Saint Eucher

Saint Eucherius of Lyon, known in French as Saint Eucher, was a Gallo-Roman aristocrat, monk, bishop, and ecclesiastical writer of the fifth century. He was born in the later fourth century into a senatorial family of Roman Gaul. Contemporary and near-contemporary sources do not preserve a precise birthplace or birth year. He received the literary education typical of his class. He married a woman whom later tradition names Galla, and they had two sons, Salonius and Veranus, both of whom entered the clergy and became bishops, Salonius of Geneva and Veranus of Vence. Drawn to the ascetic revival then flourishing in southern Gaul, Eucherius abandoned secular prospects. With his wife and children he associated himself with the monastery founded by Honoratus on the island of Lérins, off the Provençal coast. After a period of cenobitic life he withdrew to greater solitude on the nearby island of Lero, while remaining closely tied to the Lérins circle.

During these years Eucherius became one of the notable Latin spiritual writers of his generation. He composed the Formulae spiritalis intelligentiae, a guide to the allegorical sense of Scripture dedicated to his son Veranus, and the two books of Instructiones, dedicated to Salonius, which explain obscure biblical names and terms. He wrote De laude eremi, a praise of desert monasticism addressed to Hilary of Arles, and a letter on contempt of the world directed to a relative named Valerianus. A narrative of the martyrdom of the Theban Legion, known as the Passio Acaunensium martyrum, is also attributed to him. He stood in correspondence with John Cassian, who dedicated part of the Conferences to Eucherius and Honoratus, and with other leading figures of the Gallic church. His prose combines classical rhetorical training with the allegorical exegesis and ascetic ideals characteristic of Lérins.

About the year 434 the church of Lyon called Eucherius from monastic retirement to its episcopal see, then among the foremost in Gaul. As bishop he continued to promote monastic and clerical formation and took part in the conciliar life of the Gallic episcopate in the 440s. His tenure coincided with the deepening crisis of imperial authority in the West and with the settlement of barbarian peoples in Gaul. Later writers remembered him as a learned and holy prelate who had brought the spirit of Lérins into the government of a great urban church. Gennadius of Marseille, writing a generation afterward in his work on illustrious men, praised his eloquence and listed his works, and noted that he died during the joint reign of Theodosius II and Valentinian III.

Eucherius died at Lyon around 449. He was venerated as a saint in the local church; the Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 16 November. His sons carried his influence into the churches of Geneva and Vence. Although later medieval lives added legendary details, the historically secure portrait rests on his own treatises and letters, on Gennadius, and on scattered fifth-century notices. He remains a principal witness to the way in which high Roman culture, island monasticism, and episcopal office were combined in fifth-century Gaul.