Eubulus

Saint Eubulus is an early fourth-century Christian martyr whose death is recorded by the contemporary historian Eusebius of Caesarea. Virtually nothing can be established about his origins, family, occupation, or year of birth. Eusebius states only that Eubulus, together with a companion named Adrian (also called Hadrian), came from Batanea, a district east of the Sea of Galilee in the Roman Near East, and that the two men journeyed to the provincial capital of Caesarea Maritima in order to visit fellow Christians already imprisoned for the faith. No later hagiographical tradition supplies a reliable biography beyond this brief contemporary notice.

The visit took place in the sixth year of the Great Persecution, a date conventionally given as 308. At that time the eastern provinces remained under the Caesar Maximinus Daia, who continued to enforce anti-Christian measures after they had begun to lapse in the West. Upon reaching the gates of Caesarea, Eubulus and Adrian were interrogated by the guards. They freely admitted both their Christian faith and their purpose of comforting the imprisoned confessors. They were at once arrested and brought before Firmilianus, the governor of Palestine. The governor ordered them tortured in an attempt to compel them to sacrifice to the traditional gods; both refused.

Adrian was condemned to the wild beasts and died in the amphitheatre on 5 March. Two days later, on 7 March, Eubulus suffered the same sentence. After the animals had wounded him he was finished with the sword. Eusebius, himself a resident of Caesarea and an eyewitness to many of the events he describes, remarks that Eubulus was the last of all the martyrs who perished in that city during the persecution. His death therefore closed a long series of executions in the provincial capital that had begun years earlier under the governors Urbanus and Firmilianus.

The Roman Martyrology commemorates Eubulus on 7 March, recalling him as the companion of Saint Adrian and the final martyr of Caesarea in Palestine. Because he belongs to the age of the ancient martyrs, no papal decree of canonization exists; his cult is of the pre-congregational type. No authentic information has been preserved concerning the place of his burial, any spouse or children, membership in a religious order, or later patronages. He remains known solely through the sober testimony of Eusebius.