ON ST. ELEUTHERUS, OR ELEUTHERIUS, MARTYR,
AT CAESAREA IN CAPPADOCIA.
From the Hieronymian Fasti and others.
CommentaryEleutherus or Eleutherius, martyr, at Caesarea in Cappadocia. (S.)
BY J. S.
Of Eleutherus of Caesarea, commemorated today, Although I have not lacked a suspicion that St. Eleutherus the martyr, who is today celebrated in the Hieronymian Fasti and a few others, has been torn from his own day, and would show himself more clearly on some other day of the year, yet I could not find suitable arguments by which to confirm that suspicion. For by the place of martyrdom, which is said to have been Caesarea in Cappadocia, he seems to be altogether distinguished from other Eleutheriuses. Wherefore I shall communicate to the reader the few things which I find in the Martyrologies concerning St. Eleutherus, as the name is usually written, or Eleutherius of this day. The Hieronymian, in Florentini, has thus: At Caesarea of Cappadocia, the birthday of Saint Eleutherus. The chief codices agree as to the name and the place of martyrdom — the Epternach, the Corbie, the Blumian; nay, the Reichenau also agrees as to the place of martyrdom, but the name is written dislocated: Euletherius. In three others the name is expressed without the place, namely in the Gellone, Eleutherius; in the Labbean, Eleutherus; in the Augsburg, corruptly, Eutherius. The Appendix of Ado has: At Caesarea of Cappadocia, of saint Eleutherius.
[2] the time of martyrdom is unknown. Ferrarius in his General Catalogue at this day has thus: At Caesarea in Cappadocia, of St. Eleutherius, martyr, under the emperor Hadrian. But in the Annotations it is added: From the Tables of the Greeks. Metaphrastes wrote his Life and Passion, related by Lipomanus on this day. But these observations Ferrarius could have written only by blundering: for neither do the Greeks announce any Eleutherius on this day, nor do I find among them any Eleutherius of Caesarea in the whole year. Nor did Ferrarius, I think, find anything about the Acts of this one, either written by Metaphrastes or published by Lipomanus. But he wrote the Acts of a certain other Eleutherius, bishop and martyr: which are published among us at the seventeenth of April, that is, at the end of the second volume of April. From these, I think, Ferrarius drew the martyrdom under the emperor Hadrian, and thus attributed to the Eleutherius of this day what belonged to another.