
309 AD to 310
AD

Successor of Marcellus, 309 or 310. His reign was short. The
Liberian Catalogue gives its duration as only four months, from 18
April to 17 August, 309 or 310. We learn some details of his career
from an epitaph for his tomb which Pope Damasus ordered. This
epitaph had come down to us through ancient transcripts. A few
fragments of the original, together with a sixth-century marble copy
made to replace the original, after its destruction were found by Di
Rossi in the Papal Chapel, in the catacombs of Callistus. It appears
from this epitaph that the grave internal dissentions caused in the
Roman Church by the readmittance of the apostates (lapsi)
during the persecution of Diocletian, and which had already arisen
under Marcellus, continued under Eusebius. The latter maintained the
attitude of the Roman Church, adopted after the Decian persecutions
(250-51), that the apostates should not be forever debarred from
ecclesiastical communion, but on the other hand, should be
readmitted only after doing proper penance (Eusebius miseros
docuit sua crimina flere).
This view was opposed by a faction of Christians in Rome under
the leadership of one Heraclius. Whether the latter and his
partisans advocated a more rigorous (Novationist) or a more lenient
interpretation of the law has not been ascertained. The latter,
however, is by far more probable in the hypothesis that Heraclius
was the chief of a party made up of apostates and their followers,
who demanded immediate restoration to the body of the Church.
Damasus characterizes in very strong terms the conflict which ensued
(seditcio, cœdes, bellum, discordia, lites). It is likely
that Heraclius and his supporters sought to compel by force their
admittance to divine worship, which was resented by the faithful
gathered in Rome about Eusebius. In consequence both Eusebius and
Heraclius were exiled by Emperor Maxentius. Eusebius, in particular,
was deported to Sicily, where he died soon after. Miltiades ascended
the papal throne, 2 July, 311. The body of his predecessor was
brought back to Rome, probably in 311, and 26 September (according
to the "Depositio Episcoporum" in the chronographer of 354) was
placed in a separate cubiculum of the Catacomb of Callistus. His
firm defense of ecclesiastical discipline and the banishment which
he suffered therefor caused him to be venerated as a martyr, and in
his epitaph Pope Damasus honours Eusebius with this title. His feast
is yet celebrated on 26 September.
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