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 EUGENE

598

EUGENE

father, who had become a priest, and at the age of seven was given to Sts. Romanus and Lupicinus to be educated at Condat, in the French Jura. Thenceforth he never left the monastery. He imitated the ex- ample of the above-named saints with such zeal that it was difficult to tell which of the two he resembled more. Eugendus acquired much learning, read the Greek and Latin authors, and was well versed in the Scriptures. He led a life of great austerity, but out of humility did not want to be ordained priest. Abbot Minausius made him his coadjutor, and after the former's death (about 490) Eugendus became his suc- cessor. He always remained the humble religious that he had been before, a model for his monks by his penitence and piety, which God deigned to acknowl- edge by miracles. After the monastery, which St. Romanus had bidlt of wood, was destroyed by fire, Eugendus erected another of stone, and improved the community life; thus far the brethren had lived in separate cells after the fashion of the Eastern ascetics. He built a beautiful church in honour of the holy Apostles Peter, Paul, and Andrew, and enriched it with precious relics. The order, which had been founded on the rules of the Oriental monasteries, now took on more of the active character of the Western brethren; the rule of Tarnate is thought to have served as a model. Condat began to flourish as a place of refuge for all those who suffered from the mis- fortunes and afflictions of those eventful times, a school of virtue and knowledge amid the surrounding darkness, an oasis in the desert. When Eugendus felt his end approaching he had his breast anointed by a priest, took leave of his brethren, and died quietly after five days.

A few years after his death, his successor, St. Viven- tiolus, erected a church over his tomb, to which num- erous pilgrims travelled. A town was founded, which was called, after the saint, Saint-Oyand de Joux, and which retained that name as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth cent uries, while its former name of Condat passed into oblivion. But when St. Claudius had, in G87, resigned his Diocese of Besan^on and had died, in 696, as twelfth abbot, the number of pilgrims who visited his grave was so great that, since the thirteenth century, the name Saint-Claude came more and more into use and has to-day superseded the other. The feast of St. Eugendus was at first transferred to 2 Jan.; in the Dioceses of Besangon and Saint Claude it is now celebrated on 4 Jan.

Acta SS., January. I. 49-54; Man. Germ. Hist. SS. Rer. Merov. Ill, 154-56, ed. KausCH, who wrongly holds this text of his life as non-authentic; Analecla BoUandiana, XVII, 367; Mabii^ LON, Acta SS.f ord. s. Bcned., I, 570-76.

Gabriel Meier.

Eugene I-IV, Popes. — Eugene I, Saint, was elected 10 Aug., 654, and d. at Rome, 2 June, 657. Be- cause he would not submit to Byzantine dictation in the matter of Monothelism, St, Martin I was forcibly carried oil from Rome (18 June, 653) and kept in exile till his death (September, 655). What happened in Rome after his departure is not well known. For a time the Church was governed in the manner usual in those days during a vacancy of the Holy See, or during the absence of its occupant, viz., by the archpriest, the archdeacon, and the priraicerius of the notaries. But after about a year and two months a successor was given to Martin in the person of Eugene (10 .\ug., 6.54). He was a Roman of the first ecclesiastical region of thecity, and wasthesonof Rufinianus. He had been a cleric from his earliest years, and is set down by his biographer as distinguished for his gentleness, sanc- tity, and generosity. \\'ith regard to the circinnstances of his election, it can only be said that if he was for- cibly placed on the Chair of Peter by the power of the emperor, in the hojic that he would follow the imperial will, these calculations miscarried; and that, if he was elected against the will of the reigning pope in the first

instance, Pope Martin subsequently acquiesced in his election (Ep. Martini x\di in P. L., LXXXVII).

One of the first acts of the new pope was to send legates to Constantinople with letters for the Emperor Constans H, informing him of his election, and pre- senting a profession of his faith. But the legates allowed themselves to be deceived, or gained over, and brought back a sjmodical letter from Peter, the new Patriarch of Constantinople (656-666), whUe the em- peror's envoy, who accompanied thera, brought offer- ings for St. Peter, and a request from the emperor that the pope would enter into communion with the Patri- arch of Constantinople. Peter's letter proved to be written in the most obscure style, and avoided making any specific declaration as to the number of " wills or operations" in Christ. When its contents were communicated to the clergy and people in the church of St. Mary Major, they not only rejected the letter with indignation, but would not allow the pope to leave the basilica untU he had promised that he would not on any account accept it (656). So furious were the By- zantine officials at this contemptuous rejection of the wishes of their emperor and patriarch that they threat- ened, in their coarse phraseology, that when the state of politics allowed it, they would roast Eugene, and all the talkers at Rome along with him, as they had roasted Pope Martin I (Disp. inter S.Maxim. et Theod. in P. L., CXXIX, 654). Eugene was saved from the fate of his predecessor by the advance of the Moslems who took Rhodes in 654, and defeated Constans himself in the naval battle of Phoenix (655). It was almost cer- tainly this pope who received the youthful St. Wilfrid on the occasion of his first visit to Rome (c. 654). He went thither because he was anxious to know "the ecclesiastical and monastic rites which were in use there". At Rome he gained the affection of Arch- deacon Boniface, a counsellor of the apostolic pope, w-ho presented him to his master. Eugene "placed his blessed hand on the head of the youthful servant of God, prayed for him, and blessed him" (Bede, Hist. Eccles., V, 19; Eddius, In vit. Wilf., c. v). Nothing more is known of Eugene, except that he con- secrated twenty-one bishops for different parts of the world, and that he was buried in St. Peter's. In the Roman Martyrology he is reckoned among the saints of that day.

Li*6erPan?i'/ica7ts,ed. Duchesne, 1, 341-2; various documents in P. L., CXXIX, LXXXVII; Papebroch in Acta SS. (1695). 1 June, 220-2 (2a. 214-6); Mann, Lives of the Early Popes, I, pt. I, 406 sqq.

Eugene II, elected 6 June, 824 ; died 27 Aug., 827. On the death of Paschal I (Feb.-May, 824) there took place a divided election. The late pope had wisely endeavoured to curb the rapidly increasing power of the Roman nobility, who, to strengthen their position against him, had turned for support to the Frankish power. When he died these nobles made strenuous efforts to replace him by a candidate of their own; and despite the fact that the clergy put forward a candi- date likely to continue the policy of Paschal the nobles were successful in their attempt. They secured the consecration of Eugene, archpriest of S. Sabina on the Aventine, although by a decree of the Roman Council of 769, under Stephen IV, they had no right to a real share in a papal election. Their candidate is stated, in earlier editions of the "Liber Pontificalis", to have been the son of Boemund; but in the recent and better editions his father's name is not given. AMiilst archpriest of the Roman Church he is credited with having fulfilled most conscientiously the duties of his position and after he became pope he beautified his ancient church of S. Sabina with mosaics and with metal work bearing his name, which were intact in the six- teenth century. Eugene is described by his biographer as simple and humble, learned and eloquent, handsome and generous, a lover of peace, and wholly occupied with the thought of doing what was pleasing to God.