Saint Eucher de Lyon
Évêque de Lyon (+ v. 449)
Martyrologe romain
SOURCE : https://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/152/Saint-Eucher-de-Lyon.html
Eucher de Lyon : Éloge du désert
Lettre à Hilaire de Lérins
Jeudi 11 novembre 2004 — Dernier ajout vendredi 9
avril 2010
Eucher a été évêque de Lyon au milieu du cinquième
siècle. L’une de ses lettres à Hilaire de Lérins est une riche et belle
méditation sur le désert et la solitude. Nous en publions ici la traduction de
Christophe Carraud. Elle est introduite par un petit essai du traducteur auquel
appartiennent les éléments biographiques mentionnés ci-dessous.
Éloge
du désert : cliquez pour télécharger le texte d’Eucher.
Éléments biographiques
« D’Eucher, on ne sait presque rien. Ce seront,
pour l’essentiel, des conjectures. Voici à peu près à quoi ressembla sa vie.
Il naît dans une grande famille lyonnaise ; la
date est incertaine. (Celle de sa mort n’est pas plus assurée : entre 449
et 455. Du moins a-t-on ces repères.) Il lit beaucoup, connaît un peu le grec.
On voit passer dans ses textes, dans le Mépris du monde, dans
les Instructions, l’ombre d’un long cortège, Cicéron, Sénèque, Aulu-Gelle,
Pline, Symmaque, Prudence, Claudien ; et Virgile et la Bible, dont il est
évidemment pétri, comme le sont ceux qui vivent en sachant où est la vie. Il
devient sénateur (il n’y a pas de plus haute fonction). Il a épousé Galla, qui
est très pieuse elle aussi ; viennent deux fils, Salonius et Veranius -
Salon et Véran -, qu’il envoie à Lérins pour y être élevés par le moine
Hilaire dans le monastère de l’île, qu’Honorat vient de fonder. Les deux fils
seront évêques du vivant de leur père, le premier de Genève, le second de
Vence, sans doute.
La charge de sénateur ne semble pas le
satisfaire ; on lit dans l’abrégé de sa Vie par Adon, telle qu’on la
découvre en tête de la traduction qu’Arnauld d’Andilly a faite du Mépris
du monde : « Il renonça à la qualité de Sénateur si relevée pour
s’aller enfermer dans une caverne en l’une de ses terres assise sur la rivière
de la Durance, où ne s’occupant qu’à servir Dieu il passait tous les jours
& les nuits en jeusnes et en prieres ». Le désir grandit ; Eucher
va retrouver ses fils à Lérins en 422, et embrasse la vie religieuse. Galla, de
son côté, se retire dans un cloître. Le père, la mère et les deux fils :
il y aura quatre saints dans la famille. Puis le monastère même ne suffit
pas ; il choisit la vie d’anachorète, fait la traversée de l’île de Lérins
(Saint-Honorat) à celle de Lero (Sainte-Marguerite), et s’y établit. Il est
seul. Ses vertus sont connues, son exemple rayonne ; on vient le chercher
pour l’asseoir sur le siège épiscopal, à Lyon […] Je cite Adon :
« L’Evesque de Lyon estant mort, toute cette Eglise suivant l’ancienne
coûtume jeusna & pria durant trois jours, pour demander à Dieu de luy
vouloir donner un Pasteur capable de la gouverner. Vn ange apparut alors à vn
enfant & luy dit : Il y a dans une caverne assise sur le bord de la
Durance, vn Senateur nommé Eucher qui a tout abandonné pour suivre
IESUS-CHRIST. Il faut l’aller trouver & le prendre pour vostre Evesque :
car c’est luy que Dieu a choisi. » Le voici donc à Lyon, sans doute
jusqu’à sa mort.
Sa réputation grandit encore. Il défend Augustin
contre les « semi-pélagiens » provençaux , correspond avec bien des
gens, si l’on en juge par ce qui reste des lettres qu’on lui envoie, Paulin de
Nole , Cassien, qui lui dédie l’une de ses Conférences, participe
activement au premier concile d’Orange, écrit vraisemblablement La Passion
de saint Maurice d’Agaune, ce chef de la légion thébaine qui se fait massacrer
au verrou du Rhône, ou alors c’est juste à côté, sur les hauteurs de Martigny
(Octodure). Claudien Mamert, qui l’a connu, et avait écouté ses prédications,
fait de lui ce bref éloge : « D’âge jeune et d’esprit mûr, méprisant
la terre et n’aspirant qu’au ciel, profondément humble et d’un mérite éminent,
doué d’une intelligence pénétrante, d’une science étendue et d’une éloquence
débordante, il fut sans conteste le plus grand parmi tous les évêques de son
temps ». Et c’est à peu près tout. Eucher a-t-il lu ces quelques phrases ?
Peu importe. On découvre avec plaisir qu’on peut faire de quelqu’un le portrait
le plus précis en ne reprenant que les lieux de l’exemplarité et de la
dévotion. Les signatures et les fiertés viendraient plus tard, avec l’invention
des individus et celle des écrivains. Je note simplement (et je ne reviendrai
plus sur le contraste, c’est inutile) que l’extrême singularité de l’expérience
de solitude, celle aussi bien, pour reprendre les termes anciens, du colloque
avec Dieu, s’accompagne naturellement d’un certain effacement, et même d’un
désir d’oubli, c’est-à-dire d’une confiance ; et qu’à l’inverse, les
identités rivées à elles-mêmes, inquiètes et closes, sont comme la petite
monnaie de masses indistinctes, leur conversion illusoire et apeurée. Le sens
du tragique, donc celui de l’œuvre, s’en est accru ; le changement nous
apporte des chances étranges, chèrement payées. »
Sources :
Traduction : Christophe Carraud dans CONFÉRENCE, Nº 9, automne 1999.
SOURCE : http://www.patristique.org/Eucher-de-Lyon-Eloge-du-desert.html
« J’ai dit :
Vous êtes des dieux »
– Comment faut-il
comprendre ce que dit le psaume : Dieu s’est tenu dans l’assemblée
des dieux (Ps 81, 1) ?
– Cela veut dire :
dans l’assemblée des saints ; car notre Seigneur a donné à ses saints
d’avoir part à son nom comme à son règne. C’est pourquoi aussi il a dit à
Moïse : J’ai fait de toi un dieu pour Pharaon (Ex 7, 1). Les
saints sont appelés des dieux, eux qui reçoivent aussi le nom de fils de
Dieu (cf. Ps 81, 6). Rien d’étonnant à ce que, par l’ineffable bonté de la
bienveillance divine, Dieu ait voulu que l’homme reçoive le nom de dieu,
puisque Dieu a reçu le nom d’homme.
– Comment le Sauveur
a-t-il pu emmener au ciel l’homme qu’il avait assumé ? Et comment le ciel
peut-il être promis aux saints, alors qu’il est dit : Personne n’est
monté au ciel, sinon le Fils de l’homme qui est au ciel (Jn 3, 13) ?
Et comment pouvait-il être au ciel alors qu’il était encore sur la terre ?
– Selon la chair, il
était sur la terre, mais selon la divinité, il n’était pas absent du ciel.
Ainsi, est monté celui qui est descendu, parce que, bien qu’il ait assumé
l’humanité, il est une personne unique, homme et Dieu, à savoir le
Christ ; et puisqu’il est la tête et que les saints sont ses membres, les
membres suivent nécessairement la tête là où elle les a précédés, afin qu’il y
ait au ciel la plénitude du Corps du Christ.
St Eucher de Lyon
Saint Eucher († ve s.),
marié, père de famille et sénateur, devint moine à Lérins, puis il fut choisi
malgré lui comme évêque de Lyon, en 434. / Instructions I, 12, 38 ; I, 19, 2,
trad. M. Dulaey, Paris, Cerf, 2021, Sources Chrétiennes 618, p. 355, 407-409.
SOURCE : https://fr.aleteia.org/daily-prayer/vendredi-8-avril/meditation-de-ce-jour-1/
Statue Saint Eucher et Notre Dame de Beauvoir
Profile
Born to the nobility, well educated,
and known for his learning and
as a gifted speaker. Married to
Galla, who became a nun in
later life; father of
at least two sons – Saint Veranus
of Vence and Saint Salonius
of Geneva. In 422 he
became a monk at Lérins, France,
and Galla became a nun. Wrote works
on asceticism.
Reluctant bishop of Lyons, France in 434.
Presided over the Council of Orange in 441.
Worked with Saint Hilary
of Arles.
449 of
natural causes
Additional Information
Book
of Saints, by the Monks of
Ramsgate
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Roman
Martyrology, 1914 edition
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Lives of the Saints, by Eleanor Cecilia Donnelly
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MLA Citation
“Saint Eucherius of Lyon“. CatholicSaints.Info.
25 April 2021. Web. 16 November 2021.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-eucherius-of-lyon/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-eucherius-of-lyon/
St. Eucherius
Bishop of Lyons, theologian, born in the
latter half of the fourth century; died about 449. On the death of his wife he
withdrew to the monastery of Lérins, where his sons,
Veranius and Salonius, lived, and soon afterward to the neighbouring island of
Lerona (now Sainte-Marguerite), where he devoted his time to study and mortification. Desirous
of joining the anchorites in
the deserts of
the East, he consulted John Cassian, who, in reply, sent him some of his
"Collationes", describing the daily lives of the hermits of
the Thebaid. It
was at this time that Eucherius wrote his beautiful letter "De laude
Eremi" to St. Hilary of Arles (c. 428). Though imitating the virtues of
the Egyptian solitaries,
he kept in touch with men renowned for learning and piety, e.g.
Cassian, St. Hilary
of Arles, St.
Honoratus, later Bishop of Marseilles, and
Valerian, to whom he wrote his "Epistola parænetica de contemptu
mundi". The fame of Eucherius was soon so widespread in southeastern Gaul,
that he was chosen Bishop of Lyons. This was probably
in 434; it is certain,
at least that he attended the First Council of Orange (441) as Metropolitan of Lyons, and that he
retained this dignity until his death. In addition to the above-mentioned
letters, Eucherius wrote "Formularium spiritualis intelligentiæ ad
Veranium", and "Institutiones ad Salonium", besides many homilies. His works have
been published both separately and among the writings of the Fathers. There is
no critical edition but the text is most accessible in Migne, "P.L.",
L, 685-894. In the same volume (appendix, 893-1214) is to be found a long
series of works attributed to Eucherius, some of doubtful authenticity,
others certainly apocryphal.
Sources
ALLÈGRE in Rev. de Marseille (Marseilles,
1862), VIII, 277-85, 345-58, 409-18; GOUILLOUD, S. Eucher, Lérins, et
l'église de Lyon au Vième siècle (Lyons, 1881); MELLIER, De vitâ et
scriptis S. Eucherii Lugdunensis episcopi (Lyons, 1877); Rev. du
Lyonnais (Lyons. 1868), CVI, 422-46; BARDENHEWER, Patrology, tr.
SHAHAN (Freiburg-im-Br., St. Louis, 1908), 518-19.
Clugnet, Léon. "St. Eucherius." The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton
Company, 1909. 16 Nov.
2021 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05595a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for
New Advent by Douglas J. Potter. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the
Blessed Virgin Mary.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. May
1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop
of New York.
Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Knight.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
SOURCE : https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05595a.htm
St.
Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, Confessor
NEXT to
St. Irenæus, no name has done so great honour to the church of Lyons, as that
of the great Eucherius. By birth he was most illustrious in the world; and his
cousin Valerian had a father and father-in-law possessed of the first dignities
in the empire; but the saint, by despising the empty honours and riches of the
world, became far more illustrious in the school of Christ. A lofty and
penetrating genius, an uncommon stock of learning, and a commanding eloquence,
which made him admired by all the orators of his time, were talents which
gained him the esteem of all the great men in the empire. In the former part of
his life he was married to a lady called Galla, by whom he had two sons,
Salonius and Veranus, whom he placed very young in the monastery of Lerins,
under the conduct of its holy founder, St. Honoratus, and the tutorship of
Salvianus, the eloquent and zealous priest of Marseilles: St. Eucherius lived
to see them both raised to the episcopal character. An extraordinary piety had
been his distinguishing character from his childhood, from which he never
departed. The more he conversed with the world, the more he was disgusted at
its emptiness, and affrighted at its dangers; so that about the year 422, with
the consent of his wife, who readily agreed also to forsake the world herself,
he retired to the monastery of Lerins. Cassian, then abbot of St. Victor’s at
Marseilles, addressed his eleventh, and the six following conferences to
Eucherius and Honoratus, and calls them the two admirable models of that house
of saints. Out of a desire of closer retirement, Eucherius left Lerins, to
settle in the neighbouring small island of Lero, now called St. Margaret’s.
There he wrote his book, On a Solitary Life, which is an elegant and finished
commendation of that state, and in particular of the desert of Lerins, then
inhabited by many saints. In the same place, about the year 427, he wrote to
his cousin Valerian his incomparable exhortation, On the Contempt of the World.
The purity of the Latin language in this piece, falls very little short of the
Augustan age. The style is easy and smooth, the turns of thought and expression
equally admirable, the method and order most beautiful, and the images lively
and natural, so that Erasmus sticks not to say, that amongst all the
productions of Christian writers, he knows nothing comparable to it: the author
appears in every part a complete master. Du-Pin 1 says, that in purity and
elegance of style he equals the very best writers of the most polite ages.
Godeau 2 goes still higher, and tells us
that all the beauties of eloquence, and strength of genius and reasoning are
here united with an air of the most affecting piety, 3 so that it seems impossible to
read this little treatise without being inspired with a contempt of the world,
and quickened to a strong resolution of making the service of God our great and
only concern, as it is our only solid gain both in time and eternity. As for
the world, he shows that most of the mirth which appears in it, is not mirth,
but art; its honours, applause, and company, are an empty pageantry, and a
slavery which only the activity of men’s passions make to seem tolerable. Of
the vanity, falsehood, and illusion of the world, and of the transitoriness,
instability, and uncertainty of all its enjoyments, he paints so striking an image,
that the world seems to pass as a phantom, and like a sudden flash of lightning
before the eyes of the reader, making its appearance to sink away in a moment,
never to return. “I have seen,” says he, “men raised to the highest pitch of
worldly honours and riches. Fortune seemed to be in their pay, throwing every
thing upon them, without their having the trouble of asking or seeking its
favours. Their prosperity in all things outwent their very desires and
passions: but in a moment they disappeared. Their vast possessions were fled,
and the masters themselves were no more,” &c. This exhortation was
addressed to Valerian, the saint’s near kinsman, who was deeply engaged in the
world. He continued still in his secular employments, if he be the same person with
Priscus Valerian, to whom St. Sidonius addressed his panegyric upon the Emperor
Avitus, about the year 456, as Dom Rivet takes him to be, 4 though Rosweide 5 and Joffrede 6 think him to be the same St.
Valerian 7 who became a monk of Lerins,
was afterwards the last bishop of Cimella, before that see was united to Nice,
assisted at the councils of Orange, Arles, and Ries, and died about the year
460. 8
Our
saint, who, as Cassian says, 9 shone first as a bright star in
the world, by the perfection of his virtue, was afterwards by the example of
his life, a model to the monastic order. Being at length forced from his
religious retirement, he was placed in the see of Lyons, probably about the
year 434, in which station he approved himself a faithful pastor, sighing
continually after heaven, humble in mind, rich in the merit of good works,
powerful in eloquence, and accomplished in all science; he far surpassed all
the great prelates of his time, as we are assured by the testimony of Mamertus
Claudian. In 441 he assisted at the first council of Orange. The foundation of
several churches and pious establishments at Lyons is ascribed to him. He ended
an excellent life by a holy death, in 449, according to Prosper Tyro; or rather
in 450. 10 St. Paulinus of Nola, 11 St. Honoratus, St. Hilary of
Arles, Mamertus Claudian, St. Sidonius, and all the great men of that age
sought his friendship, and are lavish in commendation of his virtue. He was a
zealous defender of the doctrine of St. Austin and the Church against the
Semipelagians. See Theophilus Raynaudus, in Indiculo Sanct. Lugdun. Tillemont,
t. 15. Ceillier, t . 13. Fabricius, Bibl. Eccl. ad Genad. c. 63. Rivet, Hist.
Littér. de la France, t. 2. p. 275–293.
Note
1. Bibl.
t. 4, p. 413. [back]
Note 2. Hist. de l’Egl. an. 441, p.
253. [back]
Note
3. Nevertheless,
the remark of Tillemont (t. 4. p. 125,) seems very just, that in this piece
certain superfluities might have been spared, and the full sense more closely
expressed, with equal strength and perspicuity, in fewer words. [back]
Note 4. Hist. Lit. t. 2, p. 280. [back]
Note
5. Not.
in S. Eucher. [back]
Note 6. In Nicæa Illustrata, part 1, tit. 7,
p. 99, tom. 9, part 6, ap. Grævium in Thesauro Antiqu. et Hist. Ital. [back]
Note
7. We have twenty
homilies of this St. Valerian, published the first time by F. Sirmond, in 1612,
together with his parænetic epistle to the monks. [back]
Note 8. The acts of St. Maurice and his
companions are excellently written by the great St. Eucherius, as Rivet
demonstrates. (p. 286.) They are published by F. Chifflet, in his Paulinus
Illustratus, and most correctly by Ruinart. Those in Surius and Mombritius seem
compiled from these with several additions and alterations, by a monk of Agaunum,
in the seventh age, against which Dubourdieu and Burnet formed their
objections. Mamertus Claudian quotes an excellent part of a homily of St.
Eucherius on the Incarnation: and probably some of those which were published
under the name of Eusebius Emisenus, but which certainly belonged to Gallican
prelates about that age, are the production of that saint. His two works on the
manner of expounding the scripture, the one entitled, On the Forms of Spiritual
Understanding, the other, Of Instructions, are addressed to his two sons,
Veranus, bishop of Venice, and Salonius, as it seems, of Vienne, on which see
Rivet, t. 2, p. 282. Cave and some others have imagined there was a second
bishop of Lyons, called Eucherius, in the following century: but ancient monuments
show there was no such person, though we find a Eucherius who was bishop in the
south of France, in the time of St. Cæsarius. See Raynaudus and Rivet. [back
Note
9. Cassian. Coll. 11, pr. p. 552. [back]
Note 10. See Tillemont, and Com Rivet. [back]
Note
11. St. Paulin. ep. 51. [back]
SOURCE : https://www.bartleby.com/210/11/162.html
Short
Lives of the Saints – Saint Eucherius, Bishop
Inspired by a special and powerful grace from God, the
gifted Eucherius abandoned a brilliant station in the world and followed his
two sons to the monastic solitude of Lerins. The young men were the disciples
of the wise Saint Honoratus; and Eucherius, having made choice of the same holy
director, attained under his care to such a degree of sanctity that he was
elected, against his will, to fill the bishopric of Lyons. He discharged the
duties of that responsible office with great zeal and perfection. He wrote many
spiritual treatises, among which the most notable are the “Solitary Life” and
“Contempt of the World,” on both of which topics he was admirably fitted to
discourse because of his own unusual experience. Saint Eucherius died in the
year 450.
Favorite Practice – To read such books as will
engender in you a contempt of the world.
MLA Citation
Eleanor Cecilia Donnelly. “Saint Eucherius,
Bishop”. Short
Lives of the Saints, 1910. CatholicSaints.Info.
25 April 2021. Web. 16 November 2021.
<https://catholicsaints.info/short-lives-of-the-saints-saint-eucherius-bishop/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/short-lives-of-the-saints-saint-eucherius-bishop/
_et_%C3%A9glise_Saint-Eucher.jpg)
Sant' Eucherio di Lione Vescovo
† 449
Martirologio Romano: A Lione sempre in Francia,
sant’Eucherio, che, senatore anch’egli, insieme alla sua famiglia si diede
dapprima alla vita ascetica nella vicina isola di Lérins e poi, eletto vescovo
di Lione, scrisse numerose Passioni di santi martiri.
Verso il 422 Eucherio, col consenso della sua sposa, si ritirò nel monastero di Lérins, poi nella vicina isola di santa Margherita, dove menò vita eremitica. Cassiano gli dedicò il prologo delle sue ultime sette conferenze e lui stesso mostrò allora una certa attività letteraria.
Gli si attribuiscono molte opere, ma per la maggior parte sono riconosciute apocrife dalla critica moderna. Possono essere considerate come autentiche, oltre le lettere, il Liber formularum spiritualis intelligentiae, le Instructionum libri duo, le omelie sui martiri lionesi Epipodio e Alessandro e la Passio Acaunensium Martyrum.
Verso il 435 fu portato al seggio episcopale di Lione, dove esplicò una grande attività pastorale. Nel 441 assistette al primo concilio di Orange. Nel 449 Poleminus Silvius gli dedicò un suo Laterculus. Morì quell’anno.
È iscritto al 16 novembre nel Martirologio Geronimiano
e nel Romano.
Autore: Jean Marilier
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/77840
EUCHERIO di Lione
di Giuseppe Ricciotti - Enciclopedia Italiana (1932)
EUCHERIO (Eucherius) di Lione. - È il monaco a
cui, insieme con Onorato di Arles, fu indirizzata la seconda parte delle Collationes di
Cassiano (v.). Di nobile famiglia, e marito di Galla da cui ebbe i figli Verano
e Salonio, pare occupasse importanti cariche pubbliche; ma verso il 410 entrò
nel monastero di Lerino nella Francia meridionale, donde si trasferì nella
vicina isola di Lero (oggi Sainte-Marguerite). Nel 434 fu eletto vescovo di
Lione. Morì, secondo Gennadio (De viris ill., 63), tra il 450 e il 455.
Oltre a un estratto delle Collationes di
Cassiano, superstite solo frammentariamente in versione greca (Gennadio, l. c.,
Fozio, Biblioth., 197), E. scrisse un libro, indirizzato al figlio Verano,
di Formularum spiritalis intelligentiae, commento a passi della Scrittura,
e due di Instructiones all'altro figlio Salonio, di analogo
argomento; scrisse anche due lunghe lettere d'argomento ascetico, e, molto
probabilmente, la Passio Agaunensium martyrum, Ss. Mauritii et
sociorum eius. Altri scritti conservati sotto il suo nome hanno poco o nulla di
genuino.
Bibl.: Edizioni: in Migne, Patrol. lat., L, 687
segg.; in Corp. script. eccl. lat., XXXI, i (ed. Wotke), Vienna
1894. Studî e ulteriore bibliografia : A. Mellier, De vita et scriptis S.
Eucherii Lugd. episc., Lione 1878; A. Gouilloud, Saint Eucher, Lérins et
l'église de Lyon au Ve siècle, Lione 1881; O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte
der Altkirchl. Lit., IV, Friburgo in B. 1924, p. 567 segg.
SOURCE : https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/eucherio-di-lione_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/
