EUSEBIUS (Gr. EuOi/3tos, from ebaegils, pious, cf. the Latin name

See also:

• PIUS

Pius)  , 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 . EusEBlus, 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 .