From The Lives of the Popes from the Time of our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII. Written Originally in Latin by B. Platina, Native of Cremona, and translated into English (from an anonymous translation, first printed in 1685 by Sir Paul Rycaut), Edited by William Benham, Volume I, London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, [1888, undated in text]; pp. 65-66.
The Lives of the Popes,
BY
B. Platina
Volume I.
ST EUSEBIUS.
A.D. 310.
EUSEBIUS, a Grecian, son of a physician, entered upon the pontificate when Constantius and Maxentius were Emperors.
For Constantius (called Chlorus from his paleness) dying, Constantine, his son by Helena, whom he afterwards divorced to marry the daughter of Maximian, was with universal content made Emperor of the West. But the Prætorian Guards at Rome in a tumultuary manner declared for Maxentius, son to Maximian, and gave him the title of Augustus. Hereupon Maximian himself, being raised to some hopes of recovering the Empire, left his retirement in Lucania and came to Rome, having by letter endeavoured to persuade Diocletian to do the same. To suppress these tumults, Galerius sent Severus with his army, who besieged the city, but being deserted by the treachery of some of his soldiers who favoured Maxentius’ pretensions, was forced to fly to Ravenna, and 66 there slain. And Maximian himself did very narrowly escape the revenge of his son Maxentius, who eagerly sought his father’s life for endeavouring by promises and bribes to gain the good-will of the soldiers for himself. So Maximian went into Gaul to Constantine, and gave him his daughter Fausta in marriage. But afterwards he laid a design to ensnare and circumvent him too, till his plot being discovered by Fausta, who revealed the whole matter to her husband, he betook himself to flight, but was taken and put to death at Marseilles, thereby suffering the just punishment of his villanies; or, as others tell us, he laid violent hands upon himself.
During the pontificate of Eusebius, on the third of May, the Cross of our Saviour was found, and very much adorned, and had in great veneration by Helena, Constantine’s mother; Judas also, who found it, was baptized, and his name being thereupon changed, was afterwards called Cyriacus. Eusebius admitted heretics to the communion of the Church upon their retractation by the imposition of hands only. Moreover he ordained that no laics should commence a suit against a bishop. In his time lived Lactantius Firmianus, a scholar of Arnobius, who being a Professor of Rhetoric at Nicomedia, and discontented that he had so few scholars in a city of Greece, he thereupon betook himself to writing, wherein he became so excellent that he gained a reputation next to that of Cicero himself. He wrote many things, but his works that are chiefly extant, are those against the heathens, concerning the creation of man, and the anger of God. In his old age he was tutor to Constantine’s son, Cæsar Crispus, in Gallia. Eusebius also, bishop of Cesarea in Palestine, a partner with Pamphilus in the diligent search after divine learning, wrote a vast number of books; particularly those “On the preparation of the Gospel;” an Ecclesiastical History; against Porphyry, a violent opposer of the Christians; six apologies for Origen; and three books of the life of Pamphilus the martyr, whose name he added to his own for a surname, as a testimony of the strict friendship there had been between them. But our Eusebius, the bishop of Rome, having at one Decembrian ordination made thirteen presbyters, three deacons, fourteen bishops, died at Rome, and was buried in the cemetery of Calistus, in the Via Appia, October the 2nd. He sat in the chair six months; and by his death the see was vacant one day.
Previous Pope: 31. St. Marcellus. 32. St. Eusebius. Next Pope: 33. St. Melchiades.