Eucharius - Veneration and Traditions

Veneration and Traditions

In the Middle Ages it was believed that the pope used no crozier, because St. Peter had sent his episcopal staff to St. Eucharius; Innocent III concurs in this opinion (De Sacrif. Missæ, I, 62). The same instance, however, is related of several other alleged disciples of St. Peter, and later criticism interprets the staff as the distinctive mark of an envoy, especially of a missionary. Missionaries in subsequent centuries, e. g. St. Boniface, were occasionally called ambassadors of St. Peter, the pope who sent them being the successor of Peter. Moreover, in medieval times the foundation of a diocese was often referred to as early a date as possible, in order thereby to increase its reputation, perhaps also its rights. Thus Paris gloried in Dionysius Areopagita as its first bishop; similarly ancient origins were claimed by other Frankish dioceses. In time, especially through the ravages of the Normans, the more reliable earlier accounts were lost. When at a later period the lives of primitive holy founders, e. g. the saints of ancient Trier, came to be written anew, the gaps in tradition were filled out with various combinations and fanciful legends. In this way there originated in the monastery of St. Matthias near Trier the famous chronicle of Trier (Gesta Treverorum, ed. Waitz in Mon. Germ. Hist; script., VIII, 111-174) in which there is a curious mixture of truth and error. It contains the account of the life of St. Eucharius given above. An amplification thereof, containing the lives of the three saints in question, is said to have been written by the monk Goldscher or Golscher, who lived in that monastery about the year 1130. From the "Gesta" the narrative passed unchallenged into numerous medieval works. Later criticism has detected many contradictions and inaccuracies in these ancient records, and it is almost universally believed at present that, with few exceptions, the first Christian missionaries came to Gaul, to which Trier then belonged, not earlier than about 250. Following Hontheim, Calmet and others, the Bollandists, with Marx, Aloys Lütolf, and other historians refer these bishops of Trier to a period following 250, though not all of them consider this as fully established. The feast of St. Eucharius is celebrated on 8 December.