Saint Eustace

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For the Lithuanian saint, see Eustace of Vilnius.

Eustace, also known as Eustachius or Eustathius, was a legendary Christian martyr who allegedly lived in the 2nd century AD. A martyr of that name is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, which, however, judges that the legend recounted about him is "completely fabulous", and for that reason removed from the Roman Catholic calendar of saints to be to be commemorated liturgically worldwide the former feast of "Saint Eustace and Companions".

Legend

Prior to his conversion to Christianity, he was a Roman general named Placidus, who served the emperor Trajan. While hunting a stag in Tivoli near Rome, Placidus saw a vision of Jesus between the stag's antlers. He was immediately converted, had himself and his family baptized, and changed his name to Eustace (meaning "good fortune" or "fruitful"). A series of calamities followed to test his faith: his wealth was stolen; his servants died of a plague; when the family took a sea voyage, the ship's captain kidnapped Eustace's wife; and as Eustace crossed a river with his two sons, the children were taken away by a wolf and a lion. Like Job, Eustace lamented but did not lose his faith. He was then quickly restored to his former prestige and reunited with his family; but when he demonstrated his new faith by refusing to make a pagan sacrifice, the emperor, Hadrian, condemned Eustace, his wife, and his sons to be roasted to death inside a bronze statue of a bull or an ox, in the year AD 118.

Veneration and Diffusion of Cult

The story was popularized in Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend (c. 1260). Eustace became known as a patron saint of hunters, and also of anyone facing adversity; he was traditionally included among the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

As with many early saints, there is little evidence for Eustace's existence; elements of his story have been attributed to other saints (notably the Belgian Saint Hubert).

His feast day in the Roman Catholic Church was September 20, but this date has not been officially observed since Pope Paul VI removed many of the less well documented saints from the calendar in 1969.

Patronage and cultural references

He is one of the patron saints of Madrid, Spain. Scenes from the story, especially Eustace kneeling before the stag, became a popular subject of medieval religious art. Early artistic depictions of the legend include a wall painting at Canterbury Cathedral and stained glass windows at the Cathedral of Chartres. There is a Church of Saint Eustace in Paris, and the island of Sint Eustatius in the Netherlands Antilles is named after him.

The novels The Herb of Grace (US title: Pilgrim's Inn) (1948) by American author Elizabeth Goudge, and Riddley Walker (1980) by English author Russell Hoban, incorporate the legend into their plot.

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