himself at the bishop’s feet, and requested permission to make his confession in public. Then he related the circumstances of his fall, and showed the compact signed with his blood to the assembled multitude. Having finished his confession, he prostrated himself before the bishop and asked for absolution. The deed was torn and burned before the people, he was reconciled and received the blessed sacrament, after which he returned to his house in a fever, and died at the expiration of three days. The Church honours him as a penitent, on the 4th February.
The original account of this famous compact with the devil is in the Greek of Eutychianus, disciple of Theophilus, who declares that he relates what he had seen with his own eyes, and heard from the mouth of Theophilus himself. From the Greek of Eutychianus, two early Latin versions are extant, one by Paulus Diaconus, the other by Gentianus Hervetus. The former of these is published in the great work of the Bollandists, who fix the date of the event in 538. The version of Gentianus Hervetus purports to be a translation from Symeon Metaphrastes, who nourished in the tenth century, and who embodied the narrative of Eutychianus in his great collection of the Lives of the Saints.
