The Lives and Times of the Popes - Saint Evaristus – A.D. 100

Saint Evaristus was born at Bethlehem, in Palestine. He was created pontiff in the year 100 of the Christian era. It has not been said of him that he prided himself on his birthplace; and even if he had done so, few Christians would blame him for it. Leaving Bethlehem at a very early age, he went to Rome to study, and distinguished himself there by both his piety and his erudition. When he became sovereign pontiff, he ordered, according to the apostolical tradition, that marriages should be celebrated publicly and with the priestly benediction, and that no bishop should preach without the assistance of seven deacons. Chacon says that this order was given to prevent their rivals from imputing error to them; but Bianchini, in his notes ad Anastasium, supposes that the object of it was that those deacons should feel the truth in the ministry of preaching. Evaristus distributed to the priests the titles, that is to say, the churches of Rome, whence some authors have inferred that this pontiff instituted cardinal-priests. To the rite of the consecration of churches, passed from the Old to the New Testament, Evaristus added some ceremonies. In three or four ordinations he created five bishops, six, or according to some authors seventeen, priests, and two deacons. He governed the Church nine years and three months, was martyred A.D. 109, and buried in the Vatican.

The two decretals attributed to Evaristus, one of which was addressed to the bishops of Africa, and the other to all the faithful in Egypt, are now considered to be apocryphal.

Under his pontificate the Church was attacked from without by the persecution of Trajan, and torn within by divers heresies. But one of the consolations of this pontiff was the courage of Saint Ignatius, a disciple of Saint Peter and of Saint John. Evaristus had maintained his correspondence with Palestine and Syria. He knew that Saint Ignatius, surnamed Theophous, or God-bearer, had been ordained Bishop of Antioch in the year 68, after Saint Evodius, the immediate successor to Saint Peter. Ignatius governed that see with the zeal that was to be expected from a pupil and an imitator of the apostles. Nothing could exceed the ardor of his charity, the vivacity of his faith, and the depth of his humility. All those virtues appeared in great brilliancy in the third persecution to which Christianity was subjected, under the reign of Trajan. Ignatius appeared before the emperor, and spoke with all the earnestness of a Christian, and received from that prince’s own lips* the sentence of a barbarous death; yet Trajan is constantly held up to our view as a model of justice and humanity. Sent from Antioch to Rome, there to be thrown to the wild beasts, Ignatius saw Saint Polycarp at Smyrna, visited many churches, and wrote to those that he could not go to. He encouraged the strong, and gave strength to the weak. When he reached Rome, whither he went of his own accord and without guards, because he had pledged his word that he would not turn aside from his direct road, he resolutely opposed those of the faithful who would fain have saved him from a terrible death. On the day appointed for his execution he heard the roaring of the hungry lions; he said, “I am the wheat of Jesus Christ, to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts into a perfectly pure bread.” Being exposed to two lions, he saw their approach without trembling, and was devoured by them amidst the plaudits of the multitude. He yielded up his soul to God in the year of Christ 107, while Evaristus was in secret praying for so noble a martyr. In one of his epistles, Ignatius exclaims: “Now I begin to be indeed the disciple of Christ; having found Christ, I no longer desire anything that is to be found here below; let fire, the cross, or the wild beasts assail me, it signifies nothing, provided that I enjoy Jesus Christ.” “That heroism,” says Caesarotti, “is so superior to humanity that we cannot think the religion that inspired it aught but divine.” Nothing confers greater glory upon the Christians of Rome and their head than that letter of Ignatius. He makes the most edifying eulogy of that church, bestows copious praises upon the faithful of the city, and expressly says that he recognizes it as worthy of the primacy in authority, as it so eminently held the primacy in virtues. Ignatius died of the wounds that were inflicted by ferocious beasts; Evaristus died under the hands of executioners, more cruel than the wild beasts themselves.

- from "The Lives and Times of the Popes", by Alexis-François Artaud de Montor