Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/705

 EUSTACHIUS

627

EUSTATHIUS

the Roman University by Pope Alexander VI and magnificently developed by Popes Leo X and Paul III. The reason for his selection as professor was that he was considered the greatest anatomist in Italy after Columbus's death, and the policy of the popes of his time was to secure for the papal medical school the best available teachers. This position gave him time and opportunity for original work of a high order and Eustachius took advantage of it. He published a number of works on anatomy in which he added very markedly to the knowledge of the details of the struc- ture of most of the organs of the body accepted up to this time. His first work was a commentary on Ero- tion's '' Lexicon". Subsecjuently he wrote a treatise on the kidneys, another on the teeth, a third on blood vessels, a paper on the Azygos vein, and other special anatomical structures. Morgagni and Haller de- clared that there was not a part of the body on whose structvire he had not shed light. In the midst of his work he became, in 1570, physician to Cardinal Peretti, afterwards Pope Sixtus V. At the beginning of his career as an anatomist Eustachius criticized Vesalius rather severely for having departed too far from Galen. After having continued his own original investigations for some time, however, he learned to appreciate Vesalius's merits and did ample justice to his work.

Eustachius's greatest contributions to anatomical science passed through many vicissitudes which kept his real merit from being recognized until long after his death. His anatomical investigations were re- corded in a series of plates with text attached. Eusta- chius himself was not afforded the opportunity to arrange for the publication of his work, as he died rather suddenly. Some of his papers and plates went to his heirs, and others were deposited in the Vatican Library. They were unearthed by Lancisi, a distin- guished papal physician at the beginning of the eigh- teenth century, and were published at the expense of Pope Clement XI. This work, "Bartholomtei Eu- stachii Tabute Anatomicae" (Rome, 1714), demon- strates how much Eustachius had accomplished in anatomy. His special contributions to the science were the descriptions of the stirrup bone in the ear and the canal connecting the ear and the mouth, since called by his name. His monograph on >,he teeth of the child is very complete and has been surpassed only in recent years. In myology he worked out the inser- tions and attachment of the sterno-eleido-mastoid muscle, of the coccygeus, the splenius of the neck, the levator of the eyelid, and some others. In neurology his descriptions of the cranial nerves is especially full. In abdominal anatomy he added much. His descrip- tion of the fcetal circulation was the most complete up to his time and it was he who recognized the valve on the left side of the opening of the inferior vena cava which serves to direct the blood from this vessel through the foramen ovale into the left auricle. This constitutes the most important distinctive structural difference between the circulatory apparatus of the adult and the child and is called the Eustachian valve

FosTKR, Ilislory of Plu/sinhm/ (New York, 1901). The Pro- legomnia Martini in Eiislachii Tab. Anat. (Edinburgh, 1755), cnntainsasketfh of the life and times of Eustachius; Corradi, GioT. Med. di Roma (1870, VI). James J. Walsh.

Eustachius and Companions, Saints, martyrs under the ICmperor Hadrian, in tlie year 118. Feast, in the West, 20 t>eptemlier; in the East, 2 November. Emblems, a cnicifix, a stag, an oven.

The legend relates that Eustachius (before baptism, Placidus), a Roman general under Trajan, while still a heathen, saw a stag coming towards him, with a cruci- fix between its horns; he heard a voice telling him that he was to suffer much for Christ's .sake. He re- ceived baptism, together with his wife Tatiana (or Trajana, after baptism, Theopista) and his sons, Aga- piu.s and Theopistus. The place of the vision is said

to have been Guadagnolo, between Tibur and Prse- neste (Tivoli and Palestrina), in the vicinity of Rome. Through adverse fortune the family was scattered, but later reunited. For refusing to sacrifice to the idols after a victory, they suftereddeath in a heated brazen bull. Baronius (Ann. Eccl., ad an. 103, 4) would identify him with Placidus mentioned by Joseph us Flavins as a general under Titus,

The Acts are certainly fabulous, and recall the simi- lar story in the Clementine Recognitions. They are a production of the seventh century, and were u.sed by St. John Damascene, but the veneration of the saint is very old in both the Greek and Latin Churches. He is honoured as one of the Holy Helpers, is invoked in difficult situations, and is patron of the city of Madrid and of hunters. The church of Sant' Eustachio in Rome, title of a cardinal-deacon, existed in S27, ac- cording to the "Liber Pontificalis", but perhaps as early as the time of Gregory the Great (d. 004). It claims to possess the relics of the saint, some of which are saici to be at St- Denis and at St-Eustache in Paris. An island in the Lesser Antilles and a city in Canada bear his name.

Stokes in Diet, of Christ. Biogr., s. v.; Acta SS.. Sept., VI, 106; A-nal. Boll., Ill, 65; Chevalier, Bio-bibliogr., I, 1422.

Francis Mershman.

Eustathius, Saint, Bishop of Antioch, b. at Side in Pamphylia, c. 270; d. in exile at Trajanopolis in Thrace, most probably in 360, according to some already in 336 or 337. He was at first Bishop of Bercea in Syria, whence he was tran.sferred to Antioch c. .323. At the Council of Nicsea (325), he was one of the most prominent opponents of Arianism and from 325-330 he was engaged in an almost continuous lit- erary warfare against the Arians. By his fearless denunciation of Arianism and his refusal to engage any Arian priests in his diocese, he incurred the hatred of the Arians, who, headed by Eusebius of Cuesarea and his namesake of Nicomedia, held a synod at An- tioch (331) at which Eu.stathius was accused, by sub- orned witnesses, of Sabellianism, incontinency, cruelty, and other crimes. He was deposed by the synod and banished to Trajanopolis in Thrace by order of the Em- peror Con.stantine, who gave credence to the scandal- ous tales spread about Eustathius. The people of Antioch, who loved and revered their holy and learned patriarch, became indignant at the injustice done to him and were ready to take up arms in his defence. But Eustathius kept them in check, ex- horted them to remain true to the orthodox faith and humbly left for his place of exile, accompanied by a large body of his clergy. The adherents of Eusta- thius at Antioch formed a separate community by the name of Eustathians and refused to acknowledge the bishops set over them by the Arians. When, after the death of Eustathius, St. Meletius became Bishop of Antioch in 360 by the united vote of the Arians and the orthodox, the Eustathians would not recognize him, even after his election was approved by the Synod of Alexandria in 362. Their intraiisigont atti- tude gave ri.se to two factions among t lie orthndo.x, the so-called Meletian Schism (q. v.), which lasted till the second decade of the fifth century (Cavallera, Le schisme d' Antioche, Paris, 1905).

Most of the numerous dogmatic and exegetical treatises of Eustathius have been lost. His principal extant work is "De Engastrimytho", in which he maintains against Origen that the apparition of Sam- uel (I Kings, xxviii) was not a reality but a mere phantasm called up in the brain of Saul by the witch of Endor. In the same work he severely criticizes Origen for his allegorical interpretation of the Bible. A new edition of it, together with the respective hom- ily of Origen, was made by A. Jahn in Gebhardt and llarnack's"Texte undUntersuchungcn zur Gesch. der altchristl. Litcratur" (Leipzig, 1886), II, fasc. iv. Cavallera recently discovered a Christological homily: