Saint Eucherius of Lyon

Eucherius was born in the second half of the fourth century. ³ The Roman Martyrology, as the Italian bishops print it, calls him a senator and says that together with his family he took up the ascetic life on the nearby island of Lérins. ² He was married to Galla, and they had two sons, Veranus and Salonius, and, according to katolsk.no, a daughter, Tullia, who married into a noble family of Lyon. ¹³

The sons went first. Eucherius sent them to be educated at the newly founded monastery on Lérins, the smaller of the two islands off Cannes, now the Île Saint-Honorat; there is still a monastery there, of Cistercians. ¹ About 422 he followed them. ¹ Here the sources part. The Catholic Encyclopedia says he went "on the death of his wife." ³ katolsk.no says nothing is told of what happened to Galla, and that some have suggested she entered a convent. ¹

The community at Lérins was extraordinary. The encyclopedia lists the bishops it gave the Church in its first generations: Honoratus and Hilary of Arles, Eucherius of Lyon, Lupus of Troyes, Vincent of Lérins and others. It adds that the presence of so many writers there has led people to think of it as a theological school, which "it was not." ⁴

Eucherius moved on from the monastery to the neighboring island of Lero, now Sainte-Marguerite, to live alone, "where he devoted his time to study and mortification." ³ He wanted to go further, to the hermits of the Egyptian desert, and he asked advice of John Cassian, who had lived among them and was now at Marseille. ¹³ Cassian answered with books.

The second set of his Conferences, books eleven to seventeen, opens with a preface to "holy brothers Honoratus and Eucherius." ⁷ One of them, Cassian writes, presides over a large monastery, "while the other has been anxious to make his way to Egypt to be edified by the sight of these in the flesh, that he might leave this province that is frozen as it were with the cold of Gaul, and like some pure turtle dove fly to those lands on which the sun of righteousness looks." ⁷ He wrote, he says, so that "from the other may be removed the necessity for so risky a journey." ⁷ Later he remembered the dedication to "that holy servant of Christ, Eucherius," and called those books Conferences written "at the instance of our brother Eucherius." ⁸

It was at this time, about 428, that Eucherius wrote his letter In Praise of the Desert, addressed to Hilary of Arles. ¹³ To his kinsman Valerian he wrote On Contempt for the World, urging him to let go of passing goods and make God his one concern. ¹³ For his sons he wrote two handbooks: the Formulae, which defends a spiritual and allegorical reading of Scripture, for Veranus, and the Instructions for Salonius. ¹³

His reputation spread across southeastern Gaul, and he was chosen bishop of Lyon, "probably in 434," the encyclopedia says, adding that it is at least certain he attended the First Council of Orange in 441 as metropolitan of Lyon. ³ katolsk.no gives 434 and says he presided at Orange together with Hilary of Arles. ¹ The encyclopedia's article on Lyons dates his episcopate "c. 433-50." ⁵

katolsk.no describes him as an admirable pastor, learned and intellectually humble, a good preacher and tireless in charity, who founded several churches and monasteries. ¹ The Lyons article credits him with homilies and says that "doubtless" the city's tradition of hermitages, cells where men and women lived enclosed for life, began with him. ⁵ The encyclopedia gives his works as letters, the two handbooks and "many homilies," and warns that a long series of other writings attributed to him are "some of doubtful authenticity, others certainly apocryphal." ³

His most influential work was a letter to a fellow bishop, Salvius, on the soldiers of the Theban Legion said to have been massacred at Agaunum, now Saint-Maurice in the Valais, at the beginning of the fourth century. ⁶ katolsk.no dates it about 445; the encyclopedia's Agaunum article says it was "written in the year 450." ¹⁶ The Martyrology remembers him as the bishop who wrote many Passions of holy martyrs. ²

The encyclopedia calls it "the document of primary importance in connection with this history." Eucherius traced the chain of witnesses through whom the tradition reached him, over about a hundred and fifty years; he had gone to the place, where pilgrims came in great numbers, and questioned those who could tell him the truth. ⁶ It credits his restraint as well: "the author has refrained from all miraculous additions." It also judges that the speeches he gives the martyrs were probably his own composition. ⁶ katolsk.no puts it the same way from his side: he wrote down what he had heard from the bishop of Geneva, who had heard it from others. ¹

None of the sources read here names a patronage for Saint Eucherius, so this page does not give one. ¹²³ He is remembered instead as a monk-bishop of Lérins and as a writer, one of the circle of friends that included Honoratus, Hilary of Arles and Cassian. ¹⁴⁷

Saint Eucherius's feast day is November 16. ¹² The Roman Martyrology enters him that day at Lyon, as the senator who with his family gave himself to the ascetic life on Lérins and, as bishop, wrote many Passions of the martyrs. ² He died at Lyon about 449, still its bishop. ¹³

Eucherius wanted the desert. He had already given up a household and a career for an island monastery, and then the monastery for a smaller island, and he still meant to sail to Egypt. ¹³ The older monk he asked told him, in effect, to stay where he was, and sent him seven books instead. ⁷

He stayed, and the solitude he wanted was given back to him in another shape. Within a few years he was running a city church, presiding at councils and writing for his sons. ¹³ The encyclopedia's guess that the hermitages of Lyon began with him suggests he never stopped wanting that life for himself or for others. ⁵

His letter on the Theban soldiers is the work of a careful man. He went to the place, asked who had told whom, and wrote down what he found without adding marvels to it. ⁶ Nearly fifteen centuries later the Catholic Encyclopedia still treated it as the primary document for the story. ⁶