Gregory the Great, in his Dialogues (3.38), describes a vision of *Euticius (presbyter and martyr of Ferento, S01228) experienced by a bishop at Euticius’ church and tomb in the vicinity of Ferento (central Italy). Written in Latin in Rome, c. 593.
Evidence ID
E05259
Type of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - Other saint-related texts
Major author/Major anonymous work
Gregory the Great (pope)
Gregory the Great, Dialogues 3.38
Summary:
When travelling in his diocese, Redemptus, a bishop of Ferento, stayed overnight in a church devoted to Euticius. He slept near his tomb. That night, he had a vision of the martyr, who told him that ‘the end of all flesh comes' (finis venit universae carni). He then had a vision of armies appearing from the north. Shortly after this event, the Lombards invaded Italy.
Summary: Frances Trzeciak.
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityMiracle after death
RelicsEcclesiastics - bishops
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityIncubation
MiraclesMiracle after death
Revelation of hidden knowledge (past, present and future)
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Foreigners (including Barbarians)
Soldiers
Source
Gregory the Great (Pope, 590-604) wrote his Dialogues on the Lives and Miracles of the Italian Fathers (Dialogi de vita et miraculis patrum italicorum) in Rome around 593. Organised into four books, the first three are a collection of lives and miracles of various Italian saints. The longest is the Life of Benedict of Nursia, which comprises the entirety of book 2. The final book consists of an essay on the immortality of souls after death. As a whole, the work documents and explains the presence of the miraculous in the contemporary world and the ability of saints to effect miracles both before and after death. The attribution of the Dialogues to Gregory has been disputed, most recently by Francis Clark who argued that the work was created in the 680s in Rome. Others - such as Adalbert de Vogüé, Paul Meyvaert and Matthew dal Santo - have, however, strongly argued for Gregory's authorship and it is broadly accepted that Gregory was responsible for the Dialogues.For a discussion of Gregory's devotion in writing the Dialogues, see E04383, and for the role of the Dialogues as a tract justifying the nature of miracles and theorising on the immortality of souls, see E04457.
Gregory's principal aim in collecting the miracle stories of the holy men and a very few women of sixth-century Italy was to show the presence of God's power on earth as manifested through them, rather than to encourage the cult of these individuals. Indeed, though posthumous miracles at the graves of a few individuals are recorded (and also a few miracles aided by contact relics of dead saints), there is very little emphasis in the Dialogues on posthumous cult; some of the miraculous events that Gregory records (e.g. E04429) are not even attributed to named individuals. Although very few of the holy persons in the Dialogues are 'proper' saints, with long-term cult, we have included them all in our database, for the sake of completeness and as an illustration of the impossibility of dividing 'proper' saints from more 'ordinary' holy individuals.
Discussion
This is early evidence of the cult of Euticius. For a discussion of the account of his martyrdom, see E02493. The incident described can be dated to shortly before 568 (the date of the Lombard invasion of Italy).This is a story that parallels aspects of incubation - the practice of sleeping at a shrine in order to receive a dream vision, often in the hope of obtaining a cure. Our bishop sleeps near the body of the saint and receives a vision. However, as Delehaye pointed out, it is not explicit in this text that the bishop was seeking a vision, and indeed the vision he receives is when he is fully awake (Delehaye 1955, 145-146).
Bibliography
Edition:Vogüé, A. de, Grégoire le Grand, Dialogues, Sources chrétiennes 260 (Paris: Cerf, 1979).
Translation:
Zimmerman, O.J., Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great, Fathers of the Church 39 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1959).
Further Reading:
Clark, F.,The 'Gregorian' Dialogues and the Origins of Benedictine Monasticism (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
Dal Santo, M., "The Shadow of A Doubt? A Note on the Dialogues and Registrum Epistolarum of Pope Gregory the Great (590–604)," Journal of Ecclesiatical History, 61.1, (2010), 3-17.
Delehaye, H., Les légendes hagiographiques, 4th edition (Bruxelles: Societé des Bollandistes, 1955).
Meyvaert, P., "The Enigma of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues: A Reply to Francis Clark," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988), 335–81.
Vogüé, A. de, "Grégoire le Grand et ses Dialogues d’après deux ouvrages récents," Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 83 (1988), 281–348.
Record Created By
Frances Trzeciak
Date of Entry
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01228 | Euticius, presbyter and martyr of Ferento, central Italy | Euticius | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Frances Trzeciak, Cult of Saints, E05259 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E05259