[al. de formâ spiritalis intellectûs] ad Veranium filium. This is a defence of the lawfulness of the allegorical sense of Scripture, pleading the testimony of Scripture itself; e.g. Ps. lxxvii. [lxxviii. A.V.] 2, and the use of such phrases as "the hand of God," "the eyes of the Lord," etc., which cannot be taken ad literam. It displays a very extensive acquaintance with the Bible and anticipates many favourite usages of mediaeval mystics and hymnwriters; such as the term anagoge (ἀναγωγὴ) for the application of Scripture to the heavenly Jerusalem, identification of the digitus Dei with the Holy Spirit (St. Luke xi. 20, with St. Matt. xii. 28) and the like.
4. Instructionum Libri Duo ad Salonium filium. Of this treatise, the former book discusses difficulties in the O. and N.T., such as the scriptural evidence for the doctrine of the Holy Trinity; the permission of polygamy to the patriarchs; the existence of evil, which (with many other divines) he makes simply the privation of good, etc. The second book deals with Hebrew names, but does not display a very profound acquaintance with Hebrew. Eucherius quotes with much respect the version of the O.T. by Aquila.
There are also Homilies by him, and some other works are ascribed to him of doubtful authenticity.
Editions.—There is no complete edition of the writings of Eucherius. For this art. the Bibliotheca Patrum Maxima (Lugduni), a.d. 1677 (t. vi. p. 822), has been used. Cf. A. Gouillond, St. Eucher. Lérins et l’Eglise de Lyon au V e Siècle (Lyons, 1881).
[J.G.C.]
Euchites. Doctrines and Practices.—At the beginning of the last quarter of the 4th cent. or a little earlier, fanatics made their appearance in Syria, whose manner of life was said to have been introduced from Mesopotamia, and who were known by the Syriac name of Messalians or Massalians (מְצָלין), praying people. צְלָא oravit is found in the Chaldee (Dan. vi. 11; Ezra vi. 10). Epiphanius, whose account of them is the last article (80) of his work on heresies, translates the name (εὐχόμενοι), but in the next generation the Messalians had obtained a technical name in Greek also, and were known as Euchites (εὐχήται or εὐχῖται). They professed to give themselves entirely to prayer, refusing to work and living by begging; thus differing from the Christian monks, who supported themselves by their labour. They were of both sexes, went about together, and in summer weather slept in the streets promiscuously, as persons who had renounced the world and had no possession or habitation of their own. Epiphanius dates the commencement of this sect from the reign of Constantius (d. a.d. 361). Theodoret (H. E. iv. 11; Haer. Fab. iv. 10; Rel. Hist. iii., Vit. Marcian. vol. iii. 1146) dates its beginning a few years later under Valentinian. There seems no foundation for the charge that the Euchites were derived from the Manichees. Epiphanius connects them with heathen devotees whom he calls Euphemites, and who it seems had also been known as Messalians. The Euchites appear never to have made any entrance into the West, but in the East, though probably at no time very numerous, they are heard of for centuries; and when the Bogomiles of the 12th cent. appeared, the name Messalian still survived, and the new heretics were accounted descendants of the ancient sect.
In the time of Epiphanius the Messalians scarcely were a sect, having no settled system nor recognized leader; and Epiphanius imputes to them no error of doctrine, but only criticizes their manner of life.
Two accounts of Euchite doctrine are apparently of greater antiquity than the authors who preserve them. One is given by Timotheus (de Receptione Haer. in Cotelier's Mon. Ecc. Gr. iii. 400). This writer was a presbyter of Constantinople in the 6th cent. His coincidences with Theodoret are too numerous to be well explained except on the supposition of common sources. These sources probably were the Acts of the councils of Antioch and Side, which contained summaries of Messalian doctrine. Theodoret may possibly also have used a Messalian book called Asceticus, the doctrines of which, Photius tells us, had been exposed and anathematized at the council of Ephesus in 431. Probably that book furnished the "heads of the impious doctrine of the Messalians taken from their own book" given by Joannes Damascenus (de Haer. ap. Cotelier, Mon. Ecc. Gr. i. 302, and Opp. Le Quien, i. 95), but which would seem also (see Wolf, Hist. Bogomil. p. 11) to have been separately preserved in two MSS. at Leipzig (Acta Eruditorum, 1696, p. 299; 1699, p. 157; and in the Bodleian, Cod. Barocc. 185).
They held that in consequence of Adam's sin every one had from his birth a demon, substantially united to his soul, which incited him to sin, and which baptism was ineffectual to expel. Dealing only with past sin, baptism did but shear off the surface growth, and did not touch the root of the evil. The true remedy was intense, concentrated prayer, continued till it produced a state from which all affections and volitions were banished (ἀπάθεια). In this the soul felt as sensible a consciousness of union with its heavenly bridegroom as an earthly bride in the embraces of her husband. Then the demon went out in the spittle or in the mucus of the nose, or was seen to depart in smoke or in the form of a serpent, and there was in like manner sensible evidence of the entrance of the Holy Spirit. St. Augustine (Haer. 57), who had some source of information independent of Epiphanius, ascribes to them a fancy that the Holy Spirit might be seen to enter in the appearance of innocuous fire, and the demon to pass out of the man's mouth in the form of a sow with her farrow. Possibly language intended by them metaphorically was misunderstood; for they described the soul of him who had not Christ in him as the abode of serpents and venomous beasts. They further thought that he who had arrived at the passionless state could see the Holy Trinity with his bodily eyes; that the three hypostases of the Trinity coalesced into one, which united itself with worthy souls. This doctrine no doubt furnishes the key to the account given by Epiphanius of the effacement of the sense of distinct personality in members of this
