ST. POTAMON, MARTYR

HE was bishop of Heraclea in Egypt. St. Athanasius says he was doubly a martyr, under the heathens and under the Arians. When Maximinus Daia, or Daza, persecuted the Christians in 310, he gloriously confessed the faith, for which one of his eyes was bored out, and probably the sinews of one ham were cut, as in St. Paphnutius and others. The marks of his sufferings rendered him conspicuous in the council of Nice in 325, in which be exerted his zeal against the Arians. He accompanied and defended St. Athanasius in the council of Tyre in 335, as was related in the life of that saint on the 2d of May. When the tyrant Gregory had usurped the patriarchal chair of St. Athanasius, he, with Philagrius, prefect of Egypt, an apostate to Arianism under Constantius, travelled over all Egypt tormenting and banishing the Catholics; and St. Potamon, for his distinguished zeal, was by their order beaten on his back with clubs so long as to be left for dead. However, by the help of medicines, he came to himself, but died shortly after a martyr for the divinity of the Son of God in 341, as St. Athanasius relates. See St. Athanasius, Ep. ad. Solit. et Apolog. Rufin. 2, c. 4: St. Epiph. Hær. 68.