Eusebius
EUSEBIUS , a name borne by a large number of bishops and others in the early ages of the Christian Church. Of these the most important are separately noticed below. No less than 25 saints of this name (sometimes corrupted into Eusoge, Euruge, Usoge, Usuge, Uruge and St Sebis) are venerated in the Roman Catholic Church, of whom 23 are included in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum; many are obscure martyrs, monks or anchorites, but two deserve at least a passing notice.
Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli (d. 371), is notable not only as a stout opponent of Arianism, but also as having been, with St Augustine, the first Western bishop to unite with his clergy in adopting a strict monastic life after the Eastern model (see Ambrose, Ep. 63 ad Vercellenses, § 66). The legend that he was stoned to death by the Arians was probably invented for the edification of the Orthodox.
Eusebius, bishop of Samosata (d. 380), played a considerable part in the later stages of the Arian controversy in the East. He is first mentioned among the Homoean and Homoeusian bishops who in 363 accepted the Homousian formula at the synod of Antioch presided over by Meletius, with whose views he seems to have identified himself (see Meletius of Antioch). According to Theodoret (5, 4, 8) he was killed at Doliche in Syria, where he had gone to consecrate a bishop, by a stone cast by an Arian woman. He thus became a martyr, and found a place in the Catholic calendar (see the article by Loofs in Herzog-Hauck, Realencykl., ed. 1898, v. p. 620).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
