sollier, as he himself indicates by these very words, thought we might perhaps obtain with the lapse of time, we have not so far obtained, to our regret, nor does any hope shine forth that we shall obtain them. But although the matter stands thus, I have nevertheless thought that a place should be given here in our Acts to Eumenius, who I am persuaded was both promoted to the Alexandrian chair and ceased to live at the time just assigned by Du Sollier, because in the Ethiopian Hagiology already praised, and in the Calendar of the Ethiopians or Abyssinians in Hiob Ludolf, the only two sacred Fasti in which he is found, he is commemorated only on this day, on which also, as I have already said, I think he died.