Eusebius of Caesarea

(1), succeeded Marcellus as bishop of Rome A.D. 309 or 310. He was banished to Sicily by Maxentius, where he died after a pontificate of four months (from April 18 to August 17). His body was brought back to Rome, and buried in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way. The days of the month assigned above to his accession and death are those given in our oldest and most trustworthy authority, the Liberian catalogue (A.D. 354), which however in this case slightly contradicts itself in giving 4 months and 16 days as the duration of his episcopate. It contains no intimation of the year, nor any facts, The Liberian Depositio Episcoporum gives Sept. 26 as the date of his burial, the interval between which day and that of his death being easily accounted for by his having died in Sicily and been buried at Rome. Later authorities vary much as to the date and duration of his reign, the Felician catalogue (4.D. 530) giving the latter as 7 years, 1 month, 3 days, the chronicle of Eusebius (ad ann. 1. Galer.) as 7 months. The Felician catalogue describes him as a Greek by birth and the son of a phy-

sician, and speaks of the Invention of the Cross during his episcopate, of the baptism by him of Judas Quiriacus, and of his interment in the cemetery of Callistus. Judas Quiriacus, otherwise Judas Cyriacus, was said to have been the finder of the Cross of our Lord, whence his name (Platina, de Vit. Pontif. art. Eusebius, p. 41). But the authentic accounts of the finding of the

supposed true cross by Helena place the event