Although, most beloved brothers, I am an unworthy son and least servant of our blessed father, the high priest and confessor Eusebius, yet for his signal merits and virtues I render at least a slight service according to my strength. And though he, dwelling among the heavenly things and joined to the evangelical company, does not require this, we nonetheless, mindful of ourselves, offer what we owe. This indeed I dare with the very greatest confidence, because I do not doubt that he—although what I say be humble and small—will weigh the discourse of his servant and foster-child not by the judgment of one examining, but by the affection of one loving. And therefore with all joy we render obedience to our father, service to our priest, honor to our confessor.
And so this man, when by God's dispensation he had received the rank of highest pontiff in this city, in order that he might present himself to his whole clergy as a heavenly mirror of spiritual institutions, gathered all of them together with himself within the enclosure of one dwelling, so that, since their purpose in religion was one and undivided, their life and living might become common. To the end that in that most holy fellowship of living they might be to one another the judges and guardians of their conduct; and while one prefers the humility of another, is astonished at his continence, admires his chastity, praises his patience, proclaims the goodness of his merciful soul, marvels at his fastings and vigils, all might learn from all what each singly did not possess in himself.
Since these things were so, nevertheless the fullness of all good things flowed into the breasts of all from the fountain of that great Eusebius; and thus it came about that, while they stirred one another up to the divine precepts by mutual examples, in that lodging there was not so much a congregation of men as of virtues. When the Arian impiety was disturbing the truly Christian faith and ecclesiastical peace throughout the whole world, and the rebels against the Godhead, by royal terror, by exiles and diverse punishments, were forcing all the simpler priests into consent with their faithlessness, our Eusebius, setting his own foundation upon the rock, shone forth so great and such a one that no error of the world enveloped him amid the roaring of the waves, no power terrified him.
For, as the account of the father has taught us, he was shut up in a prison so low and narrow that neither standing nor lying could he have freedom to stretch out his body. He was pressed indeed by a penal dwelling, so that he could not raise his unworthy head, but by the merit of that very suffering he lifted his crown to heaven. He was cramped nonetheless by the smallness of the prison, so that he could not relax his wearied knees into rest; but by walking the paths of truth he spread abroad the footprints of his uncorrupted faith through the delights of paradise. There were withdrawn from him also, as his own writings attest, the provisions of food and drink; but he was in no way worn out by hunger for carnal food, who, by confessing the eternity of Christ, lived on the heavenly bread of the Word.
Nor could he ever be forced, at the command of the faithless, to subject the state of his faithful soul to the faith by bodily necessity. And although blessed Eusebius, in so great a struggle, overcame all adversities with the help of God, for whom he was soldiering, yet he bore all those hardships of lying and the want of hunger more tolerably than those who had afflicted him; a harder bed and the continued fastings of a holier purpose—there indeed with the apostle Paul he both says and teaches: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? tribulation? or distress? or persecution? or famine (Rom. VIII)? and the rest. And rightly he could not be separated from Christ by tribulations and distresses, who could not be compelled to sever the Son from the Father.
And although concerning the sweetness of his deeds there is for us no satiety in speaking to and hearing from one another, yet neither must the victory of the most blessed Maccabees be passed over in silence (2 Macc. VII), because this same day sent them too, snatched from the world, with great triumph over to heaven. And although that most valiant choir passed over to their God amid torments, yet Eusebius is not unequal to them, who, faithlessness having been confuted, migrated to the same God, victorious after torments. And that we may more clearly perceive that the victory of our man was not inferior, they contended for the old covenant, for the law; he fought for the new, for the Gospel; they were subjected to punishments for the precepts of God, but Eusebius contended for the truth of the Godhead itself;
they resisted King Antiochus, that they might not then eat unlawful flesh; he withstood the devil, that he might not defile our dominical bread with the leaven of heretical speech. Let us exult therefore, brothers, giving thanks to our God, because under the devotion of this present day we rejoice in a twofold festival, both looking up to the triumph of Eusebius and marveling at the torments of the victorious Maccabees. Are not the Maccabees admirable, whom the fellowship of their birth and passion we see both to have been brothers in the world and to be true brothers in heaven, who from the most abundant breast of their excellent mother drew both the substance of living and the virtue of conquering?
For by their mother's milk and word they grew up to such great perfection that both wisdom was in their heart and fortitude in their body inseparably. In short, Antiochus could neither, by most cruel punishments, terrify those choicest youths—steadfast through their own faith and their mother's exhortation—nor, by great promises, entice them, so as to turn them from reverence for the ancestral law. For so great was the vigor in their limbs, so great the spirit in their breast, so great the doctrine in their reply, that by despising the penalties and confuting the faithlessness of the impious king, they conquered both his terror and his fury. And the venerable mother, dying by a like confession and a similar death, departed from this world more joyfully, migrating to her pledges.
Nor is it a wonder if she endured cruelty against herself with magnanimity, she who could so bravely endure it also in her sons. Truly a blessed woman and to be pursued by the praises of all, whom, for the faith of her God and amid the deaths of her sons, no affection of the flesh broke, and whom neither her sex nor her old age could recall from the torments of her own body. These, then, beloved, are the votive joys of the faithful on this day. Let us always render these acts of homage to blessed Eusebius and to the most glorious Maccabees, whom into the eternal kingdom a different time indeed, but the same day and one faith, advanced.