medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

The theologian and controversialist Eustathius (also Eustatius) of Antioch was a native of Side in Pamphylia.  According to his contemporary St. Athanasius of Alexandria and, perhaps independently, to Theodoret, he was a confessor in the special sense of someone who had survived imprisonment during a persecution.  He was bishop of Beroea in Syria (today's Aleppo / Halab) when in about 324 he was translated to the see of Antioch on the Orontes, succeeding the recently deceased St. Philogonius.  In 325 Eustathius played a major role in the condemnation of Arianism at the First Council of Nicaea (the First Ecumenical Council) and in the remainder of that year and for a few years thereafter he wrote vigorously in opposition to adherents of Arian-like christological views.  After an episcopacy of about four years opponents in his diocese effected his removal as bishop (the exact year in which this occurred is a matter of considerable disagreement).  Eustathius went into exile; where and when he died are unknown.

Although we have fragments of many of his writings and an epitome of one (the _Contra Ariomanitas et de anima_), Eustathius' only work to survive in its entirety is an essay on the biblical narrative of the witch of Endor, the _De Engastrimytho contra Origenem_.  An attack on Origen for a literal interpretation that produces, in Eustathius' view, unacceptable results (including the acceptance of necromancy), its most recent critical edition is in José H. Declerck's edition of Eustathius' _Opera omnia_ in the Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca (Brepols, 2002).  Another edition, along with an English-language translation, will be found in Rowan A. Greer and Margaret M. Mitchell, tr., _The "Belly-Myther" of Endor: Interpretations of 1 Kingdoms 28 in the Early Church_ (Society of Biblical Literature, 2007; E. J. Brill, 2007).  A very recent study of Eustathius and his place in early Christian thought is Sophie Cartwright, _The Theological Anthropology of Eustathius of Antioch_ (Oxford Univ. Pr., 2015).

In Georgian tradition Eustathius was sent by the emperor Constantine to assist king St. Mirian in the evangelization of that country and in the establishment of its church.


Some period-pertinent images of St. Eustathius of Antioch:

a) as depicted (reduced image) in the mid-eleventh-century "imperial" menologion in the State Historical Museum in Moscow (cod. Syn. gr. 183, p. 103):
http://tinyurl.com/jmt868p

b) as depicted -- but since largely defaced -- in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/22zs63

c) as twice depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the altar area of the church of St. George at Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
1) bottom register, in roundel at far right:
http://tinyurl.com/gnpuaqj
2) bottom register, second fully shown figure from left:
http://tinyurl.com/z4rn9t7
Detail view (Eustathius of Antioch):
https://frjeromeosjv.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/16eustathius.jpg

d) as depicted (at right; at center, St. Metrophanes of Constantinople) in a detail of an image of the First Ecumenical Council in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/jxych5v

e) as perhaps depicted (at right; at left, St. Polycarp of Smyrna) in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the altar area of the church of the Holy Ascension in the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija (though the eighth-century St. Eustathius of Cius in Bithynia and the twelfth-century St. Eustathius of Thessaloniki are also possible, the conjunction with Polycarp, a saint of the same week, points rather to Eustathius of Antioch):
http://tinyurl.com/75d8dw6

Best,
John Dillon

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